Live: UK halts trade deal talks with Israel, summons ambassador over Gaza

Israel's fire and rescue services announced on Thursday it has managed to contain the wildfires that had broken out in forests surrounding Jerusalem.

The wildfires broke out on Wednesday, and it is estimated that approximately 5,000 acres (20,000 dunams) had been burned in what is being referred to as one of the largest wildfires in the country’s history.

Israel's meteorological service had issued a warning for several days that wildfires would break out on Wednesday.

The government has been criticised for not doing enough to prepare for wildfires.

However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed on Thursday that 18 individuals had been detained on suspicion of arson in connection with the ongoing wildfires. However, police sources speaking to Israeli media disputed the figure, stating that only three arrests had been made. Dozens of wildfires break out daily in open areas across Israel. Under the prevailing weather conditions and dry vegetation, the fires spread rapidly.

Right-wing politicians often try to blame Palestinians for the wildfires, but after investigations by Israeli authorities, previous allegations have been dropped, with negligence instead being deemed the cause. 

Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian residents of the village of Asira al-Qibliya, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, according to the Wafa news agency.

Hafez Saleh, head of the Asira al-Qibliya Village Council, reported that the settlers, accompanied by the Israeli military, targeted Palestinian residents west of the village. Witnesses heard gunfire, and settlers reportedly prevented Palestinians from accessing the area. No injuries have been reported yet.

Israeli settler violence has escalated in the occupied West Bank, and residents in rural communities face daily threats to their safety, land and livelihoods.

Israeli settlers destroyed solar panels and water pumps belonging to a Palestinian resident of Khirbet al-Deir, a hamlet in the Jordan Valley in the northeast of the occupied West Bank, Wafa news agency reported on Thursday.

Local human rights activist Aref Daraghmeh reported that the settlers damaged the solar energy panels and water pumps belonging to Abdul Hakim Daraghmeh, which are used for farming and household needs.

The area has been targeted for months, with Israeli settlers and military repeatedly targeting solar panels, water pumps, and irrigation networks. These systems are critical for cultivating the land and sustaining local Palestinian communities.

An Israeli drone attack has killed two people in Gaza City, according to Al Jazeera.

A child was among the victims of the attack on the Shujaiya district.

Lebanon's health ministry said one person was killed in an Israeli drone strike on a vehicle in the country's south on Thursday, despite a fragile ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, AFP reported.

The ministry said in a statement that an "Israeli enemy" drone strike on a vehicle in the southern town of Mais al-Jabal killed one Lebanese national and wounded two Syrians.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said 18 people had been detained on suspicion of arson in connection with wildfires that have swept through parts of the country, according to Israel’s Arutz Sheva media outlet.

But a police source, quoted by Israeli Army Radio, denied the claim, saying: “We have not arrested 18 people on suspicion of setting fires in Jerusalem.”

Nearly 3,000 aid trucks loaded with lifesaving supplies are waiting outside Gaza, the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees said on X. 

"One million children depend on aid, and without it, their lives are in danger. The crossings must reopen, and the siege must be lifted," the agency said.

Since Israel imposed its longest-ever total blockade on Gaza over 60 days ago, no food or medical supplies have reached the territory's 2.3 million residents.

Nearly 3,000 UNRWA trucks with lifesaving supplies are waiting outside #Gaza. But the siege blocking their entry continues.

1️⃣ million children depend on aid, and without it, their lives are in danger.

The crossings must reopen, and the siege must be lifted.… pic.twitter.com/L5nADD2ydH

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) April 30, 2025

Israeli military veterans and activists staged a protest installation reading "NOW!" on the beach outside the US embassy branch office in Tel Aviv, calling on President Donald Trump to fulfil his promise to facilitate the release of Israeli captives, Haaretz reported.

The demonstration, organised by reserve soldiers and civil society groups, is part of a campaign that includes open letters signed by more than 150,000 people urging the return of the captives and an end to Israel's war on Gaza.

At least 14 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in the Gaza Strip since dawn, Al Jazeera reported.

According to the reporter Hani Mahmoud, three people killed in a Khan Younis drone attack were farmers trying to grow food amid acute shortages across Gaza.

Nikolai Ashurov, an Israeli commander accused of ordering and taking part in the killing of 15 paramedics, rescue workers and UN staff in Rafah, has surfaced in the DRC Congo as a mercenary training local forces, Al-Quds newspaper reported.

On 30 March, the Palestinian Civil Defence said the bodies of 15 paramedics, rescue workers and UN staff were found in a mass grave in Rafah, each with around 20 gunshot wounds. They had gone missing a week earlier after responding to a distress call.

A legal draft reviewed by Al-Quds and compiled by legal experts from the New York-based Pal Commission, which included military records, social media activity and multiple interactions with acquaintances and soldiers connected to the officer, proved that Ashurov ordered the ambulances to be fired at indiscriminately as soon as they passed, the report said.

According to an eyewitness, Dr Saeed al-Bardawil, who was detained by Israeli forces and witnessed the crime first-hand, Ashurov himself opened fire on a UN vehicle, killing Kamal Shahtout, the UN field security officer in Rafah.

Three days after he was discharged from the Israeli military, Ashurov went to work for a private security company in DRC Congo, Al-Quds reported. 

At least seven people were killed in Israeli air strikes across Gaza since dawn, Al Jazeera reported.

The outlet said three were killed in shelling on Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip.

A group of Israeli settlers attacked the property of a Palestinian family near the Hamra military checkpoint in the northern Jordan Valley late last night, stealing dozens of livestock, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported, citing local sources.

The settlers also damaged solar panels, destroyed tents, and slashed the tires of water tankers before fleeing with the livestock, the report said.

In recent weeks, attacks by settlers on Palestinian residents and their property have intensified, with repeated livestock thefts forming part of a broader pattern of harassment, the locals say, aimed at driving Palestinians out of the Jordan Valley.

According to local sources, Israeli forces have tightened their military measures on Thursday at the Tayasir and Hamra military checkpoints in the northern Jordan Valley, blocking Palestinians from crossing in either direction.

The number of children receiving treatment for malnutrition in Gaza rose by 80 percent in April compared to March due to Israel’s ongoing blockade and the closure of border crossings, the United Nations humanitarian affairs office (OCHA) said on Wednesday.

OCHA reported that 92 percent of children aged six months to two years, along with their mothers, are not receiving the minimum required nutrition, and that 65 percent of Gaza’s population lacks access to clean drinking water.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth warned Iran on Wednesday that it will face consequences for supporting the Houthis, a group that controls northern Yemen and has struck shipping in the Red Sea in what it says is solidarity with the Palestinians.

"Message to IRAN: We see your LETHAL support to The Houthis. We know exactly what you are doing," Hegseth wrote on X.

"You know very well what the US Military is capable of — and you were warned. You will pay the CONSEQUENCE at the time and place of our choosing."

Iran's leader has previously said that Yemen's Houthis act independently.

Good morning, Middle East Eye readers,

Here are the key developments overnight:

• Four current and former University of Texas at Austin students sued the college and Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Wednesday, alleging they faced unlawful arrest and retaliatory discipline for demonstrating against Israel's assault on Gaza.

• Haaretz reported that Yehuda Cohen, father of the csptive Nimrod Cohen, said Wednesday that the far-right extremists in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government are taking advantage of the events of October 7, 2023, "to conquer Gaza and establish settlements."

• US President Donald Trump suggested on Wednesday his government may stop giving grants to Harvard University, which has refused to concede to his demands regarding hiring, administration and speech regulation.

• Israeli settlers set Palestinian agricultural land on fire in the occupied West Bank, according to a security source cited by Haaretz.

• Palestinian designer Mariam Muhammad Karaz died from injuries sustained in an earlier Israeli air strike on a cafeteria in Deir al-Balah, while a fresh strike overnight killed Abdul Rahman Muhammad Al-Maghari in the Al-Mawasi area west of Khan Younis, according to the Palestinian Information Center.