Live: Israel kills more than 430 Palestinians on Tuesday

The Muslim world will be asked to throw its weight behind an Arab counter-plan to US President Donald Trump's widely condemned proposal to take over Gaza at an emergency meeting on Friday.

Foreign ministers from the 57-member Organisation for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) will meet at its headquarters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, three days after the Arab League endorsed Egypt's alternative plan for Gaza.

At Tuesday's summit in Cairo, Arab leaders backed the proposal to rebuild the Gaza Strip under the future administration of the Palestinian Authority.

However, the plan, which does not outline a role for Hamas, which controls Gaza, was rejected by both the United States and Israel.

Reported by AFP

Israeli settlers raised Israeli flags near the tents of Palestinian residents in Khirbet Samra, northern Jordan Valley, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Local sources said the settlers stormed the area, raising flags near the residents' tents, raising concerns about further land seizures. Earlier that night, settlers roamed amongst the tents, with some residents feeling intimidated.

The Israeli army is set to permit groups of ultra-Orthodox Jews to visit the tomb of Rabbi Rav Ashi, traditionally located in Lebanese territory near the Lebanese-Israeli border, according to the Israeli media outlet i24 News.

Unifil spokesperson Kandice Adriel told L'Orient Today that: "Any unauthorised crossing of the Blue line is a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701."

The UN Blue Line, established in 2000, demarcates the boundary between Lebanese and Israeli territories following Israel's withdrawal from its 20-year occupation of southern Lebanon.

Israeli forces and settlers carried out 187 violations against Bedouin communities in the occupied West Bank last month, a report by the Organization for the Defence of Bedouin Rights has revealed.

The report details incidents across several areas, including 39 violations in Hebron, 18 in Bethlehem, 33 in Tubas, and 21 each in Ramallah, Salfit, and Qalqilya. Other violations were reported in Nablus, Jericho, the Jordan Valley, and East Jerusalem.

The violations included assaults on civilians, destruction of property, livestock theft, burning of homes and agricultural equipment, demolitions, and the uprooting of trees. Additionally, new roads were constructed as part of the ongoing illegal settler expansion.

Israeli forces detained 13 Palestinians on Friday during a military incursion into Al-Fawwar camp and the towns of Dura and Kharas in the Hebron governorate in the occupied West Bank, Wafa news agency reported.

According to security and local sources, the forces stormed Al-Fawwar camp, raided several homes, and detained freed detainee Fares Adel al-Titi along with other young men, after severely beating them.

In Dura, at least seven young men were detained, and in Kharas, a young man was arrested during a military raid.

Additionally, the Israeli forces continued to block access to Hebron by sealing towns, camps, and entrances with iron gates and earth mounds, while tightening military measures in the Old City, near the Ibrahimi Mosque, and at military checkpoints.

Israeli authorities refused to hand over all sections of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron’s Old City in the occupied West Bank, as is customary on Fridays during Ramadan, the Palestinian Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs announced, according to Wafa.

In a statement today, the Ministry called the move a “dangerous and unprecedented” step, particularly given its timing during Ramadan. It described the decision as part of a systematic effort to obstruct full access to the mosque’s halls and courtyards for Muslim worshippers.

The Ministry explained that, traditionally, on the first Friday of Ramadan, its Director and custodians assume full responsibility for the mosque, preparing it for unrestricted access. However, this year, officials were shocked when Israeli authorities blocked entry to the Eastern Gate, the designated area for female worshippers during Friday prayers.

This marks a significant departure from past practice, where the mosque was fully accessible to Muslims on Fridays during Ramadan. The ministry warned that if the restriction remains, it could signal a permanent shift in control, with Israeli authorities gradually imposing further limitations over the site.

The Trump administration’s cuts to USAID have frozen hundreds of millions of dollars in contractual payments to aid groups, leaving them with no funds to abide by the terms set by the ceasefire agreement, the Associated Press (AP) has found.

Two senior officials at aid organisations told AP that they did not receive any of the promised funds, after spending millions of dollars on supplies and services. They said they could not afford to continue aid operations indefinitely.

That could imperil the ceasefire, under which Hamas is supposed to release captives held in Gaza in exchange for Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners and ramping up the entry of humanitarian assistance.

Before Trump took office, USAID had roughly $446m to disperse to partner organisations in Gaza in 2025, USAID officials said.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged the international community not to sideline the crisis in Gaza while focusing on Ukraine, warning that multiple global conflicts require attention.

“We must recognise that today’s world faces multiple crises, not just the Ukraine conflict. The situation in Gaza also demands international focus and must not be marginalised,” Wang said at a press conference.

He also cautioned that any attempt to alter Gaza’s status would only fuel further instability. While Israel has long been established as a state, he noted, a Palestinian state remains far from realisation, calling for efforts to support its creation.

“Gaza and the West Bank are the homeland of the Palestinian people, not a bargaining chip in political trade-offs. Palestinians governing Palestine is a key principle that must be upheld in post-conflict governance,” he added.

Good morning, Middle East Eye readers,

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

• Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi on Friday called for a "lasting ceasefire" in Gaza at a press conference in Beijing.

• A major Israeli offensive which over several weeks has displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians and ravaged refugee camps in the occupied West Bank increasingly appears to be aligned with the "vision of annexation" of the West Bank, a UN official told AFP.

• Only male Palestinians 55 and older, women who are at least 50-years-old and children 12 or younger from the West Bank will be allowed to enter Jerusalem to attend the first Friday prayers in Ramadan after receiving a permit from Israeli authorities, The Times of Israel reported, citing a statement from the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office.

• Support for Israel is at a 25-year low, and backing for the Palestinians is at a record high, according to a poll released by Gallup.

• Hundreds of Harvard University students are getting ready to protest former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's speech scheduled to take place on Thursday at an event hosted by the Israel Business Club, Haaretz reported.

Our liveblog will shortly be closing until tomorrow morning.

Here are the day's key developments:

- An open letter published by a senior Hamas official on Thursday is asking US President Donald Trump to meet with freed Palestinian prisoners from Israeli detention. Trump met with several former Israeli captives at the White House on Wednesday, and reportedly heard stories so enraging about their experience, that he then took to social media and threatened to kill all residents of Gaza.

- The new US State Department spokesperson on Thursday effectively admitted that President Donald Trump's remarks last month about turning Gaza into a US-run beach resort were a negotiating tactic aimed at generating "new ideas".

- Hamas has no future in Gaza, US President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff told reporters on Thursday. "Hamas has an opportunity to act reasonably, to do what's right, and then to walk out," Witkoff said. "They're not going to be a part of a government there. Everybody understands that."

- The spokesperson for the Qassam Brigades - Hamas's military wing - said on Thursday that should Israel return to war in Gaza, it will risk the lives of the remaining living captives. 

- The situation on the ground in Gaza isn't safe enough for Israel to allow aid trucks in - and that's why it has stopped doing so, the new US State Department spokesperson told reporters on Thursday. Asked about the Trump administration's position on Israel's withholding of food and other basic needs for Palestinians, Tammy Bruce - holding her first briefing - indicated that it's Hamas that makes conditions too dangerous for aid to be delivered. Amnesty has called Israel's blockade a war crime. 

- The US State Department plans to use artifical intelligence to revoke the visas of foreign students who are deemed "pro-Hamas," Axios reported on Thursday, citing senior State Department officials. The program will comb through social media posts since 7 October, 2023. 

- A new Gallup poll has found that fewer than half of all Americans are now sympathetic to Israel. "Although Americans remain more likely to say their sympathies in the Middle East situation are with the Israelis rather than the Palestinians, the 46% expressing support for Israel is the lowest in 25 years of Gallup’s annual tracking of this measure on its World Affairs survey," the report said.

An open letter published by a senior Hamas official on Thursday is asking US President Donald Trump to meet with freed Palestinian prisoners from Israeli detention. 

Trump met with several former Israeli captives at the White House on Wednesday, and reportedly heard stories so enraging about their experience, that he then took to social media and threatened to kill all residents of Gaza if the remaining Israeli captives were not released. 

"Mr President: Why not consider meeting freed Palestinian prisoners as well?" Basem Naim, a member of the Hamas Political Bureau, wrote. 

"Over 9,500 Palestinian prisoners are languishing in Israeli occupation prisons across 23 detention centers under dire conditions, characterised by the deprivation of basic rights, denial of family visits, and ongoing psychological and physical torture," Naim said. "Among these prisoners are approximately 5,000 who are ill and denied even the most basic healthcare services, 21 women, more than 365 children, and 726 individuals who have spent over 20 years of their lives in captivity."

Naim also points out that Israeli authorities are holding the remains of 665 deceased Palestinians, given Trump's insistence that Hamas is "sick and twisted" for holding onto the remains of dead Israeli captives. 

"This count does not include the remains of martyrs from Gaza since the beginning of the genocidal war, for which accurate information is lacking, though Hebrew sources indicate that over 1,500 bodies of Palestinian martyrs from Gaza are being held at the 'Sde Teiman' concentration camp in southern occupied Palestine," Naim wrote. 

"We invite President Trump to show the same level of respect to freed Palestinian political prisoners and allocate the time to meet and listen to their stories."
 

The US State Department plans to use artifical intelligence to revoke the visas of foreign students who are deemed "pro-Hamas," Axios reported on Thursday, citing senior State Department officials.

The project, launched by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, will see "AI-assisted reviews of tens of thousands of student visa holders' social media accounts [and] marks a dramatic escalation in the US government's policing of foreign nationals' conduct and speech," Axios said.

It added that reviews of social media accounts "are particularly looking for evidence of alleged terrorist sympathies" expressed after Hamas' 7 October, 2023 attack on southern Israel, officials told Axios.

"We found literally zero visa revocations during the Biden administration," one official was quoted as saying, ".. which suggests a blind eye attitude toward law enforcement."

US President Donald Trump on Thursday confirmed that his special envoy for hostage affairs held direct talks with Hamas recently about gaining the release of captives held in Gaza.

Trump, talking to reporters in the Oval Office, said the effort is aimed at helping Israel and that the US would not pay for the release of captives. 

It's unclear if that was ever a notion that Hamas entertained, given the group's goal of emptying all of Israel's prisons of Palestinians by way of captive swaps. 

The new US State Department spokesperson on Thursday effectively admitted that President Donald Trump's remarks last month about turning Gaza into a US-run beach resort were a negotiating tactic aimed at generating "new ideas".

In responding to a question about where Washington stands on the Egyptian proposal for a post-war Gaza - one designed to counter Trump's suggestion - Tammy Bruce told reporters:

"We know that the president, in his comments about a new way forward, et cetera, was an invitation for new ideas, and that seemed to have spurred some new ideas, but we also know that they have not really been seen as being adequate for the nature of what it is that we've been asking for." 

The conversations with Arab partners, she said, "clearly will have to continue".

"No one wins. No one is winning here in this framework. And so regarding the Arab solution, the Arab deal via Egypt, that's what I have for you right now is that it does not meet the expectations," Bruce said. 

The situation on the ground in Gaza isn't safe enough for Israel to allow aid trucks in - and that's why it has stopped doing so, the new US State Department spokesperson told reporters on Thursday.

Amnesty has described the Israeli decision as a war crime. 

Asked about the Trump administration's position on Israel's withholding of food and other basic needs for Palestinians, Tammy Bruce - holding her first briefing - indicated that it's Hamas that makes conditions too dangerous for aid to be delivered. 

"Aid can only be delivered in a safe framework, so as long as it is something that is unsafe or we can't guarantee the safety of something moving in, that is going to be stopped," she said.

"It is not a withholding, but it certainly feels it's a reflection of the framework of the situation on the ground," she added.

"The hostages have got to be released. They need to be released now, the bodies they are holding, everything, everyone needs to be released. And without doing that, there is no path forward," she continued, indicating that the Israeli blockade is indeed being used to squeeze Hamas.

"Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio has made clear that as long as Hamas exists in that area, with a gun, without a gun, as long as they are a factor in Gaza and exist, there is no way forward," Bruce told reporters.