Live: Major clashes break out near Bethlehem after Israeli raid

Between 60 - 80 living Palestinian fighters remain in tunnels in parts of eastern Rafah under Israeli control, Al Jazeera Mubasher reported on Friday, citing Palestinian sources. 

Rafah is located in Gaza's southernmost tip. 

Factions in Gaza have said that communication with those fighters has been cut off for months. They also have no access to food or water sources. 

Israeli forces say they have already killed 30 Palestinian fighters in the area, and warn that the rest must surrender themselves to be imprisoned in Israel, Al Jazeera Mubasher reported. 

Lebanon's Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said on Friday that the group has the right to respond to Israel's killing of senior commander Haytham Ali Tabatabai and will "set the timing" for any retaliation.

In a televised speech, Qassem described the Israeli strike that killed Tabtabai and several others as "a blatant aggression".

- Reporting by Reuters

Gaza's Civil Defence said its had to scale back services by 50 percent this week because of the lack of fuel in the enclave, which it blames on the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS).

The agency "continues to implement arbitrary and obstructive procedures that prevent us from accessing the required quantities of fuel," the Civil Defence, which is comprised of teams of first responders, said in a statement.

"UNOPS has adopted an inadequate distribution policy that is disproportionate to the scale of our fieldwork, severely hindering our ability to carry out our humanitarian missions." 

Civil Defence teams have faced what they describe as "severe difficulties" in securing fuel to operate fire trucks, rescue vehicles, and ambulances, as well as the gasoline generators used to extract people trapped under rubble.

"This equipment is the backbone of our rescue operations," the Civil Defence said. 

As a result of the fuel shortage, a "significant portion of the response to fires, explosions, and collapses has been disrupted, directly endangering civilian lives," the statement explained. 

"We hold UNOPS fully responsible for any delays or obstructions in rescue operations and for any loss of life resulting from the disruption of essential services that require fuel." 

The teams are now urging the adoption of "a clear and transparent mechanism to ensure the continuous flow of fuel commensurate with the scale of the emergency in the Gaza Strip".

The Palestinian foreign ministry urged the international community to take action against the Israeli military's siege of the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reported.

According to the report, the ministry’s statement called on “the international community – particularly the United Nations Security Council and international courts – to take immediate action to stop the Israeli killing machine, deter crimes, and impose urgent international protection mechanisms for the Palestinian people.”

A group of settlers who crossed the border from Israel into southern Syria in an attempt to establish new settlements have been apprehended and returned by the Israeli military.

On Thursday, some 13 settlers belonging to a group called the "Pioneers of the Bashan" cut through the border fence in two locations using angle grinders and drove into Syria with the aim of settling there.

Five of the group breached the border in the Mount Hermon area, and another eight near the Syrian village of Bir Ajam in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The Israeli military said in a statement that troops "rushed to the two locations, and shortly afterward the civilians were found" and that some "clashed" with the soldiers.

Read more: Israeli settlers who breached Syria border returned by military

The director of the Prisoner Club in Tubas governorate announced that the Israeli military has detained over 20 Palestinians since dawn today during ongoing raids on the Al Far’a camp, Wafa news agency reported.

The report also mentioned that at least 15 had been injured after being assaulted by Israeli soldiers during the raids.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces stormed the villages of Burqa and Sarda in the Ramallah governorate and fired live ammunition near homes in Burqa, according to Wafa.

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani condemned the Israeli raid in Beit Jinn in a statement on X (formerly Twitter), referring to it as “an attack that deliberately targeted innocent civilians”.

The raid in southern Syria left 13 people dead and 25 others injured earlier on Friday.

Shaibani also called on “the United Nations, the Security Council, and all Arab and Islamic nations to shoulder their responsibilities in the face of these repeated violations”, adding that “international silence only boldens the aggressor”.

An activist held on remand in a British prison on charges connected to the direct action group Palestine Action has been hospitalised after entering his second week of hunger strike. 

Kamran Ahmed is among six prisoners who launched a rolling hunger strike earlier this month after UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood failed to respond to a letter outlining demands relating to their treatment.

These included immediate bail and an end to prison interference with their personal communications, as well as lifting the ban on Palestine Action.

Read more: Palestine Action prisoner hospitalised due to hunger strike

Israeli troops have killed 13 people and injured 25 others in a strike on Beit Jinn in the Damascus countryside, Syrian state media reported.

According to reports from Al Jazeera, Syrian Civil Defence said that they were unable to enter Beit Jinn for rescue operations due to sustained targeting from the Israeli military.

The Al Jazeera report mentioned that most of the casualties from Friday’s attack were civilians.

UN Deputy Special Envoy to Syria, Najat Rochdi, condemned the attacks as a “grave and unacceptable violation of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

The Israeli military has started to demolish homes and buildings in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, according to reports from Al Jazeera.

This comes after the military announced plans to tear down 24 buildings for “necessary operational reasons” earlier in the day.

The demolitions are part of the Israeli military’s third consecutive day of escalated siege in the Tubas Governorate.

A Palestinian nurse says she was abducted by an Israeli-backed gang from the Gaza Strip earlier this year and handed over to the Israeli army, who used her to pressure her detained doctor father during interrogations.

Tasneem al-Hams, 22, was released in Khan Younis on Thursday, nearly two months after she was arbitrarily taken into Israeli custody.

Upon her release, she told local media she was abducted by members of the Israel-backed Popular Forces armed group - otherwise known as Abu Shabab gang. 

"They then handed me over to the Israelis, east of Khan Younis," she added.

The nurse was abducted while working at a medical facility in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, according to her family.

Read more: Gaza nurse held by Israel says she was abducted by Abu Shabab gang

Belgium’s foreign minister has sharply criticised Israel after footage from the occupied West Bank showed two Palestinians being shot dead by Israeli soldiers in Jenin, even as they appeared to surrender.

Maxime Prevot said he was “shocked” by the video, describing it as “images showing Israeli soldiers cold-bloodedly shooting two surrendering civilians”. He stressed that the killings defied international law and demanded accountability from Israel, which continues to carry out lethal operations across Palestinian towns and refugee camps.

“This violence must stop,” Prevot wrote, adding to the growing diplomatic pressure on Israel as its forces and armed settlers intensify attacks across the occupied territory.

His remarks came shortly after the foreign ministers of France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany issued a rare joint statement warning of a “massive increase of settler violence” in the West Bank. The ministers urged Israel to rein in armed settlers, who operate with near-total impunity under military protection, and said the escalating assaults risk further destabilising the territory.

or more than two years, Israel has carried out a remorseless campaign of erasure in Gaza, reducing the territory to rubble. Many Palestinians in the enclave have been turned into accidental journalists. 

Amid Israel’s ban on foreign journalists, the only sources of information have been the citizens living through and live-streaming the genocide. Even so, their courageous efforts were not widely appreciated.

“There are no journalists in Gaza,” David Lammy, then the British foreign secretary, asserted late last year. The same sentiment was expressed by prominent CNN presenter Christiane Amanpour. 

The implication was that Palestinians could not be trusted to narrate their reality accurately or objectively, and that only mainstream journalists could serve as credible truth-tellers to aid public understanding.

Rooted in hubris, this theory has been put to the test and comprehensively shattered, as journalists from Britain’s main broadcasters - including ITV, Sky News and the BBC - recently entered Gaza, and characteristically obscured the reality. They upheld the fiction that Gaza represents the site of complex warfare, not meticulously orchestrated mass slaughter.

Read more: UK journalists go to Gaza, but still cover up Israel’s genocide

Mu'taz Abu Sneineh, director of the Ibrahimi Mosque in the occupied West Bank, said Israeli authorities have issued a decision to seize the mosque’s inner courtyard, Al Jazeera Arabic reported.

He added that the occupation also took control of the site’s electricity and water systems, in what he described as a blatant violation of international conventions.

Hebron’s acting mayor, Asma Sharabati, warned that the move poses a direct threat to a site recognised as a World Heritage Site, saying the decision forms part of Israel’s ongoing attempt to tighten its grip over sacred Palestinian heritage sites.

Israel’s military said it tracked down and killed what it claimed were nine fighters trapped inside underground tunnels in Israeli occupied parts of eastern Rafah in southern Gaza.

In its statement, the army claimed the men were killed after Israeli forces destroyed tunnel sections “through air strikes and engineering means,” part of what it described as ongoing operations in the area.

The military said the latest deaths raise the number of fighters killed while stuck in tunnels in southern Gaza to 30, adding that its “manhunt” would continue.