Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 519

Israeli troops have stormed into the Far’a camp near Tubas in the occupied West Bank, while a drone flew overhead, Al Jazeera says, citing Wafa.

A photo shared by the Palestinian Information Centre showed an Israeli military vehicle stationed in the camp’s market area, Al Jazeera added.

Six bakeries, which thousands of families depend on, in Gaza’s Khan Younis have suspended their services due to a lack of fuel, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reports.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has imposed a blockade to pressure Hamas, but it is civilians that are bearing the brunt of this political step, Al Jazeera notes. The Israeli prime minister also said during a cabinet meeting that there will be no free meals to the Gaza Strip.

UN agencies have repeatedly stressed the need for humanitarian aid to re-enter the Strip to address this crisis.

A man who scaled London’s Big Ben, and spent the day perched on the historic clock tower with a Palestinian flag, was arrested shortly after he came down, AFP quotes police as saying.

Pictures from the scene showed a cherry picker transporting him to waiting emergency crews on the ground.

London’s Metropolitan Police force, which was first alerted to the climber around 7am GMT on Saturday, said the man was arrested after the “protracted incident”.

The man spent the day perched barefoot on a ledge several metres up the landmark, even as emergency crews urged him to come down from the Elizabeth Tower in central London, more commonly known for its clock bell, Big Ben.

Negotiators had boarded a fire truck lift and used a megaphone to speak with the man, but footage on social media showed the figure in a hoodie and baseball cap saying: “I will come down on my own terms.”

A man who climbed the clock tower at the Palace of Westminster in central London carrying the Palestinian flag has come down after 16 hours, Al Jazeera quotes Sky News as saying.

The barefoot man, who shouted “Free Palestine” and waved the Palestinian flag from Big Ben’s Elizabeth Tower, was arrested once he reached the ground, Sky News reported.

Emergency services closed Westminster Bridge yesterday morning in response to the incident, and parliamentary tours were also cancelled.

Qatar has called “for intensified international efforts to bring all Israeli nuclear facilities under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)” and for Israel to join the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) treaty, Al Jazeera reports.

Qatar’s ambassador, Jassim Yacoub Al Hammadi, issued the call during an IAEA meeting on Israel’s nuclear capabilities and the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, in Vienna.

Al Hammadi “pointed out that all Middle Eastern countries, except Israel, are parties to the NPT and have effective safeguard agreements with the agency”.

He noted that Israel is continuing its “aggressive policies” in the occupied Palestinian territory, including “increasing extremist calls for the forced displacement of the Palestinian people, intensifying military operations against cities and refugee camps in the West Bank, blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza, and maintaining restrictions on UNRWA”.

Israel and Hamas have signalled they are preparing for the next phase of ceasefire negotiations, as mediators pushed ahead with talks to extend the fragile 42-day truce that began in January, according to Reuters.

Hamas said there were “positive indicators” for the start of the ceasefire’s second-phase talks but did not elaborate.

Israel also said it was preparing for talks. “Israel has accepted the invitation of the mediators backed by the US, and will send a delegation to Doha on Monday in an effort to advance the negotiations,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.

A delegation from Hamas is engaging in ceasefire talks in Cairo with Egyptian mediators who have been helping facilitate the talks along with officials from Qatar. They aim to proceed to the next stage of the deal, which could open the way to ending the conflict.

“We affirm our readiness to engage in the second-phase negotiations in a way that meets the demands of our people, and we call for intensified efforts to aid the Gaza Strip and lift the blockade on our suffering people,” Hamas spokesman Abdel-Latif Al-Qanoua said in a statement.

Read more here.

Even as diplomacy for the Gaza ceasefire’s progress continued, an Israeli airstrike killed two Palestinians in Rafah in southern Gaza yesterday, medical sources said.

The Israeli military said its aircraft struck a drone that crossed from Israel into southern Gaza and “several suspects” who tried to collect it in what appeared to be a botched smuggling attempt.

The strike came after an Israeli drone strike killed two people in Gaza on Friday. The Israeli military claimed it attacked a group of suspected fighters operating near its troops in northern Gaza and planting an explosive device in the ground.

In a statement, Hamas has urged the “immediate” start of talks for the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal, Reuters reports.

Hamas said that its delegation held discussions with the head of Egypt’s general intelligence agency, Hassan Mahmoud Rashad, in Cairo on the Gaza ceasefire and the hostages-for-prisoners deal in all its stages.

More than 50 freed Israeli captives have urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to fully implement the Gaza ceasefire deal and secure the release of those still held in the Palestinian territory, AFP reports.

“We who have experienced the inferno know that a return to war is life-threatening for those still left behind,” a group of 56 freed hostages said in a letter posted on the social media platform Instagram. “Implement the agreement in full, in one single manoeuvre.”

Among those to sign the letter was Yarden Bibas, whose wife and two young sons died while held captive in Gaza.

Gaza’s civil defence says it is trying to contain a “huge” fire that broke out in warehouses containing food supplies on Al-Nasr Street, north of Gaza City, Al Jazeera reports.

“Our crews [faced] major obstacles in extinguishing the fire,” the civil defence said. “Only two fire engines participated in extinguishing the huge flames after the Israeli occupation destroyed most of the civil defence vehicles.”

Hamas, on its official Telegram channel, has said that it is happy with the organisation’s rejection of the call for the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.

Hamas also welcomed the support expressed for the reconstruction plan for the Strip in the gathering of the organisation’s foreign ministers in the Saudi city.

The group renewed its “call on Arab and Islamic countries to take practical and effective steps to support” the Palestinians as Israel “tightens its control on their land” and to “take urgent action” to bring aid into the enclave.

Palestinian rescue teams have recovered seven more bodies from the rubble in Gaza, pushing the overall death toll from Israel’s offensive to 48,453, Al Jazeera reports citing Gaza’s health ministry.

Another six Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire in the past 48 hours, a ministry statement said.

Eight wounded people were also admitted to hospitals, increasing the number of injured in the conflict to 111,860.

Israeli settlers have attacked the Palestinian village of Ein al-Auja, north of Jericho in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reports citing the Palestinian Information Centre.

The settlers stole 800 of the village’s sheep, the centre reported.

Columbia University’s interim president has said that the school is working to address the “legitimate concerns” of US President Donald Trump’s administration after $400 million of federal government grants and contracts to the university were cancelled over allegations of antisemitism on campus.

The university has repeatedly been at the forefront of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel student protest movements since the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and subsequent conflict in Gaza.

“I want to assure the entire Columbia community that we are committed to working with the federal government to address their legitimate concerns,” Katrina Armstrong, the university’s interim president, said in a late-night message to alumni.

“To that end, Columbia can, and will, continue to take serious action toward combatting antisemitism on our campus.”

Hamas accused Israel Saturday of “committing the war crime of collective punishment” by halting aid to Gaza for a seventh day, saying it also impacted Israeli hostages still held there.

A statement from the group said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government was “committing the war crime of collective punishment against over two million Palestinian civilians through starvation and the deprivation of basic life necessities for the seventh consecutive day”.

“The repercussions of such crime extend beyond our people in Gaza to include the occupation’s prisoners (Israeli captives) held by the resistance, who are also affected by the lack of food, medicine and healthcare.”

Hamas said that Netanyahu “bears full responsibility” for the consequences of the aid block and accused him of “indifference” towards the hostages held in Gaza.

International support has grown for an Arab counterproposal to US President Donald Trump’s plan to take over Gaza and displace its residents, with Islamic nations endorsing it, AFP reports.

Unlike the Trump plan, the Arab proposal aims to rebuild Gaza without displacing the territory’s 2.4 million inhabitants, who endured more than 15 months of devastating conflict before a fragile ceasefire took effect on January 19.

The 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) formally adopted the counterproposal at an emergency meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, three days after the Arab League ratified it at a summit in Cairo.

The OIC “adopts the plan … on the early recovery and reconstruction of Gaza”, the Islamic bloc said in a statement.

It urged “the international community and international and regional funding institutions to swiftly provide the necessary support”.

Read more here.

A Hamas spokesperson has said in a statement that the group sees “positive indicators” for launching talks over the second phase of Gaza ceasefire talks, Reuters reports.

Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar has urged the Ummah to unequivocally reject any attempt to forcibly relocate the Palestinian people, whether from Gaza or the West Bank, as it is ethnic cleansing and a war crime under international law, The Associate Press of Pakistan reports.

“The OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) must categorically reject any proposal that seeks to eject Palestinians from their own homeland,” Dar said. “No external force has the right to dictate their future to the Palestinians. They must determine their own future through an exercise of self-determination.

“The OIC must stand united against any sinister agenda aimed at altering the demography of the occupied Palestinian territories,” the foreign minister said in a statement at the Extraordinary Session of the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers held in Jeddah.

The group Palestine Action has painted the words “Gaza is not for sale” on a golf course owned by Trump in the Ayrshire area on the west coast of Scotland, Al Jazeera reports.

It also said it dug up the golf course’s holes.

“Whilst Trump attempts to treat Gaza as his property, he should know his own property is within reach,” it said in a social media post.

The pro-Palestine protest network is best known for its attempts to disrupt arms dealers who provide weapons to Israel.

The foreign ministers of France, Germany, Italy and Britain said they supported an Arab-backed plan for the reconstruction of Gaza that would cost $53 billion and avoid displacing Palestinians from the enclave, Reuters reports.

“The plan shows a realistic path to the reconstruction of Gaza and promises, if implemented, swift and sustainable improvement of the catastrophic living conditions for the Palestinians living in Gaza,” the ministers said in a joint statement.

Hussein Ibrahim Taha, the secretary-general of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), has highlighted “Israel’s unacceptable actions and the dangers of its attempts to eliminate the Palestinian refugee issue”, Al Jazeera says.

Speaking at an emergency OIC meeting in Saudi Arabia of foreign ministers., Taha emphasised the organisation’s commitment to the Palestinian people’s right to remain on their land and highlighted the significance of the reconstruction plan adopted at the Arab League summit in Cairo.

Noting Israel’s continued occupation, annexation, and forced displacement of Palestinians, he demanded intensified efforts to establish a sustainable ceasefire in Gaza, the full withdrawal of Israeli forces, and unhindered aid deliveries.

The head of the Government Media Office in the Gaza Strip, Salama Maarouf, has said 12,316 women have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.

“Women’s Day coincides with the continuation of the Israeli siege and the prevention of aid as women live in catastrophic humanitarian conditions and suffer from starvation and thirst,” Maarouf was quoted as saying.

Israel’s military onslaught also left 2,000 women and girls with permanent disabilities from amputations and another 162 with infectious diseases, according to government data.

Additionally, 13,901 women were widowed and at least 17,000 mothers lost their children, while more than 50,000 pregnant women lost their unborn babies, the report added.