Live: Palestinian death toll in Gaza nears 26,000

Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar will visit Iran on a two-day trip following air strikes by British and American forces in Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen. 

A government statement said Jaishankar would meet his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian to discuss "bilateral, regional and global issues" without giving further details. 

Jaishankar's visit comes a month after a drone attack near a ship close to Indian waters that the United States blamed on Iran.  

Health officials in Gaza said Israeli strikes on Saturday killed at least 60 people in the besieged enclave. 

Witnesses told AFP that early morning strikes rocked the south of Gaza. 

Nimma al-Akhras, an 80-year-old Palestinian, said that a strike had destroyed her home. 

"It was very powerful," she said. "We started to scream, and I couldn't move, but someone pulled me out and put me on a cart."

Health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra reported that "more than 60 martyrs" died in Israeli air strikes and artillery fire overnight, with dozens more wounded.

Reporting by AFP

US President Joe Biden said he delivered a private message to Iran about the Houthi movement. 

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Saturday, Biden said: "We delivered it privately, and we're confident we're well prepared."

The statement came after US and UK forces launched air strikes on Houthi-controlled areas in southern Yemen on Saturday and Friday. 

However, the White House has said it is not "interested in a war with Yemen". 

"Everything the president has been doing has been trying to prevent any escalation of conflict, including the strikes last night," White House spokesperson John Kirby said on Friday. 

Israel has informed Cairo it plans to launch a military operation to retake control of the crossing area between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, according to sources who spoke to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).  

Citing Israeli and Egyptian officials, the WSJ said Israel is expected to take over the Rafah crossing and station forces along the Philadelphi Corridor, which separates Egypt and Gaza. 

Israeli officials told the WSJ that the operation had not received the go-ahead from Israeli leaders and depends on talks with the Egyptian government as Cairo works to broker a new hostage deal between Israel and Hamas. 

"Israel does not want to be responsible for Gaza in the long term, but the question is how do you make sure that Gaza stays demilitarized?" a senior Israeli military official told the WSJ. "It's a real dilemma. The only way to control a geographic area is to control what's going in and out." 

WSJ added that Egyptian officials rejected Israeli proposals to conduct joint patrols on the Egyptian side of the border, saying it was working to install barriers and increase surveillance in the area. 

The US's top diplomat went to Israel this week carrying a message from Washington's regional allies: Israel's neighbours are prepared to invest in Gaza's security and reconstruction.

"But it is essential to them that there also be a clear pathway to the realisation of a Palestinian political state," US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said. 

By holding out to Israel the carrot of regional buy-in for the post-war fate of Gaza, Blinken seemingly tried to leverage the US's Arab partners and Turkey to sway Israel in a way that the Biden administration has been unable, or unwilling, to do alone.

But Blinken's comments on his fourth visit to the region since the war broke out following the 7 October Hamas-led attacks also underline how, 100 days after the onset of the crisis, Washington is still no closer to moving the needle on one of its primary goals.

The US lobbied Israel to delay its invasion of Gaza as it pressed its ally to come up with a post-war plan for the besieged enclave's future. 

"Since 7 October, the US has prioritised above all else Israel's right to defend itself," said Brian Katulis, senior fellow and vice president of policy at the Middle East Institute. "But most of its other goals are incomplete.

"The administration's weakest link remains reaching some sort of consensus on a Gaza endgame."

Instead, the Biden administration has been occupied with other issues. 

Read more: 'Incomplete': 100 days into Gaza war, Biden fails to achieve basic policy goals 

Israeli forces are imposing a policy of starvation in the northern Gaza Strip that could soon lead to famine, the government media office in Gaza has warned. 

It said aid convoys intended for the war-ravaged areas continue to be blocked by the Israeli army, alleging this is part of a deliberate policy. 

"We sound the alarm once again about the Israeli occupation army's focus on causing a real famine in Gaza City and North Gaza governorates, intentionally and deliberately," the office said, adding that 1,300 food trucks are needed daily to prevent a catastrophe impacting hundreds of thousands of people. 

The time has come to end the "hostilities in Gaza", European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Saturday. 

Following a tour to the Middle East, Borrell wrote in a blog that EU states must "unite and shoulder our responsibility" to push for an end to the conflict.

"A sustainable peace will not return to Israel, Palestine and the region if we do not make rapid progress on this path," he said, referring to pursuing the two-state solution to solve the conflict.

Crowds are beginning to gather in London ahead of an anticipated march on Saturday as part of global pro-Palestine protests.

The end of last year saw hundreds of thousands of people marching in London every Saturday, demanding the British government support a ceasefire in Gaza.

Since then, the UK government has said it has committed to a "sustainable ceasefire" and continued its support for the Israeli government.

Following Britain's decision to launch air strikes on Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen, marchers will now also call for the government to stop its bombardment of Yemen.

The protests in the British capital are part of a global "day of action" called for to mark the passing of 100 days of war on Sunday. 

More than 70 cities across 38 countries are set to take part in the global action. 

Only six ambulances are left functioning in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian health ministry said on Saturday. 

According to the government media office in Gaza, at least 121 ambulances have been destroyed by Israeli forces since the bombing started on 7 October.  

Palestinian officials say the attacks are part of what they describe as Israel's deliberate targeting of health facilities and civil services. 

"The occupation is still targeting health personnel through bombings and arrests," the health ministry said in a statement.

It also renewed calls for the international community to allow the entry of medical personnel into the Gaza Strip to offer assistance. 

Al Jazeera Media Network has dismissed Israeli justifications for the killing of one of its Palestinian journalists as "false and misleading". 

The Qatar-based network said Friday that Hamza Wael al-Dahdouh, killed on 7 January 2024 along with another journalist, Mustafa Thuria (also spelled Thuraya), was targeted "simply for doing his job". 

The Israeli army alleged the two reporters were members of "Gaza-based terrorist organisations". It provided no photo or video evidence showing links between the journalists and said groups. 

The families of both journalists rejected the claim as  "fabricated" and "false". 

Al Jazeera said it was "considerably surprised" by the accusation, which it "strongly condemned and wholly rejected".

Read more: Al Jazeera rejects Israeli army's 'false justification' of journalist's killing 

Sounds of what appears to be heavy shelling and exchanges of fire between Palestinian fighters and Israeli troops have been heard in the central Gaza Strip since early morning on Saturday. 

Meanwhile, Israeli strikes in Gaza City in the north and Khan Younis in the south have killed at least 14 Palestinians and wounded many more, according to local media. 

The material loss Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have suffered in three months of Israeli bombing is unprecedented. Not only have they lost their homes, entire neighbourhoods and civilian infrastructure, but residents say another "immeasurable damage that cannot be repaired" has been the erasure of Gaza's history. 

Since the beginning of its war on Gaza on 7 October, the Israeli military has targeted and destroyed dozens of heritage sites, including historic churches and mosques, cultural museums, and archaeological structures that date back thousands of years.

Key religious sites have been a target for Israeli air strikes and artillery shelling across the different districts of Gaza. Many of those sites had been transformed into shelters for displaced Palestinians at the time of the attack, resulting in dozens of casualties.

On 18 October, the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius was damaged by an Israeli air strike on the adjacent 141-year-old Ahli Baptist Hospital, the oldest hospital in the strip.

The almost 900-year-old church, one of the oldest in the world, was one of three churches that were damaged across the strip.

In addition to churches, at least 114 mosques have been destroyed and 200 others have been damaged in Gaza, including the 13th century Othman Bin Qashqar Mosque in al-Zaytoun neighbourhood, south of Gaza City, and the medieval Great Omari Mosque, the largest and oldest mosque in Gaza, located in the heart of the Old Town east of Gaza City and dating back to the seventh century.

Read more: 'Destroying our past': Israel's bombing erases Gaza's religious and cultural heritage 

Israeli forces have killed at least 135 Palestinians and wounded 312 more across the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, the health ministry there said on Saturday. 

This brings the death toll since 7 October to at least 23,843, with 60,317 wounded and more than 7,000 missing who are believed to be dead and buried under rubble. 

Overall, four percent of Gaza's population has been killed, wounded or gone missing in three months of bombardment. 

The majority of victims are children and women, according to health officials.

Good morning Middle East Eye readers,

It's just after 11am in Palestine and Israel. Here are the latest developments: 

• All internet and telecommunications services in Gaza were cut on Friday night as a result of Israeli bombardment, the main operator, Paltel, said.

• Shelling intensified in the central Gaza Strip, with gunshots heard periodically near Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital.

• Three Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron after allegedly shooting and wounding an Israeli soldier. 

• The US carried out an additional strike on Yemen early on Saturday.