‘Death is everywhere’: fears grow that Israel plans to seize land in Gaza

Increasingly violent siege of north raises suspicions about Netanyahu’s war aims

Israel has tightened its siege of northern Gaza in the face of warnings from the UN and other aid agencies that hundreds of thousands of Palestinian lives at are risk, raising questions over whether the Netanyahu government’s ultimate war aims include territorial expansion.

The IDF says it is hunting Hamas militants but suspicions are growing that Israel is putting into practice a blueprint it had officially distanced itself from, known as the “generals’ plan”.

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Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib declines to endorse Kamala Harris

The Palestinian American ‘squad’ member has been critical of Harris and the Democratic party’s inaction on Gaza

Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib declined to endorse Kamala Harris at a union rally in Detroit, where the war in Gaza is the top issue for the largest block of Arab American voters in the country.

Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman to serve in Congress, is the only one of the so-called leftist “Squad” that has not endorsed the Democrat candidate. The other three members – Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York – endorsed Harris in July.

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Israel captures Lebanese sea captain and claims he is a Hezbollah operative – as it happened

Navy confirms it landed in Batroun, 30km north of Beirut, and took him to Israel to be ‘investigated’

Troops were also operating in central Gaza and Rafah in the territory’s far south, the Israeli military said, while witnesses told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that Israeli drones and boats opened fire on al-Mawasi in south Gaza.

Medics and Gaza’s civil defence rescuers on Saturday reported three people killed in a strike on Nuseirat, in central Gaza, a day after AFP images showed the blood-stained shrouds of several people killed there in an Israeli strike.

The entire Palestinian population in north Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence.”

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Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon and Gaza kill dozens as rockets are fired into Israel

Israel targets north-eastern Lebanon and Beirut, while bombardment of Gaza raises fears of worsening humanitarian conditions for civilians

Israeli airstrikes on Friday killed at least 52 people and wounded scores more, the Lebanese health ministry said, while rockets fired from Lebanon fell on Israel on Saturday.

Israeli police said 19 people were injured before dawn on Saturday in the central town of Tira. Three projectiles crossed into Israel from Lebanon, Israel’s military said, and some were intercepted.

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Middle East crisis: North Gaza situation ‘apocalyptic’ with whole population at risk of ‘imminent death’, say UN chiefs – as it happened

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The Israel Defence Force has shared pictures of Nazi memorabilia it says it found in “civilian homes exploited by Hezbollah” in Lebanon.

The IDF shared photos of a book with a swastika and the name “Hassan Salih” inscribed on the front, as well as a Nazi pennant flag and figurine of Adolf Hitler, but it did not provide any more evidence or details of the find. The Guardian could not independently verify the images.

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Israeli assault has caused ‘apocalyptic’ situation in northern Gaza, UN warns

Key officials say entire population of northern Gaza ‘at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence’

The situation in the northern Gaza Strip is “apocalyptic” as Israel pursues a military offensive against Hamas militants in the area, top United Nations officials have warned.

“The entire Palestinian population in north Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence,” they said in a statement on Friday signed by the heads of UN agencies, including the UN children’s agency Unicef and the World Food Programme, and other aid groups.

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UN should consider suspending Israel over ‘genocide’ against Palestinians, says special rapporteur

Francesca Albanese, who was stopped from appearing at US Congress this week, said Israel defied UN resolutions

The UN should consider suspending Israel as a member state due to its continuing “genocide” against the Palestinians, the divisive special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories has said.

Francesca Albanese was speaking to a UN committee on the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people in New York the day after she published her latest report alleging that Israel was not just committing war crimes or crimes against humanity in Gaza, but a genocide.

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US says Lebanon ceasefire talks making ‘good progress’ – as it happened

US secretary of state and defence secretary express hope of ceasefire in near future as Hamas rules out short-term truce for Gaza

Reuters reports that the Israeli military said on Thursday it had shot down a drone smuggling weapons from Egyptian territory to Israel on Wednesday.

No other information was provided. We will update the blog as more details come in.

Rafael and Lala Goliev … residents of Lod, were arrested after they carried out tasks on behalf of an Iranian cell that recruits Israelis from the Caucasus countries in Israel.”

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Harris hails first-time and gen Z voters at Wisconsin rally: ‘I’m so proud of you’

Artists including Remi Wolf, Gracie Abrams and Mumford & Sons join VP at rally briefly interrupted by Gaza protesters

Kamala Harris warned a crowd that time was running out at a get-out-the-vote event in Madison, Wisconsin, on Wednesday, joined by a lineup of folk and pop musicians including Remi Wolf, Gracie Abrams and Mumford & Sons.

“We have six days left in one of the most consequential elections of our lifetime,” the vice-president and Democratic nominee told the crowd, denouncing Donald Trump and issuing a dire warning about the consequences of a second Trump presidency.

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US identified 500 cases where its weapons harmed Gaza civilians but hasn’t taken action

Some the incidents might have violated international humanitarian law, according to the sources

US state department officials have identified nearly 500 potential incidents of civilian harm during Israel’s military operations in Gaza involving US-furnished weapons, but have not taken further action on any of them, according to three sources, including a US official familiar with the matter.

The incidents – some of which may have violated international humanitarian law, according to the sources – have been recorded since 7 October 2023, when the Gaza war started. They are being collected by the state department’s Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance (CHIRG), a formal mechanism for tracking and assessing any reported misuse of US-origin weapons.

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Nobel and Pulitzer winners denounce ‘dangerous’ Israel cultural boycott

More than 1,000 well-known figures sign open letter in response to authors pledging to boycott Israeli cultural institutions over Gaza

More than 1,000 figures from the literary and entertainment industry – including several Nobel laureates, Pulitzer prize, and Booker prize winners – have signed an open letter against “illiberal and dangerous” cultural boycotts.

The letter was released by the nonprofit body Creative Community For Peace [CCFP], which campaigns against cultural boycotts of Israel, after more than 1,000 book industry figures pledged to boycott Israeli cultural institutions that “are complicit or have remained silent observers of the overwhelming oppression of Palestinians”.

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‘Waiting to die’: Layla Moran raises plight of NHS surgeon who fears for parents in Gaza

Exclusive: Surgeon who treated Lib Dem MP has worked for NHS for 20 years and grew up in the Jabaliya camp

In April, Layla Moran was admitted into hospital for sepsis. For a while, doctors thought antibiotics would clear the infection but it soon became clear she needed surgery. While recovering, a surgeon told her he had removed her appendix. “He told me his name and I was like, ‘Hold on, where are you from?’”

Like Moran, Mohammad is Palestinian. The NHS surgeon grew up in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza and has worked for the health service for 20 years. Moran, the Lib Dem MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, had to remain in hospital for an extra week. During that time, the pair got to know each other.

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Nine days of horror as Israeli offensive on exhausted northern Gaza intensifies

With families too worn out to flee yet again, the death toll in recent strikes is nearing 300

Israel’s recent offensive in northern Gaza has killed more than 700 people in a little over three weeks, with nearly 300 of those deaths, mainly in the north, occurring in the past nine days alone. While it has attempted to justify its renewed focus on the north by claiming it is targeting regrouped Hamas fighters, the intensity of the fighting has caused heavy losses among the 100,000 civilians still living there. Many of them are families who, exhausted by Israel’s multiple forced displacement orders, have chosen to stay in the north.

The Israeli military has repeatedly struck shelters for displaced people across Gaza, saying it is carrying out precise strikes targeting Palestinian militants and has tried to avoid harming civilians. The strikes have often killed women and children. These are the reported deaths in the past nine days:

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Middle East crisis: US concerned by ‘horrifying’ Israeli airstrike that killed at least 93 civilians, including 20 children, in Gaza – as it happened

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Al Jazeera has spoken with the director-general of the Gaza government’s media office, Ismail al-Thawabta, who has said at least 93 people were killed in the Israeli airstrike on northern Gaza’s town of Beit Lahiya. Gaza’s health ministry said earlier today that 60 people were killed in the strike this morning, which hit a residential building housing displaced civilians. Al-Thawabta said that the building Israel attacked housed 200 people. Dozens of people are reported missing and 150 others estimated to be injured. Medics said 20 children were among the dead.

Many of those injured have been rushed to nearby Kamal Adwan hospital inside the Jabalia refugee camp. But the hospital is struggling to treat them as it reportedly has run out of medical supplies and only has two paediatric doctors, with no surgeons. Israeli forces detained dozens of medical staff at the hospital days ago. Dr Hossam Abu Safiya, director of the hospital, told Al Jazeera on Friday that most of the surgeons had been arrested by Israeli troops, meaning urgent surgeries could not be performed.

The UAV (drone) force of the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out a specific military operation targeting the industrial zone of the Israeli enemy in the Ashkelon region.

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Israeli airstrike on Beit Lahiya kills 93, says Gaza rescue agency

Medical staff and emergency services say those killed in the attack include many women and children

Scores of Palestinians including many women and children have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a crowded apartment building in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said 93 people had been killed and 40 were still missing, as emergency workers dug through the rubble looking for the dead and injured on Tuesday morning. Many of those present at the time of the attack were members of the extended Abu Nasr family.

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Hezbollah elects new leader following Israeli strike that killed Nasrallah

Naim Qassem replaces group’s longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah after he was killed by Israel

Hezbollah has elected its deputy secretary general, Sheikh Naim Qassem, as its new head, ending a month-long leadership vacuum after the group’s long time leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed by Israel.

Since Nasrallah’s death, Qassem has filled in for him, giving a public address earlier this month in which he vowed that Hezbollah would continue fighting Israel in what it described as a war of attrition, despite painful losses.

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Bill Shorten urges Israel to look after Palestinian civilians after Unrwa banned in Gaza

Coalition meanwhile says Australia should divert aid funding away from the UN humanitarian assistance body

Bill Shorten has said Palestinians in Gaza should be “prioritised” and urged Israel to look after civilians at risk after Israel’s parliament voted to ban the UN Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa) from Israel and the areas of Gaza, the West Bank and annexed East Jerusalem within 90 days.

Meanwhile, the opposition said the Albanese government should divert the millions of dollars in funding to Unrwa to other more “trusted” humanitarian organisations.

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US calls on Israel to tackle ‘catastrophic humanitarian crisis’ in Gaza

Failure to help improve the situation on the ground could be met by restrictions on US military aid

Israel is not addressing the “catastrophic humanitarian crisis” in Gaza, the US envoy to the United Nations has said as a deadline imposed by Washington looms for the Israelis to improve the situation or face potential restrictions on military aid.

“Israel’s words must be matched by action on the ground,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the security council. “Right now, that is not happening. This must change – immediately.”

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Deadly airstrikes reported in Lebanon – as it happened

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The Israeli army told residents in parts of Lebanon’s southern city of Tyre to leave immediately, warning that it would attack Hezbollah targets there.

“Hezbollah’s activities force the (Israeli army) to act against it forcefully,” military spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote in a post on X that included a map of targeted areas in the coastal city.

Hezbollah’s activities force the IDF to act against it forcefully, as we do not intend to harm you.

You must immediately move out of the area marked in red and head north of the Awali River.

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Israeli parliament votes to ban Unrwa from Israel within 90 days

Lawmakers also voted to declare UN relief agency a terror group, banning any direct interaction with Israeli state

Israel’s parliament has voted to ban the UN relief and works agency (Unrwa) from the country within 90 days, in defiance of US and other international pressure to maintain the largest provider of humanitarian assistance to the country’s Palestinian population.

In a 92-10 vote late on Monday, the Knesset banned the agency, which operates in Israel according to a 1967 treaty, from conducting “any activity” or providing any service inside Israel, including the areas of annexed East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank.

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