Live: Strike announced in Israel amid mounting anger at Netanyahu

An Israeli strike on a residential building near Gaza City's al-Amal Hotel killed eight Palestinians, including a child, the Wafa news agency reports.

Air raid sirens were activated in Kissufim, a mostly evacuated town near the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli media reports.

Good morning Middle East Eye readers,

Here are the latest updates:

• Israel's continued bombing of the Gaza Strip killed two girls and a woman in central Gaza, four people near Rafah and two men in and around Khan Younis
• Israel's largest military operation in the occupied West Bank in two decades has so far killed 12 people, wounded 22 and led to 20 arrests
• 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
• UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Israel to immediately end its offensive on the West Bank
• EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that Israel's operations in the West Bank must not be "the premises of a war extension from Gaza"
• The UN Security Council is set to hold a meeting on the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip after Israeli forces fired on a "clearly marked" World Food Programme vehicle
• Belgium's deputy prime minister said she will support  sanctioning Israeli ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, ahead of an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels

Hello MEE readers. On Wednesday, Israel's military continued its massive raid on the occupied West Bank, with the death toll standing at 10 Palestinians.

The raid, which deployed hundreds of Israeli soldiers, is the largest one to take place since the Second Intifada more than two decades ago.

The administration of US President Joe Biden has told Middle East Eye that it is monitoring the developments, while also stressing "Israel’s right to defend itself against threats to its security".

A siege has been imposed on the three cities of Jenin, Tulkarm and Tubas in the northern West Bank, cutting them off from the rest of the Palestinian territory. 

The raids caused Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to cut short his trip to Saudi Arabia, where he was on a diplomatic tour of the Arab Gulf countries.

Israel's military has said that it plans to continue the assault for several days.

Here's what else happened today:

• Journalist Mohammed Abd Rabbuh and his sister were killed in Israeli air strikes that hit his sister’s home in the Nuseirat refugee camp.

• The UN’s World Food Programme is suspending its operations in the Gaza Strip, after Israel's military attacked a convoy of UN aid trucks.

• A report in Israel's Channel 12 news station said that Israel was pausing military operations in some parts of Gaza in order to allow for the distribution of the polio vaccine. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied it was a "truce".

• The US State Department announced it was imposing new sanctions on Hashomer Yosh, an organisation providing material support to an illegal Israeli settlement outpost in the occupied West Bank. It also announced sanctions against Yitzhak Levi Filant, the civilian coordinator of the Yitzhar settlement in the West Bank.

• The Israeli military said the body of a soldier who was captured by Palestinian fighters during the 7 October attacks was rescued and taken to Israel.

• The Israeli military confirmed that another soldier was killed in Gaza.

The US said it was seeking clarity on Israel’s objectives after its ally launched an offensive in the occupied West Bank which Palestinian and Israeli media said was the largest such attack since the Second Intifada.

“We are in touch with Israeli officials to learn more about the operation,” a national security council spokesperson told Middle East Eye. 

“The United States supports Israel’s right to defend itself against threats to its security. At the same time, they must do so in a way that limits civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure”.

Despite the breadth and magnitude of the offensive mirroring Israeli military operations during the Palestinian uprising of the early 2000s, the Biden administration has so far held off on publicly addressing the matter, outside of responding to journalists.

Read the full story by clicking below.

US largely silent on Israel's West Bank assault as ally Jordan gets rattled

Journalist Mohammed Abd Rabbuh and his sister were killed in Israeli air strikes that hit his sister’s home in the Nuseirat refugee camp.

More than 170 journalists in Gaza have been killed by Israel's military since the beginning of Israel's war on the Strip.

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said it is suspending its operations in the Gaza Strip, following an incident in which Israel's military attacked a convoy of UN aid trucks.

"Despite being clearly marked and receiving multiple clearances by Israeli authorities to approach, the vehicle was directly struck by gunfire as it was moving towards an Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) checkpoint. It sustained at least ten bullets: five on the driver’s side, two on the passenger side and three on other parts of the vehicle," the group said in a statement.

No WFP workers were injured in the incident.

Israeli forces have on multiple occasions attacked humanitarian workers operating in Gaza since the war began, including the killing of workers with the international charity World Central Kitchen.

This is totally unacceptable and must change immediately. We have repeatedly asked for a functioning deconfliction system in Gaza, and yet the current arrangements have failed. Humanitarians are #NotATarget. https://t.co/FUWBV8dNk6

— Cindy McCain (@WFPChief) August 28, 2024

The health ministry in Gaza has told Al Araby TV that the ministry has not been officially informed about a temporary truce in certain parts of Gaza to allow for the rollout of polio vaccines.

Earlier on Wednesday, Israel’s Channel 12 news station reported that Israel agreed to pause military operations in certain parts of the Gaza Strip for the vaccine to be distributed to Palestinians.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office responded to the report saying it “is incorrect” to call it a truce.

“This is not a truce, but only the allocation of certain places in the Strip. Also, the issue was presented to the cabinet and received the support of the ministers,” his office said.

The United Nations accused Israeli forces in Gaza of attacking a UN aid vehicle that was taking part in a humanitarian operation and had coordinated its efforts with the Israeli military beforehand.

“A clearly marked UN humanitarian vehicle, part of a convoy that had been fully coordinated with the IDF, was struck 10 times by IDF gunfire, including with bullets targeting front windows,” UN secretary general spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

The Israeli military said the body of a soldier who was captured by Palestinian fighters during the 7 October attacks was rescued and taken to Israel.

Israel has launched its largest offensive on the occupied West Bank since the Second Intifada, killing at least 10 Palestinians so far.

Since declaring war on Gaza, Israeli forces have conducted near-daily raids on towns and cities across the West Bank, killing 582 Palestinians according to a Middle East Eye tally, and detaining over 10,000, according to Palestinian advocacy groups.

For more information on this latest offensive and the Israeli military's increase in operations since the beginning of the war on Gaza, check out our explainer by clicking below.

Explainer: How has Israeli aggression escalated in the occupied West Bank since October?

The US State Department announced it was imposing new sanctions on Hashomer Yosh, an organisation providing material support to an illegal Israeli settlement outpost in the occupied West Bank.

Hashomer Yosh has been providing support to the outpost of Meitarim Farm, a settler outpost previously sanctioned by the US.

The State Department also said it was sanctioning Yitzhak Levi Filant, the civilian coordinator of the Yitzhar settlement in the West Bank. The Israeli settlement has been the site of acute settler violence against Palestinians.

The settlement is located near the Palestinian village of Huwwara, which was set ablaze by Israeli settlers earlier this year.

Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn), a Washington DC-based human rights group, has called for US sanctions to not just target individual settlers, but also leadership within these settlements, which are deemed illegal under international law.

"If these sanctions are going to have any real meaning and impact, the Government should target not just a few 'bad apples' but the Israeli institutions and prominent leaders responsible for promoting the worst violence against Palestinians," Mohsen Farshneshani, Dawn's sanctions advisor said in a statement.

"Sanctioning the leadership of the Yitzhar settlement, including a sitting member of Knesset, is necessary to disrupt the well-organized networks of state-sanctioned violence and impunity that terrorize Palestinians every single day."

The Israeli military confirmed that another soldier was killed in Gaza on Wednesday.

Major Yohai Chai Glam, who served in the 6310th Brigade, was killed in the centre of the Gaza Strip, according to the military.

Kaid Farhan al-Qadi, the 52-year-old Israeli captive freed from Gaza on Tuesday, has been released from the hospital and returned home.

Al-Qadi was greeted by cheers in his southern Bedouin town of Rahat, according to the Times of Israel.

In brief remarks made upon reaching his town, al-Qadi said he was feeling "100 percent" and called for the release of the remaining captives. 

The Israeli army confirmed it carried out a drone strike in Syria earlier on Wednesday, saying it killed a senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) operative.

The army says that Fares Qasem was a prominent member of PIJ’s operations unit.

This marks a rare admission from the Israeli army regarding a strike in Syria.