Israel wants security control over all land west of Jordan, including occupied West Bank and Gaza; MSF says idea of humanitarian response in Gaza ‘an illusion’. This live blog is closed

The paramedics arm of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group says two of its members were killed in an Israeli strike on a southern border village early on Friday, reports AP.

The Islamic Health Society identified the two as Hussein Khalil and Mohammed Ismail, saying they were killed when the group’s office in the village of Blida was directly hit, a day after an Israeli airstrike on the southern Lebanese village of Kfar Rumman killed two members of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, including a local official who was identified as Hassan Saleh.

Hezbollah later said it retaliated the attack on Blida by launching two explosive drones at an Israeli army post in the northern town of Kiryat Shmona, claiming it scored direct hits.

Since the Israel-Hamas war began on 7 October, the Lebanon-Israel border has been witnessing daily exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israeli troops. Since then, nearly 200 Hezbollah fighters and at least 40 civilians have been killed, say AP.

Israel plans to approve the construction of more than 3,300 new homes in settlements in the occupied West Bank, a senior cabinet minister from the far-right wing of the government announced, reports AP.

Approval of new construction is bound to elicit condemnation from the US at a time when the relationship between the allies is fraught because of disagreements over the course of Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

According to AP, finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a statement late on Thursday that the new construction is meant as a response to a fatal Palestinian shooting attack near Jerusalem earlier in the day. He said prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant participated in the discussion leading to the decision.

The homes are to be built in the settlements of Maale Adumim, Efrat and Kedar, Smotrich said.

Comments by Benny Gantz come as Israel continues to threaten a ground invasion of Rafah

In a collective appeal, heads of UN humanitarian entities and global NGOs have implored world leaders to help prevent further deterioration of the crisis in Gaza.

The principals of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), the coordinating body of global humanitarian organisations, released a statement on Wednesday in which it said “civilians in Gaza are in extreme peril while the world watches on”. It listed ten requirements “to avoid an even worse catastrophe”.

We are calling on Israel to fulfil its legal obligation, under international humanitarian and human rights law, to provide food and medical supplies and facilitate aid operations, and on the world’s leaders to prevent an even worse catastrophe from happening.”