Gaza live: Israel continues bombing central Gaza
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President Mahmoud Abbas has commended the member states of the United Nations Security Council who voted in favour of granting Palestine full UN membership.
The US vetoed a Security Council resolution that recommended granting the State of Palestine full membership in the United Nations on Thursday.
In an interview with Wafa news agency, he reiterated Palestine's determination to continue trying to obtain membership, saying that it will go to the General Assembly and the Security Council until it is achieved.
China's foreign minister, Wang Yi, has said that admitting Palestine into the UN would "rectify a prolonged historical injustice", Xinhua News Agency reported.
He spoke after the US blocked a UN Security Council resolution that recommended granting the State of Palestine full membership of the United Nations.
The Palestinian Authority is reconsidering its ties with the US following an American veto of a Palestinian request for full United Nations membership, President Mahmoud Abbas said in an interview with Wafa news agency.
He said the veto "constitutes a blatant aggression against the rights, history, land, and sanctities of the Palestinian people, challenging the will of the international community".
"While the world agrees on the application of international law and stands by the Palestinian right, America continues to support the occupation, refusing to compel Israel to stop its genocidal war. It provides Israel with weapons and funds that kill our children and destroy our homes, and it stands against us in international forums, in positions that do not serve security and stability in the region," he said.
"The United States has violated all international laws and abandoned all promises regarding the two-state solution and achieving peace in the region."
Israeli forces have been shelling the town of al-Mughraqa, north of Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, Al Jazeera Arabic has reported.
The refugee camp was previously targeted by an Israeli air strike, which destroyed at least three homes.
The Israeli army said it killed 10 Palestinians in the ongoing raid on the Nur Sham refugee camp near Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank, which started on Thursday evening.
It added that nine soldiers were wounded in clashes with Palestinian fighters in the camp.
The Palestinian health ministry earlier confirmed the death of one Palestinian, identified as 15-year-old Fathi Qais Nasrallah.
It added that it received several reports of people killed and wounded inside the camp but medical teams have been blocked from reaching them by Israeli forces.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry on Saturday urged Iran and Israel to exercise restraint amid high tensions in the Middle East.
Separately, Shoukry said Egypt would host a Turkish delegation to prepare for a visit by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to Turkey in the near future.
Reporting by Reuters
Israeli fighter jets have bombed two homes in Rafah in overnight strikes, killing a total of 10 people, including six children and women.
Israeli forces have detained 30 Palestinians in two days of raids across the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Prisoners Society has said.
According to the group, half of the detainees were arrested at the Nur Shams refugee camp, amid the ongoing 40-hour raid by Israeli forces.
The latest arrests bring the total number of Palestinians detained by Israeli forces since 7 October to 8,340
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Shoukry, warned against further displacement of Palestinians amid fears of a planned Israeli ground invasion of Gaza's southern city of Rafah.
"We should avoid any attempts to liquidate the Palestinian issue by displacing the Palestinian people," Shoukry said at a joint press conference with Fidan on Saturday.
A volunteer paramedic for the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has been missing for 120 days since he was detained by Israeli forces, the society said on X, formerly Twitter.
Hudhaifa Mahmoud Abu Eita was arrested at the Jabalia ambulance centre in northern Gaza during a raid by Israeli forces. He is one of six volunteers who have gone missing since the start of the war.
According to PRCS, 27 of its staff members have been killed by Israeli forces since October, including 17 while working. The society said that the Israeli army has repeatedly fired at ambulances trying to reach injured Palestinians.
Five Palestinians, including a child, have been killed and at least 11 others injured, amid the ongoing Israeli raid on the Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, the Wafa news agency has reported.
The offensive, which is entering its second day, is considered the most destructive ever on the camp, with Israeli forces demolishing three homes and destroying most of the camp's infrastructure.
According to eyewitnesses, the army is withholding victims' bodies and blocking ambulance crew from accessing the area.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said their teams had evacuated two casualties from the camp to the Thabet Thabet Government Hospital, despite Israeli soldiers obstructing crews and forcing casualties out of ambulances to inspect their identity cards.
Israeli forces, flanked by bulldozers, launched the large-scale offensive and imposed a siege on the camp on Thursday. Bulldozers have destroyed the camp's main streets and its water and waste-water networks, while the army has blocked the entrances to the camp with earth mounds and targeted electricity poles and wires, causing power outages.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is set to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday. Haniyeh arrived in Istanbul late on Friday as part of a delegation of the political leadership of Hamas.
Haniyeh and Erdogan are expected to discuss ways to boost Turkey's aid to Gaza.
This comes after the Turkish president sent Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to Qatar on Wednesday. Reportedly, the two discussed a ceasefire and the release of hostages.
Erdogan has maintained ties with Haniyeh since 2011, when Hamas established an office in Turkey, and Turkey helped to negotiate the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Shoukry, discussed the "grave situation" in Gaza and how to step up humanitarian aid deliveries to the besieged enclave in a meeting on Saturday in Istanbul.
"We have discussed what more we can do to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, and what can be done in the long run for a two-state solution," Fidan said at a press conference.
A small neighbourhood in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, also known as Saida, is a utopia when compared to the communities surrounding it.
The neighbourhood’s nearly 3,000 residents, most of whom are Palestinian, have access to a broad array of amenities now seldom seen in Lebanon, a country where public services have mostly dried up after years of economic crisis.
Credit for the services in this Palestinian community goes to the armed group and political movement, Hamas.
Residents can fill up gallons of fresh drinking water four days a week. The streets are clean and well-lit at night. The community’s youth even have access to a recreation centre, equipped with football tables, punching bags, and a treadmill they can use free of charge.
Lebanon’s economic meltdown has hit Palestinian refugees in the country especially hard.
Before the crisis, the community faced systemic discrimination and legal barriers that left them unable to escape poverty. So, the help from Hamas is welcomed with open arms.
The movement has historically done well to provide basic social services on a small budget.
Their social welfare networks in Gaza and the West Bank were a huge contributor to their election victory in Palestine in 2006. In Lebanon, Hamas’s popularity is now surging as the group fights the Israeli army in Gaza.
The Libyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs has denounced the UN Security Council's failure to approve a draft resolution that recommended granting the State of Palestine full membership in the United Nations.
The draft resolution, which was submitted by Algeria, was vetoed by the US on Thursday. The UK and Switzerland abstained.
In a statement, the Libyan ministry reminded the countries that abstained from and blocked the vote of the provisions of the United Nations Charter, which grants full membership to countries that accept its obligations.
