Live: Israeli soldiers kill unarmed Palestinians as they surrender in Jenin

Illegal Israeli settlers on Thursday used bulldozers to establish and expand a new settlement outpost on Jabal al-Najma in Qaryut, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, local media reported. 

Al Jazeera reported that settlers also attacked a hill in the town of Sinjil, north of Ramallah.

The report added that settlers also shot and wounded a Palestinian man in the Al-Tall area on the outskirts of Sinjil town, north of Ramallah governorate. 

Israeli forces on Thursday stormed the town of Burqin, west of Jenin, the town of Shuyukh, northeast of Hebron, and the city of Tubas in the northern West Bank.

In Tulkarm in the northern West Bank, an Israeli armoured vehicle collided with a Palestinian vehicle near Al-Quds Open University, Palestinian media reported. The report of the collision came after Israeli forces also raided the towns of Bal’a and Anabta, east of Tulkarm. 

Human Rights Watch's director in Israel and Palestine on Thursday said that Israel is responsible as a state for the crimes of its soldiers and officers, Al Jazeera reported. 

"There is criminal liability for those who give orders to soldiers," he said, adding that the international community is applying double standards regarding Gaza.

"There are still ways to achieve justice and accountability in Gaza," he said. 

Good morning Middle East Eye readers,

We are on day 34 after a fragile ceasefire was agreed upon to end Israel's two-year genocidal war on Gaza. The truce has been violated by Israel many times as it launches new operations and continues to strike Gaza, while settlers displace Palestinians from the West Bank. 

Here are the major developments from the last few hours: 

• Israeli forces continued their attacks on Palestinians in Gaza, targeting in the latest attack what they said were four armed men they spotted near the site of a tunnel explosion in Rafah. 

• Israeli settlers used bulldozers to establish and expand outposts on Jabal al-Najma in Qaryut, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.

• Israeli warplanes raided the eastern part of Gaza City, while Israeli military vehicles opened fire east of Khan Younis, local sources reported. 

• US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said he is optimistic that the UN Security Council will pass a resolution on Gaza supporting the deployment of an international stability force.

• Human Rights Watch's director in Israel and Palestine has said that Israel is responsible as a state for the crimes of its soldiers and officers. 

Our live blog will shortly be closing until tomorrow morning.

Here are the day’s key developments:

- The US gathered intelligence last year about Israeli officials discussing how their soldiers had sent Palestinians into Gaza tunnels potentially lined with explosives, in order to use them as human shields, two former US officials familiar with the matter told Reuters.

- Israeli President Isaac Herzog received a letter from US President Donald Trump urging him to consider granting a pardon to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the president’s office said on Wednesday.

- The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) said that one month into the ceasefire, more than 16,500 people still require urgent specialised medical care outside Gaza.

- Israel has said it has opened the Zikim crossing into northern Gaza to allow the entry of humanitarian aid supplied by the United Nations and other international organisations.

- Israeli forces have sealed gates shut to a number of Palestinian homes near the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, the Wafa news agency reported, in a bid to halt movement and prevent families from leaving or returning to their homes

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) said on Wednesday that one month into the ceasefire, more than 16,500 people still require urgent specialised medical care outside Gaza.

Since 10 October, 165 patients were medically evacuated from Gaza, the report said. 

So far, only four hospitals and smaller health facilities have resumed operations since the ceasefire, but more than 60 percent of all facilities remain non-functional, Ocha said. 

"Unexploded ordnance continues to pose a serious threat across the Gaza Strip, with injuries reported among people returning to devastated areas or searching for basic necessities," the report noted.

In a joint statement released on Wednesday, the foreign ministers of the Group of 7 (G7) nations welcomed what they called "President Trump’s Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict," but "expressed concern about restrictions" of humanitarian aid going into the enclave.

"We called on all parties to allow for humanitarian assistance without interference at scale, through the United Nations and its agencies, and the Red Crescent, in addition to other international institutions and INGOs, as stipulated in President Trump’s plan," the statement read. 

"It is vital that all parties continue to engage constructively on the next steps outlined in the Comprehensive Plan, in pursuit of a political horizon for peaceful and prosperous co-existence for the Israeli and Palestinian peoples that advances comprehensive Middle East peace and stability," the G7 foreign ministers said.

"We will also continue to maintain attention on the situation in the West Bank."

The G7 comprises Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the US, with the inclusion of the High Representative of the European Union. The respective foreign ministers had gathered for their annual meeting in Niagara, Ontario, this week.

Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, South Korea, South Africa, and Ukraine joined the discussions this year. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked US President Donald Trump on X on Wednesday for his "incredible support" in calling for his pardon as he faces criminal charges.

"As usual, you get right to the point and call it like it is," Netanyahu wrote.
 
"I look forward to continuing our partnership to bolster security and expand peace."

The US gathered intelligence last year about Israeli officials discussing how their soldiers had sent Palestinians into Gaza tunnels, which the Israelis believed were potentially lined with explosives, according to two former US officials familiar with the matter.

The information was shared with the White House and analysed by the intelligence community in the final weeks of former President Joe Biden's administration, the officials said.

International law prohibits the use of civilians as shields during military activity.

Officials inside the Biden administration had long raised concerns about news reports that indicated Israeli soldiers were using Palestinians to potentially protect themselves in Gaza. Washington's collection of its own evidence on the subject has not been previously reported.

- Reporting by Reuters

The Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) on Wednesday announced it has undertaken three new legal actions this month against Israeli officials and institutions.

The HRF filed a formal complaint against the European Investment Bank for allegedly channelling over € 1bn to Israeli banks and companies blacklisted by the United Nations.

"For the first time, a European institution must account for its financing of apartheid," the HRF said.

The group then filed a criminal complaint in Germany against the chief of security of the 7 October 2023 Nova music festival, Elkana  Federman, who boasted of actively blocking aid trucks trying to get into Gaza.

"Federman is currently in Germany, and under universal jurisdiction, German authorities are legally obliged to act," the HRF said. 

Also in Germany, HRF lodged a war crimes complaint against former Israeli Prime Minister  Ehud  Olmert "for his command responsibility" in the 2008–2009 Operation  Cast  Lead in Gaza, which killed more than 1,300 Palestinians. 
 

Israeli forces have sealed gates shut to a number of Palestinian homes near the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, the Wafa news agency reported on Wednesday, in a bid to halt movement and prevent families from leaving or returning to their homes. 

The practice is not new. Communities in nearby Jaber, al-Sulaima and Wad al-Hussein have been living in similar conditions for a year now, Wafaa reported. Entrances and exits to those neighbourhoods are sealed off with barbed wire. 

At least 750 families are impacted by these measures in total, Wafa said. 

A Palestinian rights group was on Wednesday refused permission to appeal a ruling that Britain lawfully allowed F-35 fighter jet components to be indirectly exported to Israel, despite accepting they could be used to breach international humanitarian law.

Al-Haq, a group based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, unsuccessfully challenged Britain's Department for Business and Trade over its decision last year to exempt F-35 parts when it suspended export licences for arms that could be used in the conflict in Gaza.

The group last month asked the Court of Appeal for permission to challenge a lower court ruling that found Britain's decision was lawful and dismissed Al-Haq's challenge.

The Court of Appeal refused permission, saying in its ruling that it was a matter for the government to decide whether national security issues relating to the supply of F-35 components outweighed an assessment that Israel was not committed to complying with international humanitarian law.

Millions more people risk famine in at least a dozen crisis spots around the world, including Sudan and Gaza, two United Nations agencies warned on Wednesday, appealing for funds to address a shortfall amid global cuts to international aid.

In a joint report, the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organisation also listed Haiti, Mali, South Sudan and Yemen as countries facing "an imminent risk of catastrophic hunger", meaning famine.

It stated that the hunger situation in six additional countries - Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, Nigeria, Somalia, and Syria - was considered to be of "very high concern".

All of the countries are suffering from war and conflict.

Calling for more help from governments and other donors, the WFP and FAO said that as of the end of October, only $10.5bn had been received out of the estimated $29bn needed to assist people most at risk.

The United States, the top donor to both UN agencies last year, has slashed its foreign aid under President Donald Trump, and other major nations have also made or announced cuts in development and humanitarian assistance.

An Israel-backed armed group that has been accused of stealing aid in Gaza is set to oversee the “rehabilitation” of Rafah city, according to Israeli media.

Kan News reports that the Popular Forces - a militia led by former smuggler Yasser Abu Shabab - have been given the go-ahead by Israel to facilitate the work in areas it controls.

Two Israeli sources, speaking to the outlet, confirmed the plan while adding that the Israeli government did not have a wider plan for the anti-Hamas militias operating in Gaza following the army’s long-mooted withdrawal from the enclave.

Abu Shahab has characterised the Popular Forces as a group of Palestinians opposed to Hamas’s rule in the Gaza Strip.

However, there have been numerous reports of the group engaging in extortion, looting of humanitarian aid and coordinating with the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF), which has been accused of overseeing the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians at aid sites.

Read more: Israel-backed militia to oversee ‘rehabilitation’ of Rafah city

Israel has said it has opened a key crossing into northern Gaza on Wednesday to allow the entry of humanitarian aid supplied by the United Nations and other international organisations.

"Today, the Zikim crossing has been opened for the entry of humanitarian aid trucks into the Gaza Strip," Cogat, the Israeli defence ministry body that oversees civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, said on X.

When contacted by AFP, a Cogat spokesman said the crossing would now remain open "permanently", like the Kerem Shalom crossing into southern Gaza, through which the bulk of aid has been transferred since the war began in October 2023.