Live: At least 75 killed in Israeli strikes on second day of Eid al-Adha

Israeli soldiers came under rocket-propelled grenade fire in southern Gaza on Thursday, the Israeli military said. 

Three soldiers were lightly wounded in the attack, the military said. 

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said on Thursday that Israel is using “starvation" and "threatening the future of the children” in Gaza. 

“What’s urgently needed is a political will to allow the UN and partners to provide assistance at scale without hindrance or interruption,” Lazzarini said. 

The White House said on Thursday that Israel "signed off" on a proposal for a phased ceasefire introduced by US envoy Steve Witkoff. 

“Israel signed off on this proposal before it was sent to Hamas,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters. 

“I can also confirm that those discussions are continuing, and we hope that a ceasefire in Gaza will take place so we can return all of the hostages home," she added. 

The death toll from Israeli strikes on Gaza has risen to 70 on Thursday, according to Gaza's health ministry. 

Israel is continuing to pummel the enclave, which is on the brink of starvation. 

At least three Palestinians were killed by an Israeli strike near Shaaban al-Rayyes School in the al-Tuffah neighbourhood east of Gaza City, Al Jazeera Arabic reported.

Dozens of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes on Thursday. 

The Israeli government’s approval of 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank is a "deliberate obstacle" to Palestinian statehood, UK minister for the Middle East and North Africa, Hamish Falconer, said on Thursday.

"The UK condemns these actions. Settlements are illegal under international law, further imperil the two state solution, and do not protect Israel," he added.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told captives' families on Thursday that he accepts US special envoy Steve Witkoff’s temporary ceasefire proposal, Axios reported on Thursday.

Hamas has confirmed it is studying the proposal, but has regularly called for a full ceasefire in Gaza. The Witkoff proposal introduces another temporary truce. 

Hamas said on Thursday that it has received US envoy Steve Witkoff's new proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza from mediators, and that it was currently studying it.

A Palestinian boy, 12, has been shot and wounded by Israeli forces during a military raid on the town of Birzeit, north of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said its emergency teams treated the child, who sustained gunshot wounds to both legs.

Israeli troops shot the boy after storming Birzeit on Thursday evening and confronting local residents.

More than 300 British artists, doctors, activists and academics have signed an open letter urging British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to end UK complicity in Gaza war crimes and broker an immediate and permanent ceasefire.

The prominent public figures have also demanded that the prime minister suspend all UK arms sales to Israel.

"We urge you to take immediate action to end the UK’s complicity in the horrors in Gaza," the letter starts. 

"Violence stamped with UK inaction - flown with parts shipped from British factories to Israel, could be obliterating families in seconds. Each arms shipment makes our country directly complicit in their deaths."

Amongst the signatories are singer-songwriter Dua Lipa, actors Benedict Cumberbatch, Brian Cox, Toby Jones and Andrea Riseborough, broadcaster Gary Lineker, film director Danny Boyle, and Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos. 

Read more: Dua Lipa among 300 artists urging Starmer to end UK arms sales to Israel

At least ten Palestinians have been killed by an Israeli air strike targeting a vehicle in central Gaza City, according to Wafa news agency.

An Israeli jet struck a civilian vehicle at the busy Al-Saraya intersection.

It resulted in the death of ten people and the wounding of several others. Some of those wounded are reportedly in critical condition.

Francois Burgat, a renowned French specialist on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and political Islam, was acquitted on Wednesday by the criminal court of Aix-en-Provence, in southeastern France, where he was prosecuted on charges of “apology for terrorism” for messages posted on social media.

The prosecution accused the former research director at the National Centre for Scientific Research and former director of the French Institute for the Near East, now retired, of a series of controversial social media posts concerning Hamas and Israel’s war on Gaza.

During the trial in April, the prosecutor asked for an eight-month suspended prison sentence, a $4,500 fine, a six-month ban from social media and a two-year ineligibility period against Burgat.

Speaking to Middle East Eye, Burgat praised a "wise lucidity from the court", but expected the prosecution to appeal.

"Let's hope that this wisdom, which several dozen of my compatriots convicted without any justification in the same type of case have not benefited from, will henceforth become the guiding principle of the French judicial system," he said.

Read more: French scholar acquitted of ‘apology for terrorism’ charges after Palestine tweets

Israel's far-right government has approved 22 new illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Bezalal Smotrich, the far-right finance minister, wrote on X that the settlements would be located in the northern West Bank, without specifying further.

Israeli media reported, citing the defence ministry, that existing "outposts" would be legalised and new settlements would also be built.

"This is a great day for settlement and an important day for the State of Israel. Through hard work and tenacious leadership, we have succeeded in creating a profound strategic change, returning the State of Israel to a path of construction, Zionism, and vision," Smotrich said on X.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said it was a "dangerous escalation". 

"This extremist Israeli government is trying by all means to prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state," he told Reuters.

B’Tselem, a prominent Israeli human rights organisation, accused the Israeli government of "Jewish supremacy through the theft of Palestinian land and the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank."

Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, in violation of international law. 

Britain, France and Canada earlier this month warned Israel that ic could impose sanctions if Israel continued to expand settlement in the West Bank.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday condemned Israeli attacks on Gaza as "collective punishment of the civilian population", in some of Moscow's strongest criticism of Israel as it steps up its offensive.

Lavrov said measures taken by Israel "constitute collective punishment of the civilian population", calling what is happening in Gaza "incomprehensible and indescribable".

Hamas has reacted to reports of Israel approving 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, calling the move a “blatant challenge to international will and a grave violation of UN resolutions,” Al Jazeera reported.

“We call on the international community to take practical measures to confront the policies of annexation and settlement expansion, which constitute a war crime,” the group said in a statement.

The International Court of Justice last year ruled that Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is "unlawful" and Israel “has an obligation to bring an end to its presence in the occupied Palestinian territory as rapidly as possible.”