Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 559

Hospitals across Gaza are struggling to treat newborns and young children due to a severe shortage of medical equipment, Al Jazeera reports citing Unicef.

“Humanitarian aid must be allowed to enter Gaza again,” it said in a post on X, adding that the ceasefire in Gaza must be reinstated. “The survival of children depends on it.”

The Israeli military announced that a soldier was killed in the fighting in Gaza, the first Israeli fatality since a ceasefire with Hamas collapsed in mid-March, AFP reports.

The military said Sergeant Major Ghaleb Sliman Al-Nasasra, 35, fell during combat in northern Gaza, adding that three others were also wounded.

Two of the wounded were female soldiers, the military said.

Nearly 140,000 Israelis have signed petitions to demand the return of captives and end the conflict, as pressure grows on Netanyahu following a week of letters from sections of the military, the intelligence agency and academics calling for the captives to be prioritised, Al Jazeera reports.

While Netanyahu threatened to dismiss soldiers who spoke out against the offensive last week, more active and former military personnel are joining the initiative.

According to the latest data from the movement, which is coordinated through the website Restored Israel, the majority of signatories, 127,255, are civilians, and 11,179 are military figures.

Several key former military leaders have also signed the petitions, including former prime minister and chief of general staff Ehud Barak, former chief of staff Dan Halutz, and former military intelligence chief Amos Malka.

Israeli forces are shooting inside the Nur Shams refugee camp, which has been subjected to a military campaign for weeks, sources tell Al Jazeera, adding that an explosion has been heard inside the camp, located east of Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank.

The latest attack comes after at least eight Palestinians were arrested by Israeli forces in the Fawwar refugee camp, south of Hebron, according to the Wafa news agency.

At the same time, settler attacks have been reported in the Palestinian communities of Khirbet ad-Dir in the northern Jordan Valley and the Bedouin village of Ras Ein al-Auja, north of Jericho.

The head of Turkish intelligence has held discussions with a Hamas delegation to look at options to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza amidst the ongoing crisis triggered by the Israeli blockade, Al Jazeera reports.

Anadolu news agency reported that National Intelligence Organisation chief Ibrahim Kalin met Muhammad Darwish, the head of Hamas’s Shura Council, and his delegation.

The pair also reviewed the current state of initiatives aimed at halting Israel’s offensive on Gaza and achieving a permanent, comprehensive ceasefire.

Medical sources in Gaza have told Al Jazeera that at least 52 people have been killed in Israeli attacks across the enclave today.

In the latest attack, Israel opened fire on Palestinians in Beit Hanoon in the north of the Gaza Strip, killing one person and wounding others.

Palestinian news outlet Al-Aqsa TV is reporting that one Palestinian was killed and two were wounded by an Israeli air strike targeting a shelter for displaced people in Al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis, Al Jazeera reports.

A spokesperson for Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, says the fate of the Israeli-American captive, Edan Alexander, is unknown after they found the body of the guard looking after the captive, Al Jazeera reports.

“We are trying to protect all prisoners and preserve their lives despite the brutality of the aggression. The lives of prisoners are in danger due to the criminal bombing operations carried out by the enemy army,” Abu Obeida said.

He added that Israeli forces “lie” that Hamas are treating the captives inhumanely and “fabricate false testimonies” from former captives to cover up Israel’s continued attacks on Gaza that hinder the safety of Israelis being held in the enclave.

Hamas has said that the fate of Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander remains unknown since the body of a guard assigned to him had been recovered from the site of a recent Israeli strike, AFP reports.

“We managed to retrieve the body of a martyr who was tasked with securing the prisoner Edan Alexander, but the fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown,” Hamas’s armed wing said in a statement, days after announcing it had “lost contact” with the unit holding Alexander following an Israeli air strike on their location in the Gaza Strip.

With food scarce in the besieged Gaza Strip, some desperate families have turned to eating sea turtles as a rare source of protein, AFP reports.

Once the shell has been removed, the meat is cut up, boiled and cooked in a mix of onion, pepper, tomato and spices.

“The children were afraid of the turtle, and we told them it tasted as delicious as veal,” said Majida Qanan, keeping an eye on the chunks of red meat simmering in a pot over a wood fire. “Some of them ate it, but others refused.”

For lack of a better alternative, this is the third time 61-year-old Qanan has prepared a turtle-based meal for her family who were displaced and now live in a tent in Khan Younis, southern Gaza largest city.

Read more here.

Jonathan Whittall, an official with the UN humanitarian affairs office (OCHA), said in a video message recorded yesterday that Israel’s continuous blockade of Gaza has been disastrous for all areas of life in the Strip, Al Jazeera reports.

“In Gaza today, people are being deprived of the basic necessities of life,” he said from Rafah, in southern Gaza.

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has warned of plans by Israeli settler organisations circulating on Hebrew-language platforms that discuss attacking and demolishing Al-Aqsa Mosque and constructing a temple in its place, Al Jazeera reports.

In a statement published on X, the ministry said it considers the plans a “systematic incitement to escalate the targeting of Christian and Islamic holy sites in occupied Jerusalem”.

“The Ministry calls on the international community and its relevant UN institutions to deal with this incitement with utmost seriousness, and to take the measures required by international law,” it said.

Israeli settlers regularly storm Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam’s third-holiest site, in occupied East Jerusalem and perform religious rituals under the protection of Israeli forces.

In addition to the 92 deaths caused by Israeli attacks in the last 48 hours, 219 wounded people also arrived at hospitals in the Gaza strip, * Al Jazeera* reports, citing the Ministry of Health.

“The death toll from the Israeli aggression has risen to 51,157 martyrs and 116,724 injuries since October 7, 2023,” the ministry said in its statement, adding that since Israel resumed hostilities on March 18, 1,783 have been killed.

Israeli forces have continued deadly strikes across the Gaza Strip, according to Al Jazeera:

• Two Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli bombardment of al-Ishrin Street in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
• Two women were killed in an Israeli drone strike on the town of Nassr, northeast of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip.
• Israeli forces are bombing buildings in the Shujayea neighbourhood east of Gaza City.
• Three Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli bombing of a house in Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip.

A woman and her child were killed and others injured in an Israeli drone attack on the Maen area in Khan Younis, in the south of the Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera reports.

Several people have been also injured in an Israeli drone attack near al-Khalidi Mosque, northwest of Gaza City.

A Hazem Musleh, paediatrician at the Kuwaiti Hospital in southern Gaza’s Rafah, explained how more children are losing their lives or at risk due to the expanding effect of Israeli attacks, Al Jazeera reports citing Palestinian media.

The hospital, along with dozens of others, has suffered multiple Israeli air raids since the start of the conflict.

The 12-year-old Ahmed Abu al-Rous was born paralysed. He was killed in an Israeli attack on a tent camp for forcibly displaced people that killed 10 others, including his mother, sister and four more children, Al Jazeera reports.

Ahmed’s wheelchair was burned to ash in the Israeli attack.

“He used to smile at everyone,” a family friend said of Ahmed.

Watch the full report here.

At least four were killed and several others injured as Israeli attacks across various areas of the Gaza Strip continued, according to Al Jazeera reports.

In the most recent incident, an attack on the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza killed a young man.

Separately, Israeli fighter jets bombed a group of Palestinians in the al-Musaddar area, north of the city of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, killing at least one person and injuring others.

Earlier today, Al Jazeera quoted Gaza’s Civil Defence as saying that two people were killed and several were wounded in an attack earlier on the Abu Shamala family home in Khan Younis.

An attack on the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza has killed a young man, Al Jazeera Arabic reports.

It said the Palestinian Information Centre reported that a young man, identified as Akram al-Hawajri, was killed by the drone near the al-Fazb market, located to the north of the entrance to Bureij camp.

Israeli artillery is reported to be shelling the nearby Maghazi refugee camp, located south of Bureij camp in central Gaza.

Marking World Heritage Day, human rights group Al-Haq has said Israel has targeted several Palestinian sites — including those on Unesco’s World Heritage List — in its ongoing attempt to suppress Palestinian culture and heritage, Al Jazeera reports.

The al-Makhrour region, located in the occupied West Bank’s northern Bethlehem governorate and inscribed on the UN’s World Heritage List in 2014, faces increased threats of land grabbing by Israeli settlers, Al-Haq said.

Palestinians have long “farmed the landmark ancient terraced slopes of the Al-Makhrour and Battir area with vegetables, fruit trees, olives and vines, an area marked out for its unique cultural and agricultural landscape, irrigation system, and archaeological remains”, the rights group said in a statement.

“With the construction and expansion of illegal settlements and related infrastructure in Al-Makhrour, Israel’s settlement enterprise has been disrupting the area’s biodiversity and incredible potential as one of the few remaining farming areas for Palestinians, sustaining Palestinian life,” Al-Haq was quoted as saying.

The death toll from US strikes on a Yemeni fuel port has risen to at least 80, Houthi rebels say, in the deadliest attack of Washington’s 15-month campaign against the group, AFP reports.

Houthi media reported fresh strikes in and around the capital Sanaa last night.

Houthi health ministry spokesman Anees Alasbahi said rescuers were still searching for bodies at the fuel terminal on the Red Sea, suggesting the number of dead could rise.

The rebels’ Al-Masirah TV, citing local officials, said the toll from the strike had “risen to 80 dead and 150 wounded”.

Hezbollah “will not let anyone disarm” it, the Lebanese group’s leader Naim Qassem said, as Washington presses Beirut to compel the movement to hand over its weapons, AFP reports.

“We will not let anyone disarm Hezbollah or disarm the resistance” against Israel, Qassem said in remarks on a Hezbollah-affiliated TV channel.

“We must cut this idea of disarmament from the dictionary.”

Qassem said his group was ready for dialogue on a “defence strategy”, “but not under the pressure of occupation” by Israel.

“Israel must withdraw (from south Lebanon) and cease its aggression, and the Lebanese state must begin the process of reconstruction,” he added.

An Israeli military helicopter has attacked a tent housing displaced Palestinians in the Al-Mawasi area of ​​Khan Younis in southern Gaza, killing at least five people, according to an Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent on the ground.

Medical sources in Gaza have told Al Jazeera that at least 64 people have now been killed in Israeli raids across the Strip over the past day.

The Israeli forces have bombed a home in the Khan Younis area in southern Gaza, killing at least two people, Al Jazeera Arabic reports.