Palestinians assess damage in the street following an Israeli military operation in Jenin in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on September 6, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Israeli forces appeared Friday (September 6, 2024) to have withdrawn from the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, after a more-than weeklong military operation that has left dozens dead and a trail of destruction.

Overnight, Israeli armored personnel carriers were seen leaving the camp from a checkpoint set up on one of the main roads, and an Associated Press reporter inside the camp saw no evidence of any remaining troops inside as dawn broke early Friday morning.

ALSO READ: Hamas says Benjamin Netanyahu trying to ‘thwart’ Gaza truce

Israel’s military had no immediate comment but said it would issue a statement later in the day. It was not clear whether the apparent withdrawal was only a temporary measure to regroup forces.

Hundreds of Israeli troops have been involved for more than a week in what has been their deadliest operation in the occupied West Bank since the Israel-Hamas war began, employing what the United Nations called “lethal war-like tactics.” Their focus has been the Jenin refugee camp, a stronghold of Palestinian militancy that has grown since the Hamas attack on Israel that started the war in Gaza nearly 11 months ago.

Fighting in Jenin accounts for 21 of 39 Palestinians who local health officials say have been killed during the Israeli push in the West Bank — most of whom, the military says, have been militants.

Effect on civilians

The fighting has had a devastating effect on Palestinian civilians living in Jenin.

Water and electric services have been cut, families have been confined to their homes and ambulances evacuating the wounded have been slowed on their way to nearby hospitals, as Israeli soldiers search for militants.

In the quiet morning Friday, Jenin residents took advantage of the lull to rummage through the rubble of destroyed buildings and take stock of the damage.

Twisted rebar protruded from the concrete of collapsed buildings, and walls still standing were pockmarked by bullets and shrapnel.

During the operation, Israeli military officials said they were targeting militants in Jenin, Tulkarem and the Al-Faraa refugee camp curb recent attacks against Israeli civilians they say have become more sophisticated and deadly.

It was not immediately clear whether they were also removing troops from the other two camps as well.

Israel under pressure

Israel has been under increasing pressure from the United States and other allies to reach a cease-fire deal in Gaza, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists on a demand that has emerged as a major sticking point in talks — continued Israeli control of the Philadelphi corridor, a narrow band along Gaza’s border with Egypt where Israel contends Hamas smuggles weapons into Gaza. Egypt and Hamas deny it.

Hamas has accused Israel of dragging out months of negotiations by issuing new demands, including for lasting Israeli control over both Philadelphi corridor and a second corridor running across Gaza.

Hamas has offered to release all hostages in return for an end to the war, the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces and the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners, including high-profile militants — broadly the terms called for under an outline for a deal put forward by U.S. President Joe Biden in July.

Doha, Qatar:

Hamas said Friday it rejected “new conditions” in a Gaza ceasefire proposal that US-led mediators presented during two days of talks in Qatar.

Diplomatic efforts have so far failed to alleviate the suffering endured over more than 10 months of war, but US President Joe Biden insisted after the latest round of talks that “we are closer than we have ever been”.

He is sending US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Israel this weekend to push the latest proposal, the State Department said.

Egyptian, Qatari and US mediators have been seeking to finalise details of a framework initially outlined by Biden in May, which he said Israel had proposed.

In a joint statement, the mediators said they had presented both sides with a proposal that “bridges remaining gaps” and will continue working in the coming days to hash out the specifics on humanitarian provisions and the hostage-prisoners swap.

Talks aiming to secure a rapid deal are set to resume in Cairo “before the end of next week”.

Hamas, which did not attend the Doha talks, swiftly announced its opposition to what it called “new conditions” from Israel in the latest plan.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on mediators to “pressure” Hamas to accept Biden’s framework.

Threats by Iran and its proxies to attack Israel have added renewed urgency to the efforts to hammer out a Gaza ceasefire, with mediators seeking a deal in the hopes of dousing a wider regional conflict. 

“No one in the region should take actions to undermine this process,” Biden warned, later telling reporters, “There’s just a couple more issues, I think we’ve got a shot.”

– ‘Cataclysmic’ consequences –
An informed source told AFP Hamas had objected to conditions about keeping Israeli troops on Gaza’s border with Egypt and terms related to the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli hostages.

Western ally Jordan, however, put the blame squarely on Netanyahu for blocking a deal, with Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi urging pressure “by everyone who wishes to see this through to completion”.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy and his French counterpart Stephane Sejourne held talks in Israel on Friday to press the deal.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz told his visiting counterparts he expects foreign support if Iran seeks to avenge the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. 

Sejourne replied that it would be “inappropriate” to discuss responding to any attack while diplomacy to stop it from happening is in high gear.

A senior US official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, said Iran would face “cataclysmic” consequences if it strikes Israel.

A deadly attack by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank late Thursday drew international condemnation and calls for sanctions, including against government ministers, over the surge in settler violence against Palestinians since the Gaza war began.

The Israeli military said “dozens of Israeli civilians, some of them masked”, entered the village of Jit and “set fire to vehicles and structures in the area, hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails”. A Palestinian man was shot dead.

The West Bank-based Palestinian foreign ministry described the attack as “organised state terrorism”.

The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said he would propose sanctions against Israeli government “enablers” of Jewish settler violence.

Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a proponent of West Bank settlements, was quick to join other Israeli leaders in condemning Thursday’s attack by “criminals”.

First polio case recorded

Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead. More than 100 were freed during a one-week truce in November.

On Thursday, the toll from Israel’s retaliatory military campaign topped 40,000, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which does not provide a breakdown of civilian and militant casualties.

The war has devastated the besieged territory’s healthcare infrastructure, prompting repeated warnings from the World Health Organization about the risk of preventable diseases.

On Friday, the Palestinian health ministry reported an unvaccinated 10-month-old child in Gaza had been diagnosed with polio, the territory’s first case in 25 years, according to the WHO.

The announcement came hours after UN chief Antonio Guterres called for two seven-day breaks in the Gaza war to vaccinate more than 640,000 children against type 2 poliovirus, which was first detected in the territory’s wastewater in June.

As truce talks were underway, thousands of civilians were on the move again inside the Palestinian territory after the Israeli military issued fresh evacuation orders ahead of imminent military action.

The UN estimated the orders affect more than 170,000 people, forcing them to pack into the shrinking remnants of an area declared a humanitarian safe zone.

The area where people have been told to relocate to makes up just 11 percent of Gaza, according to the UN.

“During each round of negotiations, they exert pressure by forcing evacuations and committing massacres,” Issa Murad, a Palestinian displaced to Deir al-Balah, said of the Israeli forces.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Smoke rises from Gaza, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, near the Israel-Gaza border, as seen from Israel on July 9, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.N. rights experts on July 9 accused Israel of carrying out a “targeted starvation campaign” that has resulted in the deaths of children in Gaza.

“Israel’s intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza,” 10 independent United Nations experts said in a statement.

The U.N. has not officially declared a famine in the Gaza Strip.

But the experts, including the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food Michael Fakhri, insisted there was no denying famine was under way.

“Thirty-four Palestinians have died from malnutrition since 7 October, the majority being children,” said the experts, who are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, but who do not speak on behalf of the United Nations.

Also Read | UNICEF finds 90% of Gaza’s children lack food needed for proper growth

Israel’s mission to the U.N. in Geneva slammed the statement, charging that “Mr. Fakhri, and many so-called ‘experts’ who joined (him), are as much accustomed to spreading misinformation, as they are to supporting Hamas propaganda and shielding the terrorist organisation from scrutiny”.

Complicit

The U.N. experts meanwhile listed three children who had recently died “from malnutrition”, after a number of others were said to have starved to death in northern Gaza earlier this year.

Six-month-old Fayez Ataya and 13-year-old Abdulqader Al-Serhi had died on May 30 and June 1 at Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Hospital, while nine-year-old Ahmad Abu Reida died on June 3 in the tent sheltering his displaced family in Khan Yunis, they said.

“With the death of these children from starvation despite medical treatment in central Gaza, there is no doubt that famine has spread from northern Gaza into central and southern Gaza,” they said.

The experts decried that the world had not done more to avert this disaster.

“When a two-month-old baby and 10-year-old Yazan Al Kafarneh died of hunger on 24 February and 4 March respectively, this confirmed that famine had struck northern Gaza,” they said.

“The whole world should have intervened earlier to stop Israel’s genocidal starvation campaign and prevented these deaths.”

“Inaction is complicity.”

Gaza has been facing a deep humanitarian crisis since the war erupted following Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

In response, Israel has carried out a military offensive that has killed at least 38,243 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory.

‘Starvation warfare’

The World Health Organization said Tuesday that 60 cases of severe acute malnutrition, also known as severe wasting —the most deadly form of malnutrition — had been detected last week at the Kamal Adwan paediatric hospital in the north of the Strip.

The U.N. has long been warning of looming famine, especially in the north, but one has not been officially declared.

Also Read | The politics of humanitarian aid

The Israeli mission highlighted Tuesday that the latest assessment by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) partnership determined that famine had not materialised after aid access improved somewhat.

“Israel has continuously scaled up its coordination and assistance in the delivery of humanitarian aid across the Gaza Strip,” it said, claiming Hamas “intentionally steal and hide aid from civilians”.

Hamas authorities meanwhile issued a statement Tuesday describing a “humanitarian catastrophe and escalating famine”.

They accused “the terrorist Israeli government” of continuing “its policy of starvation”, and “preventing the entry of food aid trucks for the 64th consecutive day”.

“Continued starvation warfare threatens a humanitarian disaster and further loss of innocent children,” that statement warned.

Israel sought on May 21 to contain the fallout from a request by the chief prosecutor of the world’s top war crimes court for arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders, a move supported by three European countries, including key ally France.

Belgium, Slovenia and France each said Monday they backed the decision by International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan, who accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders — Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

While no one faces imminent arrest, the announcement deepens Israel’s global isolation at a time when it is facing growing criticism from even its closest allies over the war in Gaza. Support for the warrants from three European Union countries also exposes divisions in the West’s approach to Israel.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz headed to France on Tuesday in response, and his meetings there could set the tone for how countries navigate the warrants — if they are eventually issued — and whether they could pose a threat to Israeli leaders.

Israel still has the support of its top ally, the United States, as well as other Western countries that spoke out against the decision. But if the warrants are issued, they could complicate international travel for Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant, even if they do not face any immediate risk of prosecution because Israel itself is not a member of the court.

As Israeli leaders came to grips with the prosecutor’s decision, violence continued in the region, with an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank killing at least seven Palestinians, including a local doctor, according to Palestinian health officials.

In a statement Monday night about the warrant requests, France said it “supports the International Criminal Court, its independence, and the fight against impunity in all situations”.

“France has been warning for many months about the imperative of strict compliance with international humanitarian law and in particular about the unacceptable nature of civilian losses in the Gaza Strip and insufficient humanitarian access,” said the statement from France, which has a large Jewish community and close trade and diplomatic ties with Israel.

Also Read | Israeli officials seize AP equipment and take down live shot of northern Gaza, citing new media law

The war began on October 7, when Hamas-led militants crossed into Israel and killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 250 hostages. Mr. Khan accused Hamas’ leaders of crimes against humanity, including extermination, murder and sexual violence.

Israel responded with an offensive, which has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between noncombatants and fighters in its count. The war has sparked a humanitarian crisis that has displaced much of the coastal enclave’s population and driven parts of it to starvation, which Mr. Khan said Israel used as a “method of warfare”.

Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib said Monday in a post on social media platform X that “crimes committed in Gaza must be prosecuted at the highest level, regardless of the perpetrators”.

Mr. Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders condemned the prosecutor’s move as disgraceful and antisemitic. U.S. President Joe Biden also lambasted the prosecutor and supported Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas. The United Kingdom called the move “not helpful”, saying the ICC does not have jurisdiction in the case, while Israeli ally Czech Republic called Mr. Khan’s decision “appalling and completely unacceptable”.

A panel of three judges will decide whether to issue the arrest warrants and allow a case to proceed. The judges typically take two months to make such decisions.

Experts warned that any warrants could complicate relations between Israel and even allies that condemned the move.

Yuval Kaplinsky, a former senior official in Israel’s Justice Ministry, said countries that are party to the court would be obliged to arrest Mr. Netanyahu or Mr. Gallant if they visit, although he said some of those countries might find legal loopholes that could help them avoid that.

“They would prefer (that) Netanyahu does not visit rather than have him visit in London and have the entire world watch him avoid extradition,” Mr. Kaplinsky said.

Since the war began, violence has also flared in the occupied West Bank.

On Tuesday, an Israeli raid into the Jenin refugee camp and the adjacent city of Jenin killed at least seven Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

The military said its forces struck militants during the operation while the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group said its fighters battled the Israeli forces.

However, according to Wissam Abu Baker, the director of Jenin Governmental Hospital, the medical centre’s surgery specialist, Ossayed Kamal Jabareen, was among the dead. He was killed on his way to work, Abu Baker said.

Jenin and the refugee camp, seen as a hotbed of militancy, have been frequent targets of Israeli raids, long before Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza broke out.

Since the start of the war, nearly 500 Palestinians have been killed in West Bank fighting, many of them militants, as well as others throwing stones or explosives at troops. Others not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.

Israel says it is cracking down on soaring militancy in the territory, pointing to a spike in attacks by Palestinians on Israelis. It has arrested more than 3,000 Palestinians since the start of the war in Gaza.

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with east Jerusalem, which it later annexed, and the Gaza Strip, which it withdrew troops and settlers from in 2005. Palestinians seek those territories as part of their future independent state, hopes for which have been dimmed since the war in Gaza erupted.

The exodus of Palestinians from Gaza’s last refuge accelerated on May 12 as Israeli forces pushed deeper into the southern city of Rafah. Israel also pounded the territory’s devastated north, where some Hamas militants have regrouped in areas the military said it had cleared months ago.

Rafah is considered Hamas’ last stronghold. Some 3,00,000 of the more than 1 million civilians sheltering there have fled the city following evacuation orders from Israel, which says it must invade to dismantle Hamas and return scores of hostages taken from Israel in the October 7 attack that sparked the war.

Neighbouring Egypt issued its strongest objection yet to the Rafah offensive, saying it intends to formally join South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice alleging Israel is committing genocide in Gaza — an accusation Israel rejects. The Foreign Ministry statement cited “the worsening severity and scope of the Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians.”

United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement that he cannot see how a full-scale invasion of Rafah can be reconciled with international humanitarian law.

Also Read | Israel strikes Gaza after fresh Rafah evacuation order

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated opposition to a major military assault on Rafah, and told CBS that Israel would “be left holding the bag on an enduring insurgency” without an exit from Gaza and postwar governance plan.

Gaza has been left without a functioning government, leading to a breakdown in public order and allowing Hamas’s armed wing to reconstitute itself even in the hardest-hit areas. On Sunday, Hamas touted attacks against Israeli soldiers in Rafah and near Gaza City.

Israel has yet to offer a detailed plan for postwar governance in Gaza, saying only that it will maintain open-ended security control over the enclave of about 2.3 million Palestinians.

Internationally mediated talks over a cease-fire and hostage release appeared to be at a standstill.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a Memorial Day speech vowed to continue fighting until victory in memory of those killed in the war. But in Tel Aviv, hundreds of protesters stood outside military headquarters and raised candles during a minute-long siren marking the day’s start, demanding an immediate cease-fire deal to return the hostages.

Mr. Netanyahu has rejected postwar plans proposed by the United States for the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to govern Gaza with support from Arab and Muslim countries. Those plans depend on progress toward the creation of a Palestinian state, which Israel’s government opposes.

The October 7 attack killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 250 hostage. Militants still hold about 100 captives and the remains of more than 30.

Israel’s offensive has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures. Israel says it has killed over 13,000 militants, without providing evidence.

Palestinians reported heavy Israeli bombardment overnight in the urban Jabaliya refugee camp and other areas in northern Gaza, which has been largely isolated by Israeli forces for months. U.N. officials say there is a “full-blown famine” there.

Residents said Israeli warplanes and artillery also struck the Zeitoun area east of Gaza City, where troops have battled militants for over a week. They have called on tens of thousands of people to relocate to nearby areas.

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“It was a very difficult night,” said Abdel-Kareem Radwan, a 48-year-old from Jabaliya. He said they could hear intense and constant bombing since midday on Saturday. “This is madness.”

First responders with the Palestinian Civil Defence said they were unable to respond to multiple calls for help from both areas, as well as from Rafah.

In central Gaza, staff at the al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah said an Israeli strike killed four persons.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the top Israeli military spokesman, said forces were also operating in the northern towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, which were heavily bombed in the war’s opening days.

Hamas’s military wing said it shelled Israeli special forces east of Jabaliya and fired mortar shells at troops and vehicles entering the Rafah border crossing area.

“Hamas’ regime cannot be toppled without preparing an alternative to that regime,” columnist Ben Caspit wrote in Israel’s Maariv daily, channeling the growing frustration felt by many Israelis more than seven months into the war. “The only people who can govern Gaza after the war are Gazans, with a lot of support and help from the outside.”

Rafah had been sheltering 1.3 million Palestinians, most of whom had fled fighting elsewhere. But Israel has now evacuated the eastern third of the city.

Most people are heading to the heavily damaged nearby city of Khan Younis or Muwasi, a coastal tent camp where some 450,000 people are already living in squalid conditions.

The U.N. has warned that a planned full-scale invasion would further cripple humanitarian operations and cause a surge in civilian deaths. The main aid entry points near Rafah are already affected. Israeli troops have captured the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing, forcing it to shut down.

A senior Egyptian official told AP that Cairo has lodged protests with Israel, the United States and European governments, saying the offensive has put its decades-old peace treaty with Israel — a cornerstone of regional stability — at high risk. The official was not authorized to brief media and spoke on condition of anonymity.

U.S. President Joe Biden has said he won’t provide offensive weapons to Israel for Rafah, and his administration says there is “reasonable” evidence that Israel had breached international law protecting civilians.

Israel rejects those allegations, saying it tries to avoid harming civilians. It blames Hamas for the high toll because the militants fight in dense, residential areas.

In the West Bank, where deadly violence has increased since the war began, the Palestinian Health Ministry said a man was shot dead by Israeli forces in Balata refugee camp in Nablus. The army said its forces responded with live fire after being shot at by militants in the camp.

Israel’s military spokesman says the army has the weapons it needs to press ahead with its offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari was asked at a news conference whether the army can conduct the operation without U.S. arms.

“The army has armaments for the missions it plans, and for the missions in Rafah too — we have what we need,” Mr. Hagari said.

Mr. Hagari spoke after U.S. President Joe Biden said he would not supply offensive weapons that Israel could use to launch an all-out assault on Rafah — the last major Hamas stronghold in Gaza — over concerns for the civilians there.

Mr. Hagari said relations with the U.S. remain close, and that disagreements should be resolved behind closed doors.

The first aid ship bound for an American-built floating pier to be installed in Gaza departed early Thursday. But it’s unclear when the corridor will be up and running, and humanitarian groups say there are still major obstacles to getting food to starving Palestinians in the war-ravaged enclave.

Cyprus announced the ship’s departure even though the U.S. military has not yet installed the pier and questions remain as to how the aid will be distributed. Even when the route is up and running, it won’t be able to handle as much aid as Gaza’s two main land crossings, which are currently inaccessible.

The U.N. says most of the territory’s 2.3 million Palestinians suffer from hunger and that northern Gaza is already experiencing “full-blown famine.”

Humanitarian workers fear an even more dire situation if Israel launches a long-promised invasion of the southern city of Rafah, which is the main distribution point for aid and where some 1.3 million Palestinians have sought refuge, most having fled from fighting elsewhere.

Israel seized the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing with Egypt on Tuesday, and it’s unclear when it will reopen. Israel reopened its side of the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing — Gaza’s main cargo terminal — after a rocket attack over the weekend, but the U.N.’s main provider of humanitarian assistance says aid cannot be brought in on the Palestinian side because of the security situation.

A recently reopened route in the north is still functioning, but only 60 trucks entered on Tuesday, far below the 500 that entered Gaza each day before the war.

Also Read | Israel hostage families urge foreign pressure for Gaza truce

International aid groups warned this week that a distribution network is at risk of collapse across the territory because of the closure of Rafah, which was used to import fuel. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said it only has enough stocks to maintain operations for a few days and has started rationing.

The threat of a full-scale invasion of Rafah, where many aid groups have warehouses and staff, is also disrupting distribution.

President Joe Biden said Wednesday that the United States would not supply offensive weapons for an all-out invasion, in the latest escalation of tensions between the two close allies.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayahu brushed off the threat in a statement issued Thursday, saying “If we have to stand alone, we will stand alone.”

“If we need to, we will fight with our fingernails. But we have much more than fingernails,” he added.

Earlier, Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote a post on the platform X with a heart between the words “Hamas” and “Biden.” He and other ultra-nationalist members of Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition support a large-scale Rafah operation and have threatened to bring down his government if it doesn’t happen.

Israel’s limited military incursion into Rafah has meanwhile already complicated what had been months of efforts by the U.S., Qatar and Egypt to broker a cease-fire and the release of hostages captured in Hamas’ October 7 attack that triggered the war.

CIA Director William Burns headed back to the United States as planned on Thursday after attending talks in Cairo and meeting with Mr. Netanyahu this week, a U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door international efforts.

Hamas also said its delegation had left Cairo and was returning to Qatar, where it maintains a political office.

Egypt’s state-owned Al-Qahera TV said that the Cairo negotiations were continuing. It did not say whether Israel’s delegation was still there, and there was no comment from the Israeli government.

The war began with Hamas’ surprise attack into southern Israel, in which it killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 250 hostage. The militants are still holding some 100 captives and the remains of more than 30 after most of the rest were released during a cease-fire last year.

The war has killed over 34,800 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Israel’s offensive, waged with U.S.-supplied munitions, has caused widespread devastation and forced some 80% of Gaza’s population to flee their homes.

Mr. Biden announced the construction of the floating pier two months ago as part of efforts to ramp up humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Maj. Pete Nguyen, a Pentagon spokesman, said Thursday that parts of the pier are still in the Israeli port of Ashdod awaiting more favourable seas before being moved into position off Gaza. He said the U.S. vessel Sagamore, which left Cyprus, would transport aid to another ship, the Roy P. Benavidez, which is off the coast of Gaza.

“In the coming days, the U.S. will commence an international community-backed effort to expand the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza using a floating pier,” he said.

Israeli ground forces pushed deeper into Gaza on Monday, advancing in tanks and other armored vehicles on the territory’s main city and freeing a soldier held captive by Hamas militants. The Israeli Prime Minister rejected calls for a ceasefire as airstrikes landed near hospitals where thousands of Palestinians are sheltering beside the wounded.

The military said a soldier captured during Hamas’ brutal October 7 incursion was rescued in Gaza — the first rescue since the weekslong war began. Military officials provided few details but said in a statement that Pvt. Ori Megidish, 19, was “doing well” and had met with her family.

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed her home, saying the “achievement” by Israel’s security forces “illustrates our commitment to free all the hostages.”

He also rejected calls for a ceasefire to facilitate the release of captives or end the war, which he has said will be long and difficult. “Calls for a ceasefire are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas,” he told a news conference. “That will not happen.”

Mr. Netanyahu, who faces mounting anger over Israel’s failure to prevent the worst surprise attack on the country in a half century, also said he had no plans to resign.

Hostage situation

Hamas and other militant groups are believed to be holding some 240 captives, including men, women and children. Mr. Netanyahu has faced mounting pressure to secure their release even as Israel acts to crush Hamas and end its 16-year rule over the territory.

Hamas, which has released four hostages, has said it would let the others go in return for thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, including many implicated in deadly attacks on Israelis. Israel has dismissed the offer, and Mr. Netanyahu said the ground invasion “creates the possibility” of getting the hostages out, adding that Hamas will “only do it under pressure.”

ALSO READ | Israel-Hamas war, Day 25 LIVE updates

Hamas released a short video Monday purporting to show three other female captives. One of the women delivers a brief statement — likely under duress — criticising Israel’s response to the hostage crisis. It was not clear when the Hamas video was made.

Amos Aloni, whose daughter Danielle appeared in the video, told reporters that he and his wife were shocked when she appeared on TV but also felt “relief from her being alive and seeing her.”

Gaza operations

The military has been vague about its operations inside Gaza, including the location and number of troops. Israel has declared a new “phase” in the war but stopped short of declaring an all-out ground invasion.

Larger ground operations have been launched both north and east of Gaza City. Israel says many of Hamas’ forces and much of its militant infrastructure, including hundreds of miles (kilometers) of tunnels, are in Gaza City, which before the war was home to over 650,000 people, a population comparable to that of Washington, D.C.

Though Israel ordered Palestinians to flee the north, where Gaza City is located, and move south, hundreds of thousands remain, in part because Israel has also bombarded targets in so-called safe zones. Around 117,000 displaced people hoping to stay safe from strikes are staying in hospitals in northern Gaza, alongside thousands of patients and staff, according to U.N. figures.

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, says nearly 672,000 Palestinians are sheltering in its schools and other facilities across Gaza, which have reached four times their capacity.

UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini accused Israel of “collective punishment” of the Palestinians, and of forcing their displacement from northern Gaza to the south, where they are still not safe.

Death toll

The death toll among Palestinians passed 8,300, mostly women and children, the Gaza Health Ministry said Monday. The figure is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence. More than 1.4 million people in Gaza have fled their homes.

Over 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during Hamas’ initial attack, also an unprecedented figure.

Lazzarini said 64 of the agency’s staff were killed in the past three weeks — the latest just two hours before he addressed an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting, when an agency security official was killed with his wife and eight children.

‘Trapped’ Gazans

Most Gazans “feel trapped in a war they have nothing to do with” and “feel the world is equating all of them to Hamas,” he told the Security Council.

Video circulating on social media showed an Israeli tank and bulldozer in central Gaza blocking the territory’s main north-south highway.

The video, taken by a local journalist, shows a car approaching an earth barrier across the road. The car stops and turns around. As it heads away, a tank appears to open fire, and an explosion engulfs the car. The journalist, in another car, races away in terror, screaming, “Go back! Go back!” at an approaching ambulance and other vehicles.

The Gaza Health Ministry later said three people were killed in the car that was hit.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesman, declined to comment on where Israeli forces are deployed. He said additional infantry and armored, engineering and artillery units had entered Gaza and the operations would continue to “expand and intensify.”

The military said troops have killed dozens of militants who attacked from inside buildings and tunnels. It said that in the last few days, it had struck more than 600 militant targets, including weapons depots and anti-tank missile launching positions. Palestinian militants have continued firing rockets into Israel, including toward its commercial hub, Tel Aviv.

Hamas said its fighters clashed with Israeli troops who entered the northwest. It was not possible to independently confirm battlefield claims made by either side.

Hospitals under threat

Meanwhile, crowded hospitals in northern Gaza came under growing threat.

Gaza’s Health Ministry shared video footage that appeared to show an explosion and a column of smoke near the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital for cancer patients. The hospital director, Dr. Sobhi Skaik, said it had sustained damage in a strike that endangered patients.

All 10 hospitals operating in northern Gaza have received evacuation orders, the U.N.’s office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs said. Staff have refused to leave, saying evacuation would mean death for patients on ventilators.

Strikes hit within 50 meters (yards) of Al Quds Hospital after it received two calls from Israeli authorities on Sunday ordering it to evacuate, the Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service said. Some windows were blown out, and rooms were covered in debris. It said 14,000 people are sheltering there.

Israel says it targets Hamas fighters and infrastructure and that the militants operate among civilians, putting them in danger.

Conditions deterioriating

Beyond the fighting, conditions for civilians in Gaza are continually deteriorating.

With no central power for weeks and little fuel, hospitals are struggling to keep emergency generators running to operate incubators and other life-saving equipment. UNRWA has been trying to keep water pumps and bakeries running.

On Sunday, the largest convoy of humanitarian aid yet — 33 trucks — entered the territory from Egypt, and another 26 entered on Monday. Relief workers say the amount is still far less than what is needed for the population of 2.3 million people.

The fighting has raised concerns that the violence could spread across the region. Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah have engaged in daily skirmishes along Israel’s northern border.

In the occupied West Bank, Israel carried out airstrikes Monday against militants clashing with its forces in the Jenin refugee camp. Hamas said four of its fighters were killed there. As of Sunday, Israeli forces and settlers have killed 123 Palestinians, including 33 minors, in the West Bank, half of them during search-and-arrest operations, the U.N. said.

Al-Jazeera correspondent Wael Al-Dahdouh mourns over the body of one of his three children who were killed along with his wife in an Israeli strike in the Nuseirat camp, at Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir Al-Balah on the southern Gaza Strip, on Ocober 25, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Al Jazeera’s chief correspondent in the Gaza Strip, Wael Dahdouh, was helping broadcast live images of the besieged territory’s night sky when he received the devastating news: His wife, son, and daughter had all been killed in an Israeli airstrike on Wednesday.

Moments later, the Qatari-based satellite channel switched to footage of Mr. Dahdouh entering al-Aqsa Hospital in Gaza before giving way to grief as he peered over the body of his dead son.

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“They take revenge on us in our children?” he said, kneeling over his son’s bloodied body, still wearing his protective press vest from that day’s work.

Mr. Dahdouh’s grandson also was declared dead two hours later, the network reported.

The video was sure to reverberate across the Arab world, where the 53-year-old journalist is well-known as the face of Palestinians during many wars. He is revered in his native Gaza for telling people’s stories of suffering and hardship to the outside world.

According to Al Jazeera, Dahdouh’s family members were killed by an Israeli airstrike that hit Nuseirat Refugee Camp, located in an area of Gaza where the military had encouraged people to go to stay safe. It said a number of other relatives were still missing, and it remained unclear how many others were killed.

Mr. Dahdouh’s family were among the more than 1 million Gaza residents displaced by the war, now in its 19th day, and were staying in a house in Nuseirat when the strike hit, the network said.

The Israeli strikes have killed more than 6,500 Palestinians, Gaza’s Health Ministry says.

The fighting has killed more than 1,400 people in Israel — mostly civilians slain during the initial Hamas attack, according to the Israeli government.

Late Wednesday, Al Jazeera replayed the moment Mr. Dahdouh was informed about the deaths. In an audio recording he is heard picking up a phone and telling a frantic caller multiple times: “Who are you with?”

Earlier, Mr. Dahdouh was on air, covering the aftermath of a separate strike that had killed at least 26 people, according to local officials. Throughout the war, Dahdouh has remained in Gaza City, despite Israeli calls for residents to head south ahead of an expected ground offensive.

Hundreds of thousands of people have fled to Nuseirat and other locations in central and southern Gaza, believing them to be safer. But Israeli strikes have continued to pound these areas, which are suffering dire shortages of water, medicine and fuel under an Israeli siege.

“This is the safe area which the occupation army talked about, the moral army,” said Mr. Dahdouh with bitter sarcasm to a fellow a Al Jazeera reporter at the al-Aqsa hospital.

In a statement, Al Jazeera said Mr. Dahdouh’s family “home was targeted” in an “indiscriminate assault by the Israeli occupation.”

The Israeli army had no immediate comment. It says it strikes only Hamas military targets, but the Palestinians say thousands of civilians have died. Israel accuses Hamas of using civilians as human shields.

Israel has threatened to shut down Al Jazeera over its coverage of the war. Al Jazeera is a Qatari state-owned media network, and is deeply critical of Israel, particularly its treatment of Palestinians.

Over the last week, the gas-rich nation of Qatar has emerged as a key intermediary over the fate of more than 200 hostages captured by Hamas militants during their Oct. 7 assault. Qatar has hosted Hamas’ political office in its capital of Doha for over a decade. The capital, Doha, is home to Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ supreme leader, and also Khaled Mashaal, Haniyeh’s predecessor.

Four of the hostages have been released, a mother and daughter on Friday and two more on Monday. In an interview with Sky News this week, Mashaal said all Israeli hostages could be released if Israel stopped its aerial bombardment of the Gaza.

File picture of Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who said the national budget for the year was no longer relevant
| Photo Credit: AP

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Wednesday the 2023-2024 national budget was “no longer relevant” given the Gaza war and would be amended, and sounded unfazed by S&P Global’s downgrade of Israel’s outlook to “negative” from “stable”.

While putting the direct cost of the war at around 1 billion shekels ($246 million) a day to Israel, Mr. Smotrich said in an Army Radio broadcast that he did not yet have an assessment of the indirect costs on an economy partly paralysed by the mass mobilisation of military reservists and extensive Palestinian rocket salvos.

Mr. Smotrich described the S&P downward revision from “stable” published on Tuesday as “alarmist” and said he did not anticipate major Israeli deficits despite the crisis.

He praised Bank of Israel Governor Amir Yaron, who was due to have stepped down but extended his tenure due to the crisis, for “functioning above and beyond”. But Mr. Smotrich would not be drawn on whether Mr. Yaron should be formally kept in office.

“We don’t have time to breathe, so we’re not dealing with this (question) now,” he said.