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

Agnes Callamard, the head of Amnesty International, called on EU leaders on Friday to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement at a meeting in Luxembourg on 20 October.

"Ceasefire doesn’t mean the end of genocide, unlawful occupation or apartheid," she said on X on Friday. "The EU must not backtrack on suspending the agreement. Diplomatic & economic pressure on Israel is needed as much as ever.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday rejected Israel's bid to appeal against arrest warrants for its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant.

In November, the ICC found "reasonable grounds" to believe Netanyahu and Gallant bore "criminal responsibility" for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Around 280 bodies have been recovered from under the rubble in Gaza, Gaza's civil defence team shared on Friday on Telegram. 

Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for the  agency said there are around an estimated 10,000 Palestinians buried under bombed homes, businesses, offices and other infrastructure.

Basel said that the teams were in need of “advanced and heavy equipment to accomplish their tasks”. 

A Turkish rescue team have heavy equipment and are currently waiting for permission from Israel at the border to be admitted to Gaza. 

The Israeli military killed several displaced Palestinians and injured several others after they launched attacks on a car trying to return to their home in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City on Friday, Wafa news agency reported, citing local sources.

Wafa news agency reported that medical teams and civil defense workers faced obstacles trying to reach the victims due to targeting of civilians in the area.

The Israeli military announced they killed several Palestinians exiting a tunnel shaft near Khan Younis in Southern Gaza on Friday.

They said the Palestinians were “terrorists” and accused them of being “an imminent threat to them”.

They also accused several Palestinians -who they also referred to as “terrorists” of “opening fire towards IDF troops”. No troops were injured in the alleged attack.

The Israeli military have not fully withdrawn from Gaza and have killed dozens of people in Gaza since the ceasefire agreement.    

A Palestinian man in Louisiana has been charged with alleged involvement in the 7 October 2023 attacks on southern Israel and travelling to the US on a fraudulent visa, federal prosecutors said on Friday.

Charges against Mahmoud Amin Ya'qub al-Muhtadi, 33, were brought in the United States District Court for the western district of Louisiana. 

Hamas plans to release the remains of another captive, according to a post on X by the Israeli military.

The Red Cross is en route to southern Gaza, where the coffin of a deceased captive will be transferred into its custody.

This would be the 10th body of an Israeli captive to be returned. Hamas have said that they are having difficulty locating the remaining 18 bodies and need heavy equipment to clear the rubble to do to.

Israel has returned the bodies of 120 Palestinians - many showing signs of torture and "field execution". Another 330 bodies are yet to be returned, which is part of the ceasefire agreement. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on social media that Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado had called him on Friday to congratulate him on "Israel's achievements".

"Ms Machado told the Prime Minister that she greatly appreciates his decisions and resolute actions in the course of the war, and Israel's achievements," Netanyahu's post said on X." She also praised the agreement for the release of the captives in Gaza. 

"Ms Machado added that she appreciates the relentless struggle against the Iranian axis of evil, which is active not only against Israel, but also against the people of Venezuela".

The Council on American-Islamic Relations has called for Machado to withdraw support for Netanyahu's Likud Party and far-right parties in Europe.

The United Nations human rights office said on a post on X on Friday that more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed - predominantly by the Israeli military as well as settlers in the West Bank - over the past two years.

Their investigation found almost one-fifth of the 1,0001 Palestinians killed have been male children. It also found that the perpetrators used live ammunition on almost two-thirds of Palestinians, with more than a third of Palestinians being shot in the head or the upper body.  The majority of Palestinians killed were from the area in and around Jenin. 

"There must be an end to the bloodshed," the UN said. "Annexation in West Bank needs to be reversed. There must be accountability for all violations of intl law".

Campaigners have hailed the apparent withdrawal of several celebrities from a committee helming a fundraising ball for the British Museum, crediting scrutiny over its ties to British Petroleum (BP) and the involvement of companies linked to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The British Museum denied that the pullouts were connected to the campaign or criticism of the museum and event.

A coalition of pro-Palestine and climate justice groups, including Energy Embargo for Palestine (EEFP) and Culture Unstained, wrote to members of the committee calling for them to withdraw, citing the British Museum’s long-running partnership with BP.

They said the company is “complicit in and profiting from the ongoing genocide in Gaza and climate breakdown”.

In a post on Instagram on Wednesday, EEFP reported that Elba, fashion designer Bella Freud and author Zadie Smith had been removed from the list of committee members for the event. 

You can read more here.

The United Nations warned on Friday that it would take "some time" to reverse the famine in the Gaza Strip, and urged Israel to open all crossings.

"It's going to take some time to scale back the famine" declared by the UN in late August, World Food Programme (WFP) spokeswoman Abeer Etefa told a media briefing in Geneva.

She called for all land crossings into the Palestinian territory to be opened up "so that we can flood Gaza with food supplies".  She said the WFP had been able to use the Kerem Shalom and Kissufim crossings in recent days, but others, such as the one in northern Gaza, remain closed. 

Etefa said WFP had five food distribution points up and running across the Gaza Strip, mostly in the south, but wanted to get to 145.

"The ceasefire has opened a narrow window of opportunity," she added. "WFP is moving very quickly and swiftly to scale up food assistance and reach families who have endured months of blockade, displacement and hunger."

From Saturday until Wednesday, around 230 trucks with 2,800 tonnes of food supplies crossed into Gaza, said Etefa.

This is less than half of the 600 agreed as part of the ceasefire agreement. 

"We're still below what we need, but we're getting there," Etefa added.

A team of Turkish disaster response specialists is stationed at the Egyptian border, awaiting Israeli authorisation to enter Gaza and help in search and recovery operations of bodies trapped under the rubble, a Turkish official told AFP on Friday. 

The 81-member team from Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority is equipped with specialised search-and-rescue tools, including life-detection devices and trained search dogs.

"It remains unclear when Israel will allow the Turkish team to enter Gaza," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. 

"Initially, Israel preferred to work with a Qatari team, but we are hopeful that our delegation will be granted access soon."

The Turkish official noted that the team's mission includes locating both Palestinian and Israeli bodies, including captives believed to be buried or hidden in collapsed structures. 

Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir told The Guardian in an interview on Friday that she's not interested in a Palestinian state; Palestinians just wants "to live".

“There’s a genocide,” Jacir said. “I don’t want a state. I don’t give a shit about a state. We just want to live. That’s what Palestinians want. We want to have a life.”

Jacir wrote and directed Palestine 36, a film which tells about the forgotten history of Palestine resisting British colonial occupation in 1936. 

An Israeli strike hit the southern Lebanese town of Khirbet Selm, according to local media.

The official National News Agency said the strike was carried out by a drone that used a guided missile and hit a car.

Injuries have been reported as a result of the strike.

The UK Home Office has lost its appeal to block Palestine Action from challenging its ban as a terror group. 

The Court of Appeal on Friday dismissed the government's attempt to stop the judicial review of its decision to ban the group. 

During the judgement, four judges, including the Lady Chief Justice, also granted Palestine Action's co-founder, Huda Ammori, two further grounds to challenge the ban, that were previously rejected. 

These grounds include that the Home Secretary, at the time, failed to consider relevant information or/and considered irrelevant information, and that she failed to follow her published policy "which prescribes that certain factors may be taken into account".

Following Friday's judgement, Ammori praised the decision and described it as an "authoritarian ban" that must be opposed.

Read more: UK Home Office loses bid to block Palestine Action from challenging ban as terror group