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

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

Hassan Mleihat, of the Al-Baydar Organisation for the Defence of Bedouin Rights, told Wafa news agency on Saturday that settlers deliberately disrupted the water supply in a systematic effort to pressure residents into leaving their land.

Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley have faced repeated disruptions to their access to water, electricity and other basic needs, from both settlers as well as Israeli authorities. 

"I fled Gaza with my children. We survived the genocide, but carry its weight every day. I want the world to understand what we lived through, but it refuses to see us," Alaa Radwan, a Palestinian writer, educator, and translator from Gaza, writes in a column for Middle East Eye. 

The last time I saw my home in Gaza was on my 31st birthday, 13 October 2023.

I had just bathed my children, folded their clothes and packed a bag with what little we could carry. It was time to evacuate. We didn't know if we were leaving for a night or forever.

Two months later, it was gone - bombed, like so many others.

At the time, I was displaced in a small, unfurnished apartment in Deir al-Balah. I was cooking over an open fire when my husband arrived. His face was pale, sad and distant. I knew something terrible had just happened.

I asked him what was wrong. He said nothing. But I could sense the truth in his silence. I insisted. Then, he told me. He had just seen the news in the neighbours' WhatsApp group. The building where our home once stood had been bombed. There were three photos. I begged him to show me. He refused. I cried. I screamed. Finally, he gave in.

And there it was. My dream home. Rubble.

I had lived there for less than two years. But those two years held more joy and struggle than a lifetime. We had just cleared its debt. Just started to call it ours. I worked three jobs to build that home. I was online just two days after my first C-section with the twins, trying to pay for a future we could hold on to.

You can read the full piece below.

Opinion: Israel killed my family and destroyed my home. The world just kept scrolling

Thousands of fans turned out for Irish band Kneecap's biggest-ever headline gig in south London, just days after one of its band members was charged with a terrorism offence. 

Earlier this week, Liam Og O hAnnaidh, 27, was charged with displaying a flag in support of Hezbollah during a concert at the O2 Forum in northwest London last November.

Kneecap denied the charges, describing it as “political policing” and “a carnival of distraction” away from Israeli aggression in Gaza. 

O hAnnaidh told fans at the Wide Awake Festival on Friday that UK authorities were “trying to silence us before Glastonbury” and called on fans to be “on the right side of history”. 

"I know we're out, we're enjoying ourselves and we're trying to listen to some tunes at a festival... believe me, lads, I wish I didn't have to do this," he said at the event in Brixton’s Brockwell Park.

Read more: Kneecap headline festival days after member charged with terror offence

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.

In a statement, the ministry said the bodies of at least 79 people, including five recovered from earlier attacks, had arrived at hospitals across Gaza over the past day. That figure excludes facilities based in northern Gaza, which health officials have been unable to access.

A further 211 were wounded over the past 24 hours. 

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.

Dr Alaa al-Najjar, a paediatric specialist at al-Tahrir hospital within the Nasser Medical Complex, was treating victims of ongoing Israeli attacks across the strip on Friday when she was shocked to find her own children and husband brought into the hospital.

The children - the eldest aged 13 and the youngest just six months old - 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, an 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.

Read more: Gaza doctor receives charred bodies of her nine children while on duty

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. 

"We call on the French authorities to do everything possible to enable the evacuation of Gazan journalists, fixers, and drivers working for French media outlets and their families," the associations wrote in a letter.

It was signed by associations affiliated with French media organisations, including BFMTV, Le Figaro, Liberation, and Mediapart.

"Our colleagues and their families are in danger of death today after Benjamin Netanyahu's government announced its intention to take full control of the Gaza Strip," the letter read.

It added that since the beginning of Israel's war on Gaza in October 2023, "more than 200 of our colleagues in Gaza have been killed".

Israeli attacks on various areas of the Gaza Strip have killed at least 21 Palestinians, according to local media reports. 

Wafa news agency said at least 10 were killed and dozens more wounded following Israeli shelling in Khan Younis and Rafah, in the south of the enclave. 

In Rafah, Israeli warplanes bombed al-Mawasi area, killing at least five people and wounding 50 others.

Five more were killed in Asdaa city, northwest of Khan Yunis, when an Israeli drone struck al-Sharif family's home. 

In central Gaza, Israeli bombs targeted the home of the Joudeh family in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing two and wounding others.

Elsewhere in Nuseirat, one Palestinian was killed and five others wounded, including a one-month-old baby girl, when Israeli aircraft bombed the home of al-Majdalawi family near Izz al-Din al-Qassam Mosque.

Only 119 aid trucks have arrived in Gaza since Israel lifted the blockade on Monday to allow limited aid into Gaza according to an umbrella network of Palestinian aid groups, reported Reuters on Friday.

The umbrella network also said some of the aid trucks that made it into the besieged strip have been looted by groups of men, near the city of Khan Younis, according to the report. 

Although security teams were protecting the aid trucks, the Israeli military targeted and killed members of the security teams, which paved the way for the looting to take place. 

Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of UNRWA, said on X that “the aid going in now is a needle in a haystack”.

He said 500 to 600 aid trucks were needed every day, adding that “we brought in an average of 500-600 trucks a day without diversion or looting”. The number of aid trucks that have been allowed into Gaza this week is less than five percent of this figure.

Lazzarini also added, “No one should be surprised, let alone shocked at scenes of precious aid looted, stolen or “lost”. The people of Gaza have been starved and deprived of the basics including water and medicines for more than 11 weeks.

“Mothers and fathers have run out of food for their children. Older people died because of lack of medicines.

“A meaningful and uninterrupted flow of aid is the only way to prevent the current disaster from spiraling further, he said.”

UNICEF’s deputy executive director said at least 75 per cent of households in Gaza report that they do not have enough water to drink, at a UN Security Council meeting on Friday.

Ted Chaiban said the lack of access of water was caused by 70 percent of Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure sustaining damage or being destroyed since Israel’s war began.

He added that “repeated blockades” have prevented the entry of fuel and critical components needed to run water facilities in Gaza.

“Currently, the desalination plant in southern Gaza is working at reduced capacity on backup generators,” he said.

“We urgently need the power supply to the desalination plant to be switched back on to provide at least 600,000 internally displaced Gazans in the south of the Strip with access to safe water.”

UNICEF’s deputy executive director said at least 75 percent of households in Gaza report that they do not have enough water to drink, at a UN Security Council meeting on Friday.

Ted Chaiban said the lack of access of water was caused by 70 percent of Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure sustaining damage or being destroyed since Israel’s war began.

He added that “repeated blockades” have prevented the entry of fuel and critical components needed to run water facilities in Gaza.

“Currently, the desalination plant in southern Gaza is working at reduced capacity on backup generators,” he said.

“We urgently need the power supply to the desalination plant to be switched back on to provide at least 600,000 internally displaced Gazans in the south of the Strip with access to safe water.”

Canada’s left-wing New Democratic Party (NDP) on Friday called on the Canadian Prime Minister to suspend its free trade agreement with Israel and impose sanctions over its "forced starvation of Palestinians in Gaza".

In a statement, NDP MP Heather McPherson said, “The current humanitarian blockade and forced starvation of Palestinians in Gaza violates every moral code and relevant international legal norms. Bombings, shootings, starvation, dehumanization – Netanyahu and his cabinet are war criminals who must be brought to justice,”.

Canada, along with France and the UK, this week condemned Israel’s food, water, and aid blockade on Gaza and settlement expansion in the West Bank. The countries said they would “not hesitate to take further action, including targeted sanctions”.

The EU and UK are currently revisiting their trade agreements with Israel.

But McPherson said such threats “ring hollow as thousands more Palestinians are slaughtered indiscriminately and thousands more risk starving to death”.

Canada must do the same and suspend the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement.

“Palestinians, like all people, deserve life. They deserve to thrive in their homeland without fear of genocide, annexation, and starvation,” she added.

UN's office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (Ocha) reported that continued high levels of Israeli settler violence in the West Bank is “having an alarming impact on Palestinians”, during a UN press briefing on Friday.

Ocha reported at least 28 Israeli settler attacks that resulted in casualties, property damage or both, between 13 and 19 May.

This includes attacks on 20 Palestinian households near Ramallah, which caused 120 people to flee, and the arson attacks by nearly 150 masked settlers at Bruqin, in the Salfit area.

People in northern Gaza are still waiting for aid to reach them, Al Jazeera reported on Friday.

Hani Mahmoud, an Al Jazeera reporter in Gaza City, said that people in the northern parts of Gaza had not received any of the extremely limited aid coming into central or south Gaza.

Mahmoud reported that he was witnessing people spending “most of the past days, and since the blockade intensified, queueing for many hours just to get a bowl of soup, waiting with empty hands and empty pots” all the while being vigilant of air strikes.

Mahmoud also reported that over the last few weeks, “we’ve seen many cases of malnourishment at hospitals, we’ve seen hospitals unable to provide treatment due to the lack of medical supplies, and we’ve seen children dying inside the hospitals due to a lack of antibiotics for treatable infections”.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) warned that the intensification of Israeli attacks on Gaza has brought its health system to a breaking point, with at least 94 percent of the hospitals in Gaza now damaged or destroyed, and half of them no longer operational, in a press release on Thursday.

The warning came following Israeli air strikes on Al Awda hospital, in north Gaza, where patient triage tents - including one provided by WHO - caught fire, burning all medical supplies in the warehouse and destroying vehicles in the basement. 

WHO could not reach the hospital, and sources there told WHO on Friday that the fire had not been fully extinguished. 

Over the past week alone, four major hospitals have had to suspend medical services because of hostilities, attacks or displacement orders in their areas, including Kamal Adwan, Indonesia, Hamad and European Gaza hospitals.

WHO says that four percent of almost 700 attacks on Gaza’s healthcare system since October 2023 were recorded over the past week alone, which is the equivalent of 28 attacks - four times the average number of attacks - per day. 

The Israeli military raided a Palestinian home in Hebron in the West Bank while people had gathered to pay respects over the death of a family member, reported the Wafa news agency on Friday.

Israeli soldiers raided the family home of Moayyad Suleiman al-Qawasmi, who died during an Israeli air strike in Gaza on Thursday, and ransacked it, confiscated chairs, and evicted all mourners, Wafa reported.

Qawasmi was a captive who was released as part of a prisoner swap for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011.

According to a survey conducted by Penn State University, 82 percent of Israelis support the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza. 

The same survey also found that 56 percent of Israelis support the forced expulsion of Palestinian citizens of Israel.

This compares less favourably to a survey in 2003, where 45 percent supported the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza and 31 percent supported expelling Palestinian citizens of Israel.

The March poll also asked whether the Israeli army should kill all inhabitants of an enemy city and 47 percent of Israelis affirmed they should.

In addition, 65 percent of those polled believe a modern-day "Amalek" exists, where Amalek is the enemy of the nation of Israelites, according to the Hebrew bible. Of those, 93 percent believe the commandment to “wipe out Amalek” is still applicable today.

The poll was conducted in March, surveying 1,005 Israelis. These attitudes correlate with a sharp increase in ethno-nationalist ideology in the past 20 years.