Live: Israel kills more than 430 Palestinians on Tuesday
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A new Gallup poll has found that fewer than half of all Americans are now sympathetic to Israel.
The percentage of Americans overall who sympathise with Palestinians, thirty-three percent, is at its highest recorded level.
Of Democrats, 59 percent sympathise more with Palestinians compared to 21 percent of Democrats who sympathise more with Israelis - the lowest recorded level.
"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.
"The previous 51% low point in this trend of Americans’ sympathy for Israelis was recorded both last year and in 2001."
Hamas has no future in Gaza, US President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff told reporters on Thursday.
He took several questions from reporters outside the White House and confirmed he would be back in the region next week for discussions on the future of the ceasefire in Gaza.
"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, and that is implicit in the May 27 protocol agreement pursuant to which these negotiations are happening. So I think they have to understand that, if they understand that, they get a path to leave."
That 27 May agreement was the very same ceasefire deal in place now, but put forward eight months earlier by the Biden administration, and agreed to by Hamas but rejected by Israel.
Hamas has said it accepts it may not govern Gaza in the post-war period, but it rejects the notion of laying down its arms.
"We feel that Hamas has not been forthright with us, and it's time for them to be forthright with us," Witkoff said, acknowledging that US hostage affairs envoy Adam Boehler has been meeting with the group in Doha.
American captive Eden Alexander, still held in Gaza, "would be a very important show", Witkoff said, "so we'll see, we'll see how they're going to react."
On the Egyptian proposal to counter Trump's "riviera" idea for Gaza, Witkoff said:
"I just finished reading it. There's a lot of compelling features to it. We need more discussion about it but it's a good faith first step from the Egyptians. And I think the larger point is that President Trump is now encouraging what he's talking about in Gaza, is now encouraging the people in the Middle East... to present proactive proposals for what we might consider. And that's what we're doing, we're considering, we're evaluating everything there. So it's a little bit early to comment."
On Trump's stunning social media post threatening to kill all Gazans, Witkoff responded:
"I don't want to put words to this mouth, but I think it's fairly clear. He was saying, 'I've had enough.' Like there's a lot of mistreatment, there's a lot of conversation among these hostages about the deprivation that they went through, about murders that they saw, and I think that the president had listened to it, absorbed it, and said this: 'It's unacceptable. I'm not going to tolerate this type of behaviour'."
Switzerland has cancelled a conference on the application of the Geneva Conventions to the occupied Palestinian territories for want of participants, four diplomatic sources told the Reuters news agency on Thursday, after some countries expressed dissatisfaction.
The country had invited 196 parties to the conventions to participate in the 7 March conference in Geneva on the situation of civilians living in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, but then told them the gathering had been cancelled.
The conference was set to address the Fourth Geneva Convention, part of a series of international treaties agreed in 1949 after World War Two, which defines humanitarian protections for civilians living in areas of armed conflict or occupation.
The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Ibrahim Khraishi, told Reuters earlier that his delegation did not plan to attend the event, criticising a draft document circulated among participants.
"We want the international community to take concrete measures and this fell short of expectations," he told Reuters, saying such measures could include economic or diplomatic steps against Israel. "What we want is for the Geneva Conventions to be implemented."
A member of The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation said that the group had also planned to miss the event, saying the document "did not reflect the gravity of the situation".
Reporting by Reuters
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.
In a 12-minute video posted to Telegram, Abu Obeida said the captives' "families and the whole world will be sure to know that the occupation caused [their] deaths".
"What the enemy did not take in war, aggression, and genocide, it will never take" in another round of bombardment, Abu Obeida said, adding that only moving on to the next phase of the ceasefire agreement would release the Israeli captives.
"The blatant lies of the fascist war criminal [Benjamin] Netanyahu and his government fool no one," he added, calling Israel's "threats... of siege and starvation.... a dirty war crime."
The al-Qassam Brigades is ready to "break what remains of the alleged prestige of the enemy army", should Israel resume its war on Gaza, he warned.
Hamas has hit back at US President Donald Trump's controversial statement where he threatened Gaza's population with death if Israeli captives were not released.
Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem said in a statement to the Anadolu Agency that Trump's threats and his overall rejection of a truce deal complicate the situation.
"These threats complicate matters regarding the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip, and encourage the occupation government not to implement the agreement," Qassem said.
"There is a ceasefire agreement that was signed, and the United States was one of the mediating countries. The agreement stipulates the release of all prisoners over three stages, and Hamas has implemented what it was required to do in the first stage."
READ MORE: Hamas says Trump’s threats to Palestinians in Gaza ‘complicate’ ceasefire
France welcomed on Thursday an Arab plan to rebuild the Gaza Strip under the future administration of the Palestinian Authority, adding that Hamas should be "entirely" excluded from running the territory.
The proposal from Arab leaders "constitutes a serious and credible basis to respond to reconstruction, governance and security needs after the Gaza war," French foreign ministry spokesman Christophe Lemoine said.
But "the plan must entirely exclude Hamas from governing Gaza, where it must be disarmed and give Israel serious security guarantees".
Egypt’s 91-page plan for the future of Gaza, unveiled at an extraordinary Arab League summit in Cairo this week, makes no mention of Hamas.
The proposal sets out a $53bn budget and a five-year timescale for the reconstruction of the Palestinian enclave, devastated by 15 months of Israeli war. It also outlines a vision for post-war governance in Gaza.
Arab states, including Egypt, are proposing their own alternative to a plan to forcibly expel Palestinians from Gaza proposed by US President Donald Trump.
Cairo's plan states that for the first six months, the territory would be run by a non-partisan technocratic committee, overseen by the Palestinian Authority (PA).
READ MORE: What does Egypt’s post-war Gaza plan mean for Hamas?
The UN's top expert on judicial independence has called on the European Union to act to protect the International Criminal Court (ICC) from US sanctions.
In an interview with Middle East Eye, the UN special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers Meg Satterthwaite condemned Trump’s executive order of 6 February, which sanctioned the ICC’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan over his investigation into top Israeli officials.
By issuing the sanctions, the US is "placing itself on the side of impunity when what we need to do is ensure accountability for the worst crimes," she explained.
The order came after a visit to the White House by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the ICC over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Gaza since October 2023.
READ MORE: UN rapporteur urges EU to use legal powers to protect ICC from Trump sanctions
The Israeli army said it carried out a drone strike on the Gaza Strip on Thursday, saying it targeted people who were planting bombs near its troops.
It did not provide evidence for the claim.
At least one person was reportedly killed in the strike.
Israel is set to deploy some 3,000 additional police officers in occupied East Jerusalem ahead of the first Friday prayer at the al-Aqsa Mosque during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians are expected to make the trip to attend the prayers, with additional Israeli police to be dispatched around the Old City and at checkpoints.
An Israeli air strike targeted a group of Palestinians in the Shuja’iyya neighbourhood, east of Gaza City, killing one civilian and wounding several others, according to Al Jazeera Arabic.
Israeli army radio confirmed the attack, stating, “The air force raided a target in the Shuja’iyya neighbourhood in the northern Gaza Strip a short while ago.”
In what is his most jaw-dropping statement on Gaza yet, Donald Trump took to his social media platform TruthSocial on Wednesday and threatened all two million Palestinians in the Strip with death, should the Israeli captives held by the al-Qassam Brigades and other fighting factions there not be released.
“‘Shalom Hamas’ means Hello and Goodbye - You can choose,” Trump began his post, using the Hebrew greeting equivalent to the Arabic ‘Salam’.
“Release all of the Hostages now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered, or it is OVER for you,” he warned. “Only sick and twisted people keep bodies, and you are sick and twisted!”
The US president said he is “sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job.”
On Friday, the Trump administration notified Congress that it had approved a nearly $3bn weapons sale to Israel, which includes 2,000-pound ‘bunker-buster’ bombs previously suspended by the Biden administration.
Read more: Donald Trump threatens Palestinians in Gaza with death in stunning social media post
The Palestinian Center for Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons has condemned Israel’s practice of withholding approximately 1,500 Palestinian bodies, including 665 documented cases, in refrigerators and numbered graves—some dating back to the 1960s and 1970s.
"All bodies held by the Israeli occupation must be released immediately and their families must be allowed to bury them with dignity in accordance with religious and humanitarian customs and tradition," said the organisation.
The centre called for international accountability for Israel’s crimes of body detention and enforced disappearances, criticising US President Donald Trump and the global community for applying double standards.
"The crime of withholding bodies exposes the cowardly international position that overlooks Israel’s flagrant violations of international law at a time when Trump threatens genocide in Gaza," it added.
The centre urged Trump to hold Israel to the same standards he demands of Gaza, stressing that justice must be impartial and consistent.
Egyptian sources revealed on Thursday that a US envoy held overnight discussions with Hamas leaders and mediators from Egypt and Qatar, concluding on a positive note, reported Reuters.
The talks reportedly signal an imminent shift to the second phase of a ceasefire agreement with Israel.
The discussions also addressed post-war governance in Gaza, including potential candidates to oversee the territory.
