Live: Lawyers present genocide risk case against Israel at ICJ

Israeli officers allowed prominent Rabbi Shlomo Aviner to enter Syria with one of his aides and meet soldiers ahead of the Jewish Passover holiday, the Israeli army revealed.

Their entry was not approved through the correct channels, but no punishments were carried out, the Times of Israel reports.

The United Nations' human rights office warned on Friday that Israel's actions in Gaza are increasingly endangering the existence of Palestinians as a group.

"In light of the cumulative impact of Israeli forces conduct in Gaza, we are seriously concerned that Israel appears to be inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life increasingly incompatible with their continued existence as a group," Ravina Shamdasani, the spokesperson for the office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights told reporters in Geneva.

Saudi Arabia called on Friday for pressure to be put on Israel to ensure the steady flow of aid into the Gaza Strip after the country imposed a blockade on the entry of crucial humanitarian supplies.

"I demand the exercise of maximum pressure to ensure the continuous and sufficient flow of aid into the Strip," Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan said after a meeting with regional counterparts in southern Turkey.

The company that funded a report on the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023 for a parliamentary group on Israel is no longer listed in a British peer’s register of interests days after a complaint naming the firm was filed with a standards watchdog.

Cedarsoak Ltd is a UK-based company in which Lord Mendelsohn, the former chair of Labour Friends of Israel, and Lord Polak, the former chair of the Conservative Friends of Israel, are the sole directors.

The company is credited with funding the report published on 18 March by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on UK-Israel which described its aim as being "to chronicle the facts of 7 October with clarity and precision".  

APPGs are informal groups of MPs and peers and the report, titled "7 October Parliamentary Commission Report", states that it is not an official publication and has not been approved by either parliamentary house or their committees.

Read more: Firm that funded 7 October report disappears from British peer’s register of interests

An independent investigation into Israel’s killing of paramedics "clearly marked with life jackets" in southern Gaza last month must be carried out, said German Federal Government Commissioner for Human Rights Policy and Humanitarian Assistance Luise Amtsberg.

“This alleged violation of international law must not go unpunished,” Amtsberg said in a message on social media platform Bluesky.

“The investigation must be carried out quickly and independently, and the perpetrators must be brought to justice as soon as possible. The Israeli government and judiciary have a duty here,” she said. "People are being targeted even though they are helping others in need."

Israel’s misrepresentation of the event is “once again” straining ties between Germany and Israel, Amtsberg added.

An Israeli air strike killed an entire Palestinian family, including several children, on Friday by targeting a home that had previously been bombed in Khan Younis. 

The home, belonging to the family of Mazen al-Farra, was located in the al-Mahatta neighbourhood, near the centre of Khan Younis. 

Although the house had been damaged in an earlier strike, the family had recently repaired it and returned to live there.

At approximately 3am, the house was struck again, resulting in the deaths of Mazen al-Farra, his wife, his mother-in-law Maryam al-Astal, and five of his children: Saeed, Ibrahim, Taqwa, Maryam and Musab.

Also killed in the strike were al-Farra’s niece and nephew Mira and Ibrahim, aged 10 and seven, respectively.

Read more: Palestinian family of 10 erased in overnight Israeli strike on Khan Younis

The United Nations on Friday decried the impact of ongoing Israeli strikes across Gaza on civilians, finding that "a large percentage of fatalities are children and women".

"Between 18 March and 9 April 2025, there were some 224 incidents of Israeli strikes on residential buildings and tents for internally displaced people," the UN human rights office said, adding that: "In some 36 strikes about which the UN Human Rights Office corroborated information, the fatalities recorded so far were only women and children."

On 27 March 2025, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) - one of the world's most influential medical journals - published an article headlined "Health Care Bridges - Pathways toward Trust in Gaza and Beyond".

It was only the second article in the journal to mention Gaza since Israel escalated its genocide against the Palestinian people in October 2023.

That this is NEJM's leading contribution on Palestine is telling. 

There has been no report on the systematic targeting of the Palestinian healthcare system, no call for accountability or justice for the more than 1,200 medical workers killed, and no condemnation of the incarceration and torture of hundreds more. Instead, the journal offers a narrow appeal to build trust through joint health programmes.

This editorial decision is deeply political. It promotes a depoliticised narrative of health as a "bridge to peace" at the expense of an ethical commitment to confront the ongoing destruction of the Palestinian healthcare system, Israel's culpability for these crimes, and the structures of power that enable and sustain such violence.

Read more: Why is the New England Journal of Medicine promoting 'health bridges' while Gaza's hospitals burn? Opinion by Ghada Majadli, Dr James Smith, Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, Dr Rasha Khoury

Around 250 reservists and former members of Israel's elite intelligence Unit 8200 released a letter on Friday, expressing support for around 1000 Israeli Air Force reservists and former soldiers calling for the return of all captives and an end to the war in Gaza, Haaretz reported.

"We identify with the assertion that at the time the war serves mainly political and personal interests and not security interests," the letter said.

"Continuation of the war does not contribute to any of its declared goals and will bring the death of the hostages, IDF [Israeli military] soldiers and innocent people," it said, 

The publication said additional alumni of the unit are expected to join the call. A group of entrepreneurs, investors and employees in the Israeli high-tech sector is expected to publish a similar letter on Friday.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) said nearly 400,000 people have been displaced in Gaza following the breakdown of the ceasefire and called for a renewal of the truce deal.

"They are now also enduring by far the longest blockage of aid and commercial supplies since the start of the war," Unrwa said in a post on X, as it shared testimony of a Palestinian woman who has been displaced five times since the beginning of the war.

It is estimated that nearly 400,000 people have been displaced in #Gaza following the breakdown of the ceasefire. They are now also enduring by far the longest blockage of aid and commercial supplies since the start of the war.

We call for a renewal of the #CeasefireNow, ⁠a… pic.twitter.com/XYmaXvq1U8

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) April 11, 2025

The Israeli military issued a forced evacuation order to residents of the six areas in Gaza City, including the Shujaiya district, ordering them to displace to the west.

The Israeli military “is operating with great force in your areas to destroy terrorist infrastructure,” the military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said in a post on X.

Two people were killed in an Israeli strike on a group of Palestinians in the al-Atatra neighbourhood of Beit Lahia, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera Arabic reported.

This brings the number of people killed by Israeli strikes since dawn to at least 20, after 18 were killed earlier in Khan Younis.

Israel and Egypt have reportedly exchanged draft documents on a ceasefire-captive release deal, Israel’s Kan public broadcaster reported.

The new proposals are aimed at bridging the gap between a ceasefire extension tabled by US special envoy Steve Witkoff, and a counter one tabled by Egypt and Qatar in late March, according to the report.

The Egyptian proposal calls for Hamas to release eight living captives and bodies of eight deceased captives in exchange for a truce lasting between 40 and 70 days, as well as Israel releasing a large number of Palestinians from prisons.

A senior Israeli official said it is possible to reach a deal soon, according to the report.

The death toll from the Israeli attacks on homes in Khan Younis has risen to at least 18, according to Al Jazeera, citing local sources.

The report said people were killed and wounded after Israeli strikes on a group of civilians in the al-Atatra neighbourhood of Beit Lahiya, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

Good morning Middle East Eye readers,

Here are some of the latest updates on Israel’s war on Gaza and the occupied West Bank:

• The Israeli military attacks killed at least 14 people in Gaza's Khan Younis, according to Al Jazeera.

• US President Donald Trump has nominated Yehuda Kaploun as his “Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism”.

• A series of US air strikes targeted Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen over recent hours.

• Israel’s military announced that it will increase the presence of combat forces during Passover, a Jewish festival which begins on Saturday and ends on 20 April.

• Israeli forces have arrested the mother and brother of Abdullah Jalmana in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, in an attempt to pressure the wanted Palestinian man to surrender himself, according to the Quds News Network.

• US authorities have charged 12 protesters with felony vandalism for participating in a June 2024 pro-Palestine demonstration at Stanford University in California.