Israel-Palestine live: Week three ends with over 7,000 Palestinians killed

The military spokesman for Hamas' Al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Ubaida, said on Saturday that the group offered to release two people held captive in Gaza but Israel refused to take them.

In a brief communique published on Telegram, Abu Ubaida said they informed Qatar of the offer made for "compelling humanitarian reasons".

Abu Ubaida also named the two people in question and listed their ID numbers. There was no further information on their condition.

There was no immediate comment from Israel or Qatar. Middle East Eye could not independently verify the claim.

Israeli forces shot and wounded a young Palestinian man near the village of Deir as-Sudan, northwest of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian security sources told the official Wafa news agency.

According to the sources, Israeli soldiers opened fire on a vehicle driven by a young man near the entrance to Deir as-Sudan, wounding him in his back.

The injured youth was rushed to hospital for medical treatment.

Thousands of people gathered in central Barcelona to voice their solidarity with Gaza.

Many waved the Palestinian flag and chanted in support of Palestine, while others held posters that read “stop the genocide.”

A number of protests have been held across Spain over the past two weeks, condemning Israel’s bombing of the besieged enclave. 

Israeli bombardment of Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp, located in central Gaza has intensified, resulting in a local market and restaurant being set on fire, according to local media.

The camp is mainly residential and is densely populated, with civilians living close together. 

In videos shared by local Palestinian media, emergency services are trying to put out large fires caused by the bombing. 
 

Areeb Ullah, a journalist for MEE in London, attended the 'March for Palestine,' held today, which started at the iconic Marble Arch in central London.

According to Ullah, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets, in what the organiser's have described as "the biggest protest in Europe in over 20 years."

The protesters braved the torrential rain and strong winds, shouting “free Palestine,” and denouncing the UK government’s support of Israel. 

Hundreds of Jews also joined in the protest, who described the event as "deeply personal".

"It's very much because I am Jewish that I am out here today. I'm here because when I see the language of 'human animals' and 'children of darkness' and 'the law of the jungle', I know that the Israeli state didn't invent racism," said Raine, an attendee at the protest.

"They're merely deploying the language of racism that was developed over two millennia in Europe to harass and persecute Jews."

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Read more: Hundreds of thousands march for Gaza in London

At least 130 infants that depend on incubators to survive are at risk of death, as hospitals in Gaza struggle to keep electricity flowing from generators, the local Ministry of Health has warned. 

Hospitals need fuel to continue operating the much-needed generators, but are on the verge of running out due to Israel's siege.

Five UN agencies, including the World Health Organization and the World Food Programme, made a similar call earlier on Saturday in a statement. 

According to the statement, medical facilities in Gaza "no longer have fuel and are running on small amounts they have secured locally. These are expected to run out in the next day or so". 

French President Emmanuel Macron is set to visit Israel on Tuesday.

Earlier this week he hinted at the possibility of a state visit to Israel "when we can obtain a concrete agreement either on non-escalation, or on humanitarian issues and, more broadly, on everything".

"I want to be very cautious here… so as not to endanger the intense talks we are currently conducting," Macron said at the time. "But they are progressing and we are following these talks hour by hour."

Commenting on the sidelines of the summit in Cairo on Saturday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi criticsed the "shortcoming in the values of the international community in addressing crises".

"While we see one place officials rushing and competing to promptly condemn the killing of innocent people, we find incomprehensible hesitation in denouncing the same act in another place," Sisi said in reference to fierce Western condemnation of Hamas' attack on Israel and a weaker reaction to Palestinian suffering.

Dubbed the "Cairo Summit for Peace", representatives from countries including Jordan, France, Germany, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, the United States, Qatar and South Africa are attending the one-day meeting on Saturday, together with United Nations and European Union officials.

A British man filmed a police officer at his doorstep on Saturday morning over a neigbourhood complaint about the Palestinian flag he had hung from his house. 

The police officer did not ask the man to take the flag down, but said that there had been a complaint made regarding the flag, noting that "it's just how [the flag] could be construed" in the neighbourhood.

"It's just how it could be seen, people could be upset by it," the officer said. 

The man, who referenced a pro-Palestine protest in Manchester last week, told the police officer that he was upset over the situation.

"Tough. I'm upset by it... I get it, but you as a police officer are not supposed to be on any political spectrum at all. And all I'm saying is I have the right to express my views via a flag," he said.

"You've literally got me out of bed at 9am on a Saturday morning for that," he continued.

The officer reiterated that people in the neighbourhood could be upset by over the flag, seemingly in an attempt to get him to take the flag down.

"I'm upset as well with what's going on," the homeowner said. "I've cried countless tears with what's going on."

Ending the exhcange, the officer said he wanted to be clear that he was not asking the man to take the flag down, but asked how long he thought it might be up. When the man said that it would now be up permanently, the officer said he could not guarantee that the man would not get further police calls to his home over it.

Human rights monitor Euro-Med has stated that around 83 percent of the total casualties of Israel's unprecedented and severe ongoing attacks on the Gaza Strip for the past two weeks were civilians.

In a statement, the group said: "Israel is waging a comprehensive, all-encompassing war against the over 2.2 million Palestinians in the Strip… that constitutes a campaign of extermination."

The human rights organisation noted that "Israel has been flattening entire residential neighbourhoods in Gaza through its horrifying retaliatory attacks".

A senior Israeli army official has said that the definition of what constitutes a "legitimate target" has now changed, and that private homes could be considered a legitimate target.

According to the official, civilian infrastructure used by Hamas "turns a private home into a legitimate target".

"Anyone who supports that home is a legitimate target," he added, as reported in Israeli media. 

The official also acknowledged that the Israeli army has attacked homes where there are civilians living among alleged terrorists.

A Palestinian man vows that he "will not immigrate" and will not allow "for a second Nakba", as he cleared the rubble of his home following an Israeli air strike. 

The Gaza resident says that he will remain "steadfast" and called Arab states "traitors" for watching them die. 

A large-scale pro-Palestine rally has taken place in South Korea, with hundreds of people taking part in the march.

Protesters shouted "free free Palestine" and "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free".

The rally comes as over 4,385 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war on 7 October, and Israel continues to target civilian areas and buildings. 

Talal al-Hindi, a field commander in the al-Qassam Brigades, was killed by an Israeli air strike that hit Gaza, according to the Safa News Agency.

According to Safa News, he was killed along with his wife and members of his family. 
 

Palestine's health ministry announced that only three percent of medical aid needed for the Gaza Strip has entered the enclave today. 

The ministry also announced that around 70 percent of those killed in the Gaza Strip are children, women and elderly.