Live: Lawyers present genocide risk case against Israel at ICJ

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his talks with US president Donald Trump included “working constantly to free the hostages” and that his government is “determined to eliminate Hamas”.

He added that he discussed Trump’s “vision” for Gaza during his visit to the White House which ended on Monday.

Trump had again proposed taking "the Palestinians and move them around to different countries", which has been criticised by world leaders and human rights bodies as "forced displacement" and "ethnic cleansing".

“We are currently in contact with countries that are talking about the possibility of taking in many Gazans. This is important because in the end, this is what needs to happen,” Netanyahu said.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday that the Gaza Strip has been abandoned without “a drop of aid” for more than a month, and the situation is proving dire for Palestinian residents in the enclave.

“More than an entire month has passed without a drop of aid into Gaza. No food. No fuel. No medicine. No commercial supplies,” he told reporters in New York.

He added: "As aid has dried up, the floodgates of horror have re-opened. Gaza is a killing field - and civilians are in an endless death loop".

The UN chief has reiterated that, under international law, Israel is obliged to allow aid into the Strip for Palestinians in the occupied territory.

"No humanitarian supplies can enter Gaza. Meanwhile, at the crossing points, food, medicine and shelter supplies are piling up, and vital equipment is stuck," Guterres said.

Although the UN is "ready and determined to deliver" aid, Guterres said Israel’s newly proposed "authorisation mechanisms" for aid deliveries "risk further controlling and callously limiting aid down to the last calorie and grain of flour".

"Let me be clear, we will not participate in any arrangement that does not fully respect humanitarian principles: humanity, impartiality, independence and neutrality. Unimpeded humanitarian access must be guaranteed," he said.

In response to Trump's proposal to taking "the Palestinians and moving them around to different countries",  he added: “Palestinians have the right to live in Palestine, in a Palestinian state, side-by-side with the Israeli state. To be forced to be moved away is against international law.”

A Palestinian home in the Jenin refugee camp was blown up by Israeli troops, according to the Wafa news agency on Tuesday.

Israeli troops have been carrying out raids for more than two months as part of an ongoing military operation in occupied Jenin, destroying more than 600 homes there.

Wafa agency reported that Israeli soldiers have fired tear gas in the Wadi Burqin area, located about five kilometres west of the Jenin refugee camp.

The Israeli media outlet Haaretz is reporting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is holding talks with countries to discuss “the option of absorbing many Gazan residents”.

His statements come after his recent visit to the US on Tuesday, where he met with US president Donald Trump. Netanyahu said they discussed Trump's "vision" for Gaza.

Trump had again proposed taking "the Palestinians and move them around to different countries", which has been criticised by world leaders and human rights bodies as "forced displacement" and "ethnic cleansing".

The Israeli army has denounced an incident in which a wedding hall was set ablaze on Tuesday and sabotaged with graffiti written in Hebrew in the occupied West Bank, stating that an investigation will be launched.

“A report was received regarding Israeli civilians setting fire to a Palestinian event hall overnight in the area of Biddya… Upon receiving the report, Israeli security forces were dispatched to the scene and initiated a preliminary review of the incident,” read a joint statement issued by the Israeli army, police and the Shin Bet internal security service.

It added: “No injuries were reported. A joint inquiry has been opened by the Israeli Police and ISA”.

Dutch Foreign Affairs minister Caspar Veldkamp has summoned the Israeli ambassador in the Netherlands over the situation in Gaza, the government said in a statement on Tuesday.

It added that a meeting will be held on Wednesday. 

The largest professional society for the teaching and study of American history has overwhelmingly passed a resolution condemning Israel's "scholasticide" in Gaza.

The prestigious Organisation of American Historians (OAH), which publishes the Journal of American History, passed the resolution on Saturday 8 April at an OAH business meeting in Chicago.

A decisive majority of 104 members voted for the motion - with only 25 opposing it.

The Israeli military has bombed and mostly destroyed all 12 universities in Gaza and hundreds of primary and secondary schools.

More than 200 heritage sites, including mosques, churches and libraries, have been destroyed.

Read more: Organisation of American Historians votes to condemn Israeli 'scholasticide' in Gaza

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich vowed on Monday that he will continue the total blockade of aid entering the Gaza Strip.

“Not even a grain of wheat will enter Gaza,” he said, speaking at Israeli outlet Yedioth Ahronoth’s People of Israel Conference.

On 2 March, weeks before breaking the ceasefire in Gaza, Israel shut down all the Palestinian enclave’s border crossings, halting the flow of much-needed humanitarian aid and further exacerbating the territory’s crises.

One of the ceasefire’s main goals was to allow for the return of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Since resuming its full-scale attacks on 18 March, Israel has killed over 1,400 Palestinians and wounded over 3,600, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

Read more: Smotrich says 'not even a grain of wheat' will enter Gaza

The following personal account of Palestinian journalist and MEE contributor Ahmed Aziz, who was in Khan Younis at the scene of the Israeli attack on a journalist tent, was told to our Palestine bureau chief Lubna Masarwa:

We were in the tents around midnight when a strike hit one of the tents. Inside were journalists Hassan Islayeh and Ahmed Mansour; Mansour was working the night shift as an editor at Palestine Today.

Journalist Hilmi al-Faqawi was asleep at the time. Faqawi works in social media for Palestine Today. In that moment, Islayeh’s phone was struck by a direct bomb.

Islayeh went outside, but he was hit with shrapnel in his face, and the fingers on his right hand were severed. At the same time, shrapnel struck Faqawi in the chest, stomach and face.

Given the situation, we tried to put out the intense fire in the tent which was exacerbated by the flammable nylon and sponge material.

Another piece of shrapnel hit the tent in front of us, belonging to Russia Today (RT). It struck a gas cylinder. Although the cylinder was empty, the remaining gas inside created a foggy atmosphere.

Because of the fog, we tried to wake the men and check on them. Our colleague Ehab al-Bourdaineh was hit by shrapnel in the back of his head, which exited through the side of his right eye. He works as a photographer for RT.

You can read the full account below. 

Witness to media tent bombing: 'We did everything to save Mansour'

Israeli forces have stormed Al-Quds University's campus in the town of Abu Dis, in occupied East Jerusalem, firing teargas and sound bombs towards students, according to Wafa news agency. 

Local sources told Wafa that troops broke into the campus ahead of a planned protest in support of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and against Israel's ongoing war. 

The firing of teargas caused 23 students to suffer from gas inhalation, the report stated. 

Egypt’s Grand Mufti Nazir Ayyad on Monday said it was "irresp0nsible" for the International Union Of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) to issue a fatwa that said all "able Muslims" are under an obligation to wage "jihad" against Israel due to its atrocities in Gaza. 

The IUMS said all Muslim countries are under a legal duty "to intervene immediately militarily, economically and politically to stop this genocide and comprehensive destruction" and to impose a siege on Israel.

“The failure of the Arab and Islamic governments to support Gaza while it is being destroyed is considered by Islamic law to be a major crime against our oppressed brothers in Gaza,” its secretary general, Ali al-Qaradaghi, said in a decree issued on Friday.

In response, Ayyad, who is the highest authority for issuing religious opinions in Egypt, rejected the fatwa, saying that "no individual group or entity has the right to issue fatwas on such delicate and critical matters in violation of Sharia principles and its higher objectives".

"Such actions may endanger the security of societies and the stability of Muslim states," he added.

Read more: Egypt’s grand mufti rejects fatwa for jihad against Israel as 'irresponsible'

Three Palestinians have died from wounds sustained in an earlier Israeli assault on Khan Yunis, according to Al Jazeera Arabic.

At least 58 have been killed in the past 24 hours by Israel, with another 213 people wounded, according to the ministry of health in Gaza.

The overall death toll from Israel’s relentless assault on the besieged Strip has now reached 50,810 killed and 115,688 wounded since October 7, 2023.

Palestinian journalist Ahmed Mansour has succumbed to burns sustained after an Israeli strike on a tent where reporters were known to reside in Khan Younis was set on fire. 

In a widely shared clip, the correspondent for the local Palestine Today news agency was seen engulfed in flames as colleagues desperately attempt to save him on Monday. 

Mansour was left in critical condition with life-threatening injuries.

The Palestinian civil defence confirmed Mansour's death on Tuesday, according to Palestinian news website Arab48. 

Middle East Eye correspondent Ahmed Aziz, who was a witness to the strike, reported that those in the tent "tried desperately to rescue Ahmed Mansour from the flames, but there were no resources available, as the sponge, wood, and nylon in the tent quickly caught fire."

Read more: Palestinian journalist seen in flames from Israeli strike on media tent dies

An elderly Palestinian man has died west of Bethlehem after suffering a heart attack while witnessing Israeli forces assault his children, according to Al Jazeera Arabic.