Gaza live: Biden moves ahead with military aid for Israel as it launches ground assaults on Rafah

The vote at the UN General Assembly to back the granting of "new rights and privileges" to the State of Palestine has paved a pathway for Palestine to achieve full UN member status.

The resolution calls on the Security Council to reconsider the request for Palestine to become the 194th member of the United Nations. The United States vetoed a Security Council resolution on 18 April that would have paved way for full membership.

Palestine's permanent observer to the UN, Riyad Mansour, spoke of a day when Palestine "takes its rightful place among free nations".

We will be updating our full story on this development, which you can follow by clicking here.

The UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to pass a resolution that would expand the State of Palestine's membership rights at the United Nations.

The assembly passed the resolution with 143 votes in favour, nine against, and 25 abstentions.

Israel's military announced that four of its soldiers were killed during fighting in Gaza. All were killed during a battle that took place in northern Gaza, The Israeli military said.

A UN General Assembly (UNGA) vote on a resolution calling for more "rights and privileges" for Palestine at the United Nations has begun.

Palestine's request for full UN membership was vetoed by the United States last month.

The draft resolution being voted on today will not grant Palestine full membership but will allow it. more rights and privelages within the UN, including the ability to join UN organisations and bodies.

In a speech to the General Assembly, Mohamed Abushahab, the United Arab Emirates’ ambassador to the UN said that the resolution would have a "profound impact on the Palestinian people."

Aid truck drivers waiting at the Rafah crossing to bring badly needed food into Gaza say that their cargoes could spoil if they continue to wait, Reuters is reporting.

The border crossing has been closed since Israeli forces seized it ahead of its anticipated offensive on the city.

"The closure of the border crossing is not good for all these trucks because these are fridges, which means machine failure doesn't give a warning. If the (fridge) stops working, then all of the food inside will be ruined," a trucker Ahmed al-Bayoumi told Reuters.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said that if the blocking of aid following the shut down of Gaza's border crossings continues there will be "even more catastrophic consequences from the situation that we now see".

ICRC spokesperson Jason Straziuso told Al Jazeera that the ICRC is "constantly asking" Israeli officials to allow humanitarian access.

“The Israeli officials know that we are desperate to bring in more supply trucks which we have waiting to cross the border as soon as they’re able to,” Straziuso said.

“There’s conversations also taking place about the need to spare civilian lives – no targeting of civilians, no targeting of civilian objects, meaning buildings, schools, medical facilities,” he added.

Israel's security cabinet approved a "measured expansion" of the Israeli military operation in Rafah on Thursday, as it instructed its negotiators to continue to try to reach a hostage deal, the news site Axios reported on Friday. 

Axios cited two sources who said that the proposed expansion would not cross the red line set by US President Joe Biden.

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Friday that Gaza's healthcare system is close to collapse due to the blocking of fuel into the strip following the closure of  the Rafah and Harm Abu Salem border crossings.

"Without fuel, everything in our hospitals will stop, and life-saving treatments will no longer be possible here," WHO spokesperson, Margaret Harris said in a press brifing at the United Nations office in Geneva.

"Without fuel, the entire healthcare system will collapse," she added.

More than 1,700 staff, alumni, and students from the University of Cambridge have signed onto an open letter expressing support for protesters who set up a protest encampment earlier this week that calls on the university to end any potential complicity in Israel's war on Gaza.

On Monday, around a hundred students gathered outside Cambridge's King's College, where they erected tents and demanded the institution commit to divesting from companies involved in Israel's war. 

They joined students at over a hundred universities worldwide who have set up similar protest movements.

The encampment's organisers told Middle East Eye they are demanding that Cambridge University discloses all its relationships with companies and institutions "complicit in the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine".

They said they want the university to end all such relationships, support Palestinian students and academics - and commit to protecting academic freedom. 

READ MORE: UK: Cambridge University academics and staff endorse Gaza student encampment

The armed wing of Palestinian group Hamas stepped up fighting with invading Israeli troops in Rafah on Friday, with reports of military helicopters transporting casualties from across Gaza.

In a series of battlefield updates, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades said it ambushed Israeli troops, attacking them with anti-armour missiles and several short-range rockets. 

The heavy fighting comes amid intensifying Israeli artillery bombardment and air strikes across the Gaza Strip. 

According to Palestinian reports, shelling has hit Beit Lahia in the north, Gaza City, Maghazi refugee camp and al-Mughraqa town in the central district, Abasan in Khan Younis, and Rafah. 

Many have been reported killed and wounded, though the Gaza health ministry has yet to provide a death toll update. 

READ MORE: Hamas steps up Gaza fighting as aid runs out under Israeli blockade

Israeli tanks have seized the main road splitting eastern and western Rafah, encircling the city's east, according to Reuters news agency.

Residents interviewed by Reuters reported that constant explosions and gunfire could by heard in the east and northeast of the city.

A World Health Organisation staff member, along with his wife and one child were wounded in an Israeli air strike on their home in Rafah on Wednesday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

The staff member's seven-year-old niece was killed in the attack.

“This is another devastating example of how unsafe it is in Rafah and across Gaza. We call for the protection of all humanitarian workers and all civilians. We call for a ceasefire," Ghebreyesus wrote on X.

Two people have been killed, and others injured from an Israeli drone strike that hit a group of maintenance workers in Tayr Harfa, south Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency.

A paramedic and a technician for the company, "Power Tec" were named as the victims.

Josep Borrell, the European Union's foreign policy chief, said the settlers involved in Thursday's arson attack on the Unrwa headquarters in Jerusalem, "must be held to account."

“It is Israel’s responsibility to ensure the safety of humanitarian workers,”  he said in a post on X. he added that the UN agency for Palestinian refugees is "“an irreplaceable lifeline to millions in Gaza and the region”.

Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela, the grandson of South African freedom fighter and anti-apartheid figurehead Nelson Mandela, dedicated the 30th anniversary of the inauguration of his grandfather's presidency to pro-Palestine protesters in US university campuses.

"I dedicate the memory of this day to the students protesting on USA University campuses calling for an immediate ceasefire of the genocide of Gaza and supporting the struggle of the Palestinian people for freedom," he said in a statement.

Zwelivelile Mandela called on students across the globe to emulate the US campus protests.

He also criticised the UK's Shadow Foreign Secretary, the Labour party's David Lammy, for suggesting Nelson Mandela, would not have backed the protests.

"Contrary to what David Lammy, the Labour MP in the UK would like us to believe, [Nelson Mandela] acknowledged the heroes in the Civil Rights Movement in the USA and campuses all over the world who regularly protested for our freedom," Zwelivelile Mandela said, adding that his grandfather supported armed struggle in the face of "increasing state brutality" against peaceful anti-apartheid protesters.

Nelson Mandela was also committed to "the Palestinian struggle", his grandson said.

He also called on Lammy to "stop being an apologist for genocide and instead encourage all students on UK and European university campuses to emulate their fellow students in the USA in their call for a ceasefire in Gaza and support the struggle of the Palestinian people for freedom."

Zwelivelile Mandela his statement by once again saluting the student protesters: "You are our heroes, we salute you."