Gaza live: Israel continues bombing central Gaza

Aharon Haliva, an Israeli major general who currently commands the Israeli army's Military Intelligence Directorate, resigned following his role in the 7 October intelligence "failure".

He is the first senior figure to resign over the Israeli army's failure to prevent the Hamas-led attack on Israel.

Three people were lightly wounded following a car-ramming and attempted shooting attack in Jerusalem, Israeli police say.

Police forces say the two attackers tried to open fire with a makeshift "Carlo" submachine gun, but it was apparently jammed.

Security forces are treating this incident as a terrorist attack as they search for the attackers.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said it was able to deliver fuel and wheat flour to bakeries in northern Gaza "so they can begin production again after 170 days of being inoperable".

The WFP said that four bakeries are now "up and running" as they work to deliver more supplies to the north, which faces severe risks of famine.

Iraq's Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah denied reports of the group saying Iraqi armed groups decided to resume their attacks on US forces in the Middle East.

The group said on their Telegram channel that these reports are "fake news" and that they have not announced anything in the last 48 hours.

Earlier reports claimed that Kataib Hezbollah said the Iran-backed groups had decided to resume their attacks on US bases, claiming the latest reported attack on a base in Syria was "the beginning".

Good morning Middle East Eye readers,

Here are the latest updates:

• Pre-dawn Israeli strikes on central and southern Gaza kill and injure several Palestinians, the Wafa news agecny reports
• Israeli raids on West Bank cities, towns and refugee camps continue as tensions increased over the weekend. Two Palestinians were arrested in Hebron and clashed with Palestinian youth north of the city. Palestinians were also injured in raids near Jerusalem
• An Israeli settler attack on Burqa, east of Ramallah, injured six Palestinians
• US President Joe Biden condemned what he called  a surge in "blatant antisemitism", including on college campuses
• Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Emerson and Tufts set up their own protest camps, demanding their institutions cut ties with Israel

Good evening, Middle East Eye readers.

It is approaching 01:30 in Gaza and our live coverage of Israel's deadly assault on the besieged enclave will shortly be closing for the evening.

Here are the day's key developments:

Israeli forces have killed at least 48 Palestinians and wounded 79 more over the past 24 hours, according to the Palestinian health ministry. This brought the Palestinian death toll in over six months to more than 34,097, with at least 76,980 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.

Palestinian civil defence teams continued to recover bodies of Palestinians believed to have been buried by Israeli forces in mass graves in the courtyard of Nasser hospital in Khan Younis. The Gaza government media office said that two mass graves had been discovered so far and at least 200 bodies recovered. According to the rescue teams, some bodies had their hands bound behind their backs, suggesting they were executed and buried on the spot.

At least 485 Palestinians have been killed and 4,900 wounded in attacks by Israeli forces and settlers across the occupied West Bank since the war began, according to the health ministry.

Other major events on Sunday included:

• A Palestinian woman was shot dead by Israeli forces on Sunday at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Earlier on Sunday, Israeli forces had shot dead two Palestinian teenagers in Ramallah. 
   
• Palestinians took to the streets to condemn Israel's deadly three-day raid on Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, during which at least 14 people were killed by Israeli forces. Israeli forces detained 50 Palestinians, including some who were wounded, during its three-day raid on the camp, the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) said in a statement.
   
• The funeral of Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) volunteer paramedic Mohammed Awad Musa was held on Sunday. Musa was killed while treating people wounded by a settler's gunfire in the Nablus town of Sa'wiyah, according to the society.
   
• Israeli air strikes have targeted the southern Lebanon towns of Naqoura, Majdel Zoun and Ayta ash-Shab.
   
• Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah said on Sunday that it had downed an Israeli drone that was on a combat mission in southern Lebanon.
   
• Israeli officials have slammed the US after it was reported that the Biden administration was slated to announce sanctions against an Israeli army battalion accused of human rights abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the move the "height of absurdity and a moral low" while war cabinet minister Benny Gantz said it was "a dangerous precedent". 
   
• Conservative peer and British Secretary of State for the Commonwealth Tariq Ahmad said he was "appalled" by the Israeli strike on a residential apartment in Rafah, in southern Gaza, in which at least 19 people died, including 14 children. "We must stop this fighting immediately and bring an end to this conflict," he said in a post on X.
   
• British aid group Medical Aid for Palestinians has reported that its teams were able to deliver food aid to internally displaced people (IDP) in northern Gaza for the first time since the war began.

At least five rockets were launched from the Iraqi town of Zummar towards a US military base in northeastern Syria on Sunday, two Iraqi security sources told Reuters.

The attack against US forces is the first since early February when Iranian-backed groups in Iraq stopped their attacks against US troops.

The attack came on the same day Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani returned from a visit to the US and met with President Joe Biden at the White House.

Two security sources and a senior army officer said a rocket launcher fixed on the back of a small truck had been parked in Zummar, close to the border with Syria.

The military official said the truck caught fire with an explosion from unfired rockets at the same time as warplanes were in the sky.

"We can't confirm that the truck was bombed by US warplanes unless we investigate it," said a military official on condition of anonymity.

The attacks came one day after a huge blast at a military base in Iraq early on Saturday killed a member of an Iraqi security force that includes Iran-backed groups.

A Palestinian woman was shot dead by Israeli forces on Sunday at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry. 

Labiba Faza Sidqi Ghannam, 43, was killed at the Hamra checkpoint.

Israel's military claimed that the woman had "attempted to stab IDF soldiers who were at the post".

Earlier on Sunday, Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinian teenagers in Ramallah. 

The Palestinian health ministry said the deaths of the two teenagers were "caused by occupation (Israeli army) bullets".

It identified them as Muhammad Majid Musa Jabareen, 19, and Musa Mahmud Musa Jabareen, 18.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said that the incident occurred at the entrance to Beit Einun village near the city of Hebron.

A crowd of around 2,000 people protested in Paris against racism, Islamophobia and violence against children on Sunday after a court allowed their demonstration to go ahead, Reuters reported.

Bans on protests have been more frequent in France in recent months amid tensions stirred by Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza. In a country that is home to large Muslim and Jewish communities, authorities have banned many pro-Palestinian demonstrations and public gatherings, citing the risk of antisemitic hate crimes and violence.

On Sunday, the protesters marched peacefully from the multi-ethnic Barbes neighbourhood towards Place de la Republique. Many chanted slogans remembering Nahel, a 17-year-old of North African descent who was fatally shot during a police traffic stop last year.

Paris police chief Laurent Nunez told broadcaster BFM TV that he initially chose to ban the march because in announcing the protest the organisers had likened French police violence to the war in Gaza, and he felt the event could cause a threat to public order.

That argument was rejected by Paris's administrative court in a fast-track decision.

"Fighting and mobilising for the protection of all children is normal, it should be," said Yessa Belkgodja, one of the organisers of the march.

"If we are banned from protesting, it means we don’t have the right to express ourselves in France… We are being monitored on social media. That's enough, leave us alone," said Yamina Ayad, a retiree who was wrapped in the Palestine flag.

Israel war cabinet member Benny Gantz spoke with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and asked him to reconsider the decision to sanction the Israel Defence Forces' Netzah Yehuda battalion, an Axios reporter said on Sunday, citing Gantz's office.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had a telephone call on Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and discussed the state of the region, a spokesperson for the German government said.

"The chancellor emphasised that it was essential to avoid a regional escalation," the spokesperson said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that he would fight against sanctions being imposed on any Israeli military units for alleged rights violations, after media reports said Washington was planning such a step.

Axios news site on Saturday reported that Washington was planning to impose sanctions on Israel's Netzah Yehuda battalion, which has operated in the occupied West Bank, though the Israeli military said it was not aware of any such measures.

On Friday, the United States announced a new series of sanctions linked to Israeli settlers in the West Bank, in the latest sign of growing US frustration with the policies of Netanyahu, whose coalition government relies on settler parties.

"If anyone thinks they can impose sanctions on a unit of the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) - I will fight it with all my strength," Netanyahu said in a statement.

The State Department declined to comment beyond remarks made on Friday by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Blinken said he had made "determinations" regarding accusations that Israel violated a set of US laws that prohibit providing military assistance to individuals or security force units that commit gross violations of human rights.

The Israeli police have summoned Hebrew University professor Nadira Shalhoub-Kevorkian for another interrogation just two days after her release, according to her lawyer, Alaa Mahajna.

Professor Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, was suspended from her post and arrested on 18 April on suspicion of incitement after she called for "abolishing Zionism" and suggested that accounts of sexual assault during the Hamas-led 7 October attacks on Israel were a "lie".

Eventually the university reversed its decision following an apology from the professor, as well as a concession that sexual assault took place on 7 October.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan condemned the US veto on a motion to grant Palestine full UN membership as "unjust" and called on the international community to oppose the move and recognise the state of Palestine.

"It is unjust that Palestine is not allowed to become a member of the UN. We call on the international community to oppose this injustice and recognise the state of Palestine," Fidan said in a joint news conference with his Mauritanian counterpart, Mohamed Salem Ould Merzoug, in Istanbul.

The Palestinian Ministry of Public Works and Housing has said crews are starting to clear up the destruction inflicted on Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank during a three-day Israeli raid.

In a statement, Minister Ahed Bseiso said crews had begun clearing rubble, reopening roads and evaluating damage to the camp's infrastructure, which he described as 'severe'.