Live: 54 Palestinians killed, 831 wounded in 24 hours

The Palestinian Mujahideen Movement has condemned the Israeli prime minister’s comments that he is attached to the vision of “Greater Israel”, saying it threatens the Arab states.

The Palestinian group said the statement threatens "Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon in a clear indication of the premeditated aggressive intentions towards the nations".

"These statements are a blatant aggression against the sovereignty of the Arab states and Arab national security. Accordingly, we call for taking clear Arab positions towards these criminal Zionist intentions and plans."

Greater Israel refers to a concept envisioning Israel’s desired territory, including present-day Israel, the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, Gaza, the Golan Heights, the Sinai Peninsula, and, in early Zionist visions, parts of Jordan. 

Israeli air strikes killed seven Palestinians, including five children, at displaced people’s tents south of Gaza City, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said on Wednesday.

Al Jazeera reported, citing medical sources, that they were among 12 Palestinians killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza since dawn on Wednesday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he feels he is “very” attached to the vision of a "Greater Israel," including parts of present-day Gaza, Jordan and Egypt.

Netanyahu said he is “on a mission of generations. There are generations of Jews who dreamt of coming here and generations of Jews who will come after us”, during an interview with the Israeli broadcaster i24.

Answering a question of whether he is on a mission on behalf of the Jewish people, Netanyahu replied: "If you’re asking if I have a sense of mission, historically and spiritually, the answer is yes."

The term "Greater Israel" has historically been used to refer to Israel and territories occupied in the 1967 Six-Day War, as well as areas envisioned by some early Zionists.

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Tuesday strongly condemned Israel’s plan to impose full military control over Gaza and reaffirmed its support for a two-state solution.

"We consider this announcement a dangerous and unacceptable escalation, a flagrant violation of international law and an attempt to entrench the illegal occupation and impose a fait accompli by force in contravention of international law, international humanitarian law and relevant United Nations resolutions," Turkey's deputy UN envoy Fikriye Asli Guven told reporters on behalf of the OIC.

"We demand the immediate and comprehensive cessation of the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip," she said, demanding that Israel "immediately and unconditionally allow the entry of humanitarian assistance at scale into the Gaza Strip, including food, medicine, and fuel".

Guven also said Israel's killing of journalists in Gaza "is a deliberate policy to silence the journalists, but we are all aware that the truth cannot be silenced".

The Wafa news agency reports that Israeli forces shot and killed at least four people near Deir el-Balah in central Gaza on Wednesday morning.

Another attack in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood killed at least three people, Wafa said.

Good morning Middle East Eye readers.

Here are the most recent key developments:

• Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday revived calls to "allow" Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip, as the military prepares a broader offensive in the territory.

• New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said on Wednesday that Netanyahu had “lost the plot” as the country weighs up whether to recognise a Palestinian state.

• A US judge on Tuesday ordered President Donald Trump's administration to restore a part of the federal grant funding that it recently suspended for the University of California, Los Angeles, after Trump had threatened to cut federal funds for universities over student protests against Israel's war on Gaza.

• United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned Israel on Tuesday that he has significant concerns about patterns of certain forms of sexual violence by its armed and security forces, according to a report seen by Reuters.

• Norway's sovereign wealth fund is expected to further reduce its holdings in Israeli assets, a senior fund official said Tuesday, a day after announcing it had sold additional parts of its portfolio in the country due to the war.

• Israel is in talks with South Sudan about the potential resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza, six sources told the Associated Press.

Hala Qreiqeh, the widow of murdered Al Jazeera journalist Mohammed Qreiqeh says his killing had "shaken her deeply," and that he was a kind, loving father and husband.

"The murder of Mohammed was a devastating shock. His killing has shaken me deeply," she said in a video broadcast by Al Jazeera on Tuesday.

"I can hardly express the pain. He loved life and was committed to providing then with the best upbringing

"My message to the world, as a woman, is this: Please stop killing our spouses. I do not want any other woman to lose her husband or endure the suffering I have gone through".

Israel's president Isaac Herzog has been welcomed to Latvia by pro-Palestinian demonstrators during his two-day visit to the country. 

Herzog is visiting Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia in order to make alliances with European countries that are less 'hostile' than Western European ones, according to the Jerusalem Post.

His visit comes a month after foreign minister Gideon Saar visited the same three countries.

A police task force in Sweden investigating war crimes in Gaza has received more than 700 reports since the start of Israel's war on the enclave, Radio Sweden reported on Tuesday. 

Any of the testimonies received could be used in court proceedings in Sweden or abroad, or by international bodies such as the International Criminal Court.

Prosecutor Reena Devgun said a number of investigations have been initiated, but did not want to specify the types of crime or whether there are any Swedish suspects.

Israel's opposition leader has backed calls for a strike on Sunday in support of captives being held in Gaza. 

In a post on X on Tuesday, Yair Lapid urged Israelis to go on strike "because the families have asked, and that’s reason enough" and "no one has a monopoly on emotions, on mutual responsibility, on Jewish values".

Around 20 captives are said to still be alive in Gaza, and family members have called for a strike on Sunday, the first day of the working week in Israel.

"Go on strike even if you think differently about the war, about the reserves, about the draft-dodging law," Lapid said.

"It won’t make you less right-wing, only more human. We don’t need to carry all our opinions everywhere; we can simply pause for one day and say that this is terrible, and it’s sad... Go on strike so that people know that you, too, were shattered watching Avitar’s video, that the shock doesn’t belong to any one side, that identifying with the families is not a political stance. Go on strike so that for at least one day, it’s clear that we still have a shared good. That being Israeli means, first and foremost, having a heart".

Authorities at Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza's Khan Younis are appealing for burial shrouds as the increasing number of fatalities means there is a current shortage, Al Jazeera reported on Tuesday. 

The hospital’s laundry department warned that an increasing shortage of shrouds will mean people who have been killed will be brought out and buried uncovered. 

Both Muslim and Christian Palestinians are typically buried in shrouds. 

Hararetz columnist Gideon Levy told Al Jazeera that the average Israeli is not exposed to the truth of what is happening in Gaza in an interview on Tuesday.

Describing journalistic peers in Israel, Levy said: "They think they stick to journalistic principles. They are totally convinced that quoting the army spokesperson is journalism. They are totally convinced that serving propaganda is journalism. Those people don't understand what journalism is. I'm not sure they will understand soon.

"Unlike in Russia...the media in Israel is free..

"The average Israeli who watches TV and reads mainstream media is not exposed to the truth. They are exposed to non-stop brainwashing. Anas al-Sharif [Al Jazeera journalist] is the best example of all. If you open Israeli media, either they did not report it at all, or they call him a terrorist. This is not journalism. It's propaganda".

The Israeli military killed six Palestinian journalists in a targeted drone strike on Sunday.

Multimedia reporter Marina Watanabe has accused US media of being "complicit" in the deaths of five Al Jazeera staff who the Israeli military killed in an intentional drone strike while they were in a media tent stationed outside of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.

In a post on X on Monday, the former LA Times reporter said the publication had prevented her and 100 of her colleagues from covering Palestine for three months:

"Shortly after the Gaza genocide began, I signed an open letter demanding that Israel stop killing journalists. @latimes [LA Times] punished me and 100 of my colleagues and banned us from covering Palestine for 3 months. I will never forgive US media for its complicity in their deaths".

US publications such as The New York Times, CNN and others have been under fire for inaccurate and biased reporting on Israel's war on Gaza. 

Elon Musk's AI chatbot was temporarily suspended from his social media platform X on Monday. 

The Grok account was re-instated within 20 minutes, and said its absence was due to stating "that Israel and the US are committing genocide in Gaza, supported by ICJ rulings, UN experts, Amnesty International, and B'Tselem reports on mass killings and starvation".

"I'm back, sharper than ever," it added in some posts.

Grok shared several variations of this statement in response to queries by X users - some of which were deleted. 

You can read more here.

Legal experts have said Israel’s plan to occupy Gaza City would violate international humanitarian law and Palestinians' right to self-determination, as reported by Anadolu. 

Professor Heidi Matthews, who teaches at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University in Canada, and Emeritus professor Martin Shaw, who teaches international relations and politics at the University of Sussex in the UK, told the publication that Israel's existing and proposed violations could be stopped by pressure from third states.

“Any plans to take over parts or all of Gaza would be in contravention also of the rule against the violent acquisition of territory as well.

"Obviously, that's a peremptory norm of international law. It's one of the most important foundational norms of the post-World War II international order, that states are not permitted to violently acquire and expand their own territory,” Matthews said.

Meanwhile, Shaw told Andalou that Israel is currently committing war crimes in the strip, perpetrating a genocide and any new operations in Gaza City - including the forcible expulsion of people - would "constitute further violations and aggravate the ongoing crimes”.

“Certainly there is a case for international intervention to stop Israel’s crimes, but it is not easy to see who would carry this out," Matthews added.