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

A Palestinian detainee has died in Israeli custody after being held without charge or trial for five months.

Palestinian prisoner monitoring groups - the PA’s Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) - said on Tuesday they had been informed of Ahmad Hatem Muhammad Khdeirat’s death at Soroka Hospital in Israel.

Khdeirat, 22, was detained by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron on 23 May and placed under administrative detention, without charge or trial.

Administrative detention is a controversial Israeli policy that allows for the imprisonment of Palestinians without charge or trial.

Detainees are held for periods of three to six months, which can be extended indefinitely, and detainees are not informed of the evidence against them and have no right to appeal.

Read more: Palestinian held without charge dies in Israeli custody

Chants of “Free, free Palestine” and “Viva Palestine” echoed through Berlin’s Mitte district on Tuesday evening as protestors took to the streets to stand in solidarity with Palestinians on the second anniversary of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. 

On the second anniversary of the war, the crowd was peaceful, but was met with police violence. Dozens of protesters were dragged away by officers who forced them into vans where they were placed under arrest. 

Despite being scheduled in advance and approved by Berlin’s government, the city implemented a last-minute ban without providing an explanation. 

As protesters were removed from the crowd by the police, others remained, shouting “We will not be silenced” - words that pro-Palestinian activists in Berlin have shouted countless times over the last two years. 

Berlin is at the heart of Europe’s movement for Palestinians, with thousands of protests, demonstrations and fundraisers taking place and large groups gathering every weekend.

Read more: Activists brave Berlin's police despite last-minute ban on Gaza protest

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) says more than 11,100 Palestinian prisoners and detainees are being held in Israeli prisons as of the beginning of October, marking the highest number of detainees since the second Intifada in 2000.

“According to what was announced by the Occupation Prison Administration as of October, the number of sentenced prisoners exceeded 1,460 prisoners,” the statement said, adding that more than 400 child prisoners have been detained in Ofer and Megiddo prisons.

“The number of prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment and those against whom indictments have been filed in preparation for issuing life sentences is about 350 prisoners, of whom 303 are sentenced, and 40 are indicted for issuing life sentences,” it added.

Abdullah Barghouthi has the highest sentence after being issued 67 life sentences, followed by Ibrahim Hamed, who was issued 54 life sentences, according to the rights group.

The grandson of late South African president and anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela arrived in Johannesburg on Wednesday after being detained and then deported by Israel, which prevented the flotilla he was part of from breaking the blockade in Gaza.

Mandla Mandela, who returned home with four other South Africans, said he and the group he was with were held in an Israeli prison for six days before being released via Jordan.

"We were handcuffed with cable ties tied tightly behind our backs, taken off our boats, put on the platform and paraded for all ... to see," Mandela, 51, said at the airport, where he was greeted by supporters waving Palestinian flags.

"But it's nothing compared to what Palestinians have been subjected to on a daily basis," he said, referring to Israel's genocide on Gaza.

Israeli attacks killed at least eight Palestinians and injured 61 others across the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, according to the enclave’s health ministry.

The ministry said in a statement on social media channels that two bodies have also been recovered from the rubble of the previous Israeli attacks in the same time frame.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed a total of 67,183 Palestinians and injured 169,841 others since 7 October 2023, the ministry added.

The Israeli military has killed, on average, two medical personnel and a journalist every three days since the start of the genocide, Gaza’s government media office said in a statement.

It said the military is also injuring around 230 Palestinians, half of them children and women, every day, and, on average, 13 Palestinians are having their limbs amputated as a result of ongoing Israeli attacks on the Strip.

One health facility is targeted by the military every day, the statement said.

Israeli forces have intercepted additional aid boats bound for Gaza in international waters, the Global Sumud Flotilla said on Wednesday.

The Global Sumud Flotilla said in a statement that three boats - the Gaza Sunbirds, the Alaa Al-Najjar, and the Anas Al-Sharif - were intercepted 220km off the coast of Gaza in the morning.

An Israeli army helicopter also attacked another ship, the Conscience, carrying more than 90 people, including journalists and medics.

In a separate post on X, Global Sumud Flotilla said the crew of the boat Milad was also "intercepted".

The Israeli foreign ministry condemned the flotilla campaign as a "futile attempt" to "enter a combat zone", adding that the ships and passengers were transferred to an Israeli port and "should be expelled promptly".

Read more: More Gaza-bound flotilla ships intercepted by Israeli forces

Hamas said on Wednesday it had exchanged a list of the names of Israeli captives and Palestinian captives to be released under a swap deal and that it was optimistic about talks in Egypt on US President Donald Trump's plan to end the war in Gaza.

Negotiations, to be attended by senior foreign political and intelligence officials, are focused on the mechanisms to halt the war, withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the swap deal, the group added.

One of the biggest sticking points will be pressure on Hamas to disarm, an issue it has so far been unwilling to discuss at the talks, according to a Palestinian source close to the negotiations.

The timing of the implementation of the first phase of Trump's 20-point initiative has not been agreed so far during talks in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, the Palestinian source said.

Two bodies have been recovered after Israeli air attacks on the al-Jalaa and Nassr areas of Gaza City, according to Al Jazeera Arabic, citing a source at al-Shifa Hospital.

In southern Gaza, Israeli fire injured many people while waiting for aid, an ambulance and emergency source said.

US president Donald Trump asked Turkey to "persuade" Hamas to accept his plan for ending the Gaza war, president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a transcript shared by his office on Wednesday.

His remarks came as negotiators from Israel and Hamas were due to hold a third day of indirect negotiations in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh aimed at halting Israek's war on Gaza, alongside senior officials from Qatar, Turkey and the US. 

"Both during our visit to the United States and in our most recent phone call, we explained to Mr. Trump how a solution could be achieved in Palestine. He specifically requested that we meet with Hamas and persuade them," Erdogan told Turkish journalists late Tuesday on board a plane returning from Azerbaijan.

Israeli forces continued operations targeting Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, according to the Wafa news agency.

The agency reported that the military arrested four people in the town of Hizma, northeast of Jerusalem, after raiding and searching their home. A 19-year-old was detained at dawn in the village of at-Tahta, west of Ramallah.

In the Arroub refugee camp in the Hebron governorate, Israeli forces assaulted, detained and interrogated dozens of Palestinians during a raid, Wafa said.

A former prisoner was arrested in the town of Beit Fajjar, south of Bethlehem, while two brothers were detained in the city of Tulkarm, the agency added.

The body of a Palestinian was recovered following an Israeli strike on the al-Nasr neighbourhood, west of Gaza City, Al Jazeera Arabic reported, citing a source at al-Shifa Hospital.

Meanwhile, the army detonated car bombs in Sabra and launched raids on the Shuja'iyya neighbourhood in Gaza City.

A group of vessels attempting to deliver aid to the war-ravaged Gaza Strip was intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters on Wednesday, the coalition behind the convoy said, the second such interception in the past week.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) is an international network of pro-Palestinian activist groups that organises civilian maritime missions aimed at breaking Israel's blockade of Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the enclave.

The flotilla's vessels and passengers were safe, had been transferred to an Israeli port and were expected to be deported promptly, Israel's foreign ministry said in a statement on X.

"Another futile attempt to breach the legal naval blockade and enter a combat zone ended in nothing," the ministry said.

The FFC said Israeli forces "hijacked the humanitarian fleet," adding that the "ships were illegally intercepted ... Participants - humanitarians, doctors and journalists from across the world - have been taken against their will and are being held in unknown conditions."

"The Israeli military has no legal jurisdiction over international waters," it said. "Our flotilla poses no harm."

Good morning, Middle East Eye readers,

Here are the latest updates from Israel's war on Gaza:

• The organisers of a new Gaza-bound aid flotilla said the Israeli army intercepted at least three of its boats on Wednesday.

• Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim on Wednesday said he strongly condemned the Israeli military after it intercepted several boats carrying aid to Gaza, and demanded that Malaysian activists taking part in the flotilla mission be released.

• Qatar's prime minister and senior delegates from the United States and Turkey will join Hamas and Israeli negotiators on Wednesday for a third day of talks aimed at ending Israel's war on Gaza.

• US President Donald Trump voiced optimism that there was a "real chance" to end the war in Gaza. "I think there's a possibility that we could have peace in the Middle East," he said.

• Explosions heard clearly in southern Israel as a result of intense Israeli attacks on Gaza, Al Jazeera reported, citing Israeli media.

Our live blog is now closed until tomorrow morning.

Here are the day's key developments:

- Heavy Israeli shelling was reported across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, as the genocide passed its two-year mark, with more than 67,000 Palestinians killed and the besieged enclave left largely in ruins.

- The head of the Hamas political bureau Khalil al-Hayya said that while he extends his gratitude to US President Donald Trump for his efforts toward a ceasefire deal, it's the Israelis that cannot be trusted to commit to it. Hayya demanded international guarantors for any agreement. 

- Signaling significant progress, the Qatari prime minister will personally join Gaza talks in Egypt on Wednesday, the Reuters news agency reported, citing its own sources.

- Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni revealed that she and two of her ministers had been reported to the International Criminal Court for alleged complicity in genocide in Gaza. 

- A 22-year-old Palestinian man from a village south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank died in Israeli custody on Tuesday because of medical neglect, the office of Palestinian prisoners' affairs announced.

- Parliamentarians from Turkey and Europe, including members of the European Parliament, have issued a plea for the immediate release of activists who took part in the Global Sumud Flotilla, currently detained by Israel.