Live: Gaza death toll nears 50,700

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that Israel would continue to attack anywhere in Lebanon to counter threats and enforce a ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah, following heavy Israeli bombardment in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

- Reporting by Reuters

Gaza's Ministry of Health has announced that 43 people have been killed and another 115 injured in Israeli attacks across Gaza in the last 24 hours.

The toll includes two bodies who were recovered from previous attacks.

The latest figures bring the death toll of Palestinians killed since Israel resumed its offensive on the enclave to 896, with another, 1,984 injured.

The overall toll from Israel's war on Gaza now stands at 50,251, with 114,025 injured.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that blood supplies to treat the wounded in Gaza are running dangerously low.

“Everything related to trauma is quickly running short. There are fewer than 500 blood units available – 4,500 blood packs are needed each month,” WHO representative Rik Peeperkorn has told reporters in Geneva via videolink in Jerusalem.

Israel resumed its blockade on all goods entering Gaza on 2 March, leaving Palestinians in the enclave facing severe shortages of food and medical supplies amid Israel's renewed offensive.

A New Jersey high school is under fire from parents for an assignment that allegedly used misleading and incorrect information about a high-profile Palestinian student activist currently facing deportation.

Educational advocates and parents said the student project was an attempt to manipulate students with false information that did not merely distort the case but also sought to spread dangerous allusions about anti-war protesters demonstrating against Israel's war on Gaza.

In the assignment seen by Middle East Eye, students in the "Introduction to Law" class at the New Brunswick High School were asked to decide whether the US government was warranted in its decision to detain and potentially deport Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil.

Read more: US: New Jersey school slammed for 'anti-Palestinian' assignment on activist Mahmoud Khalil

French President Emmanuel Macron has denounced Israel’s latest airstrike on Beirut, calling it a clear violation of the ceasefire agreement and urging Israel to pull back from Lebanese territory.

"I express my solidarity with the people of Beirut who witnessed today's Israeli airstrike in violation of the ceasefire agreement," Macron said, condemning the attack as "unacceptable."

The French leader also insisted that Israel withdraw from five occupied points in southern Lebanon, proposing that Unifil forces be deployed in their place. "The Israeli army must withdraw from the five points in southern Lebanon," he said, reaffirming France’s commitment to diplomatic efforts alongside Washington.

Macron’s remarks come amid rising tensions along the Blue Line, as Israeli forces continue operations in Lebanon despite international calls for de-escalation

Lebanese President Michel Aoun has condemned Israel’s latest attacks on Beirut, calling them a blatant breach of an agreement brokered by France and the United States.

“This is a continuation of Israel’s violations,” Aoun said in a statement on X, urging the international community to step in. “These attacks must end, and Israel must be forced to respect the agreement, just as Lebanon does.”

The United Nations has accused Israel of showing a “callous disregard for human life” as it pounds Gaza with relentless air strikes, killing civilians in densely populated areas.

“The acts of war that we see bear the hallmarks of atrocity crimes,” Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN’s humanitarian agency Ocha, said in Geneva on Friday.

Israel’s bombardment has turned entire neighbourhoods into rubble, wiping out families while insisting it is acting in self-defence.

Gaza’s civil defence teams have pulled six bodies from the rubble after an Israeli air strike tore through homes in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood this morning.

The agency said “a large number of wounded” were found at the scene, with the devastation worsened by the sheer intensity of the bombing.

Since Israel shattered the Gaza ceasefire on 18 March and resumed its relentless assault, at least 855 people have been killed and nearly 1,900 wounded.

Israeli warplanes have pounded yet another town in southern Lebanon, this time hitting Kfar Tibnit. Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health reports that the attack killed one person and wounded eight others, three of them children.

The Israeli military issued an evacuation warning to residents of Hadath, a suburb in southern Beirut, on Friday afternoon.

Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee posted on X, saying that the buildings marked in red on an attached map were close to Hezbollah facilities.

He advised people to stay at least 300 metres away from these structures in what could be preparations for a strike.

Two Palestinians have been killed, and two more wounded, after an Israeli drone targeted a civilian vehicle in the Al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Yunis, southern Gaza, reported Al Jazeera Arabic. 

Lebanon and Syria have sealed a border demarcation and security agreement, according to Saudi Arabia's state media.

The deal was signed by the two countries' defence ministers in Saudi Arabia on Thursday. It follows recent deadly clashes along the border, which left several dead and dozens injured.

Both sides have ramped up efforts in recent weeks to close smuggling routes along the nearly 400km (250-mile) border.

The number of Palestinians killed in an Israeli air strike on a house in Gaza City's Zeitoun neighbourhood has climbed to 14, reported Al Jazeera Arabic.

Prominent advocates against antisemitism from around the world have pulled out of a conference in Israel tackling the issue, the Associated Press reported on Thursday.

The conference, which was organised by the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, and described as "a shared dialogue on addressing contemporary antisemitism", has been itself termed "antisemitic" by some who were invited to attend.

Haaretz reported that the first reform rabbi to serve in the Israeli Knesset slammed the event, saying it "should not provide a kashrut certification to politicians from either the far right or the far left who represent parties that adopt antisemitic positions, whether publicly or privately, or anti-democratic positions, even if they express support for the policies of the Israeli government and the State of Israel".

The withdrawal of invited guests, such French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, senior representatives from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, and even the chief rabbi of the UK, followed the inclusion of far-right European lawmakers and speakers, many of whom are linked to white supremacy and Nazism, and are vocally anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim, The National newspaper reported. 

Read more: Invitees shun antisemitism conference in Israel after European far right attends

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa) has raised alarms over accumulating waste in Gaza, stating it "puts people's health and lives at risk" and worsens the environmental crisis.

"The growing waste crisis further intensifies the environmental and public health challenges, deepening the suffering of those already enduring unimaginable hardship," said Unrwa.

UN agencies have repeatedly highlighted that the collapse of solid waste management in the Strip is facilitating the rapid spread of infectious diseases.