Israel's War on Gaza Live: Israel pounds Rafah in overnight strikes

A group of pro-Palestine activists used red paint to spray the building housing the headquarters of the UK Labour Party in London.

The protesters have accused the party of being "complicit in the murder of Palestinians".

The Labour Party has been heavily criticised by Palestinians and pro-Palestinian voters who say the party has been too supportive of Israel amid the ongoing war in Gaza.

Israel announced it had hit “Hezbollah military infrastructure” near the town of Khiam, southern Lebanon, after it claimed one of the organisation’s “operatives” was hiding out there.

Earlier, Israeli media reported that it had killed three Hezbollah fighters, including commander Ali Ahmad Hussein, in an overnight air strike in the area of as-Sultaniyah in southern Lebanon. 

The Israeli war and security cabinets will convene on Tuesday night, Haaretz reported.

Far-right Israeli ministers had called on Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reconvene the Knesset, following contradictory reports of progress at the Cairo ceasefire talks.

Israeli media reported that rocket sirens sounded in the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona; sirens have been going off continuously in Israel throughout the day. 

Earlier, Haaretz reported that sirens were sounded over a suspected hostile aerial infiltration. 

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have urged Israel to bring its military operations in Gaza to a halt, and reach out for a peaceful solution.

The two Muslim countries made their remarks in a joint statement, which followed a meeting that was held in Mecca between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

They demanded international efforts “to halt Israeli military operations in Gaza, mitigate humanitarian impact and underscored the imperative for the international community to pressure Israel to cease hostilities, adhere to international law, and facilitate unhindered humanitarian aid access to Gaza”, according to the statement.

The two leaders also discussed the need for a peace process that goes in harmony with the UN resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative, stating it should be “aimed at finding a just and comprehensive solution for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital”.

The scene of genocide is often that of the victim of naked violence who is utterly dehumanised by a state of incarceration, violation, dismemberment, starvation, and torture.

In Gaza, the images are unceasing, gripping you in inescapable despair - mutilation, rotting corpses, family annihilation, bags full of body parts of loved ones, bereaved fathers in states of anguish, traumatised, dying and starving children, mothers crying out in desperation - nightmarish snippets of the growing magnitude of loss taken from apocalyptic scenes in the 21st century.  

There is no scarcity of images of the horrors unfolding - Palestinians are offering visuals to the world of their genocide, but every day, there is a new level of brutal criminality. And no image or institutional words - "terrorism", "war", "human rights violations", or even "genocide" - can adequately capture the depths of these atrocities, or enable us to comprehend them. Nor should they.

In the absence of accountability, these scenes are instead provocations - committed, direct affirmations - that send a message to the world that this is a power where no law dares speak.

Worse still, we are judged as hopeless and pathetic before the biggest mass murder of our times.

Read more: For Israel's 'TikTok serial killers', there is a pleasure in inflicting racial terror in Gaza

Hezbollah said it has carried out an aerial attack on Ras al-Naqoura naval site, southern Lebanon. 

In a short statement, it said the target was "precisely hit".

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera Arabic reported that an Israeli air strike hit the town of al-Khiam in the Lebanese south.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said there could be "difficult decisions to get the hostages back".

 "The operational conditions that the army created using unrelenting military pressure on Hamas allow us flexibility, freedom of action and also to make difficult decisions to get the hostages back," Gallant added.

According to Haaretz, Gallant blamed the Israeli government saying it has the "highest obligation of bringing the hostages home".

Meanwhile, far-right Israeli ministers have called on Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to reconvene the Knesset, following contradictory reports of progress at Cairo ceasefire talks.

Israel's opposition leader Yair Lapid said he is ready to provide Netanyahu with the political backing to secure the return of captives held in Gaza.

“We have 24 representatives in the Knesset, much more than [Security Minister] Ben-Gvir and [Finance Minister] Smotrich have. Time to bring them home now,” he wrote on X.

The Gaza health ministry said the death toll in Gaza has risen to 33,207 since the war broke out on 7 October.

It also added that 75,933 people have been wounded so far.

It is estimated that 7,000 dead bodies still remain under the rubble. Most of the dead are women and children.

Israeli media has reported that its army is holding military exercises for "emergency preparedness" in the north.

This comes as Israel and Hezbollah continue to trade fire across the Israeli-Lebanese border.

Alert sirens were sounded in northern Israel as a warning of a possible drone incursion, the Israeli I24 news website reported.

The European Union's foreign affairs chief said the bloc's naval mission has repelled 11 attacks on civilian ships in the Red Sea, by Yemen's Houthi group, since the mission was approved in late Februaray. 

“In less than two months since the operation was launched, the operation has escorted 68 vessels and has repelled 11 attacks,” Josep Borrell told journalists.

Naval vessels participating in the mission are providing armed escorts to commercial ships navigating the Red Sea.

Yemen’s Houthis, officially known as Ansarallah, say the attacks are in support of Palestinians in Gaza, forcing some vessels to take alternative routes, including a two-week detour around the tip of southern Africa. 

"This is 10 to 14 days more of travelling. The cost of a container transported from China to Europe has doubled," Borrell said.

In a press conference, the operation commander, Rear Admiral Vasileios Gryparis, also said "our ships have shot down nine unmanned aerial vehicles, one unmanned surface vessel, and four anti-ship ballistic missiles".

Since the 7 October attacks, Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of committing sexual violence during its incursion. Many mainstream western media outlets have paid considerable attention to these allegations, despite a lack of concrete evidence.

But while reporters must always take such accusations seriously, it is equally important for them to uphold journalistic standards in the process - and there appear to have been serious lapses in that regard.

At the same time, allegations involving Palestinian women in Gaza have received far less airtime. 

Despite a UN report citing testimonies from Palestinians who said they were sexually assaulted and beaten while in Israeli detention, the mainstream western media has failed to give this issue much attention. 

In addition to the UN report, there are many documented cases of Palestinian women who described sexual abuse at the hands of Israeli forces. Detainees reported being stripped to their underwear, beaten, searched and threatened with rape.

Read more: War on Gaza: Why Israel is not held accountable for sexual violence

The Nicaraguan legal delegation has finalised its remarks after a more than two-hour session at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague, in which it presented its case against Germany.

Nicaragua has accused Germany of facilitating Israel's genocide in Gaza, since the war broke out on 7 October. It called upon the ICJ to order provisional measures ordering Germany to halt its military support to Israel and resume its funding to Unrwa.

In 2023, Germany provided military support to Israel worth 327 million euros ($354m), according to its Economy Ministry.

Nicaragua has accused Germany of breaking the 1948 Genocide Convention by continously supplying Israel with arms, even after the ICJ has ruled that it is "plausible" that Israel has committed acts of genocide in Gaza.

Germany, which is Israel's second largest arms provider to Israel after the US, is due to defend itself tomorrow at the ICJ.

The Israeli army said it has killed a Hezbollah field commander in an overnight air strike in Lebanon.

In a statement issued by the military, Ali Ahmed Hussein, who belonged to Hezbollah's elite Radwan forces, was "eliminated" by Israeli jets in the area of Sultaniyeh located in the Lebanese south. 

Hussein was a "commander of the Hezbollah terrorist organisation's Radwan Forces in the Hujeir region," the statement said, adding that two other Hezbollah fighters were also killed.

The Israeli military accused Hussein of carrying out "numerous launches towards Israeli territory" from Lebanon, since war broke out in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.

Hezbollah issued a funeral notice for Hussein, who is nicknamed Abbas Jaafar.

The Israeli shelling has also killed two other people, according to the Israeli military and two Lebanese security sources.

Hezbollah and the Israeli military have been trading fire across Lebanon’s southern border, since 7 October, escalating concerns of a possible wider conflict in the region.

The World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus renewed his calls for "peace now" in Gaza, condemning Israel for blocking aid to the besieged enclave.

"The denial of basic needs – food, fuel, sanitation, shelter, security and healthcare – is inhumane and intolerable," said Ghebreyesus in a post on platform X, as the war entered its seventh month in Gaza.