Live: Israel and Hamas claim victory as fragile ceasefire holds
Live Updates
The Israeli army has given Al Jazeera channel and other international media one hour ultimatum to evacuate the Al-Galaa Tower in the besieged Gaza Strip on Saturday afternoon ahead of a possible air strike, the channel said in a live update.
Follow Middle East Eye's live stream from Gaza here.
Al Jazeera aired a phone call between the building's owner and an Israeli intelligence officer, asking to be given more time to evacuate equipment from the offices, but the officer has declined the request.
The 12-storey building is mostly residential, with a number of offices for international media including Al Jazeera, the Associated Press, along with Arab and local press.
Several journalists are posting live tweets expressing outrage at the Israeli warning and the short notice.
One Middle East Eye photojournalist has also been forced to evacuate the building.
Hospitals, medical and security sources told Reuters that Egypt sent 10 ambulances into Gaza on Saturday to pick up casualties for treatment in Egyptian hospitals.
The ambulances entered Gaza via the Rafah crossing, which is otherwise closed for five days over the Eid al-Fitr holiday and the weekend and is due to reopen on Monday.
A further five ambulances have been deployed to enter Gaza later and three Egyptian hospitals have been readied to provide treatment, the sources and local health officials said.
The General Authority for Healthcare, an executive arm of the Egyptian Ministry of Health, said on Friday that it had made preparations for treating Gaza’s wounded victims who were expected to arrive in Egypt in the next few hours.
The authority's head, Ahmed al-Sobki, told MEE that three major health facilities in Ismailia were ready to receive Gaza's victims and offer them the necessary care.
"Our hospitals are ready for receiving Gaza's Palestinians and providing them with care," Sobki said.
The Gaza Electricity Company warned of the collapse of vital sectors in the besieged coastal enclave which now suffers "an acute shortage of energy" due to the continued air strikes for the fifth night in a row.
The company announced on Saturday that eight out of 10 main electricity lines carrying the current from Israel had been cut off as a result of the bombing by the Israeli warplanes, which affected large areas in the Gaza Strip.
The company warned of "the collapse of vital sectors," and called on all parties to intervene urgently to stop the worsening of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinians in the al-Shati refugee camp in the besieged Gaza Strip held a funeral of the eight children and two women from Abu Hatab family who were killed in an air strike targeting their residential building in the early hours of Saturday.
The air strike hit the overcrowded refugee camp in western Gaza without early warning, health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qedra said, adding that the death toll is expected to rise with several people still under the rubble and many seriously wounded.
At least 139 people have been killed in Israeli bombardments on Gaza since Monday, including at least 39 children and 22 women, and at least 1,000 others wounded, Qedra said on Saturday.
He told Al Jazeera Arabic that 31 percent of the wounded are in critical condition. More than 300 of the wounded are children, and at least 180 are women, he added.
"The number of women and children victims shows that the occupation deliberately targets civilians and overcrowded residential areas," Qedra said.
Israeli air strikes killed seven Palestinians, including at least five children, in the early hours of Saturday, in an attack on the overcrowded al-Shati camp, west of Gaza city.
Israeli warplanes targeted a building, while its residents were at home, near the camp's market, wounding at least 20 more people, including children, health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra said, adding that the death toll is expected to rise.
Palestinian news website Arab48 listed the names of the victims as: five-year-old Yamen Abu Hatab, 10-year-old Bilal Abu Hatab, 11-year-old Youssef Abu Hatab, eight-year-old Abdel-Rahman al-Hadidi, 14-year-old Suhaib al-Hadidi, 36-year-old Maha al-Hadidi, and 31-year-old Yasmine Hassan.
Rescue teams are searching for victims under the rubbles of the three-storey house, where several related families live.
Israel intensified its air raids on Gaza before dawn on Saturday, targeting residential buildings in several areas in the Gaza Strip, including a building in al-Sahaba street in the centre of Gaza city, local media reported.
Morocco's King Mohammed VI on Friday ordered 40 tonnes of aid for Palestinians to be shipped following a crackdown by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank and aerial bombardment in Gaza.
The aid includes food, medicine and blankets and will be carried by military aircraft, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Morocco also denounced "the violent acts perpetrated in occupied Palestinian territories," and reiterated support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Rabat resumed ties with Israel in December as part of a deal brokered by the United States that also includes Washington’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.
The US-brokered deal, named the "Abraham Accords," were heavily criticised by Palestinians, who saw it as a "stab in the back".
At the time, Moroccan and Arab activists also launched an online campaign against the government's decision to normalise ties with Israel.
Far-right Israelis attacked a Palestinian home in the Ajami neighbourhood in Jaffa with firebombs, wounding two children on Friday evening -the fifth night of violence in restive Palestinian towns in Israel.
The children, a 10-year-old girl who suffered a head injury and a 12-year-old boy who sustained burns on his upper body, were taken to the Sheba Hospital and were in moderate condition, according to Haaretz.
Meanwhile, in Lod, a flashpoint of confrontations between Jewish ultra-nationalists and Palestinian citizens of Israel, police shot and wounded a 15-year-old Palestinian near a mosque, claiming he had tried to target them with a firebomb.
Palestinian citizens of Israel continue to protest Israeli escalation, including the ongoing Gaza onslaught, the attacks on al-Aqsa Mosque, and the threat of expulsion facing residents of Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in Jerusalem.
Amnesty International called on the US and other countries to pressure Israel into ending its "systematic violations" against Palestinians, in a new appeal on Friday.
As Israeli forces use live and rubber ammunition against Palestinian protesters across the occupied West Bank and Israel, the rights group said in a statement that "it’s past time that the world presses Israel to address the root causes of violations and injustice".
"Palestinians’ experience of systemic discrimination, dispossession and displacement is at the root of the ongoing violations we see today," Amnesty said.
"The international community, especially Israel’s close allies like the USA, have a responsibility to pressure Israel to end and redress its systematic violations against Palestinians."
Middle East Eye has received footage of Jordanians running towards the border separating Jordan from the occupied West Bank earlier on Friday.
Crowds had gathered at the Israeli-controlled border in support of Palestinians protesting in several cities and towns.
Watch the video here:
Protesters gathered in the Palestinian town of Bethlehem south of Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank on Friday were met with tear gas from Israeli forces.
The protesters voiced their opposition to the continued Israeli air strikes on Gaza that have killed dozens of civilians since Monday, as well as the attacks on Al-Aqsa Mosque and the eviction threat facing Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in Jerusalem.
Below are some photos from the demonstration by Middle East Eye's Akram al-Waraa:
Israeli forces have intensified their crackdown on journalists covering confrontations that continue to take place across the occupied West Bank, Middle East Eye’s correspondent Shatha Hammad reported late on Friday.
According to Hammad, four photojournalists were hit by steel bullets while doing their job at the northern entrance to the city of al-Bireh, near the settlement of Beit El. The journalists are Hisham Abu Shakra, Mutasim Saqf al-Heit, Issam Al-Rimawi, and Ramiz Awad.
Abu Shakra told MEE that the Israeli army fired live bullets at him from close range and targeted him with tear gas canisters on Friday.
He also explained that he was pursued by the army, causing him to fall to the ground, subsequently causing damage to his equipment and wounding him.
Raed al-Sharif, another journalist from the West Bank, told MEE that he and other journalists, including Mahoor al-Wahwah and Jamil Salhab, were covering the confrontations in the city of Yatta on Friday when they were suddenly shot by snipers.
“We felt fear and found ourselves being targeted directly, which prompted us to leave the place and stop our coverage.”
Violent tactics have been used to quash the protests around the West Bank and other regions in recent weeks, including beating people, using tear gas, sound grenades and rubber bullets.
Many have reported difficulties in breathing as a result of the continued use of tear gas, with some needing medical attention.
Skunk water, which has been used by Israeli forces as a tactic to disperse crowds, has also targeted journalists, forcing them to evacuate areas and hindering their ability to carry out their job.
According to the Palestinian Prisoners Society, 90 people have been arrested in the West Bank since tensions escalated earlier this week.
The Palestinian Prisoners Affairs Authority also said that over the last three weeks, Israeli authorities have carried out a mass campaign of arrests against Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The Palestinian government agency estimates that Israel has carried out around 600 arrests in the past few weeks, with the majority of them being in the Israeli town of Lod, known to Palestinians as Lydd, as well as in Jerusalem and Ramleh.
Senator Bernie Sanders has called for a more even-handed US approach to Israelis and Palestinians, calling on the administration of President Joe Biden to push for an "immediate ceasefire" in Gaza.
In a column published in the New York Times on Friday, Sanders criticised the traditional US stance of asserting "Israel's right to defend itself" while ignoring the human rights of Palestinians.
Sanders rebuked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over stoking racism and denounced the campaign to displace Palestinian families from East Jerusalem.
"Israel remains the one sovereign authority in the land of Israel and Palestine, and rather than preparing for peace and justice, it has been entrenching its unequal and undemocratic control," he wrote.
The senator, who came close to winning the Democratic nomination with a progressive platform during his presidential run last year, remains a top figure in the left wing of the Democratic Party.
"In the Middle East, where we provide nearly $4 billion a year in aid to Israel, we can no longer be apologists for the right-wing Netanyahu government and its undemocratic and racist behavior," Sanders said.
"We must change course and adopt an even-handed approach, one that upholds and strengthens international law regarding the protection of civilians, as well as existing US law holding that the provision of US military aid must not enable human rights abuses."
He added that the US must be consistent in order to be a credible voice on human rights globally.
"We must recognize that Palestinian rights matter. Palestinian lives matter."
A number of Palestinian demonstrators were seriously wounded in Kafr Kanna on Friday evening after being shot by live ammunition and rubber bullets by Israeli police and army forces that stormed the town to arrest the leader of the banned Israeli northern Islamic Movement, Sheikh Kamal Khatib, according to a report by the local Arab48 website.
According to the website, Israeli forces, using live and rubber bullets, wounded dozens of young men who arrived to demonstrate in the vicinity of Sheikh Khatib's house.
The wounded were swiftly referred to hospitals in Nazareth for treatment.
Israeli police have arrested dozens of young Palestinian men in several Israeli towns that have witnessed protests against the Gaza onslaught and al-Aqsa attacks and in solidarity with the people facing eviction from Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in Jerusalem.
The protest activities and marches continue in Palestinian towns in Israel for the fifth day in a row while the Israeli army continues its bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip and armed Palestinian groups respond with more rocket barrages on Israeli settlements and towns in the South.
A Palestinian man was killed late on Friday in the city of Tulkarm in the West Bank, raising the day's death toll in the occupied territories to 11, according to the health ministry.
In Gaza, the number of Palestinians killed now sits at 126, including 31 children and 20 women, as Israeli air strikes continue to bombard the besieged strip, targeting civilian infrastructure. Among those killed include a 7-year-old girl, Buthaina Mahmoud Ubaid, who was hit in the head by shrapnel from an Israeli missile.
At least 950 people have also been injured in the attacks.
Read Middle East Eye's explainer by Shafik Mandhai for a background on the current escalation in Israel and occupied Palestinian territories.
Friday evening saw further rounds of arrests and intimidation of Palestinians in the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
Live ammunition was fired at residents in the neighbourhood, further inflaming tensions.
Armed Israeli police have continued to patrol the neighbourhood, which has been a focal point for protests over the past week, as some residents face imminent eviction by an Israeli court.
Armed police were stationed in many parts of the neighbourhood, many on horseback.
Family members facing eviction came out to chant protest songs and express indignation at what they say is injustice from both the Israeli court and Israeli forces.
Police have caused road blocks in the area, while earlier today, skunk water was used to stop people from gathering in groups and journalists covering the unfolding of events were harassed and told to leave.
Palestinians have been protesting over the past week, over the forced evictions of Sheikh Jarrah residents and the attacks on al-Aqsa Mosque.
