Live: Lawyers present genocide risk case against Israel at ICJ

Microsoft has fired Ibtihal Aboussad and Vaniya Agrawal after they disrupted the company’s 50th-anniversary event in protest against its business dealings with the Israeli military, the Associated Press reports.

In a letter to Aboussad, Microsoft accused her of misconduct aimed at creating “notoriety” and maximising “disruption” at the high-profile event. Agrawal, who had already handed in her two-week notice, was told to pack up and leave immediately.

Footage from Friday’s event shows Aboussad taking the stage and confronting Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman as he unveiled new product features.

“You claim that you care about using AI for good, but Microsoft sells AI weapons to the Israeli military,” she shouted. “Fifty-thousand people have died and Microsoft powers this genocide in our region.”o

Palestinian journalist Ahmed Mansour has died from the severe burns he sustained in an Israeli air strike on a media tent near Nasser Hospital, Al Jazeera Arabic reports.

The attack, which struck early Monday, also killed two others—Helmi al-Faqawi, a journalist with Palestine Today TV, and Yusuf al-Khazandar—while injuring eight more.

Good morning Middle East Eye readers,

The bloodshed in Gaza shows no sign of slowing. Israeli forces have slaughtered at least 60 Palestinians since dawn on Monday. More than 400,000 people have been forced to flee makeshift shelters across Gaza as Israel pushes the besieged territory towards starvation.

Key Developments:

• US-Israel talks at White House: Trump hosts Netanyahu, vaguely muses about ending the war "soon"—while they plot the ethnic cleansing of Gaza’s entire population.

• UN agencies call for ceasefire: Six top humanitarian chiefs warn Israel’s assault shows "utter disregard for human life". 

• West Bank & Jerusalem shut down: A sweeping general strike hits occupied territories—shops, offices, streets empty in protest against Israel’s ongoing massacres in Gaza and the West Bank.

• Red Sea: Houthis retaliate against US and Israeli warships as Washington keeps bombing Yemen into the stone age.

Good evening Middle East Eye readers, 

our live blog will soon be closing for the day. Here is what happened today: 

• At least 46 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air strikes across Gaza since dawn today, according to medical sources

• Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has openly admitted that Tel Aviv is deliberately starving Palestinians, declaring on Monday: “Not even a single grain of wheat will enter the Gaza Strip"

• In a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House on Monday, US President Donald Trump said that “controlling and owning Gaza would be a good thing”, echoing earlier plans Trump floated about forcibly displacing the population from Gaza to neighbouring countries to “own” and “redevelop” Gaza under US control

• Nearly 400,000 Gaza residents have been displaced in the Gaza Strip since 18 March, with relentless attacks leading to “large-scale civilian casualties” , UN secretary general’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Monday

• The Palestine Red Crescent Society said 15 medics and rescuers killed by Israeli forces last month in Gaza were shot in the upper body with "intent to kill".

• Palestinians across occupied East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank held a general strike in solidarity with Gaza

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu added 400km to a flight to the US to avoid being arrested over an outstanding International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant

The Dutch government said on Monday it had tightened export controls for all military and "dual use" goods destined for Israel. 

All direct exports and the transit of these goods to Israel will be checked to see if they comply with European regulations and will no longer be covered by general export licences, the government said in a letter to parliament.

At least two Palestinians were killed and many others wounded in an Israeli attack on a house south of Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera reported on Monday.

At least 46 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air strikes across Gaza since dawn today, according to medical sources.

"I am sitting in a coffee shop in Jaffa.

One of the oldest cities in the world, Jaffa - Yafa in Arabic - was once a flourishing Palestinian metropolis on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, with its own cultural life, newspapers, publishing houses, cinemas and theatres.

Today, however, it has been reduced to a suburb of Tel Aviv.

Israeli Jews live in gated communities while Palestinians are pushed out by prices that only affluent Ashkenazis can afford. Anywhere else, this would be called gentrification, but in Israel, this population transfer has an ethnic flavour.

The coffee shop I'm in is teeming with customers. It's just another day in the busy life of secular Israel. A woman near me sips her coffee while holding a yoga mat. A couple nearby are discussing a play they saw the day before at a theatre. They're also planning their Passover dinner, as the holiday is fast approaching.

This could be a scene out of any western capital. But here, the ordinary unfolds just an hour's drive away from Gaza, where the unimaginable has become routine.

At this point, I glance at my iPhone. Every morning for more than 18 months, Ahmed has been messaging me from Khan Younis.

"Tonight, 19 people were killed in the bombing of tents and homes here. I have done three interviews and collected photos and video material," Ahmed writes. "Are you interested?" he asks, his question carrying a desperate poignancy."

Read more: An hour from Gaza, Israelis sip coffee as genocide rages

In a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House on Monday, US President Donald Trump said that “controlling and owning Gaza would be a good thing”, echoing earlier plans Trump floated about forcibly displacing the population from Gaza to neighbouring countries to “own” and “redevelop” Gaza under US control.

“I don’t understand why Israel ever gave up Gaza,” Trump also said during the meeting with Netanyahu.Trump also said that he would like the war in Gaza to stop.

Four Palestinians on Monday sustained injuries in an attack by Israeli settlers in the village of Umm al-Kheir, south of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, Wafa news agency is reporting.

Nearly 400,000 Gaza residents have been displaced in the Gaza Strip since 18 March, with relentless attacks leading to “large-scale civilian casualties” , UN secretary general’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Monday.

“Survivors across Gaza are being displaced repeatedly and forced into an ever-shrinking space where their basic needs just cannot be met,” Dujarric said.

On 18 March, Israel broke the ceasefire, which came into effect on 19 January, by launching air raids in an overnight attack, which killed over 400 people.

Since then, Israeli forces have killed 1,350 people, including 490 children, bringing the overall death toll of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since October 2023 to 50,695.

French President Emmanuel Macron, US President Donald Trump, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Jordan's King Abdullah held a call on Monday to discuss the situation in Gaza, according to the French presidency.

On Tuesday, Macron is expected to visit warehouses for aid to Gaza and a hospital where wounded Palestinians from Gaza are treated on the third day of his visit to Egypt.

The White House has announced that the press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, scheduled for 1 pm on Monday local time, is no longer taking place.

No reason was given when the announcement was made by the White House.

The meeting between Trump and Netanyahu is reportedly still taking place and the two leaders will take questions in the Oval Office from a smaller group of reporters, the White House said.

Palestinians across occupied East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank are holding a general strike in solidarity with Gaza.

Shops, businesses and government institutions have closed in protest against Israel’s  war on Gaza that has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians since October 2023.

“Today in Hebron is a general strike by all the Arab people in solidarity with Gaza,” Midhat abu Rmeileh, a Hebron resident, told Al Jazeera.

“Honestly, all the Arab people and the world should stand together as one. We see sights of children that are unspeakable.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to meet Donald Trump at the White House on Monday at 1pm local time.

The Israeli prime minister is set to become the first foreign leader to personally plead for a reprieve from US tariffs that have shaken the world, AFP is reporting.

Holding talks with Trump for the second time since the US president returned to power in January, Netanyahu will reportedly also seek further backing on Iran and Gaza.

"We're going to talk about trade, and we're going to talk about the obvious subject," Trump told reporters on board Air Force One on Sunday as he returned from a golfing weekend in Florida.

According to the White House, the two leaders will hold their press conference at 2:30pm EST.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said 15 medics and rescuers killed by Israeli forces last month in Gaza were shot in the upper body with "intent to kill".

Younis Al-Khatib, president of the Red Crescent in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, told journalists in Ramallah that an autopsy revealed that "all the martyrs were shot in the upper part of their bodies, with the intent to kill".

"We call on the world to form an independent and impartial international commission of inquiry into the circumstances of the deliberate killing of the ambulance crews in the Gaza Strip," Khatib said.