Live: Israel kills more than 430 Palestinians on Tuesday

Israeli aircraft targeted a building on the edge of Damascus on Thursday, Syria's state news agency reported, while two Syrian security sources told Reuters the target was a Palestinian.

One of the sources claimed the building hit was the headquarters for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad organisation.

The death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 48,524, the majority of whom are women and children, since the start of Israel's war on Gaza in October 2023, medical sources said.

Injuries have also climbed to 111,955, while thousands remain buried under rubble as efforts to retrieve the missing continue to face significant obstacles.

In the past 24 hours, nine additional fatalities have been reported, including seven bodies recovered from the rubble and brought to hospitals across Gaza.

Hanoch Milwidsky, the deputy speaker of Israel's Knesset, said he "doesn't see any alternative to military action" in Gaza.

"I don't see any alternative to military action there," Milwidsky, a member of the right-wing Likud party, told Israeli media. "If we want to follow the Trump plan, we need to fully conquer Gaza."

Milwidsky said he was aware that lives of Israeli captives and soldiers would be at risk, but that is was "unfortunately a price that must be paid" to fully defeat Hamas.

"What's the alternative? Build fences again? Set up checkpoints again?" he asked.

Families of Israeli captives still held in Gaza, along with dozens of freed captives, have been advocating for the full implementation of the Gaza ceasefire deal and opposing a return to war.

Hamas has called on the international community to act to prevent famine in Gaza, where residents have been under siege for two weeks.

The group's spokesperson, Abdel-Latif al-Qanou, described the Israeli blockade of food, medicine and fuel as a new form of "starvation" in a statement on Thursday.

He warned that if action was not taken, Gaza would face famine during the holy month of Ramadan. Qanou also urged mediators to increase pressure on Israel to open the crossings, allow humanitarian aid in and end the collective punishment of Gaza's residents.

Israeli forces have fired at Palestinian homes in the Shujaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City, according to Al Jazeera.

It is unclear if there were any casualties.

The attacks followed a series of Israeli military attacks that killed six people near the Netzarim Corridor, and a Palestinian girl in Deir el-Balah on Wednesday.

Israel carried out "genocidal acts" against Palestinians by systematically destroying women's healthcare facilities during its war on Gaza, and used sexual violence as a war strategy, United Nations experts said in a new report on Thursday.

"Israeli authorities have destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, including by imposing measures intended to prevent births, one of the categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention," said the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.

Those actions, in addition to causing a surge in maternity deaths due to restricted access to medical supplies, amounted to the crime against humanity of extermination, the commission said.

The report accused Israel's security forces of using forced public stripping and sexual assault as part of their standard operating procedures to punish Palestinians since the beginning of the war.

The Red Cross handed over a soldier held by Israel to Lebanon, the fifth such transfer since Tuesday, the Lebanese army said on X.

Israel has described the handover as a “gesture to the Lebanese president.”

The soldier has been taken to a hospital for treatment, the Lebanese army said.

Tom Fletcher, head of the UN’s humanitarian affairs bureau, shared his observations from a recent visit to Gaza with reporters.

“It was much, much worse than I’d anticipated, and I’d really prepared myself for the worst,” Al Jazeera reported him saying.

Fletcher said the devastation, and the desolation in northern Gaza is even greater there than it is in the south, which has now been entirely reduced to rubble.

"There were no landmarks to navigate by. You couldn’t see what was a school, what was hospital, what was a home,” he told reporters.

“One of the first shocking things I saw driving in is the dogs going through the rubble. And I said to my colleague who was with me, why are the dogs so fat? And he said, well, because the dogs are looking for corpses. And you notice that the people are thin, and then you see that for miles and miles and miles.”

Egypt's foreign ministry stated that it appreciates US President Donald Trump's remarks affirming that there is no demand for Gaza residents to leave.

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that “no one is expelling anyone from Palestinian territory”, backing off from his threats in a previous proposal where he suggested that Palestinians should be displaced to other states.

The Council on American Islamic Relations criticised US President Donald Trump for referring to Senator Chuck Schumer as a Palestinian, saying the president used the term as a slur.

“Schumer is a Palestinian as far as I’m concerned. He’s become a Palestinian. He used to be Jewish. He’s not Jewish any more. He’s a Palestinian,” Trump said on Tuesday, as he expressed his displeasure with Schumer, the US’s highest-ranking elected Jewish official.

“President Trump’s use of the term ‘Palestinian’ as a racial slur is offensive and beneath the dignity of his office. He should apologize to the Palestinian and American people,” Nihad Awad, national executive director of the organisation said in a statement.

Awad, who is of Palestinian heritage, says Trump’s comments show the “continuing dehumanization” of Palestinians.

“President Trump’s use of the term ‘Palestinian’ as a racial slur is offensive and beneath the dignity of his office. He should apologize to the Palestinian and American people..." @NihadAwad
READ MORE: https://t.co/acP2WDOaQ2 https://t.co/MAYNO4N7MG

— CAIR National (@CAIRNational) March 12, 2025

Good morning, Middle East Eye readers,

Here are some of the latest updates on Israel's war on Gaza:

• The mayor of Florida’s Miami Beach, Steven Meiner, is attempting to terminate his city’s lease agreement with an independent movie theatre after it screened the Israeli-Palestinian documentary No Other Land.

• The Israeli military has stormed the occupied West Bank village of Kafr Labad, east of Tulkarm, and arrested four Palestinian men, the Quds Press Agency reports.

• A US judge has extended an order blocking the Trump administration from deporting Columbia University student, Mahmoud Khalil, who was detained earlier this week over his role in pro-Palestine protests on campus.

• Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence, has decided not to appoint a harsh critic of Israel's war on Gaza to a key intelligence post, the Jewish Insider and New York Times reported.

• Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem welcomed on Wednesday President Trump’s apparent retreat from his proposal for a permanent displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, urging him to refrain from aligning with the vision of the "extreme Zionist right".

• The Israeli forces stormed the occupied West Bank city of Hebron and arrested at least three Palestinian men – including former detainees – according to the Quds News Network.

Our live blog will shortly be closing until tomorrow morning.

Here are the day's key developments:

• Arab foreign ministers presented Egypt's Gaza reconstruction plan, to US President Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, as they agreed to resume consultations on the proposal with him in a meeting in Doha,
• US President Donald Trump said that “no one is expelling anyone from Palestinian territory”, backing off his threats in a previous proposal, where he suggested that Palestinians should be displaced to other states to “re-develop” the Strip. Hamas welcomed Trump’s statements,
• At least six Palestinians were injured in clashes with Israeli forces who have raided in the city of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, according to al-Jazeera Arabic,
• A US judge ordered  that the detained Palestinian Columbia University graduate, Mahmoud Khalil, who was arrested on Saturday night for organising a pro-Palestine protest in campus, would be allowed to have private phone calls with his lawyers. Khalil’s wife issued a statement calling for the “immediate release” of her “kidnapped” husband, while hundreds of protesters demonstrated in front of a court in New York against his detention,
• Hamas has issued a statement saying the group was behind the “operation” in which an Israeli settler was slightly injured in an attack on the Ariel settlement, near the Salfit area, and comes as a response to Israel’s military escalation in the occupied West Bank.
• A Palestinian woman was injured by a sonic grenade, and several Palestinians have suffered from tear gas fired by Israeli forces as settlers raided Joseph’s Tomb, located east of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, according to Wafa news agency. 
• British Prime Minister Keir Starmer denounced Israel’s continuous blockage of aid to Gaza; saying he is “appalled by Israel blocking aid when it is needed at greater volume and speed than it’s ever been needed”.

The wife of the Palestinian Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, who was arrested for organising a pro-Palestine protest on campus, issued a statement on Wednesday demanding his immediate release.

“My husband was kidnapped from our home; and it is shameful that the United States continues to hold him because he stood for the rights and lives of his people,” the statement reads.

She calls for the immediate release of her husband, stating that his disappearance has “devastated” the life of his family and loved ones.

The statement adds: “Our loved ones are struggling with the pain and fear of his sudden absence”.

Earlier, a US judge ruled that the Palestinian activist should be allowed to make private phone calls with his legal team during detention.

Several Palestinians have suffered from tear gas fired by Israeli forces as settlers raided Joseph’s Tomb, located east of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, according to Wafa news agency.

Another Palestinian woman was injured by a sonic grenade.

The agency reported that paramedics dealt with 45-year-old Amid Ahmed who was wounded in the foot, in addition to another three cases of tear gas inhalation.

According to Wafa’s correspondent, Israeli military vehicles stormed the city assisting settlers who stormed Joseph’s Tomb, where the remains of biblical figure Joseph rest.

Hamas has issued a statement saying the group was behind the “operation” on an Israeli settler who was slightly injured after an attack on the Ariel settlement, near the Salfit area in the occupied West Bank.

The group says the attack comes as part of its response to Israel’s military escalation in the occupied West Bank, calling for more operations against Israel.

Earlier, Israeli media out let Haaretz reported that an 18-year-old civilian was moderately wounded by gunfire in a “suspected terrorist attack” and that Israeli forces were searching for the attacker.