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

A notable escalation in Israeli settler violence has been reported across several areas of the occupied West Bank, the National Bureau for Defending Land and Resisting Settlements has warned.

"The [Israeli] occupation authorities are wreaking havoc and destruction in the West Bank and expanding their use of brutal tools in all villages and towns," the bureau's latest report read. 

It noted that the pace of settlement activity has only increased since October 2023, with settlers destroying agricultural land and infrastructure under the protection of Israeli forces.

Since the start of this year, at least 11 Palestinians have been killed in settler attacks, with over 696 wounded.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza reported the deaths of 10 people as a result of the famine and malnutrition, including three children, in the past 24 hours. 

This brings the total number of starvation-related deaths to 332, nearly half of them children. 

Good morning Middle East Eye readers,

Here are the latest updates on Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza and the developments in the occupied West Bank:

• Reports indicate one Israeli soldier has been killed and at least 11 seriously wounded. An additional four Israeli soldiers, believed to be either captured by Palestinian fighters or killed, remain missing. 

• At least 18 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip since dawn on Saturday.

• The death toll from starvation and malnutrition in the besieged enclave rose to 322, according to the latest figures. 

• Ireland's foreign minister has called on the European Union to take immediate and concrete measures against Israel and push for a ceasefire and an end to the famine in Gaza. 

• Army raids continue across the West Bank, as settlers storm several towns and vandalise Palestinian property.

Our live blog will shortly be closing until tomorrow morning.

Here are the day's key developments:

- More than 63,000 people have now been killed by Israel in the Gaza Strip, according to the enclave's health ministry.

- In a bid to "not reward terrorism", the Trump administration said on Friday it is revoking the visas of officials from the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the governing party in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Authority (PA), to prevent them from travelling to the United Nations for the general assembly meeting next month. 

- The spokesperson for the military wing of Hamas, the al-Qassam Brigades, warned on Friday that Israel's plans to occupy Gaza City "will be devastating for its political and military leadership," but that the group continues to guard Israeli captives "to the best of [its] ability". 

- The body of Israeli captive Ilan Weiss has been recovered from Gaza, according to the office of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

- Several Israeli media outlets reported late on Friday that the Israeli army fears four of its soldiers may have been captured by the al-Qassam Brigades, in what is being described as a "major security incident" in the Zeitoun Quarter of Old Gaza, in the north of the enclave. 

- Turkey is closing its ports and airspace to Israeli ships and flights, the foreign minister said on Friday.

At least five Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air strikes on a home in Nuseirat, in the centre of the enclave, overnight Friday into Saturday, local reports confirmed.

An apartment was also targeted in an Israeli air strike in the Karama neighbourhood north of Gaza City, in the northern part of the Strip, leaving behind at least two dead. 

Israeli settlers seized land in the occupied West Bank belonging to Nidal Jboor, a Palestinian-American doctor and co-founder of Doctors Against Genocide (DAG), "a coalition of healthcare professionals who wanted to unite their voices in uproar against the genocide in Gaza". 

His family land is in Masafer Yatta, an area that was heavily featured in the Oscar-winning documentary, No Other Land. 

“We're really at a loss,” Jboor said. He said his family is trying to talk to lawyers and any organisation that can help, adding that they know this is how forced displacement always starts.

Jboor, who lives in Michigan, said he “felt heartbroken” on learning that settlers had seized his family’s land on 18 August. The 50-acre tract of land is home to more than 500 olive trees, in addition to almond trees and grapes.

Read more: Israeli settlers illegally seize land belonging to Doctors Against Genocide co-founder

Several Israeli media outlets are reporting on Friday that the Israeli army fears four of its soldiers may have been captured by the al-Qassam Brigades, in what is being described as a "major security incident" in the Zeitoun Quarter of Old Gaza, in the north of the enclave. 

The four soldiers appear to have vanished, and the Israeli army is conducting a search for them in the area. 

Israel is not interested in adhering to the Middle East's established borders set by the WWI Sykes-Picot agreement and has the “capacity or the desire” to take over Lebanon and Syria, according to US special envoy Tom Barrack.

Barrack made the assessment in an astonishing and candid interview with online personality Mario Nawfal, which went online late on Thursday. It was just one of many insights that Barrack, who is at the centre of US diplomacy in the region, shared.

In addition, he said that Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa will not sign the Abraham Accords with Israel and alluded to deeply strained ties between Egyptand Israel, which he said are no longer “talking to each other or cooperating”.

Barrack is the US ambassador to Turkey but has become Trump’s envoy to the wider Eastern Mediterranean and the Caucasus.

Read more: Israel sees Sykes-Picot borders as 'meaningless', US envoy Tom Barrack says

The Palestinian Authority on Friday said it felt "deep regret and astonishment" at the decision of the US State Department not to grant visas to the Palestinian delegation scheduled to participate in next month's United Nations General Assembly in New York City.

Part of the agreement with the UN is that the host country for its headquarters allows in all heads of state to address the annual gathering. 

The Palestinian Authority "stressed that this decision stands in clear contradiction to international law and the UN Headquarters Agreement, particularly since the State of Palestine is an observer member of the United Nations," the Palestine Mission to the UK posted on X. 

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Friday that Iran does not seek war, but if Israel and the United States attacked, Iran will stand against them "forcefully".

"America and Israel seek to divide and destroy Iran, but no Iranian wants Iran to be divided," he said in a pre-recorded TV interview.

Reporting by Reuters

The Quds News Network on Friday said Israel is using drones to litter Gaza with grenades, in a bid to force families to flee their homes. 

It said that these sightings in the enclave align with a recent +972 Magazine investigation in which Israeli soldiers admitted they were ordered to use drones to bomb neighbourhoods to "terrorise Palestinians" and force them to leave. 

Karim Khan has questioned whether Israel is "interfering in and attempting to manipulate" a UN investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against him, following comments made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Since late last year, the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) has been examining sexual misconduct allegations by one female ICC staff member against Khan, International Criminal Court chief prosecutor - allegations he has strongly denied. 

But on Wednesday, Netanyahu said that four more women have made accusations against Khan. Netanyahu's claims have never been mentioned in the public domain before, and Khan has confirmed that he is wholly unaware of them.

Khan’s spokesperson told MEE that Khan "has no knowledge whatsoever of the women referred to by Mr Netanyahu".

Read more: 'Four other women': Has Netanyahu made slip-up in case against Karim Khan?

The spokesperson for the military wing of Hamas, the al-Qassam Brigades, warned on Friday that Israel's plans to occupy Gaza City "will be devastating for its political and military leadership".

"The enemy army will pay the price with the blood of its soldiers, and [our] chances of capturing new soldiers will increase," Abu Obeida said in a statement. 

Qassam's fighters, he added, remain "in a state of high alert, preparedness, and morale" ahead of further Israeli ground incursions. 

"The war criminal Netanyahu and his Nazi ministers have insisted on reducing the number of living enemy prisoners by half, and to permanently disappear most of their bodies," Abu Obeida said of the Israeli captive soldiers held in Gaza.

"The enemy army and its terrorist government will bear full responsibility for this".

To that end, he said, Qassam will guard the captives "to the best of our ability," given they are "in the areas of combat and confrontation, under the same risky conditions".

"We will announce the name, photo, and proof of death of every prisoner killed by [Israeli] aggression," Abu Obeida said. 

In a bid to "not reward terrorism", the Trump administration said on Friday it is revoking the visas of officials from the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the governing party in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Authority (PA), to prevent them from travelling to the United Nations for the general assembly meeting next month.

It is precisely at that meeting that the UK, France, Germany and others plan to recognise a Palestinian state, to try and move toward a political resolution in the region. 

The unprecedented move flies in the face of the agreement between the US and UN, which stipulates that all heads of state are to be allowed to address the international forum in New York every September.

"The Trump Administration has been clear: it is in our national security interests to hold the PLO and PA accountable for not complying with their commitments, and for undermining the prospects for peace," the State Department said in a statement, per orders given by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
 
"Before the PLO and PA can be considered partners for peace, they must consistently repudiate terrorism - including the October 7 massacre - and end incitement to terrorism in education, as required by US law and as promised by the PLO," the statement continued.

"The PA must also end its attempts to bypass negotiations through international lawfare campaigns, including appeals to the ICC and ICJ, and efforts to secure the unilateral recognition of a conjectural Palestinian state. Both steps materially contributed to Hamas’s refusal to release its hostages, and to the breakdown of the Gaza ceasefire talks," the Trump administration said.

"The United States remains open to re-engagement that is consistent with our laws, should the PA/PLO meet their obligations and demonstrably take concrete steps to return to a constructive path of compromise and peaceful coexistence with the State of Israel".
  
The PA's Mission to the UN, which is already in New York, will receive waivers in accordance with the UN Headquarters Agreement, the US noted.

Turkey is closing its ports and airspace to Israeli ships and flights, the foreign minister said on Friday.

"We have closed our ports to Israeli ships. We do not allow Turkish ships to go to Israeli ports.... We do not allow container ships carrying weapons and ammunition to Israel to enter our ports, nor do we allow their aircraft to enter our airspace," Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told lawmakers in a televised address.