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

There has been a lot of comment on the Labour victory in the 2024 UK general elections, arguing that it was a "loveless landslide" or a "sandcastle majority", pointing to the yawning gap between the huge numbers of seats won on a very slender proportion of the popular vote.

The discrepancy is indeed striking. Labour’s huge Commons majority rests on a lower popular vote (9.7 million) than Jeremy Corbyn won in the so-called "catastrophic" general election of 2019 (10.2 million). And it is three million votes less than Corbyn won in the 2017 general election (12.8 million).

Even Keir Starmer won fewer votes in his own constituency under his own leadership than he did in both elections when Corbyn was Labour leader.

So where did those missing Labour votes go?

Well, many of them just stayed at home and did not vote at all. So uninspiring was the Labour campaign, the Labour policies so similar to the Tories', that voter turnout slumped to the second lowest since universal suffrage was granted in 1928 - and with it the Labour vote.

Read more: How Labour lost millions of voters to apathy and a pro-Palestine earthquake

Israeli settlers attacked a shop in the northern West Bank town of Bazariya, torching a building supply store and a bulldozer, according to the Palestinian news agency, Wafa.

The settlers also threw rocks at Palestinians in the village. 

Palestinians residing overseas have said that Microsoft unexpectedly deactivated their email accounts, thereby denying them access to essential online services, according to a report by the BBC.

These individuals report that they are now unable to use Skype, a video platform owned by Microsoft, to communicate with family members in Gaza.

Microsoft responded by saying that the affected users had breached its terms of service and denied blocking users or calls based on their location.

Skype continues to be a cost-effective means of contacting people in Gaza, where international call services are often unreliable and costly

The US is lobbying the UK’s new Labour government not to drop a legal challenge against the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) authority seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister, a US intelligence official told Middle East Eye.

The pressure comes as Keir Starmer’s newly-elected Labour government mulls whether or not to continue the legal challenge against the ICC, which the UK’s former Conservative government filed in May. The ICC has given the UK until 26 July to decide.

The UK's amicus brief appeal rests on the assertation that the 1993 Oslo Accords that created the Palestinian National Authority prevents Palestine from prosecuting Israelis for war crimes.

The argument has been critiqued as flimsy by legal scholars. Palestine was accepted into the ICC in 2015, and in 2021 the court said it had the power to investigate war crimes in the occupied territories. 

Read more: US lobbying UK to block ICC's move for Netanyahu arrest warrant

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demanded that Israel maintain control over key Palestinian territories along the Gaza border with Egypt.

This is one of several conditions for a ceasefire deal with Hamas.

This marks the first time Israel has demanded control over the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt and the Philadelphi Corridor. 

Hamas’s stance is that Israel must withdraw from all Gaza territory following a ceasefire. 

Videos circulating on social media show an Israeli flag flying at the Rafah crossing, the border point between Gaza and Egypt

“Palestinian NGOs are the frontline protection responders in the current crisis. The international community must support them,” the UN Human Rights Office (Ohchr) said in a post on X.

The Ohchr said its supporting and engaging nongovernmental organisation partners in Gaza “have shared concerns about grave human rights and humanitarian law violations by Israel due to the ongoing escalations in Gaza. They also shared their deep disappointment with the international community for failing to end the war and protect civilians.”

As Israel violently took control of the Rafah crossing in Gaza, the only gateway between Palestine and Egypt, Abubakar* reflected on decades of strife on either side of the boundary.

The 67-year-old tribal judge, who lives in North Sinai, has lived through many violent Israeli incursions and invasions, as well as times of relative calm.

“In the past, movement was easy. The residents never felt like they were from two different countries or communities,” he told Middle East Eye. 

“It wasn't until the division and the demarcation of the borders between Egypt and Gaza that two different identities emerged.”

That boundary was drawn in 1982, and meant that Rafah was one of a few cities in the world, like Nicosia and Jerusalem, that's divided across two different territories.

Read more: The families torn apart by Rafah's split between Egypt and Gaza

A security official reported that an Israeli settler set fire to a Palestinian agricultural area near Al-Janiya, close to Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

Settler violence in the West Bank has been on the rise over the last year, threatening Palestinian communities and their livelihood. 

Between 7 October and 3 April, the UN recorded more than 700 settler attacks, with soldiers in uniform present in nearly half of these incidents.

These attacks have displaced over 1,200 people, including 600 children, from rural herding communities.

Additionally, at least 17 Palestinians were killed and 400 wounded, while Palestinians have killed seven settlers in the West Bank since 7 October, according to UN estimates.

Hamas has dismissed media reports that claim a breakthrough is imminent in negotiations with Israel over a ceasefire in Gaza, with sources telling Middle East Eye that several obstacles remained and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was obstructing the process as mediators again push for a deal.

Sources in the Palestinian movement rubbished reports on Thursday that claimed a framework for the ceasefire had been agreed upon by the parties and that they were now negotiating details of how it would be implemented.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that there was "nothing new" to report and there was no impending "breakthrough" in negotiations, despite CIA director Bill Burns meeting senior Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari officials in Doha on Wednesday.

Burns travelled to Qatar earlier this week in the hope of closing remaining gaps in the framework of the ceasefire deal and moving to detailed negotiations.

Read more: Hamas dismisses reports that breakthrough is imminent in ceasefire talks

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan indicated that significant progress is still required to finalise a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, along with the release of captives from Gaza.

Speaking on Thursday, Sullivan said: "We're not at the finish line yet. It’s not imminent, but it’s achievable if all parties are committed to the process."

Sullivan also clarified that the US has not altered its policy regarding the pause in the shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel. He mentioned that President Joe Biden will soon provide an update on the ongoing ceasefire negotiations.

The Palestinian Red Crescent has reported that a 17-year-old boy was fatally shot by Israeli forces in the northern occupied West Bank town of Tubas.

At least 1,904 people have been wounded since 7 October said the Lebanese health ministry, as reported by the National News Agency. The ministry further detailed that:

• 86 percent of the wounded are men
• 56 percent of the wounded are between the ages of 25 and 44
• 16 percent of the wounded were caused by white phosphorus bombs
• At least 80 killed were civilians

Less than a week into the job, the UK's new Labour government is being urged to restore funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, and halt arms sales to Israel immediately.

In two separate letters, six rights groups and an MP have pushed for action on two issues that sparked fierce parliamentary debate and public outcry ahead of the election.

While Labour won a comfortable victory in the general election last week, senior party figures have acknowledged that its stance on Gaza cost the party seats, putting pressure on Labour to be seen to take action.

On Sunday, in one of his first conversations with a foreign leader, Prime Minister Keir Starmer told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu there was a "clear and urgent need for a ceasefire".

But in their letter, the six NGOs, including two that launched a legal challenge to stop UK arms exports to Israel in the High Court last year, say that call was not enough, "in particular when the UK is arming one party to the conflict".

Read more: New UK government urged to halt arms sales to Israel and restore Unrwa funding

Thousands gathered in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica on Thursday to commemorate the 29th anniversary of the massacre that saw more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims executed by Serb forces during the country's war.

The commemoration of the massacre - which took place after 11 July 1995, when Bosnian Serb forces captured what was then a UN-protected enclave - comes under the shadow of the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, which has drawn a number of parallels from activists and commentators.

The Bosnian War of 1992-1995, which took place between Bosnia and Herzegovina's Croats, Muslims and Serbs, claimed approximately 100,000 lives and has left the country tense and divided along ethnic lines decades later.

The war saw widespread ethnic cleansing, and the Srebrenica massacre has officially been recognised as a genocide by a number of international organisations, including the UN.

The remains of 14 more victims of the massacre - including a 17-year-old boy - were due to be buried at a memorial cemetery in Potocari on Thursday, just outside the town.

Read more: Srebrenica massacre commemorated in Bosnia under the shadow of Gaza

G7 foreign ministers have denounced Israel's decision to expand illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, describing the move as "counterproductive to the cause of peace".

Israel announced last month that it would legalise five illegal outposts in the West Bank, establishing three new settlements, and seize huge swathes of Palestinian land.

The G7 - which consists of the US, UK, Canada, Japan, France, Germany and Italy - urged Israel to reverse its move.

"We reaffirm our commitment to lasting and sustainable peace... on the basis of the two-state solution," the foreign ministers said in a statement.

The ministers also urged Israel to release all remaining withheld tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority, stating that economic stability in the occupied West Bank was "critical for regional security".