Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 534

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate has called the deaths of reporters Hussam Shabat and Muhammad Mansour Mansour “a crime added to the record of Israeli terrorism”, AFP reports.

“This horrific war crime aims to obscure the truth and terrorise all those who carry the message of free speech,” it added.

It said that more than 206 journalists and media workers had been killed since the start of the conflict on October 7, 2023.

More than 10,000 people in Finland have urged the country’s public broadcaster Yle to push for Israel to be banned from the Eurovision Song Contest due to the conflict in Gaza, AFP reports.

The broadcaster received two petitions demanding it pressure the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which manages the event, to block Israel from participating, the petitions’ initiator — the Finnish Palestine Network group Sumud — said in a statement.

One of the petitions was signed by more than 500 music and cultural industry professionals, while a public petition was signed by over 10,000 people.

With less than two months to go until one of the world’s biggest annual live television events kicks off in the Swiss city of Basel, the signatories urged Yle to withdraw Finland’s contestant from the competition if Israel were to participate.

“It is against our values for a state that has committed genocide and practices occupation policies to be given a prominent opportunity to improve its image under the guise of music,” the signatories said.

Hamas has released a video showing two Israeli hostages held in Gaza since October 7, 2023, AFP reports.

The footage, which lasts a little over three minutes and whose exact recording date could not be verified, shows two men sitting on the floor speaking in Hebrew to a hostage who has since been released, asking him to recount his experiences in captivity in order to speed up their release.

The death toll from Israeli bombardment throughout the day in the besieged Gaza Strip now stands at 51, medical sources tell Al Jazeera.

The death toll is likely to rise as incessant attacks continue in the north and south of the Palestinian enclave.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz says the military is doing its best not to harm Palestinian civilians as it attacks Hamas in Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.

“Israel is not fighting the civilians in Gaza and is doing everything that international law requires to mitigate harm to civilians,” Katz said in a statement.

He went on to blame Hamas for civilian deaths, saying the group “fights in civilian dress, from civilian homes and from behind civilians”, putting them in danger.

Hossam Shabat, Palestinian journalist and contributor to Al Jazeera Mubasher, has been killed in an Israeli air strike that targeted his car in northern Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.

Since the offensive started, at least 208 journalists have been killed in widespread Israeli attacks on the enclave.

More than 124,000 people in Gaza have been displaced over the past few days after being forced to flee relentless bombardment, UNRWA said.

“The Israeli authorities have cut off all aid. Food is scarce and prices are soaring. This is a humanitarian catastrophe,” the United Nations Palestinian relief agency said in a post on X.

“The siege must end.”

Gaza’s Civil Defence Agency says it lost contact with six of its members who went on a rescue mission in the southern city of Rafah, Al Jazeera reports.

Its first responders and others from the Palestine Red Crescent Society went to Rafah on Sunday after receiving calls that Israeli troops entered the area of al-Hashaashin, in western Rafah, and there were casualties.

Since then, there’s been no word from the rescuers, the agency said in a statement.

The health ministry in Gaza has said that 730 people had been killed since Israel resumed bombardments on the Palestinian territory on March 18, including 57 in the past 24 hours, AFP reports.

The ministry said in a statement that it recorded “730 deaths and 1,367 injuries” since air strikes resumed and 57 deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the total death toll since the onslaught started on October 7, 2023, to 50,082.

Germany has said that civilian deaths in the Gaza Strip were “extremely worrying” as Israel’s military presses a renewed assault on Hamas in the Palestinian territory, AFP reports.

“It is now very clear that we must quickly return to negotiations and to the ceasefire that was in place,” foreign ministry spokesman Christian Wagner said in Berlin.

The municipality in Gaza’s Rafah has said thousands of people were trapped inside the Tel Al-Sultan area, where the Israeli military had sent some of its forces, Reuters reports.

“Contacts with the neighbourhood are cut off completely and the fate of (people) is unknown. Families are trapped among the ruins, with no water, no food, no medicine, amid a total collapse of healthcare services,” it said in a statement.

The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service has said 50,000 residents remain trapped in Rafah.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza has condemned Israel’s bombing of the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, which killed two people and destroyed the male surgical ward, Al Jazeera reports.

“This attack constitutes a new war crime added to the record of repeated Israeli violations against civilians and medical facilities, which flagrantly violate the rules of international humanitarian law,” Munir al-Barsh, Director General of the Ministry of Health, said in a statement.

This “not only demonstrates a blatant disregard for the lives of innocent people, but also hinders the provision of life-saving medical services at a time when patients and the wounded need the utmost care.”

Al-Barash called on the international community and humanitarian organisations to take urgent action and for an independent international investigation to be launched.

“We also call on all people of conscience around the world to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and pressure international bodies to hold the Israeli occupation accountable for its ongoing crimes against humanity,” he added.

Israel continues to refuse to coordinate a rescue operation for paramedics stuck in Rafah, the Palestine Red Crescent Society has said, Al Jazeera reports.

The ambulance service said it lost contact with a team of medics in Gaza’s southernmost city early on Sunday after Israeli forces attacked it.

“We are still awaiting a greenlight [from Israel] to reach the team in Rafah,” the Red Crescent said in a statement.

Several medics were wounded and four ambulances besieged by Israeli soldiers, it said.

Egypt has made a new proposal last week aimed at restoring the Gaza ceasefire deal, security sources told Reuters.

The proposal suggested Hamas released five Israeli hostages each week, while Israel would start implementing the second phase of the ceasefire deal after the first week.

Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip have killed at least 21 Palestinians, local health authorities say, as Israeli forces operated in Rafah near the border with Egypt, escalating a new week-long aerial and ground offensive.

According to Reuters, health officials said Israel has killed nearly 700 Palestinians since it resumed attacks on Gaza last Tuesday, ending weeks of relative calm after a ceasefire in January.

They said the deaths included at least 400 women and children.

Hamas said several of its senior political and security officials had also been killed.

The Palestinian Prisoners Club non-governmental organisation has said a Palestinian 17-year-old died in Israel’s Megiddo prison in unknown circumstances, AFP reports.

In a statement, the NGO announced “the death of Walid Khaled Abdullah Ahmad (17 years old), a minor detainee from the town of Silwad, east of Ramallah, in Megiddo Prison” in Israel, adding he was the 63rd Palestinian to die in Israeli jails since the start of Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

AFP could not immediately confirm the death with Israeli prison authorities.

A shooting attack in northern Israel has killed a 75-year-old man and wounded another, first responders say, with police saying officers had “neutralised” the gunman.

The “ramming, stabbing and shooting” attack, according to emergency services provider Magen David Adom, was the first in Israel since it resumed bombardment of the Gaza Strip last week, breaking a January truce.

A police statement said that “a terrorist opened fire at civilians and was immediately neutralised by police forces present at the scene” at a junction southeast of the coastal city of Haifa.

Magen David Adom said that a 75-year-old man was killed by the shooting, and that the attack also left a 20-year-old man in critical condition.

A paramedic said in a statement that first responders provided “medical treatment to a young man … who had been hit by a vehicle and suffered penetrating injuries in the attack”.

The lack of significant action from the international community to halt Israel’s renewed attacks on Gaza is yet again a sign there will be no consequences for killing and displacing Palestinians, an analyst tells Al Jazeera.

“There are no consequences. It doesn’t matter what the UN Security Council, the International Court of Justice, the EU or individual countries say about the red lines Israel is crossing,” Luciano Zaccara, a professor at Qatar University, told Al Jazeera.

“Nothing that happens outside of Israel bothers Netanyahu’s plans.”

While US special envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff “has a very clear mandate from Trump to resume the negotiations, it looks that Netanyahu is not working at the same pace”, Zaccara was quoted as saying.

The Israeli prime minister’s policy of recognising settlements in the occupied West Bank is also “beyond what Trump suggested about Gaza”, Zaccara added, but the misalignment between the US and Israel on these issues is unlikely to result in any action.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor Chairman Ramy Abdu alleges American defence manufacturer Boeing “murdered” his family members in a post on X.

“This is the remains of an American-made missile that Israel used to kill my family members, half of them were children,” he said in an earlier post that showed fragments of a missile.

The US government has alleged that Columbia University student and pro-Palestinian demonstrator Mahmoud Khalil withheld that he worked for a United Nations Palestinian relief agency (UNRWA) in his visa application, saying that should be grounds for deportation, AFP reports.

A judge has ordered Khalil not to be deported while his lawsuit challenging his detention, known as a habeas petition, is heard in another federal court. Khalil, a native of Syria and citizen of Algeria, entered the US on a student visa in 2022 and later filed to become a permanent resident in 2024.

In a court brief dated Sunday, the US government outlined its arguments for keeping Khalil in custody while his removal proceedings continue, arguing first that the US District Court in New Jersey, where the habeas case is being heard, lacked jurisdiction.

The brief also says Khalil “withheld membership in certain organisations” which should be grounds for his deportation.

It references a March 17 document in his deportation case that informed Khalil he could be removed because he failed to disclose that he was a political officer of UNRWA in 2023.

The Jordan Foreign Ministry has condemned in the “strongest terms” Israel’s decision to set up a government agency to forcibly displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera reports.

The ministry noted in a statement that the move comes as the Israeli security cabinet also decided to recognise 13 new illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

It said all these measures are “invalid and represent a flagrant violation of international law and international humanitarian law” and “constitute the crime of forced displacement of Palestinians from their occupied land”, the report added.

Israeli forces have carried out raids across the occupied West Bank overnight, including in the town of Silat al-Harithiya, the city of Qalqilya, and the town of Qatanna, Al Jazeera reports.

They also stormed the villages of Shuqba and al-Mughayyir, near the city of Ramallah, according to the Wafa news agency.

The Jenin municipality meanwhile announced that Israeli authorities had issued additional demolition orders for approximately 66 buildings in the camp, comprising about 300 residential units.

The footage, verified by Al Jazeera, shows the aftermath of the deadly Israeli air raid on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

The footage shows extensive destruction in the facility’s male surgical ward, including collapsed ceilings, blown-out doors and walls, and debris-covered floors.

One doctor at the hospital told Al Jazeera that the Israeli attack rendered the ward unusable.

“The [ward’s] entire electrical system was destroyed. Every door was blown off its hinges. Most of the windows were shattered. The ceiling has collapsed. It’s completely unusable. It’s going to have to be torn out and redone,” said Feroze Sidhwa.