Live: Gaza death toll nears 50,700

The Ministry of Health in Gaza said on Thursday that 112 Palestinians were killed by Israeli air strikes since dawn, with at least 70 of those deaths taking place in Gaza City, in the north of the Strip. 

The figure makes Thursday the deadliest single day for Palestinians since Israel resumed its war on Gaza on 18 March. 

The Yemeni health ministry on Thursday said that US air strikes have killed 92 people since they began on 15 March. 

The bombings take place on a nightly basis via US naval assets and aircraft. 

At least 165 others have been wounded, the ministry said. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday said that Qatar is "not an enemy country, and many praise it", amid a probe into allegations his aides received money from the Gulf state for public relations work. 

The Times of Israel reported that two aides to Netanyahu, identified as Jonatan Urich and Eli Feldstein, are suspected of being paid to spread pro-Qatari messaging in a bid to boost the Gulf state’s image as a mediator between Israel and Hamas.

“Qatar is a complex country, not a simple country,” Netanyahu said in his video statement.  

A spokesperson for the Israeli forces on Thursday said that since Israel's resumption of the war on Gaza on 18 March, it has "attacked more than 600 terrorist targets... and eliminated more than 250 terrorists, including 12 senior terrorists in Hamas and its ruling arm".

The Hamas members in question were not identified. 

"In recent days, we have moved into a new phase of Operation Pride and Sword, serving the party's goals of returning the abducted soldiers and destroying Hamas's military and governmental capabilities," Avichay Adraee said in a post on X.

"We are maintaining operational ambiguity with the aim of surprising the enemy and achieving significant accomplishments - our actions will speak for themselves," he added. 

The UN special envoy for Syria on Thursdaycondemned Israel's "repeated and intensified" attacks in the country on Thursday, warning that they could "destabilise" its recovery.

Geir Pedersen in a statement called on Israel to "cease these attacks, which could constitute serious violations of international law, to respect Syria's sovereignty and existing agreements, and to end its unilateral actions on the ground."

The Israeli military said on Thursday it was investigating an incident in which its troops opened fire on ambulances, claiming to have targeted "terrorists," while the UN reported that 15 medics and humanitarian workers were killed.

"The incident from March 23, 2025, in which IDF (military) forces opened fire targeting terrorists advancing in ambulances, has been transferred to the General Staff's fact-finding and assessment mechanism for investigation," military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said in a statement.

Reporting by AFP

Tens of thousands of children have lost a parent since the beginning of Israel's assault on Gaza.

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said in a statement, issued on the eve of Palestinian Children’s Day, said 39,384 children in Gaza had lost one or both parents after 534 days of war.

Around 17,000 of those listed lost both parents.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Wednesday the capture of an area that he referred to as the "Morag axis" in the southern Gaza Strip.

This area consists mainly of agricultural land located between Khan Younis and Rafah, stretching from east to west across the Gaza Strip.

It includes parts of what the Israeli military had previously designated as a "humanitarian zone", where they had told internally displaced Palestinians to seek refuge.

The area had not been identified as an "axis", also known as a "corridor", before Netanyahu's announcement.

The name "Morag" that he used refers to an illegal Israeli settlement that was established in the region between 1972 and 2005.

Read more: ‘Morag axis’: What we know

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar called Hungary’s decision to pull out of the International Criminal Court "important" in a post on X.

“The so-called 'International Criminal Court' lost its moral authority after trampling the fundamental principles of international law in its zest for harming Israel’s right to self-defense,” Saar said. “Thank you Hungary for your clear and strong moral stance alongside Israel,” he said.

The ICC issued an arrest warrant against Netanyahu in November over charges of war crimes in Gaza.

Two Palestinians were killed and several others injured in an Israeli air strike on a vehicle carrying displaced people on Mansoura Street in the Shujaeya neighbourhood, in the east of Gaza City, Al Jazeera reported.

More than 40 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since dawn on Thursday.

The closure this week of all bakeries in Gaza sets the stage for another devastating wave of starvation across the besieged territory.

Paper signs now hang in bakeries, reading “closed until further notice”. The long lines of people who would typically be queuing outside have disappeared.

In Gaza, bakeries are not just places where bread is made and bought. They are lifelines for the Palestinian people amid Israel’s brutal war and siege - a source of sustenance and survival.

Flour, once an easily accessible commodity, is now rare, with the World Food Programme, which supports 18 bakeries in Gaza, saying its warehouses have run out.

The concerns of Gaza’s population of more than two million people are growing by the hour. Even those who might still have baking supplies at home are running out of options, because the gas required to operate ovens is increasingly scarce.

Read more: In Gaza, bread is life - and now all bakeries are closed by Huda Skaik

The health ministry in Gaza said on Thursday that 1,163 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since Israel resumed large-scale strikes on 18 March.

According to the ministry's statement, the figure includes 97 people killed in the past 24 hours. It also reported that the overall death toll had reached 50,523 since the war began on 7 October, 2023. 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called on Thursday for a return to "serious" negotiations to end the Gaza conflict as Israel pushed on with a renewed assault on the territory.

Scholz said what is needed now is a return to the ceasefire and the release of all captives, as he urged a return to "serious negotiations with the aim of agreeing a post-war order for Gaza that protects Israel's security".

Israel resumed intense bombing of Gaza on 18 March before launching a new ground offensive, ending a nearly two-month ceasefire. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that the military was "dissecting" the Gaza Strip and seizing territory.

At least 1,066 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel resumed military operations there, according to the health ministry in Gaza.

Hungary's government has decided to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC), it said on Thursday, shortly after Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, sought under an ICC arrest warrant, arrived in the country for a state visit.

Right-wing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban invited his Israeli counterpart to Budapest in November, a day after the ICC issued its arrest warrant over charges of war crimes in Gaza.

Hungary was among the first countries that ratified the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC in 2002.

All 125 states parties to the statute, including all EU countries, are under a legal obligation to arrest and surrender Netanyahu to the Hague-based court. 

It became the first EU country to pull out of the treaty.

The death toll from Israeli attacks on Gaza since dawn reached forty-two, according to Al Jazeera. 

Displaced people in the al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, were among those targeted by Israeli attacks.