Live: Strike announced in Israel amid mounting anger at Netanyahu
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Gaza's Health Ministry has said that a vaccination campaign alone will not prevent the spread of polio "in the absence of clean water, personal hygiene supplies, the spread of sewage among the tents of the displaced, and the absence of a healthy environment."
On Friday, the UN Agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) announced that a 10-month-old infant is now partially paralysed with polio, in the first case in Gaza in 25 years.
Seventeen Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes in the southern and central areas Gaza on Friday, Al Jazeera is reporting citing medical sources.
A captive's daughter said she left a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with "little hope" that a hostage exchange deal would be reached soon.
Israel’s Maariv news site reported that a group of released captives and captives' families met with Netanyahu on Friday.
“Our feeling is that this will not happen soon,” said Ela Ben Ami, the daughter of Israeli captive Ohad Ben Ami, in comments carried by Maariv. “I am concerned for the lives of the girls in captivity."
“The deal must be finalised as soon as possible," she added.
Dozens of UK-based doctors, nurses and medical professionals who worked in Gaza have called on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to halt arms sales to Israel.
In an open letter coordinated by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), the health workers warned Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy that continuing arms sales could put the UK in violation of international law and said ending them is "morally as well as legally right".
“It is difficult for many of us to recount the scenes we witnessed in Gaza, not least of all in the knowledge that many of the injuries we treated may have resulted from the use of weapons systems and components supplied from Britain," the letter states.
The letter noted: “With only marginal exceptions, everyone in Gaza is sick, injured or both.”
Citing domestic British law, international humanitarian law (IHL) and Britain’s own Strategic Export Licensing Criteria, the signatories stressed that it was imperative to halt the sales.
Read more: UK: Health workers urge Keir Starmer to end arms sales to Israel
The Palestine Red Crescent (PRCS) has said its emergency teams transported 17 injured people and the body of one person killed in an Israeli air strike on tents sheltering displaced people in the Muwasi area of Al-Qarara, west of Khan Younis.
It posted footage on X of its crews operating in the aftermath of the attack.
🚨A video shows the work of Palestine Red Crescent EMS crews as they transport 17 injured people and one martyr from the Muwasi area of Al-Qarara, west of #KhanYunis, after the occupation forces targeted tents sheltering displaced people.
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) August 23, 2024
📷Filmed by Atta Allah Gheith. pic.twitter.com/VF4lk4xjRk
The Israeli forces have claimed an air strike on a Hamas "command centre" in Gaza City's Zeitoun neighbourhood on Friday.
The army claimed that Hamas were storing weapons at the centre, which is located in a former school building. It did not report any casualties resulting from the strike.
Earlier today, an Israeli air strike targeting a gathering east of the neighbourhood killed one person. A video posted on Instagram revealed plumes of smoke rising over Gaza City amid clashes between Israeli forces and Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad fighters.
Germany's Lufthansa Group said on Friday that it will restart flights to Jordan's Amman and Erbil in Iraq from 27 August, making use of a northern corridor in Iraqi airspace for the Erbil trips.
The airline, which includes carriers Swiss International Air Lines, Austrian Airlines and Eurowings, announced it had extended its suspension of flights to Tel Aviv and Tehran up to and including 2 September.
It added that flights to Beirut are suspended through 30 September.
Reporting by Reuters
A video posted on Instagram, and verified Al Jazeera, shows plumes of smoke rising over the Zeitoun neighbourhood in Gaza City, amid fighting between Israeli troops and the armed wings of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Both groups reported clashing with Israeli forces.
The number of casualties is currently unknown.
An Israeli soldier was killed in southern Gaza, the Israeli military said, bringing the number of soldiers killed since 7 October to 695.
Lack of fuel will put the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza out of service within the next 24 hours, Al Jazeera reported.
The hospital’s director told the news channel that dozens of people would die if the facility does not receive fuel soon.
Patients at the hospital have been suffering without electricity or fans in the scorching summer heat, according to testimonies given to Al Jazeera.
An Israeli drone strike in south Lebanon killed two people, including a seven year-old-child, the Lebanese health ministry reported.
The Israeli raid targeted a car and a house in Aita al-Jabal, in the first strike targeting the village since the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel started in October last year.
An earlier strike on the village of Tayr Harfa in south Lebanon killed three members of Hezbollah.
Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar has warned that increasingly overt settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank is wreaking “indescribable damage” on Israel, changing it “beyond recognition".
In a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant that was published by Channel 12 News on Thursday, Bar took aim at National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, warning that his incursions into Al-Aqsa mosque could “lead to bloodshed.”
Ben Gvir has led repeated raids on the Al-Aqsa compound in occupied East Jerusalem, an Islamic site where unsolicited visits, prayers, and rituals by non-Muslims are forbidden according to decades-long international agreements.
In his letter, Bar emphasised that settler violence in the occupied West Bank had become increasingly “widespread and visible,” noting that extremist groups were being armed with weapons “that have been legally distributed by the state".
He added that the government’s light-handed approach and “secret” police backing of far-right settler group, Hilltop Youth, who have “long become a widespread phenomenon of violent activity against Palestinians,” is encouraging their actions which he said were tantamount to “terrorism".
Read more: Shin Bet chief warns settler violence doing ‘indescribable damage’ to Israel
With each failed round of negotiations, it is becoming clearer to a global audience where the obstacle to a ceasefire in Gaza lies: in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s brain.
It’s even clearer to Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister, and David Barnea, the director of Mossad, who heads the Israeli negotiating team.
A ceasefire deal on the lines of US President Joe Biden’s statement and the ensuing UN resolution, close to the one Hamas has already approved, would do two things: bring down Netanyahu’s government and deprive him of the power to wage a permanent intermittent war.
Even if, on paper, a ceasefire could allow him to resume the war at the end of the first phase of hostage and prisoner release, if Israel were to sabotage negotiations, in reality, such an opportunity would diminish after six weeks of peace.
It is now emerging that the only way for Netanyahu to continue in power, and in freedom, is to keep Israel on the warpath, in a permanent low-level state of conflict on all of its borders.
Read more: Jordan could pay a steep price for Netanyahu's endless war on Gaza
Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir slammed Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for returning Israel’s north to the Stone Age instead of doing so to Lebanon.
"You promised to return Lebanon to the Stone Age, but in the meanwhile, you're returning [Israel's] north to the Stone Age," Ben Gvir wrote on X.
Ben Gvir’s remark came after Gallant denounced him on X for calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to fire Shin Bet security service chief Ronen Bar, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
"Instead of attacking me on Twitter, start attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon," the national security minister added.
The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) says that it will begin vaccinating Gaza's children for polio at the end of the month.
The news comes after the besieged enclave recorded its first case of polio last week, and as the WHO confirmed that a a 10-month-old baby was now paralysed due to the disease.
"It is not enough to bring the vaccines into Gaza [and] protect the cold chain," Phillippe Lazzarrini, commissioner general of Unrwa, said on X. "To have an impact, the vaccines must end up in the mouths of every child under the age of 10."
Very sad. @WHO confirms that a 10-month-old baby in #Gaza is now paralysed due to #Polio. The first case in more than 25 years.
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) August 23, 2024
Polio will not make the distinction between Palestinian & Israeli children.
Delaying a humanitarian pause will increase the risk of spread among…
