Gaza live: Israel continues bombing central Gaza
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Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces said the explosion at its Kalso military base on Friday was caused by an air strike.
According to two sources at a nearby hospital, one fighter was killed and six wounded in the blast.
The statement comes after the Iraqi military said no drones or fighter jets were detected in the air space at the time of the explosion.
Israeli fighter jets bombed the Gaza Strip's largest pharmaceutical factory, according to the Deir al-Balah municipality.
The factory, in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, was destroyed in the attack during a recent incursion, the municipality said Saturday.
In a brief statement, it accused Israel of "deliberately" targeting the healthcare system to make Gaza uninhabitable.
Israeli forces have killed at least 37 Palestinians and wounded 68 more over the past 24 hours in four "massacres", according to the Palestinian health ministry.
This brings the Palestinian death toll in over six months to more than 34,049, with over 76,901 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.
Good morning Middle East Eye readers,
It's just after 11:30am (8:30 GMT) in Palestine and Israel. Here are the latest developments on day 197 of Israel's war on Gaza:
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Israeli fighter jets bombed several homes in Rafah early on Saturday, killing 10 people, including six children and women, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
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Air strikes and artillery shelling were also reported in Gaza City and the central Nuseirat refugee camp. Meanwhile, the Israeli navy fired live fire at the Deir al-Balah beach.
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In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces continued a raid on the Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarm for a third day running. According to local reports, at least five Palestinians have been killed and scores arrested as the camp is placed under siege.
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An explosion overnight on an Iraqi military base housing Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces killed one person and wounded others. Initial Iraqi reports said the blast was caused by an air strike, but the Iraqi military said no drones or fighter jets were detected in the air space at the time of the explosion.
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Late on Friday, US officials said the UN World Food Programme agreed to help deliver aid to Palestinians in Gaza from the planned floating pier that the US military is building.
Good evening Middle East Eye readers,
34,012 Palestinians have been killed and 76,833 wounded since Israel launched its assault on the Gaza Strip on 7 October, the enclave's health ministry said in a statement.
It added that 42 people were killed and 63 injured in the past 24 hours.
In other developments:
- A senior Iranian official told Reuters there are no immediate plans to retaliate against the alleged Israeli attack on Isfahan.
- Oman's foreign ministry released a statement condemning the "Israeli attack on Isfahan" as well as the "repeated Israeli military assaults on the region".
- EU Commission President Ursual von der Leyen said it is "absolutely necessary that the region remains stable and that all sides restrain from further action" following the latest reported Israeli attack on Isfahan, Iran.
- G7 foreign ministers issued a joint statement calling for a sustainable ceasefire in Gaza and the release of all Israeli hostages.
- The EU has agreed to impose sanctions against four people and two entities over Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank.
- According to a senior US official speaking anonymously to MEE, Israel did not inform the US about its plans for strikes in Iran on Thursday.
- Iran Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told envoys of Muslim nations in New York that the drones reportedly launched by Israel at Isfahan on Friday resulted in no damage or casualties, as reported by Iranian media.
The targeting of three Columbia University academics, which led to a Muslim visiting professor's job being effectively terminated on national television earlier this week, is part of an attempt to discredit those refusing to stay quiet on Palestine, students and faculty have said.
Tensions at the New York-based Ivy League school reached a zenith this week as university administrators called in the New York Police Department on Thursday afternoon to tear down a student-organised "anti-war and anti-genocide" encampment on the southern lawns of the campus in Harlem just over 24 hours after it had been set up.
The arrests of more than 100 students, suspension of three others, and dismantling of the 50-plus tents by police in full riot gear took place in front of thousands of Columbia students who flooded the lawns to show solidarity with striking students.
In the close to four-hour Congressional hearing on Capitol Hill, Republican lawmakers repeatedly grilled university president Nemat Minouche Shafik on the university's inaction against allegations of antisemitism on campus.
One Republican lawmaker after the other focused on slogans used by pro-Palestine protesters at Columbia and specifically referenced the remarks or works of professors Joseph Massad, Katherine Franke and Mohamed Abdou when confronting Shafik.
The annual celebration of a Jewish pilgrimage to Tunisia's Djerba synagogue has been cancelled due to the war in Gaza, Perez Trabelsi, the head of the organising committee, told Reuters on Friday.
Trabelsi added that the annual pilgrimage will be scaled down to include only limited rituals within the temple.
He said he anticipates a significantly reduced number of attendees from France due to the tense situation in the Middle East, Reuters reported.
"How do we celebrate when people die every day?" he said.
Djerba, a popular holiday destination located in the south, is home to Africa's oldest synagogue and hosts an annual pilgrimage that draws thousands of Jewish visitors from Israel and various European nations.
Iran Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told envoys of Muslim nations in New York that the drones reportedly launched by Israel at Isfahan on Friday resulted in no damage or casualties, as reported by Iranian media.
"The Zionist regime's media supporters, in a desperate effort, tried to make victory out of their defeat, while the downed mini-drones have not caused any damage or casualties," Amirabdollahian was quoted as saying.
Tehran has signalled that it does not intend to retaliate, while Israel has remained silent on the incident.
According to a senior US official speaking anonymously to Middle East Eye, Israel did not inform the US about its plans for strikes in Iran on Thursday.
The official revealed that Israel had previously assured its closest ally that any response to Iran’s recent attacks would occur after the Passover holiday, which spans from 22 April to 30 April.
Israel’s overnight attack on Iran appeared to be limited in scope, potentially designed to avoid further escalation.
Speaking to reporters on the Italian island of Capri, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken refused to answer questions about the attacks on Iran.
“I’m not going to speak to that [the attacks on Iran] except to say that the United States has not been involved in any offensive operations,” he said.
“The United States, along with our partners, will continue to work for de-escalation,” he added.
Earlier on Friday, Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told reporters that the US was only informed by Israel of the attack at the “last minute”.
“There was no sharing of the attack by the US. It was a mere information,” he added.
In a column for Middle East Eye, writer and scholar Ammiel Alcalay argues that as tensions flare with Iran, the US "mask is off" in its continued full support for Israeli actions in Gaza.
He writes: "While the needle doesn’t seem to have moved among the western political alliance led by the US, the mask has been off for a long time in most of the rest of the world, and it is increasingly coming off among the actual subjects of these western governments, whose anger and disgust mounts daily.
Indications of this are everywhere, from continuing protests, to conservative commentator Tucker Carlson’s recent interview with Palestinian pastor Munther Isaac, in which the pair excoriated US congressional and evangelical support for Israel, a pillar of US-Israel relations and funding.
The dizzying events of the past few weeks, including the Iranian counterattack on Israel, tell us much about where things stand in the relentless mix of differently scaled atrocities and psychological warfare carried out by state actors and their willing accomplices in the media, academia and professional associations.
The official outrage, both genuine and feigned, over the targeted killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers has not been even remotely matched when it comes to the more than 34,000 Palestinian casualties of this genocidal slaughter."
You can read the full column below.
Opinion: A cruel month of massacres for Palestinians as the US mask is ripped off
The US has imposed sanctions on two entities that it said helped raise tens of thousands of dollars for violent Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, the Treasury department announced on Friday.
Earlier this year, Washington sanctioned five violent settlers and two illegal outposts in the West Bank.
One of the entities sanctioned on Friday, Mount Hebron Fund, launched an online fundraising campaign that raised $140,000 for settler Yinon Levi, according to Treasury, after he was sanctioned on 1 February.
Levi had led a group of Israeli settlers who assaulted Palestinian civilians and burned their properties and agricultural lands.
The other entity, Shlom Asiraich, raised $31,000 for David Chai Chasdai, who Washington said initiated and led a violents riot in the Palestinian town on Huwwara with resulted in the death of a Palestinian civilian.
“Such acts by these organisations undermine the peace, security, and stability of the West Bank. We will continue to use our tools to hold those responsible accountable," Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo said in the statement.
The Treasury also sanctioned Ben-Zion Gopstein, founder of right-wing group Lehava, which opposes Jewish assimilation with non-Jews. It said Lehava's members “have engaged in violence, including assaults on Palestinian civilians.”
34,012 Palestinians have been killed and 76,833 wounded since Israel launched its assault on the Gaza Strip on 7 October, the enclave's health ministry said in a statement.
It added that 42 people were killed and 63 injured in the past 24 hours.
The EU has agreed to impose sanctions against four people and two entities over Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank.
Among those listed is Lehava, a far-right Jewish supremacist group that gained notoriety in Israel for attempting to prevent marriages between Jews and Arabs.
Also sanctioned was Hilltop Youth, a far-right settler group. Two leading figures of Hilltop Youth, Meir Ettinger and Elisha Yered are also to receive sanctions, the EU said in a statement.
When asked about Friday morning's Israeli drone attack on Iran, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said his country has not been involved in any offensive operation.
"I’m not going to speak to these reported events… All I can say is for our part, and for all the members of the G7, our focus is on de-escalation," he said, speaking to reporters following the G7 gathering in Italy.
Additionally, Blinken said the US believes Israel can achieve its objectives without an all-out invasion of Rafah, which the US would not support.
"We believe that a major military operation with a large presence of civilian population would have terrible consequences for that population," he added, stating that US and Israeli officials will continue discussing the issue.
Speaking after a G7 summit on the Italian island of Capri, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the bloc is "more united than ever" following their reunion, including on Middle East policy.
"We’re committed to Israel’s security," he said. "We’re also committed to de-escalating to try to bring this tension to a close."
Blinken added that the G7 "remained intensely focused on Gaza" and he urged Israel to quickly meet its "humanitarian commitments".
"More aid, more crossings, better deconfliction, better distribution of the assistance to all who need it," he said. "We need to see sustained results."
Blinken also solely blamed Hamas for a lack of a ceasefire in Gaza, saying the group rejected "generous proposals from Israel".
"It seems more interested in a regional conflict than it is in a ceasefire that would immediately improve the lives of the Palestinian people," he added.
