Gaza live: Dozens killed and wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza and Yemen

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have revoked their conditional endorsement of Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez due to her lack of support for efforts to end Israel's war on Gaza.

Ocasio-Cortez, once regarded as one of the Democratic Party's most outspoken progressives, is now facing criticism from those advocating for an end to the conflict in Gaza over her support for President Biden and his funding for Israel.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the DSA said, "A national DSA endorsement comes with a serious commitment to the movement for Palestine and our collective socialist project. We have not seen evidence of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez meeting these conditions," the group added, announcing that they are "withdrawing our conditional endorsement".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is delaying a ceasefire agreement with Hamas by introducing new demands, reported the Times of Israel.

According to a senior Israeli official involved in the ceasefire negotiations, Netanyahu is now insisting on establishing an enforcement mechanism to prevent armed Hamas operatives from returning to northern Gaza.

“The prime minister’s insistence on building a mechanism to prevent the movement of armed operatives will stall the talks for weeks, and there may not be anyone to bring home,” said the official.

“This demand was not part of the Israeli proposal from May 27. It’s unclear why Netanyahu is raising this demand now. The security services know how to handle the return of armed terrorists to northern Gaza,” the official added.

The source, speaking to Israeli Channel 12, suggested that Netanyahu might be trying to delay the deal because his coalition is likely to collapse if it goes through.

A German court has ruled that Dutch footballer Anwar El Ghazi was unfairly dismissed from football club FSV Mainz 05 over comments he made about Israel's war on Gaza. 

On Friday, the judge at Mainz labour court ordered the club to pay 1.7m euros ($1.85m) to El Ghazi - the equivalent of nine months of salary since he was dismissed in early November. 

The court also ruled that the footballer must be allowed to return to work for the one year remaining on his contract. 

It is expected now that El Ghazi and Mainz will attempt to agree a settlement for his release from the club. 

Mainz suspended El Ghazi on 17 October, after he wrote a post in support of Palestinians in Gaza that included the popular phrase, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free."

Read more: Anwar El Ghazi was unfairly sacked over Gaza post, German court rules

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said on Friday that there is no alternative to the UN Palestinian refugee agency, Unrwa.

Over 118 countries have deemed Unrwa indispensable, despite efforts by Israel to dismantle and discredit it.

Unrwa provides education, health services, and aid to millions of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began nine months ago, UN officials have emphasised that Unrwa is the backbone of aid operations.

"My appeal to everyone is this: Protect Unrwa, protect Unrwa staff, and protect Unrwa's mandate – including through funding," Guterres said at an Unrwa pledging conference in New York on Friday: "Let me be clear: there is no alternative to Unrwa."

Israel has killed numerous Unrwa staff and destroyed much of the agency's infrastructure during its Gaza onslaught.

The Israeli army killed a 26-year-old Palestinian man in the village of Abwein, north of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, said the Palestinian health ministry. 

In a post on X, US President Joe Biden announced that both Israel and Hamas have agreed on a ceasefire "framework".

"There is still work to do and these are complex issues, but that framework is now agreed to by both Israel and Hamas. My team is making progress and I'm determined to get this done," he added.

Emaciated, unable to walk unaided, his right arm jerking shapelessly in front of him and his face a picture of confusion, Muazzaz Abayat hobbles out of an Israeli prison. 

Before the Israeli army arrested him late last year, Abayat was a big, confident man. An amateur bodybuilder, he weighed 109kg, all muscle. After nine months in Israeli prisons, the Palestinian has lost more than half his body weight.

This is another grim, horrifying story from Israel’s war on Gaza. 

Yet, Muazzaz Abayat has never been to Gaza. He was born and raised in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, where he worked as a butcher until Israeli forces smashed their way into his home at 2.30am on 26 October.

No charges were brought against Abayat during the nearly nine months he was kept in Israeli prisons. He was held under administrative detention, allowing a prisoner to be detained at the discretion of the local military commander without any charges being levelled. 

Read more: 'I have the prison inside me': The emaciated Palestinian bodybuilder broken by Israel

The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, spoke at the Unwra aid pledging conference at the UN headquarters in New York. Here are the main points he made:

• Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse in Gaza, somehow, appallingly, Palestinian civilians are being pushed into ever deeper circles of hell
• Palestinians in Gaza keep being forced to move like human pinballs. Nowhere is safe. Everywhere is a potential killing zone
• It is time for the parties to show the political courage and political will to finally reach a ceasefire deal. Nothing justifies the horrific attacks by Hamas on 7 October. And nothing justifies the collective punishment of the Palestinian people
• Palestinians are enduring the deadliest period since Unrwa’s creation
• And we are all painfully aware Unrwa colleagues have not been spared, where 195 staff members have been killed, the highest staff death toll in UN history. Staff have also been subjected to increasingly violent protests and disinformation campaigns
• Yet despite these and other obstacles, in impossible conditions, and in the midst of their own grief, the women and men of Unrwa have bravely continued their work in whatever way they can
• And can you imagine what it must be like to be in this situation? Can you imagine our colleagues wake up day after day in a living nightmare and still deliver for Palestinians in desperate need?
• To those of you who have already pledged support, I thank you. And my appeal to everyone is this: protect Unrwa, protect Unwra staff, and protect Unrwa’s mandates, including through funding.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has announced it will deliver its advisory opinion on the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory in a week's time.

Separate to the more well-publicised genocide case brought by South Africa on Israel's attack on the Gaza Strip, the UN's highest court heard in February from 52 countries and three international organisations on the legal consequences of Israel’s decades-long occupation. 

An advisory opinion is an ICJ instrument that has no binding force but carries significant legal and moral authority.  

PRESS RELEASE: the #ICJ will deliver its Advisory Opinion in respect of the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem on 19 July 2024 at 3 p.m. https://t.co/y0CgVd2hss Watch live @UNWebTV pic.twitter.com/C9skl1mAGN

— CIJ_ICJ (@CIJ_ICJ) July 12, 2024

Emaciated, unable to walk unaided, his right arm jerking shapelessly in front of him and his face a picture of confusion, Muazzam Abayat hobbles out of an Israeli prison. 

Before the Israeli army arrested him late last year, Abayat was a big, confident man. An amateur bodybuilder, he weighed 109kg, all muscle. After nine months in Israeli prisons, the Palestinian has lost more than half his body weight.

This is another grim, horrifying story from Israel’s war on Gaza. 

Yet, Muazzam Abayat has never been to Gaza. He was born and raised in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, where he worked as a butcher until Israeli forces smashed their way into his home at 2.30am on 26 October.

No charges were brought against Abayat during the nearly nine months he was kept in Israeli prisons. He was held under administrative detention, allowing a prisoner to be detained at the discretion of the local military commander without any charges being levelled. 

READ MORE: 'I have the prison inside me': The emaciated Palestinian bodybuilder broken by Israel

An entire generation of Gaza's children could be lost if Israel's assault on the enclave continues, Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees warned on Friday.

The relief agency's Director of Communications, Juliette Touma said that over 600,000 children in Gaza have not been able to go to school since October, due to school closures and the transformation of the agency's schools into shelters.

"This means that if this war continues, we will face the risk of losing an entire generation of children.," Touma said in a post on X.

Israel's repeated "evacuation" orders in the Gaza Strip amount to unlawful transfer, a war crime, according to Amnesty International. 

The NGO said Friday on X this is the case due to "the absence of any guarantees to return after the end of hostilities and with no safe and dignified accommodations for the displaced". 

Palestinian civilians have faced multiple waves of displacement due to Israel’s relentless nine-month onslaught on the occupied Gaza Strip and the repeated “evacuation” orders. pic.twitter.com/aDe4k6TfVf

— Amnesty International (@amnesty) July 12, 2024

When darkness falls in Gaza, no one can be certain if they will live out the night.

If they do survive this collective punishment, Palestinians also risk being abducted and disappeared from their homes during the night.

As the world marked the UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture on 26 June, reports of widespread torture and abuse were emerging from all corners of Gaza and Israeli detention and torture centres in the desert.

In observance of the occasion, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated: "Torturers must never be allowed to get away with their crimes, and systems that enable torture should be dismantled or transformed."

Yet the institutions meant to prevent such crimes against humanity are either feckless or indifferent. Thirty-seven years after the Convention Against Torture came into effect, violations of human dignity not only persist but have escalated.

In Gaza today, Palestinians are subjected to two types of mass torture: the first is the abduction from their homes by Israeli soldiers during night-time military raids - stripping them down of "anything that resembles human beings" in Israeli torture camps. The second is the infliction of such horrific levels of violence on the entire civilian population that it constitutes torture.

Read more:  Israel's savage slaughter and mass torture in Gaza must end now by Ghada Ageel 

Hamas official Izzat al-Risheq said Netanyahu's new demands for a ceasefire deal are intended to torpedo a potential agreement that would secure the release of Israeli captives in a prisoner exchange.

"Netanyahu's frantic attempts to add new demands, which were not included in all the previous proposals discussed with the mediators, confirm he is still dragging his feet, procrastinating and looking for ways to disrupt the agreement," Risheq said on Telegram. 

Israeli forces retreated from some Gaza City districts overnight after an intense, week-long offensive.

They have left behind dozens of dead bodies, alongside wrecked homes and roads in the Palestinian enclave's biggest urban area, residents and rescue service said on Friday.

The offensive, 10 months into Israel's war on Gaza, was met by fierce Hamas resistance in an area Israel said it cleared months ago. 

The Gaza Civil Emergency Service said teams had collected around 60 bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces over the past week from the area of Tel Al-Hawa and the edges of the Sabra neighbourhood in Gaza City.

Both residents and rescue teams cautioned that while tanks withdrew from some areas, Israeli snipers and tanks continued to control the high ground in some locations, and warned residents against trying to return home.

"There are bodies scattered in the streets, dismembered bodies, there are bodies of entire families, there are also bodies inside a home of an entire family that was completely burned," said the Gaza Strip Civil Defence spokesperson Mahmoud Basal. 

Reporting by MEE and Reuters