Gaza live: Israeli attack hits Unrwa centre
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Israeli emergency services said on Friday that they were dealing with a string of fires in northern Israel after dozens of missiles were fired from southern Lebanon into the area around the border town of Kiryat Shmona.
The Israeli military said that warning sirens had sounded in northern Israel and emergency services said teams were searching the area, where they reported there was property damage but no casualties.
Television footage on Friday showed damaged buildings and cars as well as brush fires in several locations caused by strikes or falling debris amid heatwave conditions, Reuters reported.
The United States will impose sanctions on an Israeli group on Friday for attacking humanitarian aid convoys bound for starving civilians in Gaza, US officials told Reuters.
The sanctions will target Tsav 9, a group with ties to Israeli army reservists and Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank, over activities including blocking, harassing and damaging aid shipments.
Palestinians have been desperately in need of aid as Israel continues its war on Gaza, which is now in its eighth month and has killed at least 37,000 people, according to the enclave's health ministry. Israel has also faced accusations of blocking aid, which it denies, and there have been protests against the delivery of aid at border crossings.
The al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said on Friday that its members were fighting Israeli troops in fierce battles in the western parts of Tal al-Sultan neighbourhood in Rafah.
Tal al-Sultan is one of the main neighbourhoods in Rafah, located in the northwestern part of the city.
Al-Qassam Brigades said its fighters targeted three Israeli tanks with the locally manufactured al-Yassin 105 anti-armour missiles.
Israeli attacks have killed at least 20 people across the Gaza Strip on Friday so far, according to medical sources.
At al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah, wounded and dead people arrive continuously as the relentless air strikes persist.
US special forces were prepared to deploy in the Gaza Strip in October to rescue captives held by Hamas but lacked enough intelligence, current and former American officials told the Washington Post.
“If we managed to unilaterally get information that we could act on, and we thought we could actually get US people out alive, we could act, but there was genuinely very little information specifically about US hostages,” one official said.
The latest report adds more information on the planned deployment first reported by journalist Jack Murphy on his Substack, “The High Side.”
Murphy said in November that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) conducted one of the biggest deployments in its history to the Eastern Mediterranean after being told by the Defence Department that the Biden administration wanted to see “something” in terms of a plan of action to rescue the American citizens held in Gaza.
However, after those forces arrived to the region, the chances of launching a captive rescue mission decreased due to "both the quality of the intelligence available and the shifting priorities of the Israeli and US governments," according to Murphy.
Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant ruled out joining an initiative promoted by French President Emmanuel Macron in which France, the United States and Israel would form a contact group to work on defusing tensions on Israel's boundary with Lebanon.
"As we fight a just war, defending our people, France has adopted hostile policies against Israel," Gallant said in a statement. "Israel will not be a party to the trilateral framework proposed by France."
Reporting by Reuters
To help her hungry baby fall asleep, Noor Saleem often sings to him.
"Sleep, my love, sleep, and I will spread ostrich feathers for you and bring you Tulumba (fried dough dessert),” she repeats a traditional lullaby to him.
But as she sings it, the Palestinian mother remembers the Israeli-made starvation she, her baby and hundreds of thousands in north Gaza are enduring.
“I sang it and cried my heart out,” the 32-year-old mother told Middle East Eye.
“I felt so powerless and helpless to do even the simplest things for my child, like giving him Tulumba.
“I am burning with the feeling of helplessness.”
For over eight months, the Israeli military has imposed a tight siege on the Gaza Strip, severely limiting the flow of life-saving essential food and medical items.
In recent weeks, Israeli authorities restricted life-saving food deliveries once again, according to residents.
They say a second hunger crisis is well underway in more dire conditions and with less media coverage.
Read more: Palestinian mothers struggle to feed babies as Israeli-made starvation returns
Palestinian children are paying the price of the Israeli war on Gaza as they continued to be denied permits to seek treatement abroad, Unrwa said on Friday.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees posted on social media platform X that 3,000 permits for children to leave the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank for medical treatment were denied or delayed.
Israeli authorities have further placed restriction on humanitarian access since the start of the war in October, it added.
In 2023, over 3,000 permits for Palestinian children to leave #GazaStrip & #WestBank for medical treatment were denied or delayed
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) June 14, 2024
Since the war began, Israeli authorities have further restricted humanitarian access. Children are once again paying the highest price. #CeasefireNow pic.twitter.com/IcChGKb5C8
Israeli air strikes in Rafah killed three Palestinians on Friday, according to Al Jazeera Arabic.
Meanwhile, local media reported that heavy clashes were taking place in the city's centre between Palestinian fighters and invading Israeli troops.
The first Palestinian athlete to participate in the Olympic games died on Wednesday at the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza as a result of kidney failure due to power outages and medical shortages as a result of the ongoing Israeli war and siege of the enclave.
Majed Abu Maraheel, who passed away at the age of 61, became the first athlete to be the flag bearer and represent Palestinians at the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996. Being a distance runner, he competed in the 10km race.
Since his breakthrough on the world stage, more than 20 Palestinian men and women have been able to compete at Olympic competitions.
"He was a Palestinian icon, and he will remain as such," his brother told Paltoday TV after the funeral.
"We tried to evacuate him to Egypt but then the Rafah crossing was closed (by Israel), and his condition kept deteriorating."
Read more: Palestine's first ever Olympian dies in Gaza from lack of treatment due to Israel's war
An Israeli court has confirmed and extended for 35 days the government's shutdown of Qatar-based television news channel Al Jazeera, the justice ministry said on Friday.
Al Jazeera, which broadcasts in Arabic and English, went off the air in Israel under an initial 45-day order early last month.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has had a long-running feud with Al Jazeera that has worsened since the war on Gaza began in October.
"The Tel Aviv district court confirmed the communications minister's instructions to stop Al Jazeera channel broadcasts, close its bureaus in Israel, block access to its websites and seize the equipment," the justice ministry said.
The order, issued Thursday after a prosecutor's request for its confirmation and extension, was for an additional 35 days, the ministry said on its website.
Reporting by AFP
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right wing Likud party has reduced the gap behind the centrist party of former minister Benny Gantz, who quit the wartime unity government on Sunday, two polls showed on Friday.
The polls, for the left wing Ma'ariv daily and the right wing Israel Hayom newspaper, showed Likud winning 21 seats behind the National Unity Party on 24. The Ma'ariv poll last week showed Gantz's party on 27 seats, while at the start of the year, it was regularly polling in the high 30s.
The Ma'ariv poll shows the current ruling coalition winning 52 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, against 58 for the main opposition parties, with the balance of 10 seats held by the United Arab List and the left-wing Hadash-Ta'al alliance.
The Israel Hayom poll put the coalition on 50 seats against 61 for the opposition parties and nine for the UAL and Hadash-Ta'al.
Both polls showed a majority of voters would prefer Gantz as prime minister in a head-to-head choice with Netanyahu. However the Israel Hayom poll showed that if former prime minister Naftali Bennett were to join forces with Avigdor Liberman and Gideon Saar, two other right-wing politicians from outside the Likud camp, their alliance could beat both Likud and Gantz's National Unity Party.
Reporting by Reuters
A Palestinian boy has died from malnutrition in the Gaza Strip on Friday, according to Arab48 news outlet.
The child, identified as 10-year-old Mustafa Hijazi by local media, died in the al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah.
استشهاد الطفل مصطفى حجازي من قطاع غزة نتيجة سوء التغذية والجفاف وقلة الأدوية في ظل استمرار الحرب الإسرائيلية وإغلاق المعابر#عاجل pic.twitter.com/7AJcxohG7w
— خبرني - khaberni (@khaberni) June 14, 2024
Israeli warships killed a Palestinian west of Khan Younis city after bombing the port area, according to Al Jazeera Arabic.
Famine is looming in north Gaza where over 200,000 Palestinian children have shown symptoms of malnutrition, according to the director of Kamal Adwan hospital.
Speaking to Al-Arabi TV, Dr Hossam Abo Safiya said northern Gaza is now facing a "humanitarian disaster".
"There are no food items available in the northern Gaza Strip other than flour," Abo Safiya said.
"I am sending a distress call to all international institutions to take the threat of famine seriously."
