Live: Six more Palestinians die of famine as Israel blocks Gaza aid
Live Updates
Lebanon's army said two personnel were killed Thursday after an Israeli drone that had crashed in the country's south exploded, the latest deadly incident for Lebanese troops near the Israeli border.
Under a November ceasefire that sought to end more than a year of hostilities including an Israeli invasion and devastating bombing of the south, Lebanon's army has been deploying in the country's south and dismantling the Iran-backed group's infrastructure with the support of UN peacekeepers.
"While army personnel were inspecting an Israeli enemy drone after it fell in the Naqura area, it exploded, leading to the death of an officer and a soldier and wounding two other personnel," the army said in a statement.
President Joseph Aoun said in a statement that "the army is once again paying in blood the price of maintaining stability in the south".
Reporting by AFP
Israeli settlers have attacked a town near Nablus in the occupied West Bank, assaulting one man and destroying property.
A group of Palestinians had gathered in the town of Duma when settlers attacked, according to the Wafa news agency.
They attacked one man, smashing his phone and vandalising other property.
More than 63,000 people have been killed by Israel in the Gaza Strip, according to the enclave's health ministry.
The ministry said 63,025 Palestinians had been killed and 159,490 injured since 7 October 2023, following the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel and the subsequent war on Gaza.
A British government spokesperson said on Friday that a decision not to invite Israeli officials to a major arms fair scheduled to be held in London next month is due to the country's recent escalation of military action in Gaza.
“The Israeli government’s decision to further escalate its military operation in Gaza is wrong,” read the statement.
“As a result, we can confirm that no Israeli government delegation will be invited to attend DSEI UK 2025,” it added.
“There must be a diplomatic solution to end this war now, with an immediate ceasefire, the return of the hostages and a surge in humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.”
Although they have lived under constant Israeli bombardment for nearly two years, nothing could have prepared the residents of Gaza City for the ferocious attacks of recent weeks.
"This time, it’s different," many of them say.
Since Israel announced its plans to occupy Gaza City, home to nearly one million civilians, the military has intensified its attacks, including air strikes, artillery shelling, and explosions caused by remotely controlled vehicles.
The attacks have concentrated on the northern, southern, and south-eastern outskirts of the city, levelling almost every standing building in their path.
Day and night, explosions have rocked the city, leaving residents terrorised.
Read more: 'Earthquake-like': Israeli bombing rocks Gaza City as occupation threat looms
The body of Israeli captive Ilan Weiss has been recovered from Gaza, according to the office of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Another body of a second person has also been retrieved, but his identity has not yet been cleared for publication.
The Israeli military said that its daily “tactical pause” in Gaza - announced last month - will no longer apply to Gaza City starting on Friday morning.
“In accordance with the assessment of the situation and the instructions of the political echelon, starting today at 10:00 am (07:00 GMT), the tactical-local ceasefire of military activity will not apply to the Gaza City area, which constitutes a dangerous combat zone,” the military said in a statement on X.
The Israeli army said it “will continue to support humanitarian efforts alongside ongoing manoeuvring and offensive operations”.
At least three Palestinians were arrested today by Israeli forces near Hebron in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Wafa news agency.
One man was detained after Israeli forces stormed al-Fawwar refugee camp, located about 6km (3.7 miles) southwest of Hebron, as they were searching the man’s home.
The other two were arrested at a military checkpoint near the town of al-Samu, about 12km (7.4 miles) south of Hebron.
At least 30 people were killed in Gaza in separate Israeli attacks on Friday since dawn, according to medical sources.
The number includes two people who were killed in an Israeli bombing on the Zeitoun neighbourhood in the southwest of Gaza.
A child was killed by an Israeli attack in Khan Younis in the south of the strip.
The Israeli army has expressed regret over the “injury” of two Lebanese soldiers killed on Thursday.
An Israeli army spokesperson said their deaths was as a result of a technical error during a drone strike targeting Hezbollah infrastructure.
On Thursday, the Lebanese army said that two military personnel – an officer and a soldier – were killed as an Israeli drone crashed while they were inspecting exploded ordnance in the southern area of Ras an-Naqoura.
Two other soldiers were injured.
At least two Palestinians were killed on Friday and others were injured in an Israeli house attack in the al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.
Meanwhile, a source at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza said that five Palestinians were killed in an airstrike on a house in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood, southwest of Gaza City.
Good morning Middle East Eye readers,
Here are the latest updates from Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza and the latest developments in the occupied West Bank:
- Four Palestinians were killed and others injured in the early hours of Friday when an Israeli drone bombed a tent housing displaced people in the Sudaniya area in the northern Gaza Strip, according to the emergency and ambulance service in Gaza
- Another three Palestinians were killed in an Israeli attack on Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, according to a source at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
- In another attack, four people were killed in an Israeli bombing of a house in Tal al-Hawa, west of Gaza City.
- Al-Aqsa Mosque welcomed worshippers to Friday dawn prayer amidst tight security conditions due to Israel's heavy restrictions across the occupied West Bank, particularly in occupied Jerusalem.
- Palestinian sources said that Israeli drones launched an air strike on Gaza City on Friday morning, while the Sabra neighbourhood located south of the city was also subjected to artillery shelling.
- Israeli police arrested a number of protesters on Thursday evening during a protest in the town of Hod Hasharon, north of Tel Aviv, as they demanded an end to the war on Gaza and the return of captives, according to Israeli media outlets.
- World Food Programme executive director Cindy McCain said that the modest increase in aid is not enough to stop hunger in Gaza. McCain told Reuters in a video interview that "additional amounts of food are coming in, but they are not enough to do what we need to do to ensure that people do not suffer from malnutrition and starvation."
Our live blog will shortly be closing until tomorrow morning.
Here are the day's key developments:
- The director of Gaza's al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza has issued an urgent warning about what he described as a "new virus" spreading in the enclave, saying the symptoms include a high body temperature, joint pain, a runny nose, and a cough accompanied by bouts of diarrhea lasting more than a week.
- More food aid is reaching Gaza, but it remains far from enough to avert widespread starvation, the World Food Programme (WFP) told Reuters. This comes as 317 Palestinians have now died from malnutrition.
- Hamas official Basem Naim blasted Bahrain's credentialing of a new Israeli ambassador in Manama, saying it goes against what nearly 60 Muslim-majority nations agreed to do at this week's Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit, which is to isolate Israel from the community of nations.
- Students from Gaza, 52 of them, will arrive in Ireland this week to begin scholarships granted by education institutions, the Irish Foreign Minister Simon Harris has said.
- The Lebanese army said that two military personnel were killed and two others wounded when an Israeli drone crashed and then exploded in the Ras al-Naqoura area of southern Lebanon.
- Yemen's Houthis denied Israeli media claims that an Israeli air strike targeted a meeting of senior officials in the capital Sanaa, the Yemen News Agency Saba reported.
Israeli forces raided six schools in the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, detaining several teachers, the Wafa news agency reported.
The soldiers searched schools in the Sheikh neighbourhood, as well as in southern Hebron, seizing photos and textbooks before detaining the teachers.
In a statement, the Palestinian education ministry said these actions "constitute a flagrant violation of international and humanitarian laws, particularly the conventions protecting education, and are a continuation of the occupation's systematic policy of targeting educational institutions and instilling fear among students and teaching staff," according to Wafa's reporting.
Former US national security advisor Jake Sullivan was skewered as a hypocrite on Thursday after an interview aired of him saying he would support Congress voting to withhold military aid to Israel over its decision to abandon a Gaza ceasefire with Hamas in March.
“The situation as it stands today, following the breakdown of the ceasefire in March, means that a vote to withhold weapons from Israel is a totally incredible position. That is a position I would support,” Sullivan told a podcast hosted by The Bulwark media.
Sullivan was lambasted on social media for his statement.
“This has almost been too obvious to say, but Jake Sullivan is one of the original architects and cheerleaders for Israel's genocide and personally intervened to make sure the US is sending more bombs,” one commentator on X wrote.
