Live: Lawyers present genocide risk case against Israel at ICJ

Medical sources in Gaza are reporting that Israeli forces on Saturday have killed at least 64 people in the last 24 hours across the besieged enclave.

Early on Saturday, doctors reported that Israeli strikes injured more than 20 children in Khan Younis.

Israeli forces also fired artillery shells towards the eastern part of Gaza and the city of Rafah in southern Gaza. 

Our live coverage from Gaza will shortly be closing until tomorrow morning.

Here are some of the day's key developments:

• At least 58 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in Gaza since dawn, Al Jazeera reported on Friday.

• The number of people killed in the US-led attack on the Ras Issa facility has climbed to at least 80, with at least 171 others wounded, reported the Yemen News Agency.

• The Palestinian group Hamas has on Friday condemned the missile attacks by the US on Yemen’s Ras Isa port, which resulted in the killing of at least 38 people and the injury of more than 100.

•  The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) has said that 420,000 Palestinians have been newly displaced in Gaza since 18 March - when Israel violated a ceasefire agreement and resumed its deadly war. 

• The World Food Programme has sounded the alarm over Gaza’s deepening hunger crisis, warning that hundreds of thousands are on the brink of starvation.

• Turkey’s parliament speaker, Numan Kurtulmus, denounced Israel’s war on Gaza on Friday, describing it as “a genocide unlike anything modern times have seen”.

• A senior Hezbollah figure has made it clear the group will not consider handing over its weapons to the Lebanese army unless Israel halts its military assault and pulls back from the country’s south.

• In a post on X, the British consulate in Jerusalem said on Friday that officials from several European countries, including Belgium, France, Spain and Germany, have all expressed “support with Palestinian community members” following the attacks by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

• Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said on Friday that no ceasefire deal will be reached with Hamas and no humanitarian aid will be allowed into Gaza until the Palestinian group is defeated.

An Israeli air strike on the Abu Shamala family home in Khan Younis has killed one person and left 20 others injured, including 15 children, according to local reports.

Medical sources have told Al Jazeera that the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli assaults across Gaza since sunrise on Friday has risen to at least 58.

Residential areas continue to bear the brunt of Israel’s bombardment, as the death toll climbs and hospitals struggle to cope with the wounded.

The head of the Hamas political bureau, Khalil al-Hayya, said on Thursday that all remaining captives will be released from Gaza if Israel ends its war on the enclave.

Hamas, he said, is ready for “comprehensive package negotiations, including the release of all Israeli captives in exchange for an agreed number of Palestinian prisoners, the complete withdrawal of the occupation army from the Gaza Strip, starting reconstruction, and the lifting of the siege”.

“The leadership of Hamas and the resistance factions are keen to stop the barbaric aggression and genocidal war,” he added, noting that it was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who reneged on the ceasefire agreement that started on 19 January and lasted six weeks.

The deal was meant to have three phases, but when it was time for Israel to withdraw from Gaza entirely in phase two, it reimposed a total siege on any goods, food, and aid coming into the Strip.

By 15 March, Netanyahu had resumed a full-scale war on Gaza.

Read more: All captives will be released from Gaza if Israel agrees to end war, Hamas says

The International Committee of the Red Cross says it is urgently assisting health facilities in Yemen following US air strikes on the Ras Isa oil port that left at least 80 people dead.

In a statement, the ICRC confirmed it had dispatched medical teams to treat the wounded and supplied body bags to ensure the dead are handled with dignity.

It urged “all parties to respect and protect civilians, including medics, emergency responders, and civilian infrastructure” as required by international humanitarian law.

Turkey’s parliament speaker, Numan Kurtulmus, denounced Israel’s war on Gaza on Friday, describing it as “a genocide unlike anything modern times have seen”.

“We are witnessing the systematic destruction of an entire people, and the world is largely silent,” Kurtulmus said, saying Gaza does not belong to any one power.

He added that despite the failure of international institutions to act, a wave of moral outrage is spreading.

“Voices for Palestine are echoing across streets, parliaments, and capitals around the world,” he said.

Kurtulmus’s remarks reflect growing anger in Turkey and beyond as Israel continues its war on Gaza, where over 51,000 people have been killed.

Houthi-aligned broadcaster al-Masirah reported on Friday that US air raids have hit several locations in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa.

According to the outlet, warplanes struck the al-Hafa area in al-Sabeen district, with additional attacks targeting Bani Hashish district in Sanaa governorate, which was hit with four separate strikes.

An Israeli settler polishes his gun. “The Palestinian savages around here, they have no mercy, no law, nothing,” he says coolly. “Just blood and blood, like you see in the movies."

The settler, introduced to television viewers as Yair, has a beard and a ponytail, and speaks fluent English. 

He is one of the most prominent figures featured in ITV’s brilliant new documentary, Our Land.

Made by BAFTA-winning filmmaker Jordan Bryon and produced by Hardcash Productions, it was filmed across eight months last year in the occupied West Bank.

A rarity on British television, it provides up-close insight into the sensibilities and motivations of the Israeli settler movement.

Read more: ITV documentary 'Our Land' lays bare the fanaticism of the Israeli settler movement

The World Food Programme has sounded the alarm over Gaza’s deepening hunger crisis, warning that hundreds of thousands are on the brink of starvation.

In a post on X on Friday, the agency said: “Two million people in Gaza, most of them displaced and without income, rely entirely on food assistance.”

“With supplies nearly gone and border crossings still sealed, Gaza needs food now,” the WFP added.

Israel’s continued blockade has made the delivery of aid nearly impossible, worsening the already dire humanitarian catastrophe.

The British consulate in Jerusalem has shared a thread on X, revealing that diplomats from several European countries - including Belgium, France, Spain, and Germany - visited Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank following a wave of Israeli settler violence.

According to the consulate, the attacks involved the demolition of donor-funded shelters and other essential structures.

In the post, the UK urged Israel to honour its responsibilities under the Fourth Geneva Convention, particularly the bans on forcibly transferring civilians and destroying homes and property.

“We also reaffirm our opposition to settlements, which are illegal under international law, and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-state solution and to a just, lasting and comprehensive peace,” the statement read.

European envoys continue to voice rare public criticism of Israel's actions, as settler violence in the West Bank escalates with little accountability

Lebanon’s health ministry says an Israeli drone strike hit a car on a road between the border villages of Aita ash-Shaab and Rmeish, killing one person on Friday.

A separate attack earlier in the day also targeted a vehicle south of Sidon, leaving one dead.

Israel claims both individuals were Hezbollah fighters, but the group has not yet issued a response.

These deadly air strikes mark yet another escalation by Israel on Lebanese soil, where civilian areas and public roads continue to come under fire.

Mustapha Dakar, Mohamed Boustati, Ismail Lghazaoui, Abderrahmane Azenkad and Said Boukioud are among a growing list of Moroccan activists recently sentenced to prison by local courts for criticising their country’s normalisation of relations with Israel.

According to a tally compiled by the Moroccan Front for the Support of Palestine and Against Normalisation - a coalition that brings together some 20 associations, unions and political parties - 20 people have been arrested and sentenced to jail terms for this reason since 2021, and the number has been accelerating since October 2023.

Boustati is one of the latest to be sentenced. He received a one-year prison term at the end of March for defamation over Facebook posts about Israel’s war on Gaza that were deemed offensive to the Saudi state.

The posts contained general political criticism of Arab states' positions on the war and normalisation deals with Israel, according to the statements of his lawyer to AFP.

Read more: Moroccan pro-Palestine activists denounce increased state repression

The number of people killed in the US-led attack on the Ras Issa facility has climbed to at least 74, with at least 171 others wounded, reported the Yemen News Agency.

The strike, part of Washington’s ongoing military campaign in Yemen, has drawn fierce condemnation, with critics saying it is enabling Israel’s broader war effort in Gaza.

The Houthi group called the attacks a "barbaric crime".

"US aggression reflects the criminal tendencies of the US and its staggering efforts to break the naval blockade imposed by Yemen in support of the Palestinian people and their resistance to the war crimes and genocide of the usurping Zionist regime against the civilians of Gaza," the group said in a statement.

A senior Hezbollah figure has made it clear the group will not consider handing over its weapons to the Lebanese army unless Israel halts its military assault and pulls back from the country’s south.

“This is not about disarmament,” Wafiq Safa told Al Nur radio. “What the president [Joseph Aoun] said in his inauguration speech is a defensive strategy.”

Hezbollah and Israel have faced off in repeated cross-border exchanges, especially since Israel’s war on Gaza reignited tensions. A ceasefire deal reached in November paused more than a year of clashes, including two months of intense fighting. Israel has broken the ceasefire hundreds of times, according to the UN.

Safa said the group has already shared its stance with Aoun, who recently pledged to make 2025 the year all arms fall under state control.

“Wouldn’t it be logical for Israel to first withdraw, then release the prisoners, then cease its aggression … and then we discuss a defensive strategy?” he asked.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, has sharply criticised Israel over the killing of Palestinian children in Gaza, calling it a campaign of “relentless brutal bombardment” and “cruel starvation”.

“These are not only morally outrageous; they are the most heinous acts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide under international law,” he wrote on X on Friday.

Baghaei said Israel and those backing it “must be held accountable” for the ongoing atrocities.