Live: Strike announced in Israel amid mounting anger at Netanyahu

The Israeli army said that it killed Wissam Hazem, a Hamas leader in the West Bank, during its clashes with Palestinian fighters in Jenin.

The Israeli army says it targeted a cell of Palestinian fighters in a drone strike in Jenin, occupied West Bank on Friday.

Palestinians in the area told Al Jazeera that a group of fighters confronted Israeli soldiers, who then chased their car as they headed towards the village of Zababdeh.

Al Jazeera's correspondents in Gaza report that the Israeli military has withdrawn from Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip following weeks of operations in the area.

Rescuers have so far retrieved nine bodies from the wreckage left behind by the army, according to Al Jazeera.

Families of Israeli captives held in Gaza have slammed the Israeli security cabinet's latest decision to leave troops in the Philadelphi corridor between Gaza and Egypt, a move believed to be a potential dealbreaker in ceasefire negotiations.

"After almost a year of neglect, Netanyahu does not miss an opportunity to make sure that there will be no deal" for the release of their loved ones, the families' statement, shared by Israel's Channel 12, reads.

"There is not a day when Netanyahu does not act in a real way to endanger the return of all the abductees home."

Israel's internal intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel would almost certainly face a war in the near future back in July 2023, Yedioth Ahronoth reports.

The report comes after Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid delivered his testimony to a civilian enquiry into the failures of 7 October on Thursday.

Lapid said that Netanyahu was warned by security officials on multiple occasions that internal political issues and government policies were jeopardising Israel's deterrence capabilities.

The report says that Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet, had requested to meet with Netanyahu a day before his government voted in favour of a highly controversial judicial overhaul legislation.

Yedioth Ahronoth says that, however, Bar was likely speaking of a potential war with Lebanon's Hezbollah or a third intifada in the West Bank, rather than a conflict with Hamas in Gaza.

Good morning Middle East Eye readers,

Here are the latest updates:

• Israeli strikes on Khan Younis, southern Gaza and Jabalia, northern Gaza killed five people, including a child in Jabalia, the Wafa news agency reports
• Israel is also said to have carried out a strike on a vehicle travelling in an aid convoy organised by US-based humanitarian group Anera in southern Gaza on Thursday evening, killing at least five people
• The attacks come as the WHO announces that Israel has agreed to a temporary pause in fighting to allow for polio vaccinations to be given to children
• Three pauses, from 6am to 3pm (03:00 to 12:00 GMT) will take place starting Sunday in different areas of Gaza
• An Israeli strike on a vehicle in Jenin, occupied West Bank reportedly killed three people as Israeli widespread operations in the occupied territory continue
• Israeli troops have withdrawn from Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank following a two-day operation that killed four people
• Israeli ministers have voted to back Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's controversial position in favour of keeping Israeli troops in the Philadelphi corridor as part of the ceasefire and captive deal currently being negotiated, the Times of Israel reports
• In an interview with CNN, US Vice President and Democratic Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris said she would not change Biden's policy regarding sending weapons to Israel, refusing to withhold even "some" weapons

Our live coverage from Gaza will shortly be closing until tomorrow morning.

Here are some of the day's key developments:

• Gaza's health ministry said that 68 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on the enclave in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 40,602 since 7 October

• An Israeli strike on a residential building near Gaza City's al-Amal Hotel killed eight Palestinians, including a child

• Israel's latest incursion in the West Bank has killed at least 17 Palestinians, the Wafa news agency said, citing medical sources

• Some relatives of Israeli captives still held in Gaza have broken through the border fence and entered the Palestinian enclave from the Israeli town of Nir Am

• The Israeli army says that they killed Osama Gadallah, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) intelligence officer, in a drone strike on southern Gaza's Rafah on Wednesday

• The Israeli army blew up a house in Al-Manshiya neighbourhood, inside Nur Shams camp, causing a fire which spread to nearby houses

• In a televised statement by the foreign office, Germany expressed concerns over  increasing violence, high number of civilians killed and the “extent of rights violations” in the occupied West Bank during ongoing raids by Israel’s military

• The Israeli military and Hamas have agreed to three separate, zoned, three-day pauses in fighting in the Gaza Strip to allow for the vaccination of some 640,000 children against polio

• European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Thursday he has asked EU members to consider imposing sanctions on two Israeli ministers for "hate messages" against Palestinians

• Israel told the US that an initial review found that shots were fired at a clearly marked World Food Programme (WFP) vehicle in the Gaza Strip after a "communication error" between Israeli military units

A new poll conducted this week shows that the majority of Muslim voters in the United States are evenly split on who they plan to vote for as president in the upcoming November election, with roughly 60 percent planning to choose either third-party candidate Jill Stein or Vice President Kamala Harris.

The new survey, part of a report published on Thursday by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair), shows that the majority of Muslim-American voters have decided against voting for either Republican candidate Donald Trump or the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris.

Twenty-nine percent of those Muslim voters polled said they were planning to cast their votes for Stein, leader of the Green Party who has made ending Israel's war on Gaza and its occupation of the West Bank a key policy priority.

Another 29 percent said they are planning to vote for Harris, who some Muslims and pro-Palestinians have claimed has been more sympathetic to Palestinians but has so far said she would maintain support for Israel and has rebuffed demands for an arms embargo on Israel.

The poll also showed that around 11 percent of Muslim voters surveyed are planning to vote for Donald Trump, while four percent are choosing third-party candidate Cornel West and 16 percent are still undecided.

READ MORE: Muslim voters evenly split between Jill Stein and Kamala Harris, new poll finds

Israel told the US that an initial review found that shots were fired at a clearly marked World Food Programme (WFP) vehicle in the Gaza Strip after a "communication error" between Israeli military units, deputy US envoy to the UN Robert Wood said on Thursday.

"We have urged them to immediately rectify the issues within their system," Wood told a UN Security Council meeting on Gaza.

"Israel must not only take ownership for its mistakes, but also take concrete actions to ensure the IDF does not fire on UN personnel again," he added.

The UK’s new Labour government will risk its special relationship with the US if it imposes a ban on arms sales to Israel, Trump’s last national security advisor Robert O’Brien warned on Thursday.

F-35 fighter jets used by Israel’s air force as part of its bombing of Gaza are made in part by British arms firms.

If the UK arms embargo is imposed, “there is a potential there for a serious rift, whether it is a Harris or Trump administration, between the UK and the US and I would tread very carefully”, he said.

O’Brien added that the UK was endangering its future role in the F-35 project and would risk US congressional counter-embargos.

The UK has been actively considering suspending licences for arms exports to Israel.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Thursday he has asked EU members to consider imposing sanctions on two Israeli ministers for "hate messages" against Palestinians.

The messages, he said, broke international law.

While he did not name either of the ministers, Borrell has publicly criticised Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich for statements he has described as "sinister" and "an incitement to war crimes" in recent weeks.

Borrell said EU foreign ministers held an initial discussion about this proposal at a meeting in Brussels on Thursday but did not reach unanimity - which would be required to impose sanctions.

Hamas has welcomed a UN request for a humanitarian pause in the war in Gaza to implement a polio vaccination campaign, Hamas official Basem Naim told Reuters on Thursday.

The group is ready to cooperate with international organisations, Naim added.

The Israeli military and Hamas have agreed to three separate, zoned, three-day pauses in fighting in the Gaza Strip to allow for the vaccination of some 640,000 children against polio, senior WHO official Rik Peeperkorn said on Thursday.

The vaccination campaign is due to start on Sunday and pauses will take place between 6 am and 3 pm local time.

He said the campaign would start in central Gaza with a three-day pause in fighting, then move to southern Gaza, where there would be another three-day pause, followed by northern Gaza, adding that there was an agreement to extend the humanitarian pause in each zone to a fourth day if needed.

In a televised statement by the foreign office, Germany expressed concerns over  increasing violence, high number of civilians killed and the “extent of rights violations” in the occupied West Bank during ongoing raids by Israel’s military.

"Israel is an occupying force in the West Bank. This means that according to the Geneva Conventions, Israel is obliged to maintain law and order, and in the long term, to end the occupation as soon as possible,” the spokesperson added.

We are very concerned about the situation in the #WestBank. Yesterday‘s statement: ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/yTcEGgGsvx

— GermanForeignOffice (@GermanyDiplo) August 29, 2024

Earlier Middle East Eye reported that the Israeli army says it killed five Palestinian gunmen in a mosque in the West Bank’s Nur Shams refugee camp, including the commander of the Tulkarm Battalion, Mohamed Jaber, known as Abu Shuja’a.

The operation, which raided the cities of Tulkarm and Jenin, began in the early hours of Wednesday with hundreds of Israeli troops backed by helicopters, drones and armoured personnel and was one of the largest assaults on the occupied West Bank since months.

On Wednesday the EU’s chif diplomat Josep Borrell criticised the assault: “The Israeli major military operation in the occupied West Bank must not constitute the premises of a war extension from Gaza, including full-scale destruction.”