Live Blog Update| Israel's genocide in Gaza
This is an entry from: Gaza live: Biden moves ahead with military aid for Israel as it launches ground assaults on Rafah

Recap

2 May 2024 23:48 BST

Good evening MEE readers. On Thursday, the wife of Mohammed al-Hajjar, our correspondent in Gaza, was arbitrarily detained by Israeli forces as their family was heading to the south of the enclave.

"'I'm telling you to leave,' the soldier told me, and about eight soldiers pointed their guns at me, took Inas, who had her hands up, and searched her," Hajjar recalled.

"They kept telling me to leave and not look back."

As of writing this update, we have no new information on Inas's situation.

In other developments:

  • An Israeli air strike hit a Syrian security building in Damascus, injuring eight soldiers, according to a report by Reuters and a separate report from state-run news.

  • Five people, including a child, were killed in an Israeli air strike in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.

  • Turkey suspended all trade with Israel effective immediately over the humanitarian crisis caused by Israel's military in Gaza.

  • The student encampment movement has spread now to the UK, where dozens of students at University College London (UCL) set up a pro-Palestine encampment to demand the university divest from Israel and end any potential complicity in Israel's war on Gaza. UCL is the alma mater of the late Palestinian poet and academic, Refaat Alareer, who was killed in Gaza by an Israeli air strike last year.

  • Adnan Al-Bursh, a Palestinian surgeon and professor of orthopedic medicine, was killed as a result of being tortured while in Israeli detention. His death, which occured on 18 April, was announced on Thursday.

  • A report by Bloomberg found that Saudi Arabia is detaining citizens who express views critical of Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza online. Lina al-Hathloul, from the rights group ALQST, said the news "exposes the lies around potential normalisation between Saudi Arabia and Israel".

  • Israel told the Biden administration that if the International Criminal Court (ICC) issues arrest warrants against Israeli leaders, it will "punish" the Palestinian Authority, according to a report from Axios.