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

At least five Palestinians have been killed and several others wounded in an Israeli air strike that targeted a commercial shop in central Gaza on Saturday evening, according Wafa.

The attack, carried out by an Israeli drone, struck a store owned by the Abu Amra family in the Al-Hakr district of Deir al-Balah. The victims were civilians, according to Wafa news agency, which said its correspondents had confirmed the attack on the ground.

The latest strike adds to the rising toll of Palestinian lives taken by Israel's ongoing assault. Since dawn on Saturday, 52 people have been confirmed killed in the enclave.

The head of Unrwa has sharply criticised Israel’s plan for aid delivery in Gaza, saying it violates core humanitarian principles and is designed to serve military goals rather than genuine relief efforts.

“It is not possible for a humanitarian organisation, which truly respects the basic humanitarian principles, to adhere to such a scheme,” said Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa).

“This model seems also to be put in place in order to support more a military objective than a real humanitarian concern,” he added in an interview with Middle East Eye.

Israel’s proposed aid system is tied to the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a mechanism it insists will coordinate deliveries into the besieged enclave. But UN officials have rejected the scheme outright, arguing it lacks impartiality, endangers civilians, and risks accelerating displacement across Gaza.

Lazzarini dismissed the plan as unworkable. “I do not think that such a model will succeed,” he said.

Humanitarian agencies have repeatedly warned that Israel continues to allow only a trickle of aid into Gaza, despite the catastrophic conditions caused by nearly three months of total blockade.

The World Food Programme has warned that nearly the entire population of Gaza is now facing the threat of severe hunger or outright famine.

Read more: Israel's US-backed Gaza aid plan may lead to second Nakba, UN agency chief warns

Naama Levy, one of five Israeli female soldiers freed during the January ceasefire, told a crowd in Tel Aviv that Israeli air strikes terrified her far more than anything else during her captivity in Gaza.

“They come by surprise,” she said, describing the strikes. “First you hear a whistle, pray it doesn’t fall on you, and then — the booms, a noise loud enough to paralyse you, the earth shakes,” she said in comments carried by the Times of Israel.

Levy recalled how one air raid nearly killed her. “I was convinced every single time that this was my end, and it’s also what put me in the most danger: one of the bombardments collapsed part of the house I was in,” she said. “The wall I was leaning on didn’t collapse, and that’s what saved me.”

Levy drew attention to the grim parallel facing those still held in Gaza. She went days without food or water. “One day, I had nothing left, not even water,” she said.

“Fortunately, it started raining. My captors put a pot outside the house where I was held, and the rain filled it. I drank that rain water, which was enough for a pot of rice. That’s what kept me going.”

Israel’s tight grip on humanitarian aid is not just reckless—it’s part of a strategy to uproot Palestinians from northern Gaza, the Norwegian Refugee Council has warned.

Ahmed Bayram, the organisation’s spokesperson, told Al Jazeera the selective delivery of aid amounts to coercion.

“We think that providing aid to one area above another, as opposed to all areas, is a coercive measure to forcibly displace people, which Israel has been doing all [during the war] of course,” Bayram said.

He criticised Israel’s allies for enabling this situation, stressing that the aid blockade has gone on far too long. “Israel’s control of aid, whether in part or the whole system, is dangerous and should not be accepted, let alone allowed, by its allies for 81 days,” he added.

Bayram said it was unacceptable for an occupying power to restrict the flow of basic supplies. “Israel is an occupier in this scenario and it should not control aid provision to people, let alone life-saving aid like food and water.”

Germany’s commissioner for antisemitism has called for a more honest and critical discussion about Berlin’s stance on Israel, warning that recent actions in Gaza go beyond what can be defended in the name of historical responsibility.

Felix Klein told the Sunday edition of the national daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that while Germany’s commitment to Israel’s security is deeply rooted in its post-Holocaust identity, this position "does not justify everything."

“We must do everything in our power to preserve the security of Israel and Jews worldwide,” he said. “But we must also make it clear that this does not justify everything.”

Klein criticised Israeli policies that have deepened Gaza’s humanitarian catastrophe, arguing that “starving Palestinians and deliberately worsening the humanitarian situation has nothing to do with securing Israel's right to exist.”

While he reaffirmed Israel’s right to target Hamas he questioned the scale and consequences of Israel’s military campaign.

“The proportionality of this action may well be called into question,” Klein said, marking a rare public rebuke of Israeli policy from a senior German official.

Israeli warplanes have killed at least 48 Palestinians in fresh air raids across the Gaza Strip since dawn, according to the territory’s Health Ministry.

An overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews support the transfer of Palestinians from Gaza, according to a poll by Pennsylvania State University.

The survey, conducted in March and published by Haaretz newspaper on Thursday, found that 82 percent of Israeli Jews support the forced expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, 47 percent of the Jews answered yes to the question: "Do you support the claim that the [Israeli army] in conquering an enemy city, should act in a manner similar to the way the Israelites did when they conquered Jericho under the leadership of Joshua, ie to kill all its inhabitants?" The reference is to the biblical account of the conquest of Jericho.

Earlier this month, Israel launched the "Operation Gideon's Chariots" in the besieged strip, which, according to the Israeli news outlet Ynet, is intended to advance US President Donald Trump's plan to "clean out" Gaza.

Read more: Nearly half of Israelis support army killing Palestinians in Gaza, poll finds

Israeli settlers have torched roughly four hectares (10 acres) of wheat fields near the northern West Bank town of Sebastia, local officials told the Wafa news agency.

The head of Sebastia municipality, Mohammad Azem, said the settlers came from Shavei Shomron — an illegal settlement — and a nearby outpost.

“Azem said the wheat crop was completely destroyed, causing heavy financial losses for the two farmers,” Wafa reported.

The arson attack comes amid a sharp rise in settler and military violence across the occupied West Bank, as Israel’s war on Gaza continues to escalate.

The World Food Programme has warned that more than 70,000 children in Gaza are suffering from severe malnutrition, as Israel continues to block the vast majority of aid convoys.

“WFP is taking every opportunity to deliver food and nutrition assistance – but this is just a drop in the bucket,” the UN agency wrote on X.

“To avert famine and save lives, we need immediate, unrestricted and safe access to deliver.”

Aid agencies say the trickle of supplies allowed in has done little to ease Gaza’s spiralling humanitarian crisis, with food, clean water, and medicine still in critically short supply.

Authorities in Gaza say at least 300 pregnant women have suffered miscarriages as extreme hunger grips the besieged enclave.

The Government Media Office blamed the sharp rise in pregnancy complications on severe food shortages.

Health officials confirmed that 58 Palestinians have died from malnutrition, while another 242 lost their lives due to the lack of food and essential medicines.

Despite mounting international pressure, Israel has allowed only limited aid to enter Gaza this week, offering little relief after more than 11 weeks of blockade.
 

Here’s a summary of recent developments from Israel's ongoing war on Palestine:

• The number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 2023 has risen to 53,901, the Palestinian health ministry said on Saturday. At least 122,593 have been wounded since the war began, it added.

• A Palestinian paediatrician received the charred bodies of nine of her children while on duty at the hospital after an Israeli strike hit her home in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

• Hamas has said that testimonies from Palestinian detainees and Israeli soldiers in a news report by the Associated Press documented “heinous crimes committed by” Israel. 

• Around 20 journalists' associations in France, including those affiliated with France 24, Le Monde, and Radio France Internationale, have called on Paris to evacuate journalists in Gaza working for French outlets. 

• Israeli settlers have damaged water pipes supplying Palestinian families in the al-Auja waterfall area, north of Jericho in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli warplanes have pounded the Gaza Strip since dawn, killing at least 44 Palestinians, reported the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The ministry said 25 of those killed were in the southern region of the enclave, which has come under renewed bombardment despite earlier Israeli claims of “safe zones” in the area.

The attacks have intensified across the besieged coastal territory, with rescue teams scrambling to reach those trapped under rubble.

Hamas has said that testimonies from Palestinian detainees and Israeli soldiers in a news report by the Associated Press documented “heinous crimes committed by” Israel. 

Seven Palestinians spoke to AP about being used as human shields in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank, in a report published on Saturday. Two Israeli military officers also confirmed the practice. 

Hamas said the crimes referenced in the report were committed “under explicit orders from senior military leaders”, which the group described as “war crimes and systematic violations of international law”.

“[The testimonies] reveal a systematic, deliberate policy that reflects the moral and institutional collapse within the ranks of this terrorist army”, it said.

The use of civilians as human shields is strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law and constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. 

Hamas has called an Israeli attack on the home of Dr Alaa al-Najjar, a doctor at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, “a horrific massacre”.

Najjar, a paediatric specialist at al-Tahrir hospital within the Nasser Medical Complex, received the charred bodies of nine of her children while on duty after an Israeli strike hit her home.

“This heinous crime clearly expresses the sadistic nature of the occupation, and the level of the deep-rooted spirit of revenge that drives Netanyahu and his gang of murderers and human monsters,” Hamas said in a statement.

The group said that Israel has been “deliberately targeting the medical personnel, civilians and their families in an attempt to break their will” since the start of the war.

The children - the eldest aged 12 and the youngest just six months - were severely burned in the bombing.

Shortly before the strike, Najjar had left for work with her husband, Hamdi al-Najjar, who then returned home.

Not long after, Israeli bombardment struck their house in the Qizan al-Najjar area in southern Khan Younis, killing nine of their 10 children and wounding the 10th.

Najjar’s husband, who sustained serious injuries, remains in intensive care.

Israeli forces are systematically forcing Palestinians to act as human shields in Gaza, according to a new report by the Associated Press (AP). 

Seven Palestinians spoke to AP about being used as human shields in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank, in a report published on Saturday. Two Israeli military officers also confirmed the practice. 

“They beat me and told me: ‘You have no other option; do this or we’ll kill you,’” Ayman Abu Hamadan, 36, told AP. 

Abu Hamdan said he was held by Israeli forces in northern Gaza for two and a half weeks last summer. He said he was forced for 17 days to inspect homes and holes in tunnels as Israeli troops stood behind him.

An Israeli officer said there were times when close to every single platoon had used a Palestinian to clear locations before Israeli forces went in. 

One Israeli sergeant said that his unit attempted to push back on using Palestinian human shields in mid-2024, but were told that they had no choice in the matter. 

Read more: Israeli forces ‘systematically using Palestinians as human shields in Gaza’