Gaza live: Israel continues bombing central Gaza

Hamas's leader in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, recently visited some of the combat zones above ground and held deliberations with the group's leadership abroad, a Hamas official has said. 

Speaking to the Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed news website, the unnamed official said Sinwar is performing his duties in the field and is not always staying in tunnels, as claimed by Israeli officials. 

Sinwar, Israel's number one target, has not been seen in public since the 7 October attack. 

Middle East Eye can not independently verify reports about his whereabouts.

The Hamas official also told Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed that the group was holding "30 Israeli army and Shin Bet generals and officers" who are "highly secured" and "cannot be reached under any circumstances". 

He added that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government were "hiding" information about the identities of some of the military personnel captured by Hamas on 7 October. 

Israeli officials estimate about 10 active duty soldiers are currently held by Hamas. 

French police summoned the leading left-wing MP Mathilde Panot for an investigation into an alleged “apology for terrorism” on Wednesday, in connection with her criticism of Israel’s war on Gaza. 

“We will not be silent. No summons, no intimidation of any kind will prevent us from protesting against the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people,” Panot said in a press release. 

Panot is the leader of the biggest left-wing parliamentary group in the French parliament, France Unbowed (La France Insoumise/LFI), which has been outspoken in condemning the war on Gaza since 7 October.

Panot denounced the investigation as unprecedented.

“It is the first time in the history of the French republic that the head of an opposition group in parliament is summoned for such a serious reason on the basis of fallacious accusations,” she said.

Read more: Top left-wing French MP investigated for pro-Palestine comments

Israeli forces have killed at least 79 Palestinians and wounded 86 more over the past 24 hours in six "massacres", according to the Palestinian health ministry. 

This brings the Palestinian death toll in over six months to more than 34,262, with at least 77,229 wounded and an estimated 7,000 missing and presumed dead.

More than 70 percent of the victims are children and women, according to health officials.

South Africa has called for investigations into the reported mass graves discovered at Gaza's two biggest hospitals. 

Pretoria's Department of International Relations said it was "appalled by the recent grim discovery" at al-Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, where hundreds of bodies of Palestinians were discovered following the withdrawal of Israeli forces, according to public broadcaster SABC.

"The South African government says these grim findings call for immediate and comprehensive investigations to ensure justice and accountability," SABC reported.

Israeli fighter jets rocked southern Lebanon with a series of air strikes on Wednesday. 

More than 14 strikes were reported in a short period in Ayta ash-Shab and Ramyeh area in what appeared to be the largest raid in Lebanon since 7 October, according to local media

There were no immediate reports of injuries.  

Shortly before the raid, the Israeli army said in a statement it was targeting Hezbollah in southern Lebanon with air strikes. 

More than 20 years ago, journalism scholar Barbie Zelizer criticised The New York Times's pro-Israel bias and called on observers to challenge its "status as a newspaper of record on the Middle East".

Last week, The Intercept obtained a leaked New York Times memo suggesting that the paper instructed its reporting staff to avoid using terms such as "genocide", "ethnic cleansing", and "occupied territories" in its reporting on the ongoing Gaza war.

The leaked Times memo also instructs reporters to avoid using words like "slaughter" and "massacre" when describing Israeli-perpetrated violence against Palestinians.   

This is serious journalistic malpractice - indeed, Israeli leaders have made ethnic cleansing an explicit goal, declared genocidal intent, and Israel has long illegally occupied Palestinian territory - but it doesn't come close to capturing the scale of The Times's pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian bias.

In December, The Times claimed to have uncovered a programme of systematic rape by Palestinian men who attacked Israel on 7 October. But the Times' investigation has since been thoroughly debunked, with the paper forced to scrap a planned related podcast.

Instead of investigating its own journalists for allegedly manipulating Israeli sources and producing a report that relied on false Israeli propaganda, The Times focused its attention on trying to find out which of its employees leaked information about the rape investigation.

But even all of this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

There is significant scholarly literature about western media coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict, with most of the empirical data serving as a damning indictment of western reportage. 

But no outlet has been studied more - or come across looking worse in the data - than The New York Times.

Read more:  Why the leaked New York Times Gaza memo is just the tip of the iceberg - Opinion by Mohamad Elmasry

Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian woman in the occupied West Bank of Hebron on Wednesday morning, according to the Palestinian health ministry. 

She was identified as Maymouna Abdel-Hamid Harahsha, 20. 

The Israeli army said earlier its forces shot a Palestinian near the settlement of Kiryat Arba after she allegedly attempted to stab a soldier. No Israelis were hurt in the incident.  

An Israeli minister of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party said he would vote for Donald Trump in the upcoming US elections if he could.  

Amichai Chikli, the diaspora affairs minister, said that the US under Joe Biden’s leadership was "harming Israel and other countries" and not "projecting strength". 

“He said ‘Don’t’ at the start of the war - to Hezbollah, as well as Iran. We saw the result. If I were an American citizen with the right to vote I’d vote for Trump and Republicans,” Chikli told Kan Radio. 

“Biden is a friend of Israel, but he’s under intense pressure that is affecting him and creating real damage to relations between the countries," he added. 

The Israeli army said it has mobilised two reserve brigades to return from the northern border to southern Gaza ahead of an expected Rafah assault. 

The armoured and infantry brigades “prepared in recent weeks for their mission in the Gaza Strip,” the military said, according to Israeli media. 

The German government plans to resume cooperation with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) in Gaza, the foreign and development ministries said in a joint statement on Wednesday.

The decision follows an investigation by the former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna into whether some Unrwa employees were involved in the 7 October by Hamas.

The Colonna-led review of the agency's neutrality on Monday concluded Israel had yet to back up its accusations that hundreds of Unrwa staff were operatives in Gaza militant groups.

The German ministries urged Unrwa to swiftly implement the report's recommendations, including strengthening its internal audit function and improving external oversight of project management.

"In support of these reforms, the German government will soon continue its cooperation with Unrwa in Gaza, as Australia, Canada, Sweden and Japan, among others, have already done," said the ministries in the statement.

Reporting by Reuters

Israel is poised to send troops into Rafah, Israeli media reported on Wednesday, saying preparations were under way to evacuate war-displaced Palestinian civilians who have been sheltering there.

The Rafah sweep, postponed for several weeks amid disputes with Washington, will happen "very soon," the mass-circulation Israel Hayom newspaper said, citing a decision by the Israeli government after ceasefire talks with Hamas stalled.

Several other Israeli media outlets carried similar reports. Some noted footage on social media that appeared to show the erection of a tent city for Rafah evacuees.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office and the Israeli military spokesperson's office had no immediate comment.

Reporting by Reuters

The Jamaican government has recognised the State of Palestine, Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith, has announced.

“Jamaica continues to advocate for a two-state solution as the only viable option to resolve the longstanding conflict, guarantee the security of Israel and uphold the dignity and rights of Palestinians," Johnson Smith said Tuesday. 

"By recognising the State of Palestine, Jamaica strengthens its advocacy towards a peaceful solution." 

The head of the UN's agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) has welcomed the recent increase in the number of aid trucks that entered Gaza, saying that it now needs to be sustained and increased.

Philippe Lazzarini said 310 aid trucks entered on Monday, the highest number since the war began on 7 October. 

"This shows that when there is a will there is a way," Lazzarini wrote on social media site X.

"It needs now to be sustained & further increased. Trucks should include both commercial and humanitarian supplies so that the markets can re-open," he added. 

Palestinian officials in Gaza say up to 1,000 humanitarian aid and commercial trucks are needed to enter the strip daily to alleviate the humanitarian crises caused by 200 days of sustained Israeli siege and strikes. 

"Famine in northern Gaza can be averted only through meaningful and uninterrupted supply, including through Unrwa," said Lazzarini. 

Israeli air strikes pounded the Nuseirat refugee camp on Wednesday morning as intense artillery shelling continued to hit the central Gaza Strip. 

According to local media, heavy clashes were reported north of Nuseirat with Israeli helicopters spotted firing live rounds in the area. 

Meanwhile, shelling continued across Gaza City and northern towns.  

Israel's foreign minister on Wednesday thanked the US Senate for approving $13 billion in military aid that he said sent a "strong message" to the country's enemies.

"I thank the US Senate for passing the Israel aid package tonight with an overwhelming bipartisan majority," Israel Katz posted on social media site X shortly after the US Congress gave its final approval to the aid package.

"The Israel aid package that now passed both houses of Congress is a clear testament to the strength of our alliance and sends a strong message to all our enemies," Katz added.

He also thanked Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell "for your unwavering commitment to Israel's security. The Israel-US strategic partnership is unbreakable".

The approval comes as the Israeli war on Gaza, which killed over 35,000 Palestinians, enters its 201st day.

Reporting by AFP