Live: Lawyers present genocide risk case against Israel at ICJ

While most major nations will be sending heads of state or government, or royalty, to the funeral of Pope Francis on Saturday, Israel will be represented only by its ambassador to the Vatican, Haaretz newspaper is reporting. 

“The decision to keep the representation at the lowest level possible is a sign of how far Israel’s relations with the Vatican have deteriorated since the start of the war in Gaza in 2023," the Haaretz report said, citing diplomats. 

The Vatican's announcement of the death of Pope Francis on Monday morning was met with a mix of celebration and criticism in Israel, where politicians, pundits and social media users focused on the pontiff's condemnation of Israel amid its war on the Gaza Strip. 

The pope, aged 88, passed away after denouncing the "deplorable humanitarian situation" caused by Israel's onslaught on Gaza and expressing his "closeness to the sufferings… of all the Israeli people and the Palestinian people" in his final address on Easter Sunday.

Six US air strikes have targeted the Bajil district in Yemens's Hodeidah governorate, according to the Houthi-affiliated news outlet, Al Masirah TV.

Last month, US President Donald Trump ordered attacks on Yemen in what he said was retaliation for Houthi attacks in the Red Sea due to Israel’s war on Gaza.

A Palestinian man was killed on Friday following an Israeli airstrike targeting Al-Mansoura Street in Al-Shujaiya neighbourhood, east of Gaza City.

Two other individuals were wounded after an Israeli drone opened fire in the New Camp area, located north west of Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

People gather near bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

Early this morning, an Israeli attack on a tent killed a family of five, including three children and a pregnant mother, who were sheltering in al-Mawasi in southern Gaza.

Waves of Israeli air strikes across the Gaza Strip have killed at least 61 Palestinians since early on Thursday.

Over the last month in Gaza, around half a million people have been newly displaced due to repeated displacement orders issued by Israeli forces, the UN Palestinian refugee agency, Unrwa, announced in a statement on X. 

"The remaining space is fragmented, unsafe, and barely liveable", the post says.

"Overcrowded shelters are in a terrible condition, service providers are struggling to operate, and the last resources are being depleted."

Over the last month in #Gaza, around half a million people have been newly displaced.

The multiple displacement orders issued by the Israeli military leave Palestinians with less than a third of Gaza’s area to live in.

That remaining space is fragmented, unsafe, and barely… pic.twitter.com/nrFsfJXLCv

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) April 25, 2025

Israeli settlers stormed the town of Kifl Haris, north of Salfit in the occupied West Bank, last night under heavy protection from the Israeli military, Wafa news agency is reporting, citing local sources. 

Israeli forces reportedly entered the town in advance, blocking the movement of local residents in preparation for the settlers’ incursion. Shortly after, large groups of Israeli settlers poured into the town to perform Talmudic rituals at Islamic shrines inside the town.

Witnesses reported that the settlers roamed the streets of Kifl Haris in a provocative manner, hanging racist slogans on the walls of homes and private properties.

The town has been subjected to repeated incursions by Israeli settlers, who routinely desecrate Islamic shrines located there.

Good morning Middle East Eye readers, 

Israeli forces have launched numerous attacks on Gaza in the early hours of this morning, including: 

• An Israeli strike on a tent sheltering forcibly displaced people in al-Mawasi in southern Gaza killed at least five members of the same family, Ibrahim Khalil Abu Taima, his wife Hanadi, and their three children, ages four, six and eight. Hanadi was reportedly pregnant at the time of death.

• An Israeli aircraft bombed a medical clinic in the east of Gaza City earlier this morning.

• An Israeli air strike on a house in the al-Manara neighbourhood, south of Khan Younis, injured local residents, Al Jazeera is reporting.

• Moreover, 3,000 aid trucks are waiting to enter Gaza, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) has said, as Israel continues to block humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza. 

Our live blog will shortly be closing until tomorrow morning

Here are the day's key developments:

- At least 59 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since dawn on Thursday, local health officials said. Half of those killed were in Jabalia in the north of the strip, where Israel has sustained heavy bombardment since it began its war in October 2023. 

- The medical director of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, Khalil al-Daqran, has warned that Gaza has entered the fifth stage of malnutrition — the most critical level defined by the World Health Organization — as a result of Israel’s ongoing blockade, reported Wafa. 

- Gaza's health ministry announced that 37 of 38 hospitals in the Strip are now non-functional, with the latest casualty being the Mohammed al-Durra Children's Hospital, located east of Gaza City. 

- In a move Israel has claimed as a procedural victory, appeals judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) ordered a lower panel to reconsider Israel’s objections to the court’s jurisdiction over arrest warrants issued against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant. 

- Fresh footage released by Israeli human rights group Yesh Din shows settlers setting fire to Palestinian homes and farmland in Sinjil, a village northeast of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

- New training for senior NYPD officers to crack down on antisemitism highlights the keffiyeh, the watermelon symbol, and the terms "settler colonialism" and "all eyes on Rafah," Jewish Currents magazine reported on Thursday. 

New training for senior NYPD officers to crack down on antisemitism highlights the keffiyeh, the watermelon symbol, and the terms "settler colonialism" and "all eyes on Rafah," Jewish Currents magazine reported on Thursday. 

The presentation, led by a pro-Israel group, took place on 8 January in Manhattan - two weeks before the Trump Administration came into office. 

Jewish Currents said it obtained materials from the training that showed it "focused heavily on student protesters [and] repeatedly conflated antisemitism with anti-Zionism." 

Hamas on Thursday blasted the three-day meeting of the Palestinian Central Council in Ramallah, which it said "deepens division, perpetuates isolationism, and disappoints our people's hopes for unity."

The meeting was set to include the selection of a deputy for the ailing and deeply unpopular leader of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, but devolved into infighting.

Both the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Palestinian National Initiative boycotted the event. 

"The outcomes... were a national disappointment and ignored the hopes and aspirations of our people at home and in the diaspora," Hamas said. 

"The meeting comes after 18 months of massacres and starvation, without its results or decisions bearing the slightest response to confronting the aggression and working to stop the genocide in Gaza."

No move was made toward national consensus based on the Beijing Agreement, Hamas said, referring to the 2024 unity agreement signed by 14 Palestinian factions. 

The group also condemned Abbas for calling Hamas "sons of bitches" at the meeting, and demanding they release all Israeli captives with no preconditions.

"We reject the continuation of this unilateral path and affirm the need to rebuild the Palestine Liberation Organization on national and democratic foundations, activate the unified leadership framework, and hold comprehensive elections at home and abroad," Hamas said.

A statement by an aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, provided to the Times of Israel on Thursday, slammed the decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to leave the arrest warrants for Israeli officials in place.

Earlier in the day, Israel claimed a procedural victory when its appeal of the warrants at the ICC was sent back to the pre-trial chamber for reconsideration. 

But the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant remain active, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. 

That decision, the aide said, “highlights the injustice done to Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister, when the Court issued absurd warrants without having the authority to do so."

“Israel expects the [ICC] to cancel the warrants immediately,” the aide told The Times of Israel. 

Appeals judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday ordered a lower panel to reconsider Israel’s objections to the court’s jurisdiction over arrest warrants issued against Israeli leaders last year.

The appeals chamber said the court had not properly weighed challenges by Israel to its jurisdiction and the legality of arrest warrant requests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for their conduct of the Gaza war.

The so-called Pre-Trial Chamber had ruled that Israel's challenges had been premature, but the appeals judges now said that had been an "error of law".

It said Israel's argument that it was entitled to challenge the jurisdiction was not sufficiently addressed. 

"The Appeals Chamber therefore reversed the decision and remanded the matter to the Pre-Trial Chamber for a new ruling on the substance of Israel's challenge to the jurisdiction of the Court," they said.

- Reporting by Reuters 

Gaza's health ministry on Thursday announced that 37 of 38 hospitals in the Strip are now non-functional, with the latest casualty being the Mohammed al-Durra Children's Hospital, located east of Gaza City. 

Al Jazeera, citing local health officials, is reporting that the death toll in Gaza on Thursday thus far is 59, and likely to rise. 

Half of those killed were in Jabalia in the north of the strip, where Israel has sustained heavy bombardment since it began its war in October 2023. 

The death toll from a series of Israeli strikes on Gaza Thursday morning has risen to 36, the Palestinian Civil Defense and hospital sources announced.

"The bombardment was extremely intense and shook the entire area," witness Abdel Qader Sabah told AFP. "Everyone started running and screaming, not knowing what to do."

The attacks hit multiple areas across the enclave, injuring dozens more as emergency crews rushed to rescue those trapped under the rubble.