Gaza live: Israel continues bombing central Gaza

Belgium is summoning the Israeli ambassador over the killing of a worker at a Belgian aid agency in Gaza. 

Brussels announced that Abdallah Nabhan, 33, and his seven-year-old son Jamal were killed during Israeli bombardment of eastern Rafah on Wednesday night. 

"I will summon the Israeli ambassador to condemn this unacceptable act & demand an explanation," said Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib in a post on social media platform X.

Nabhan worked for Belgium's Enabel agency, helping small businesses.

France's Sciences Po, one of the country's top universities, called in police to break up an unauthorised pro-Palestinian encampment on Wednesday, as Israel's siege and bombardment of Gaza sparks a wave of anger across campuses in the US and western Europe.

Around 60 students started an encampment at one of the institution's Paris campuses earlier in the day, but within four hours, university administrators called in police to break up the sit-in after some students refused to leave.

University officials said in a statement that it was "decided that the police would evacuate the site" after the protest was accused of causing "tensions".

The protesters had been demanding that Sciences Po stop funnelling endowment money to Israeli companies and other businesses, like weapons manufacturers, that profit from the war on Gaza.

Read more: French university calls in police to break up pro-Palestinian protest

Hundreds of posters condemning Germany's complicity in the war on Gaza have appeared overnight around galleries in Berlin.

They were put up to coincide with Gallery Weekend 2024, which takes place in the capital between 26 and 28 April. 

The posters accuse artists in Germany of being "silent" on Palestine, and criticise Berlin for supplying arms to Israel. 

An aid worker who was part of Belgium's development efforts in Gaza has been killed in an Israeli strike on Rafah.

"It is with deep sadness and horror that we learn of the death of our colleague Abdallah Nabhan (33) and his seven-year-old son Jamal, last night, following a bombardment by the Israeli army in the eastern part of the city of Rafah," Caroline Gennez, Belgium's development minister, said in a statement on Thursday. 

Nabhan, whose nationality has not been disclosed, worked for Belgium's Enabel agency, helping small businesses.

At least seven people were killed by the Israeli strike on a building that housed about 25 people, according to the statement. 

"Abdallah was a father, a husband, a son, a human being. His story and that of his family is just one of tens of thousands," said Gennez. 

"The fact remains that the indiscriminate bombing of civilian infrastructure and innocent civilians goes against every international, humanitarian... law of war. The Israeli government bears a crushing responsibility here."

The Islamic Waqf said that over 900 Israeli settlers and extremists have stormed the Al Aqsa Mosque compound with heavy Israeli police protection.

The storming of the compound coincides with the Jewish holiday of Passover.

Gaza's Civil Defence said that it believes at least 20 people were buried alive by Israeli forces in the mass grave at Nasser hospital, Khan Younis.

"The Israeli occupation buried a number of bodies in the Nasser Complex in plastic bags at a depth of three metres, which quickly decomposed them," it added.

The Civil Defence also said that Israel committed "field executions" and called for an international investigation.

"We discovered traces of torture on the bodies of some martyrs in Nasser hospital."

It added that bodies of children were among those found in the mass grave.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel should subvert the Palestinian Authority (PA) and withhold its funding should the UN formally recognise Palestinian statehood, or if the International Criminal Court (ICC) issues any arrest warrants against senior Israeli officials.

In his letter to Netanyahu, he said that the ideal way to deal with these potential moves would be to cut ties with the PA to "bring about its immediate fall".

Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has asked police to draw up plans to create emergency security response teams to protect Jewish communities and institutions around the world. 

"Diaspora Jews are currently suffering from a harsh wave of antisemitism in communities and on campuses in the US, Europe, and around the world," Ben Gvir said, according to a report in Israeli media network Arutz Sheva on Wednesday.

"I asked the police commissioner to draft a plan to aid in the creation of local response teams that will protect Jewish communities and institutions overseas, through professional tutelage, including a training program and technological solutions for security." 

He added that the plans would be "in cooperation with the local police and relevant authorities". 

READ MORE: Ben Gvir asks police to 'protect Jewish communities outside of Israel'

Senior US Democratic Representative Adam Smith said that students and others protesting in support of Palestine are engaged in "left-wing totalitarianism" and are trying to silence decision-makers.

Smith, who serves on the US House Committee on Armed Services, condemned the form of protest employed throughout this war as "completely wrong and enormously dangerous".

Speaking to One Decision Podcast, he accused protesters of not wanting to meet with representatives and called for the arrests of those "shutting down a freeway, shutting down an airport".

Weeks after the start of the Israeli onslaught against Gaza, Jordanian obstetrician Asil Al-Jallad, 40, decided she could not remain helpless in the face of the critical humanitarian situation unfolding in the besieged enclave.

She decided to travel to Gaza and volunteer her services, aiding hundreds of women in delivering their babies and providing monthly medical check-ups.

Asil, originally from Tulkarm in the West Bank, recounts calling the Jordanian Syndicate of Doctors multiple times to enquire about her ability to go to Gaza. She was initially informed that while other doctors could go, obstetricians were not considered in demand for war zones.

"I fought for it," Asil recalls. "I argued that thousands of women in Gaza needed medical care and that we were indeed in demand."

READ MORE: Jordanian doctor risked her life to help deliver Palestinian babies in Gaza

Egypt's State Security Prosecution released all the feminist activists who were arrested  last Tuesday for protesting in solidarity with women in Gaza and Sudan.

The protesters were gathered outside the headquarters of UN Women in Cairo and read a letter decrying the agency's "failure" to protect women in Gaza and Sudan, accusing it of racism.

The arrests came as part of a wider crackdown on pro-Palestine protests in Egypt.

The Gaza government's media office said that a Falastin Al An reporter, Mohammad Bassam al-Jamal, was killed in an Israeli air strike on his home in Rafah.

The media office says that a total of 141 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war.

Lebanese media reports that an Israeli drone strike in Douris near Baalbek, northeastern Lebanon, injured a fuel transport truck driver.

The strike reportedly hit a berm near the road the man was driving on.

Khalil al-Hayya, a top Hamas political official, told the Associated Press that the group would be willing to agree to a five-year truce with Israel, lay down its arms and become a political party if a Palestinian state is formed based on the pre-1967 borders.

Al-Hayya, who has represented Hamas in ceasefire and hostage exchange negotiations, expressed the group's willingness in joining the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), headed by rival party Fatah, to form a unified government in the West Bank and Gaza.

Expressing a surprising support for the two-state solution, al-Hayya said Hamas would accept "a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the return of Palestinian refugees in accordance with the international resolutions".

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) said they arrested 93 people at the student-led pro-Palestine protest in the University of Southern California (USC).