Gaza live: Israeli attack hits Unrwa centre

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for “the complete destruction of the enemy” following the deaths of eight soldiers in a Hamas ambush in Rafah on Saturday.

“The heavy price of the war obliges us to continue until the complete destruction of the enemy,” he said in a post on social media.

The Israeli army has said that two more soldiers were killed in an attack in northern Gaza on Saturday. The men, a 28-year-old and a 49-year-old, both members of the 8th Reserve Armoured Brigade’s 129th Battalion, were killed when an explosive device was detonated against their tank.

This follows a Hamas ambush of a military vehicle with rocket-propelled grenades that killed eight soldiers in Rafah city on the same day.

Good morning Middle East Eye readers,

Here are the latest updates from the Israeli war on Gaza, now in its 254th day:

• Palestinians in Gaza and occupied East Jerusalem marked Eid al-Adha amid ongoing Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip.

• Ten Israeli soldiers were killed in two separate Hamas attacks in Gaza on Saturday. Two soldiers were killed when their tank exploded in northern Gaza, and another killed eight were killed in a Hamas ambush in Rafah.

• Israel's far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, called for “the complete destruction of the enemy” following the attack.

• The Israeli military has announced a "tactical pause" fighting on a road south of Gaza to allow for aid deliveries into the strip.

• The death toll of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since 7 October has risen to at least 37,296 people, with another 85,197 wounded, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. The ministry added that, of them, 30 were killed and another 95 wounded in the last 24 hours.

Good evening, Middle East Eye readers.

Our live blog will soon be closing for the evening. Here are the main developments from the 253rd day of the conflict:

• The death toll of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since 7 October has risen to at least 37,296 people, with another 85,197 wounded, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. The ministry added that, of them, 30 were killed and another 95 wounded in the last 24 hours.
   
• Israeli forces have killed at least 547 Palestinians, and injured another 5,200, including 800 children, in the occupied Palestinian territories since 7 October, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said.
   
• The Palestine Red Crescent Society has said that 498 medical personnel have been killed since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza.
   
• The Israeli military said eight of its soldiers were killed in Rafah on Saturday, when an armoured vehicle they were in exploded. The armed wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, said it had killed and wounded a number of Israeli soldiers in the "complex ambush", one of the deadliest incidents involving the Israeli military in the more than eight months of war in the Palestinian territory.
   
• At least 19 Palestinians, including a baby, have been killed and 50 others wounded in Israeli air strikes targeting homes near Gaza City.
   
• The Palestinian health ministry said Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian teenager in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, as an army official confirmed troops opened fire during a raid.
   
• Over 50,000 children in Gaza require treatment for acute malnutrition, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) said on Saturday. Continued restrictions on humanitarian access to the enclave are producing "desperate levels of hunger," the agency said.
   
• Israeli forces conducted dawn raids of towns in the occupied West Bank, including Beita, Kafr Dan, Qalqilya and Hebron. In Beita, soldiers ransacked several houses, firing tear gas at a Palestinian youth.
   
• The armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Al-Quds Brigades, has said that captives will only be released following a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
   
• Israeli police arrested five protesters who staged a demonstration outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence in Israel's coastal town of Caesarea.

There is a "very real" risk that a miscalculation along Lebanon's southern border could trigger a wider conflict between Hezbollah and the Israeli military, two UN officials in Lebanon warned on Saturday.

The United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, and the head of UN peacekeeping forces in Lebanon, Aroldo Lazaro, said they were "deeply concerned" about the recent escalation along Lebanon's border.

Iran-backed Hezbollah last week launched the largest volleys of rockets and drones yet in the eight months it has been exchanging fire with the Israeli military, in parallel with the Gaza war.

"The danger of miscalculation leading to a sudden and wider conflict is very real," the two officials said in a written statement on Saturday.

The United States and France are working on a negotiated settlement to the hostilities along Lebanon's southern border. Hezbollah says it will not halt fire unless Israel's military offensive on Gaza stops.

The Palestinian health ministry said Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian teenager in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, as an army official confirmed troops opened fire during a raid.

Sultan Abdul Rahman Khatatbeh, 16, was killed by Israeli fire in the northern West Bank town of Beit Furik, the ministry said in a statement published on Facebook. 

Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that two others were injured when Israeli forces stormed the town, east of Nablus, "firing live bullets at local residents". 

An Israeli military official told AFP that troops were operating in the Nablus area when "dozens of suspects hurled rocks at Israeli security forces, who responded with riot dispersal means and live fire". 

"Hits were identified," the official said, without elaborating.

The Israeli military said eight soldiers were killed in southern Gaza Saturday "in operational activity", while Israeli media reported the troops died in the city of Rafah when an armoured vehicle they were in exploded.

The military said in a statement that Captain Wassem Mahmud, 23, and seven other soldiers "fell during operational activity in southern Gaza", in one of the deadliest incidents involving the military in the more than eight months of war in the Palestinian territory.

"Their families have been notified," the statement added.

Earlier the armed wing of Hamas said it had killed and wounded a number of Israeli soldiers in an ambush in the southern city of Rafah, which included a strike on an armoured personnel carrier.

In a statement on Telegram, the Qassam Brigades said: "On the morning of Arafah Day, our fighters carried out a complex ambush against enemy vehicles invading the area of ​​the Saudi neighbourhood in Tal al-Sultan, west of the city of Rafah. A D9 military bulldozer was targeted with an al-Yassin 105 anti-armour missile, which led to it igniting and leaving the bulldozer crew dead and wounded.

"Immediately upon the arrival of the rescue force, a Namer armoured vehicle was targeted with anal-Yassin 105 missile, which led to its destruction and the killing of all its members."

The latest fatalities take the Israeli military's toll to 306 since Israel began its ground offensive in Gaza on 27 October last year.

In the past two weeks alone, Israel has perpetrated three massacres in Gaza that managed to shock the world and trigger widespread condemnation.

Flooding social media were scenes that the head of Unrwa called "hell on earth" and Doctors Without Borders described as "apocalyptic".

A raging inferno engulfing a camp for displaced Palestinians, a headless child, dismembered limbs, and scores of maimed and burnt bodies appeared against a soundtrack of explosions and the piercing screams of terrified women and children.

Even those who have closely followed the daily horror show in Gaza over the last eight months - the mass civilian casualties and total destruction of its infrastructure - could not fathom the savagery of dropping a 110kg bomb on plastic tents.

Yet for US officials, the 26 May Rafah tent massacre, which killed 45 people and injured more than 200 others, did not cross President Joe Biden's "red line" for halting weapons shipments.

With no accountability, Israel has continued its genocidal campaign in Gaza unabated - as part of a settler colonial project to eliminate native Palestinians that began seven decades ago.

The following week, on 6 June, an Israeli air strike on al-Sardi Unrwa school killed around 40 displaced Palestinian civilians, including children. Two days later, on 8 June, the Nuseirat camp was brutally assaulted by land and air, killing 274 Palestinians.

The harrowing attacks have placed a spotlight on the role of US-supplied weapons and munitions in perpetrating a war that has killed at least 37,296 Palestinians and injured more than 85,000 others since 7 October 2023.

Indeed, US weapons shipments are key to Israel's genocidal violence, and they reveal the sprawling network of the US military war machine that connects settler colonial and militarist violence on two occupied lands, Okinawa and Palestine.

READ MORE: From Okinawa to Palestine: How the US military machine connects occupied territories - Opinion by Adam Miyashoro and Nozomi Nakaganeku-Saito

Over 50,000 children in Gaza require treatment for acute malnutrition, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) said on Saturday.

Continued restrictions on humanitarian access to the enclave are producing "desperate levels of hunger," the agency said in a post on X.

"Unrwa teams work tirelessly to reach families with aid but the situation is catastrophic."

With continued restrictions to humanitarian access, people in #Gaza continue to face desperate levels of hunger. Over 50,000 children require treatment for acute malnutrition@UNRWA teams work tirelessly to reach families with aid but the situation is catastrophic. #CeasefireNow pic.twitter.com/FwmsjrqmRW

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) June 15, 2024

Hamas's armed wing, the Qassam Brigades said its fighters had killed and wounded Israeli soldiers in "a complex ambush," in southern Gaza.

In a statement on Telegram, the group said they had targeted "a Zionist D9 bulldozer with an Al-Yassin 105 shell" in Tal as-Sultan,  west of the city of Rafah, "leading to the killing and injury of soldiers."

It added in another statement that its fighters had also  “targeted, alongside the Al-Quds Brigades, the Sufa military site in southern Israel with a missile salvo," and fired "short-range missiles" at the Israeli command headquarters in the Netzarim axis west of Gaza City.

The crew aboard a merchant vessel which was ablaze and sinking following an attack by Yemen's Houthis have been evacuated, The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) has said.

The Palau-flagged Verbena cargo ship was struck by Houthi missiles in the Gulf of Aden on Thursday, sparking a fire and severely injuring one of the crew.

"Five projectiles" were fired from the designated humanitarian zone in central Gaza on Friday, the Israeli army said in a statement on Telegram.

According to the statement, the projectiles landed in open areas, while the others fell inside Gaza.

“This is a further example of the cynical exploitation of humanitarian infrastructure and the civilian population as human shields by terror organisations in the Gaza Strip for their terrorist attacks,” it said.

Fires have erupted in Goren, in the Western Galilee region of northern Israel, following several drone strikes launched from Lebanon, the Israeli military has said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that Israel's war on Gaza is a "test of sincerity" for US President Joe Biden.

Erdogan told reporters on his way back from the G7 summit in Italy that Biden needs to demonstrate that his ceasefire plan is not a calculated electoral tactic but a sincere effort to end the war.

When asked during the summit if he was confident that the ceasefire deal would be struck soon, Biden said no.

"I haven’t lost hope, but it's going to be tough. Hamas has ... to move," he told reporters.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society has said that 498 medical personnel have been killed since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza in October.

498 medical personnel killed since the beginning of the aggression on the #Gaza Strip. pic.twitter.com/hzVtwfUM56

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) June 15, 2024