Live: Israel dropped 153 tonnes of bombs on Gaza on Sunday

South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, told parliament that the peace plan to end Israel's war on Gaza will have no bearing on the country’s genocide charges against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

"The case is proceeding and it now has to go to the stage where Israel must respond to our pleadings filed in court" he said, saying the deadline to do so is January. 

Unexploded mines in Gaza pose "enormous" risks for displaced Palestinians returning home, NGO Handicap International warned on Tuesday, AFP reported. 

The NGO, which specialises in mine clearance and assistance to victims of anti-personnel mines, called for the entry of equipment needed for demining.

"The risks are enormous - an estimated 70,000 tons of explosives have been dropped on Gaza" since the start of the war, said Anne-Claire Yaeesh, the organisation's director for the Palestinian territories. "The layers of rubble and levels of accumulation are extremely high," Yaeesh added. 

She warned that the risks are aggravated by the "extremely complex" nature of the environment, due to the limited space in densely populated urban areas.

In January, the United Nations' Mine Action Service estimated that "five to 10 percent" of the munitions fired on Gaza had not exploded.

Some Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli prisons on Monday are suffering from health problems as a result of enduring violence in prison, doctors and released prisoners told the Associated Press

Imed al-Shami, a resident doctor at The Palestine Medical Complex (PMC) in Ramallah, which received 14 men who were released and discharged all but two, said the conditions of patients suggested they “were subjected to severe beatings, reflecting the extent of the violence they endured”.

Kamal Abu Shanab, who was released after more than 18 years in prison, said beatings caused his shoulder to tear. “For eight months, I wasn’t given even a pill for the pain,” he said.

Israel’s prison service denied claims of violence towards Palestinian prisoners.

- Reporting by AP

Nasser hospital in Gaza received the remains of 45 Palestinians on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press. The hospital said they are expecting a total of 450 bodies of Palestinians to be returned to Gaza from Israel.

The bodies belong to Palestinians who the Israeli military had detained and died while in detention since 7 October 2023.

The hospital said some of the bodies showed signs of torture and had their hands bound. It was not immediately clear when or how they died.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) director general said that it had scaled up its operations in Gaza in a post on X on Tuesday.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said WHO had deployed an emergency medical team to al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City. Gaza City has been heavily bombed for weeks, leading to a high number of casualties.

He also said eight trucks carrying medical supplies, including insulin, lab supplies, and essential medicines, had entered the strip. 

"The best medicine is peace,"  he said.

Hamas handed coffins with the remains of four more deceased Israeli captives to the International Committee of the Red Cross on Tuesday evening local time, Haaretz reported.

A senior Hamas source has told Middle East Eye that Israel bears responsibility for delays in locating and returning the bodies of captives still missing in Gaza.

The source was speaking after Israeli officials said on Tuesday that the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt would remain closed through Wednesday and accused Hamas of holding onto the bodies of captives it had pledged to return as part of the US-brokered peace deal that halted the two-year war.

But the Hamas source told MEE that its negotiators clearly stated during talks that the presence of Israeli forces and the genocidal, indiscriminate Israeli attacks that caused widespread destruction would complicate the task of locating the bodies of killed captives, requiring greater time and effort.

“They made it clear during the negotiations that time and great efforts will be needed after the withdrawal of the occupying Israeli forces, to collect information about the bodies,” said the source.

“This was clear and accepted during the negotiations. The signed agreement included a very clear clause about this".

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Israel has told the United Nations it will allow only 300 aid trucks into the Gaza Strip, which is half the agreed number, from Wednesday onwards.

Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (Cogat) said that no fuel or gas will be allowed into the Strip unless it is for specific needs related to humanitarian infrastructure, according to a note seen by Reuters and confirmed by the UN.

Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Gaza, confirmed that the UN had received the note from Cogat, the Israeli military arm that oversees aid flows into Gaza.

Cogat said the restrictions were being taken because "Hamas violated the agreement regarding the release of the bodies of the hostages."

Hamas said that it would be challenging and take time to find the resting places of all the deceased Israeli captives among the rubble in Gaza. Trump said an international body would be appointed to help them do so.

A US civil rights and advocacy organisation has called on US President Donald Trump to demand the release of Palestinian medic Dr Hussam Abu Safiya. 

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called for the release of the paediatrician and former director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, who the Israeli military abducted in December 2024, as well as other medical professionals. Safiya has been detained without charge and has been tortured in Ofer prison.

"We also call on the President to demand that Israel release Dr Hussam Abu Safiya and all other kidnapped medical professionals," Cair said in a statement.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has confirmed he believes that the call to "internationalise the intifada" is a "call to attack Jewish communities around the world".

Conservative MP Julian Lewis asked Starmer in parliament on Tuesday afternoon whether he accepted that there was no possible interpretation of "internationalise the intifada" other than as "a call to attack Jewish communities around the world".

Lewis seemed to be referring to the popular chant "globalise the intifada", often used at pro-Palestine protests. 

Starmer replied: "There's no other interpretation." He added that he was glad Lewis had raised the point.

Pro-Palestine activists have strongly denied that "globalise the intifada" is antisemitic or a call for violence, and British Jews have been prominent in pro-Palestine marches in the UK. 

You can read more here.

Israeli forces killed at least seven Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, in violation of the ceasefire agreement signed last week.

According to local health officials, six people were killed in Gaza City and one in Khan Younis.

In Gaza City’s eastern Shujaiya neighbourhood, at least five people were killed in an aerial attack while inspecting their homes, according to the Palestinian Civil Defence.

Separately, a drone strike in the town of al-Fukhari, east of Khan Younis, killed one person.

These attacks constitute a breach of the ceasefire agreement that took effect on Friday, which explicitly stated that “all military operations, including aerial and artillery bombardment and targeting operations, will be suspended”.

You can read more here.

Hastings residents woke up on 7 October to an unusual sight along the seafront: Israeli flags stretching for nearly a mile from Hastings Pier to the Marina in St Leonards, near the town's mosque. 

The act was bizarre, but the timing was not lost on residents of the southern coastal English town.

The flags appeared on the second anniversary of 7 October attacks on southern Israel that triggered Israel's genocide in Gaza that has killed and wounded more than 245,000 Palestinians.

CCTV footage recorded between 1:20am and 6am appeared to show a figure moving along the promenade, stringing the flags from lamppost to lamppost.

By sunrise, the display was complete, and the scale of the act quickly became the subject of widespread discussion.

You can read more here.

Despite the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners on Monday as part of a swap deal with Israel, more than 9,100 Palestinians remain in Israeli custody under harsh and deteriorating conditions.

Monday’s exchange saw the release of 20 Israeli captives held in Gaza, marking the third prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas since the war began in October 2023. 

A month into the war, 240 Palestinian prisoners were released in exchange for 105 captives during a brief seven-day truce. 

A second exchange in January and February saw the release of 1,778 Palestinians in return for 38 captives.

In total, 3,985 Palestinians have been freed in exchange for 163 Israelis.

However, with all living Israeli captives now returned, over 9,100 Palestinians remain in Israeli prisons - many of them detained without charge or trial. 

They are held in what rights groups call “torture camps”, facing daily abuse, beatings, starvation and humiliation.

You can read more here.

The remains of 45 Palestinians handed over by Israel as part of the ceasefire agreement with Hamas have arrived at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip announced Tuesday afternoon.

"The remains of 45 martyrs arrived at the hospital through the Red Cross after being released by [Israel] as part of the exchange agreement," the medical centre said in a brief statement.

On Monday, Israel and Hamas exchanged captives as part of US President Donald Trump's 20-point Gaza ceasefire plan.

Mainstream western media coverage of the exchange reflected the same pro-Israel bias that has long characterised reporting on Israel and Palestine, which privileges Israeli lives over Palestinian ones.

Major outlets such as the BBC, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, the Associated Press, The Washington Post, Reuters, Deutsche Welle and Agence France-Presse foregrounded Israeli captives, both living and dead, while largely downplaying the experiences of Palestinians.

Across newspapers, television broadcasts, websites and social media, Israeli captives and their families received far more attention - and were humanised through personal details and emotional imagery - than Palestinians.

Read more: Hostages, captives, prisoners: Western media still privileges Israeli over Palestinian lives