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At least 50 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in Gaza since dawn, Al Jazeera reported on Friday.
While the heaviest toll has come from Gaza City and the north, air raids have pounded multiple areas across the enclave, including Khan Younis and Rafah in the south.
Israeli artillery fire struck the Qizan Rashwan area in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, killing one person and injuring several others, reported Al Jazeeera Arabic on Friday.
In the early hours of 17 April 2024, hundreds of students quietly set up an encampment in the main quad of Columbia University in Morningside, New York City.
Inspired by the actions of the anti-Vietnam war protests of the late 1960s, the students dubbed the lined tents on the lawns of the campus "The Liberated Zone."
Student demands were clear. They called for the disclosure of university investments in companies profiting from the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and called for divestment from these companies.
Given its place as an incubator of American leadership, the student actions at Columbia incensed the political elite, wheeling Columbia University to the forefront in a war over public opinion on Palestine.
University condemnation of the action was swift. Within hours, administrators threatened to shut down what they saw as a carbuncle on the famous campus. On the evening of 18 April, police in riot gear were ushered in.
Read more: The Encampments: A portrait of a protest for Palestine that moved America
Hussam Abu Safiya and other Palestinian prisoners in Israeli-run detention centres are facing increasingly "inhumane conditions" and torture, according to his lawyer.
Gheed Kassem said in an interview with Alaraby TV that she has visited the paediatrician, who is the director of Gaza's Kamal Adwan hospital, three times, with "each visit being more difficult than the one before".
"To be honest, what I have heard from him was incredibly shocking, to the point where I don't even know if its right to reveal to the media," she said.
According to Kassem, detainees from Gaza were "beaten and assaulted in a monstrous way" during the celebration of Eid al-Fitr earlier this month.
"I have not met one prisoner in the last week, unfortunately, who was not beaten or assaulted," she said.
Read more: Hussam Abu Safiya's 'inhumane conditions' in Israeli detention worsening
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.
"Humanitarian aid and supplies have not entered the Gaza Strip since 2 March 2025, when the Israeli authorities imposed a siege," the agency said. "This is already three times longer than the one enforced in October 2023 when the war started."
It said that there had been "at least 20 displacement orders issued by the Israeli military between 18 March and 14 April" which had resulted in around 69 percent of the Gaza Strip "under active displacement orders, within the ‘no-go’ zone or both".
"Resumed bombardments and the total restriction on aid are severely hampering humanitarian agencies’ ability to respond to urgent needs - especially food, clean water, sanitation, shelter, and medical supplies."
An Israeli air strike on a home in Gaza City has killed at least seven Palestinians and wounded dozens more, including women, children and elderly people. Many of those killed were from the same family.
Israeli warplanes targeted the home of the Nassar family in the al-Zaytoun neighbourhood of Gaza City, Wafa news agency reported on Friday.
Among those killed were Abdul Latif Nassar, Nayef Nassar, Amani Nassar, Rawan Nassar, and Hala Nassar.
At least 43 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes since dawn on Friday, according to medics.
The Israeli foreign minister planned to cut short his secret trip to London this week after it was exposed, but changed his mind when the British government blocked an attempt to secure an arrest warrant for him, sources told Middle East Eye.
A UK-based legal group that sought the warrant for Gideon Saar has meanwhile disputed the government's assertion that the foreign minister had "immunity".
The attorney general's office confirmed to MEE on Thursday that it had blocked an arrest warrant request by legal groups.
Saar's office said British Foreign Secretary David Lammy had informed his Israeli counterpart of the decision.
Middle East Eye revealed on Tuesday that Saar was making a secret trip to the UK this week, later that day reporting that he had met Lammy in London.
Read more: Israeli foreign minister planned to cut London trip short before UK blocked arrest attempt
The head of Hamas’ negotiating delegation, Khalil Al-Hayya, said on Friday that the group is ready to “immediately engage in comprehensive package negotiations”, whereby all Israeli captives would be released, along with an agreed-upon number of Palestinian detainees in exchange for a complete halt to the war in Gaza and the start of the reconstruction plan.
He blamed Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government for exploiting the partial agreements of the ceasefire “as a cover for their political agenda”.
Al-Hayya also welcomed the stance of Adam Boehler, the special envoy of US President Donald Trump, regarding the conclusion of the prisoners and war file together.
He said: “This aligns with the movement’s stance of readiness to reach a comprehensive agreement on a full-package prisoner exchange, in return for ending the war, the withdrawal of the occupation from the Gaza Strip, and the reconstruction.”
Al-Hayya called upon the international community to intervene and exert more effort to lift Israel’s weeks-long blockade of aid to Gaza.
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.
“The attacks included demolitions of donor-funded shelters and other structures,” the consulate said.
It has also called on Israel to “uphold its obligations under the 4th Geneva Convention, including the prohibition of forcible transfer and destruction of 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 consulate said.
Treasured and admired, photojournalist Fatima Hassouna was known by many in Gaza for her creativity, talent and most recently her documentation of Israel's war on Gaza.
"Fatima dreamed of travelling and seeing the world," her cousin, Salma al-Suwairki, told Middle East Eye.
"She told me that she was saving the money she earned from her work so that she and her family could travel after the war so they could all come together to perform Umrah."
However, the 25-year-old, like many in the besieged enclave, would not live to capture another moment of the war.
Early Wednesday morning, Hassouna was killed by an Israeli strike that targeted her family home in Gaza City.
Read more: Gaza mourns beloved photojournalist Fatima Hassouna killed by Israel
At least 58 people have been killed in the US strikes on Ras Isa port in Yemen’s Hodeidah governorate, according to Houthi-affiliated media outlet al-Masirah.
It also reported that 126 people have been injured in the strikes.
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.
It described the attack as a “full-fledged war crime”.
“The US aggression against the Yemeni people is an extension of the war of extermination being waged against our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip,” said Hamas in a post on Telegram.
It adds: “Hamas expresses its full solidarity with the brotherly Yemeni people.”
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.
Read more: ITV documentary 'Our Land' lays bare the fanaticism of the Israeli settler movement
One person has been killed on Friday in an attack by an Israeli drone on a car that was travelling on a highway in the Ghaziyeh area in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
Israel has not commented on the strike.
The incident comes after four consecutive days of Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon, in which Israel claims it is targeting Hezbollah members and facilities.
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.
