Live: Six more Palestinians die of famine as Israel blocks Gaza aid

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, has said she is considering sanctions and other forms of pressure against Israel over its actions in Gaza and the West Bank.

"[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is now a problem in himself," Frederiksen said in an interview with the daily Jyllands-Posten, adding that the Israeli government was going "too far".

The centre-right leader condemned the "absolutely appalling and catastrophic" humanitarian situation in Gaza and criticised Israeli plans to proceed with a new settlement project in the occupied West Bank.

"We are one of the countries that wants to increase pressure on Israel, but we have not yet obtained the support of EU members," she said.

Frederiksen added that she wanted to consider "political pressure, sanctions, whether against settlers, ministers, or even Israel as a whole".

Read more: Denmark considering sanctions against Israel as EU presidency holder

The death toll from Israeli-imposed starvation in the Gaza Strip has risen to 251, including 108 children, according to the Palestinian health officials. 

They said that "Gaza hospitals recorded 11 deaths within 24 hours, including a child, due to acute malnutrition."

Since early March, Israel has imposed a near total blockade on the entry of food and humanitarian assistance into Gaza. In recent days, Israel has allowed in small quantities of aid, though it is far below the needs of starving Palestinians.

The World Food Programme recently warned that "a third of Gaza's 2.4m population "has not eaten for several days". 

A Palestinian woman and a child were among three wounded in an Israeli settler attack during a raid in the town of Halhul, north of Hebron, according to Wafa news agency.

Settlers from the illegal outpost of Karmei Tzur, established on Palestinian land north of Hebron, attacked Palestinian residents in the Khiran area of Halhul, under the protection of Israeli security forces, the agency reported.

59-year-old Najla Hussein Aql was wounded with a deep wound to her head, while a child and a man from the same family sustained multiple bruises and wounds.

The reported casualties were later transferred to the Red Crescent Hospital in Halhul.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he “very much” identifies with the vision of Greater Israel during an interview on Tuesday, as he accepted an amulet of the “promised land” from former right-wing MP Sharon Gal. 

His comments have sparked condemnations from many Arab states, who viewed his words as a threat to their sovereign territory. 

The concept of Greater Israel, which has various interpretations, has long been invoked by ultra-nationalist Israelis.

It is often understood as a vision of territorial expansion to encompass Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan, along with significant parts of Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

It has also sometimes been used more narrowly to refer to the territories occupied by Israel in 1967: the Palestinian territories, the Golan Heights in Syria, and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

While Netanyahu’s remarks are recent, the idea of Greater Israel is neither new nor clearly defined, and for some, it now appears increasingly relevant in light of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Read more: What is 'Greater Israel'?

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, has said she is considering sanctions and other forms of pressure against Israel over its actions in Gaza and the West Bank.

"[Benjamin] Netanyahu is now a problem in himself," Frederiksen said in an interview with the Jyllands-Posten daily, adding that the Israeli government was going "too far".

The centre-right leader condemned the "absolutely appalling and catastrophic" humanitarian situation in Gaza and criticised Israeli plans to go ahead with a new settlement project in the occupied West Bank.

"We are one of the countries that wants to increase pressure on Israel, but we have not yet obtained the support of EU members," she said.

Frederiksen added that she wanted to consider "political pressure, sanctions, whether against settlers, ministers, or even Israel as a whole".

"We are not ruling anything out in advance. Just as with Russia, we are designing the sanctions to target where we believe they will have the greatest effect," added Frederiksen, whose country is not among those that recently announced plans to recognise a Palestinian state.

A fisherman has been killed by Israeli gunfire off the coast of Gaza.

Local Palestinian media reported that Israeli naval forces opened fire on a fishing boat along the Gaza coast, killing one fisherman and wounding another.

Eight Palestinians have been killed and others wounded on Saturday morning after Israeli forces bombed central and southern Gaza.

Medical sources at al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat refugee camp told Wafa news agency that six people, including four children, were killed when Israeli forces targeted a house in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.

An Israeli drone also targeted a tent housing displaced people in the Mawasi al-Qarara area, north of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, killing a married couple. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s expansionist plans for a 'Greater Israel have been condemned by a coalition that includes 31 Arab and Islamic countries and the Arab League. 

“These statements represent a grave disregard for, and a blatant and dangerous violation of the rules of international law and the foundations of stable international relations”, they all said in a joint statement.

“They also constitute a direct threat to Arab national security, to the sovereignty of states, and to regional and international peace and security.”

Netanyahu's vision for a greater Israel includes the West Bank, Gaza, Syria’s Golan Heights,and potentially parts of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and Jordan.

Israeli fighter jets on Friday targeted tents housing displaced persons in the Al-Rimal neighbourhood in Gaza City, killing three civilians and injuring multiple others, Wafa news agency reported, citing medical sources. 

Ten Nobel Prize winners are among a slate of 23 of the most highly-regarded economists in the US and Europe who penned a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, asking him to rescind his plans to militarily occupy Gaza City, and urging him to allow unrestricted food aid into the enclave.

The first signatory to the letter is Nobel laureate, MIT economist, and co-author of the international bestseller Why Nations Fail, Daron Acemoglu. He shared the letter on X on Friday. 

"We write with urgent concern about the spreading starvation in Gaza and the Israeli government’s plan to concentrate civilians in a so-called 'humanitarian city,'" the letter says. 

"As human beings and as economists and scientists, we call for an immediate halt to any policy that intensifies widespread starvation".

The second paragraph denounces the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel, but adds, "that does not absolve the Israeli government, which controls the flow and distribution of aid, of responsibility". 

You can read more here.

Julia Sebutinde, the Ugandan vice-president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), has said God "is counting on me to stand on the side of Israel" and the signs of the "end times" are "being shown in the Middle East". 

Early last year, Sebutinde was the only judge on a 17-member ICJ panel that ruled it was "plausible" that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, who voted against all six measures adopted by the court.

And in July 2024, she was again the sole dissenter when a 15-judge panel found that Israel's decades-long occupation of the Palestinian territories was "unlawful". 

In February 2025, a study accused her of directly lifting sentences almost word-for-word in her dissenting opinion written on 19 July 2024.

It is alleged that “at least 32 percent of Sebutinde’s dissent was plagiarised”. Sebutinde declined to comment on the controversy to MEE at the time.

You can read more here. 

Israeli police in Haifa arrested protesters condemning the killings of journalists in Gaza, Al Jazeera reported on Friday.

Footage shows demonstrators holding photos of Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh.

Both were killed along with three other Al Jazeera staff and a freelance reporter in an Israeli drone strike on a journalists’ tent in Gaza outside al-Shifa hospital on Sunday.

Israel's army has a special intelligence unit dedicated to smearing and targeting Palestinian journalists in Gaza, according to a new investigation by Israeli-Palestinian magazine +972.

Referred to as the “Legitimisation Cell”, the unit was formed in October of 2023 at the onset of the genocide that Israel is waging in the Gaza Strip. 

The +972 investigation, which interviewed three intelligence sources, revealed that the unit was meant to portray Palestinian journalists in Gaza as “as undercover Hamas operatives, in an effort to blunt growing global outrage over Israel’s killing of reporters”.

The report comes days after the Israeli military assassinated Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif in an air strike, following a months-long campaign seeking to portray the journalist as a military operative in an attempt to justify his targeted killing.

The attack on Sunday night also targeted and killed Al Jazeera correspondent and Middle East Eye contributor Mohammed Qreiqeh, alongside camera operators Mohammed Noufal, Ibrahim Zaher and Moamen Aliwa, and freelance journalist Mohammed al-Khalidi.

You can read more here.

United Nations secretary general Antonio Guterres' spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the video of far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s threatening visit to Palestinian political leader Marwan Barghouti in prison was "distrubing", Al Jazeera reported on Friday.

“I can tell you that the video is disturbing,” Dujarric told Al Jazeera.

Family members said they were concerned by how gaunt and tired the 66-year-old, much-loved leader looks. Barghouti has been dubbed the Palestinian Nelson Mandela.

“It’s worth reminding that, prisoners need to be treated… in a way that abides by international law and that respects their inherent dignity,” Dujarric added.

“He, like any other prisoner, needs to have his rights fully respected and his safety needs to be ensured,” the spokesperson added.

Barghouti has been detained since 2002 and has been assaulted while in prison, including as recently as last year.

Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians on Friday, wounding at least five people, setting fire to at least three cars and a house and destroying agricultural land across the occupied West Bank.

In the town of al-Mazraa al-Sharqiya, east of Ramallah, a group of settlers launched an assault that led to confrontations.

Three Palestinians were wounded by Israeli live fire and transferred to the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah for treatment.

Meanwhile, in the Masafer Yatta area, south of Hebron, a man and his wife were injured during separate settler attacks. The couple were taken to Yatta Governmental Hospital.

In the town of Atara, northwest of Ramallah, settlers carried out arson attacks and sprayed racist graffiti in the early hours of Friday, reportedly under the protection of Israeli forces.

You can read nore here.