Live: 54 Palestinians killed, 831 wounded in 24 hours

Dozens of Israeli settlers stormed the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem on Thursday, escorted by heavily armed Israeli police.

Witnesses told the Palestinian news agency Wafa that settlers entered the site in groups, staged provocative tours and carried out provocative rituals as Israeli forces guarded them throughout the incursion.

The repeated settler raids - often backed by state forces - have fuelled tensions across the occupied Palestinian territories, with Palestinians viewing them as part of a broader plan to Judaise the sacred site. 

Israel is examining Hamas’s response to the latest Gaza ceasefire proposal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Thursday.

The statement comes a day after Hamas confirmed it had submitted its reply to mediators, though it did not reveal any details about the content.

Two Palestinian teenagers were fatally shot by Israeli forces in the town of Al-Khader, west of Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank.

The victims were identified as Ahmed al-Salah, 15, and Mohammed Issa, 17. Both sustained fatal gunshot wounds during a raid by the Israeli military in the West Bank.

Two-year-old Hasan Barbakh died of starvation on 24 June, after months of prolonged malnutrition, dehydration, an enlarged liver, and acute blood toxicity.

He would have turned three the next day.

Hasan was just over a year old when Israel launched its genocidal campaign on the Gaza Strip, cutting off every Palestinian in Gaza from the outside world.

Israeli displacement orders forced his family to move around like chess pieces. Not long after Israeli authorities imposed a total blockade in March, Hasan's health began to deteriorate. He lost 2kg in weight.

"From the first week of the siege, [his weight] began to drop daily, and his voice grew weaker," Hasan's mother, Amna, told a field researcher from Defence for Children International-Palestine, where I work as an advocacy officer. "I sensed he was slowly fading away."

Read more:  Gaza extermination: Hasan should have turned three. Instead, he starved to death

At least eight Palestinians were killed and several others wounded in an Israeli air strike on central Gaza early Thursday, according to medical staff at Al-Aqsa Martyrs and Al-Awda hospitals, reported Al Jazeera Arabic. 

Health workers say the bombing struck residential areas, leaving casualties among civilians. The toll is expected to rise as emergency crews continue to search the rubble.

Two Palestinians were killed and several others wounded after Israeli forces bombed tents sheltering displaced people in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, according to local sources.

The attack targeted civilians already forced to flee their homes, adding to the growing toll among the displaced.

Israel’s ongoing offensive continues to hit areas packed with people who sought refuge from earlier attacks, deepening the humanitarian catastrophe across the Gaza Strip.

A US mercenary unloaded an entire can of pepper spray into the face of a Palestinian man picking noodles off the ground, and other contractors shot into crowds of starving people trying to collect food in Gaza, a US security contractor told Israeli media.

Those are just some of the harrowing details that a 25-year-old contractor who recently worked for a security firm guarding distribution sites for the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) shared with Israel’s Channel 12 news in an interview aired on Tuesday.

The man, whose face was blurred and voice distorted to protect his identity, said he was a US military veteran who had deployed 12 times to four different war zones, but never saw such violence carried out against unarmed civilians as that by Israeli soldiers and US mercenaries in Gaza.

“I have never in my entire military career... have I been a part of, allowed, or bystander to the use of force against unarmed innocent civilians. Ever. And I’m not going to do it now,” he said.

“There is no fixing this,” he said. “Put an end to it.”

Read more: US contractor recounts gruesome details of Gaza aid delivery

Good morning Middle East Eye readers,

Here are the latest updates on the Israeli war on Gaza:

• Hamas submits ceasefire response: The group says it has delivered its reply to mediators regarding a proposed Gaza ceasefire deal. Israel confirms it is examining the response.

• Over 100 killed in Israeli strikes: The Gaza Health Ministry reports at least 113 Palestinians were killed and 534 were wounded in Israeli attacks across Gaza on Wednesday. Among the dead are 34 people killed while waiting for aid.

• Starvation deaths rise: Ten more Palestinians have died from malnutrition or hunger in the past day, bringing the total famine-related deaths to 111 since 7 October, according to the ministry.

• Brazil backs genocide case: A source told Reuters that Brazil will support South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, accusing it of genocide in Gaza.

• Sadiq Khan demands Palestinian state recognition: London’s mayor urged the UK to recognise Palestine immediately and called for global pressure on Israel to end the "horrific, senseless killing" in Gaza.

Our live blog is now closed until tomorrow morning.

Here are the day's key developments:

- At least 90 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in Gaza on Wednesday, health officials said.

- More than 100 international human rights and humanitarian organisations have called for an end to Israel's siege of Gaza, citing widespread starvation affecting their staff.

- The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa) has said that its own staff members are fainting due to severe hunger.

- The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the motion passed in Israel's Knesset that called for the assertion of "Israeli sovereignty" in the occupied West Bank. 

- The interim US ambassador to the United Nations, Dorothy Shea, told the Security Council that use of the term 'genocide' to describe Israel's actions in Gaza is nothing more than "propaganda" fueled by Hamas. 

- Al-Azhar Al-Sharif has acknowledged that it had deleted a strongly worded call to action over the starvation of Palestinians in Gaza, citing its potential negative impact on ceasefire negotiations.

One of the Muslim world's foremost Islamic institutions on Wednesday acknowledged that it had deleted a strongly worded call to action over the starvation of Palestinians in Gaza, citing its potential impact on ceasefire negotiations.

The prestigious Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, located in Cairo, Egypt, said it "took the initiative to withdraw its statement with courage and responsibility before God when it realised that this statement could impact the ongoing negotiations regarding a humanitarian truce in Gaza to save innocent lives."

"This was done to prevent this statement from being used as a pretext to back out of negotiations or compromise," the statement, posted to X, said. 

Egypt is a key mediator between Israel and Hamas, and the government has often tried to tamp down frustrations within the country over its role in what critics describe as maintaining the siege on Gaza, given it shares the Rafah crossing with the enclave.

"Al-Azhar has prioritized the interests of preventing the daily bloodshed in Gaza, hoping that the negotiations will lead to an immediate halt to the bloodshed and provide the most basic necessities of life, of which the oppressed Palestinian people have been deprived," the statement said.

At least 90 Palestinians were killed in Gaza on Wednesday, the vast majority from Israeli air strikes, health officials said. 

Twenty of the victims were aid seekers at the sites of the US-Israeli food distribution project, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). 

The United Nations said 1,000 Palestinians scrambling for food have been killed at GHF sites since May. 

Columbia University announced new sanctions against student activists on Tuesday, suspending or expelling dozens of students for their participation in pro-Palestine protests.

The suspensions will last between one and three years and will require students to write an apology letter if they wish to return to the university.

The disciplinary proceedings primarily targeted students involved in the takeover of Butler Library to host a teach-in honouring the Palestinian writer Basel al-Araj, who was killed by Israeli forces in 2017. Protesters renamed the library “the Basel al-Araj Popular University”.

Read more: Students have condemned Columbia’s collaboration with the NYPD and Trump administration officials

A US mercenary unloaded an entire can of pepper spray into the face of a Palestinian man picking noodles off the ground, and other contractors shot into crowds of starving people trying to collect food in Gaza, a US security contractor told Israeli media.

Those are just some of the harrowing details that a 25-year-old contractor who recently worked for a security firm guarding distribution sites for the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) shared with Israel’s Channel 12 news in aninterview aired on Tuesday.

The man, whose face was blurred and voice distorted to protect his identity, said he was a US military veteran who had deployed 12 times to four different war zones, but never saw such violence carried out against unarmed civilians as that by Israeli soldiers and US mercenaries in Gaza.

Read more: “There is no fixing this,” he said. “Put an end to it.”

Hamas has handed its response on the ceasefire proposal to mediators, a Palestinian official close to the talks told Reuters on Wednesday.

The official did not immediately disclose the content of the response.

- Reporting by Reuters

The interim US ambassador to the United Nations, Dorothy Shea, told the Security Council on Wednesday that use of the term 'genocide' to describe Israel's actions in Gaza is nothing more than "propaganda" fueled by Hamas.

"The representative of Israel has addressed allegations of genocide made by some in this room. I am also compelled to speak on this. These accusations are politically motivated and categorically false. They are part of a deliberate, cynical propaganda campaign as Hamas attempts to win symbolic victories to compensate for total defeat in war," Shea said.

"The United States refutes these allegations entirely. America fully supports Israel's right to defend itself. Israel has taken numerous measures to limit harm to civilians and to address humanitarian needs. The loss of civilian life in Gaza is tragic, but the responsibility for this rests with Hamas, which could also stop the fighting today by agreeing to a cease fire already accepted by Israel."

None of the ceasefire agreements agreed to by Israel or the US have included a permanent end to the war, which Hamas has insisted on.