Live: UK halts trade deal talks with Israel, summons ambassador over Gaza
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Here are the day's key developments:
- More than 200 Palestinians were killed in Gaza over the past 48 hours, Gaza's Government Media Office said.
- An Israeli attack on homes and tents in Mawasi, west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, killed 25 Palestinians.
- Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said that Hamas had returned to discussions in Doha after Israel launched a deadly military offensive on Gaza.
- Israel's national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, called for seizing and occupying Gaza.
- Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinians in separate incidents in the occupied West Bank.
- An estimated 600,000 people marched through central London to Downing Street on Saturday to commemorate the 77th anniversary of the Nakba.
An Israeli attack on homes and tents in Mawasi, west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, has killed 25 Palestinians.
The dead and injured were taken to the Kuwaiti field hospital and to Nasser Hospital, according to Al Jazeera.
Israel's national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, has called for seizing and occupying Gaza.
"We must now enter Gaza with all our might and finish the job – occupying, seizing the territory, crushing the enemy, and freeing our hostages by force," he said on X.
Ben Gvir claimed that "Hamas’s sudden ‘flexibility’ in the negotiations is not because it suddenly craved peace, but because the [Israeli military] was tightening its grip".
He added that Israel should "press the gas all the way – until Hamas surrenders".
Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinians in separate incidents on Saturday, according to Palestinian authorities in the occupied West Bank.
On Saturday evening, Israeli forces killed a teenager named Nidal al-Shagnubi in Burqa near Nablus. The teenager had thrown stones at vehicles owned by settlers, Haaretz reported.
Earlier on Saturday, Israeli soldiers had killed a 36-year-old man named Nail Sami Abd al-Rahman Samara in Burkin, near Ariel.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has called for "civic revolt" against the Israeli government.
The Times of Israel reported that Barak, who was prime minister from 199 to 2001, made the remarks at an anti-government protest in Tel Aviv.
He said: "A black flag of illegitimacy flies over every one of [the government's] actions, and it’s our civic duty to act in every way possible toward its downfall, before it marches us into the abyss."
Barak also accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of "acting impulsively like a caged animal".
More than 200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza over the past 48 hours, Gaza's Government Media Office has said.
Another 140 people are buried in the debris of buildings destroyed by the Israeli military, the office reported, adding that 1,000 housing units have been destroyed.
"This is a complex crime that constitutes a clear violation of international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions, which require the protection of civilians and the facilitation of rescue operations during times of war," the office said.
An estimated 600,000 people marched through central London to Downing Street on Saturday to commemorate the 77th anniversary of the Nakba.
Protesters came from around the country, including from Wales and northern England.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign said the march was intended to "mark the 77th anniversary of the 1948 Nakba and demand our government take action to end the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land".
Outside Downing Street, the pro-Palestine marchers heard from several speakers, including MP Apsana Begum, Palestinian ambassador Hussam Zumlot and historian William Dalrymple.
Read more: Half a million march to Downing Street to urge Starmer to cut ties with Israel
A Palestinian man has been shot in the leg by Israeli forces near the Jenin refugee camp's entrance in the occupied West Bank.
The man, described by Wafa news agency as elderly, received medical treatment from the Palestine Red Crescent Society.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has said that Hamas has returned to discussions after Israel launched a deadly military offensive on Gaza late on Friday.
“With the launch of Operation Gideon’s Chariots in Gaza, led with great force by the IDF [Israeli army] command, the Hamas delegation in Doha announced a return to negotiations on a hostage deal, contrary to the refusal stance they had taken up until that moment,” Katz said in a statement.
Over 60 Palestinians have been killed since dawn today as a result of the latest Israeli aggression.
Meanwhile, senior Hamas official Taher al-Nono indicated that these negotiations "began without any preconditions from either side".
"Hamas will present its viewpoint on all issues, especially ending the war, withdrawal and prisoner exchange," Nono added.
According to the Israeli Channel 13, an Israeli official said that indirect talks have resumed in Qatar's capital, with Hamas in attendance.
Israel has attacked 68 humanitarian aid and food distribution centres in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war, according to the Gaza government media office.
"This criminal behaviour, which deliberately targets relief and social welfare facilities, confirms beyond doubt that the Israeli occupation is using food as a weapon of war, in flagrant violation of all international laws, most notably the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit the targeting of humanitarian facilities and civilians under any circumstances," a statement by the government office read.
The latest assault targeted a food distribution warehouse in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, killing at least five and injuring many others who had gathered to receive aid.
The media office noted that since 7 October 2023, 39 food and aid distribution centres were targeted alongside 29 food banks that provide daily meals.
"Continued international silence amounts to effective complicity in this slow-motion genocide of a defenceless, besieged people, dying of starvation and bombardment before the eyes of the world," the statement warned, urging international action.
Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), has stressed that there is an imminent danger of famine looming over Gaza's population.
"Don’t reinvent the wheel: putting together new 'plans' is a distraction from the atrocities + a waste of resources," he said in a post on X.
Lazzarini added that humanitarian groups, including the agency he heads, are ready to reach Palestinians in need, urging for Israel's blockade to be lifted.
"Our aid is piled up outside: food will rot, medicines will expire. At the same time, the clock is ticking towards famine. The people of Gaza are dying... Lift the siege. Open the gates. Let us do our jobs."
Don’t reinvent the wheel: putting together new “plans” is a distraction from the atrocities + a waste of resources.
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) May 17, 2025
The humanitarian community in #Gaza, including @UNRWA, is ready. It has the experience & expertise to reach people in need.
Our aid is piled up outside: food… https://t.co/SsxSsnTLT1
Israeli bombardment across the Gaza Strip has killed over 153 people and wounded 459 others in just the past day, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
The death toll from Israel's war on Gaza has risen to 53,272, with more than 120,673 injured since 7 October 2023.
Hamas has demanded that Arab countries assume their "historical responsibilities" and take steps to end Israel's war and siege on Gaza.
In a statement coinciding with the 34th Arab League summit convening in Iraq, the Palestinian movement called on neighbouring countries to "stop the genocide in Gaza and impose urgent sanctions on the fascist occupation".
"What is happening is a full-blown genocide being perpetrated before the eyes of a world that stands helpless, while more than two and a half million people are being slaughtered in the besieged Strip," the statement added.
The Gaza government media office is warning of widespread famine among Gaza's population of 2.4 million people, including 1.1 million children, after Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza for the past 77 days.
The death toll from malnutrition and starvation has risen to 57 reported deaths, with most of the cases involving children.
"This grave humanitarian reality no longer bears description or analysis. Rather, it calls for urgent and serious action from the international community, as well as humanitarian and human rights organizations, to halt this open crime and end the policy of collective punishment," the media office said in a statement on Saturday.
The office added that US President Donald Trump's acknowledgement of starvation in the besieged enclave "had no tangible impact on the ground".
"Instead, they have been merely media statements, a waste of time, and completely in line with the occupation's policy, which is to perpetuate starvation, genocide, and the normalization of the slow death of civilians," the statement said, holding the US president and Israel directly responsible for the starvation of Palestinians.
On Friday, Trump said that "a lot of people are starving" in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Trump's brief remarks on Gaza came at the conclusion of his first foreign tour since beginning his second term in office. The trip included stops in several Gulf countries but notably excluded Israel, a key US ally.
"We're looking at Gaza. And we're going to get that taken care of. A lot of people are starving," Trump told reporters in Abu Dhabi.
Unicef has called for an end to violence in Gaza following the killing of at least 45 children in the past two days.
“The reported killing of at least 45 children in the Gaza Strip in the last two days is yet another devastating reminder that children in Gaza are suffering first and foremost, having to starve day after day only to be victims of indiscriminate attacks," the agency said in a statement.
It added that over 950 children were killed in Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip in just the past two months and stressed that the "daily suffering and killing of children must end immediately”.
