Israel Hamas War News Live Updates: Israeli forces target 'Hamas compound' in Gaza UN school, 39 killed as the war enters ninth month - The Times of India (2024)

The US military aims to increase the pace of aid deliveries into Gaza via a temporary pier when shipments resume in the coming days.

The pier was damaged in rough seas late last month, but US Central Command said in a post on X that the temporary structure had been reestablished Friday afternoon local time. The military aims to raise the volume of deliveries to about 500,000 pounds (about 250 metric tons) per day after operations ramp up, US officials said in a separate briefing with reporters in Washington, without providing a detailed time line.

President Joe Biden ordered the construction of the pier in March as land crossings into the territory were constrained and pressure grew to respond to the deteriorating humanitarian situation amid the Israel-Hamas war, which has killed about 35,000 people in Gaza and pushed parts of the population toward starvation. (Bloomberg)

Swedish police detained 19 pro-Palestinian activists at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, where they barricaded themselves to protest the school's collaboration with Israeli universities.

The activists blocked the entrance with furniture, displayed Palestinian flags, and chanted "Free Palestine." Police removed them after two hours, and they face charges of trespassing and disobeying police.

This incident is part of broader international pressure on Israel to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza. Similar protests occurred in Copenhagen, where activists set up a tent camp demanding a boycott of Israeli arms sales.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accepted an invitation to address a joint meeting of the US House and Senate on July 24, House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office announced on Thursday night.

“The bipartisan, bicameral meeting symbolizes the US and Israel’s enduring relationship and will offer Prime Minister Netanyahu the opportunity to share the Israeli government’s vision for defending their democracy, combating terror, and establishing just and lasting peace in the region,” according to a statement from Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, both Republicans.

The Israeli Embassy in Washington didn’t respond Thursday night on whether the invitation had been accepted.

The invitation was signed by Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, as well as McConnell and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. (Bloomberg)

More than 36,731 Palestinians have been killed and 83,530 have been injured in Israeli military offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Friday.

Some 77 Palestinians were killed and 221 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added. (Reuters)

Israeli airstrikes in central Gaza resulted in the deaths of at least 18 people, including children, according to health officials on Friday. This follows the previous day's tragedy where 33 people were killed at a United Nations-run school providing shelter to displaced Palestinian families.

The strikes targeted the Nuseirat and Maghazi refugee camps, as well as the towns of Deir al-Balah and Zawaiyda. Hospital records indicate that among the casualties were four children, one woman, and the mayor of the Nuseirat refugee camp.

The Israeli army stated on Friday that it was persisting with operations in certain areas of Central Gaza. They reported that their troops had eliminated dozens of militants, discovered tunnel shafts, and destroyed infrastructure within the region.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called Thursday for an end to hostilities along the demarcation line between Lebanon and Israel, warning of the risk of a broader conflict.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visiting the northern border area after eight months of war with Hamas that has devastated Gaza, warned Wednesday that Israel was "prepared for a very intense operation" along the border.

Daily exchanges of artillery fire between Hezbollah and Israel have intensified in recent days as Israel wages war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Both groups are backed by Iran and allies of each other.

A Gaza hospital said at least 37 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a UN-run school on Thursday, that the Israeli military alleged housed a "Hamas compound".
The raid came after US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators resumed talks aimed at securing a truce and hostage-prisoner swap in the eight-month war triggered by Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel.

The Israeli military said it had "eliminated" several militants in a "precise strike on a Hamas compound embedded inside a UNRWA school" in the Nuseirat area of central Gaza.

Military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari later said nine "terrorists" were killed when fighter jets attacked three classrooms where about 30 militants from Islamic Jihad and Hamas were hiding.

The United States has called on Israel to be "fully" transparent about the strike.

Yemen's Houthi group said that it launched two joint military operations with the Iraqi Islamic Resistance against ships at Israel's Haifa port.

"The first targeted two ships carrying military equipments in the port of Haifa, while the second targeted a ship that violated the decision to ban entry to the port," Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said in a televised statement.

The Houthis, who control Yemen's capital and most populous areas, have attacked international shipping in the Red Sea since November in solidarity with the Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas militants, drawing US and British retaliatory strikes since February.

The head of the International Labour Organization on Thursday criticized the decimation of Palestinian workers' labour rights since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and called for an end to new restrictions blocking them from working in Israel.Israel's treatment of Palestinian workers, under scrutiny for decades by the UN labour body, has increased since the Oct. 7 war with criticism focused on more than half a million job losses and Israel's exclusion of some 200,000 Palestinians from Israel for security reasons.

"This has been the hardest year for Palestinian workers since 1967," ILO Director-General Gilbert Houngbo told the Geneva meeting, referring to the date of the war when Israel seized the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt.Labour rights had been "decimated", he said in a speech presenting an ILO report on Palestinian working conditions, while asking Israel to reopen its labour market.

The White House released a joint statement from several nations, including the United States, Britain, Canada, and Germany, urging Hamas, the governing authority in Gaza, to agree to a proposal put forth by President Joe Biden for a lasting ceasefire in the region. The statement was also endorsed by the leaders of Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Colombia, Denmark, France, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Spain, and Thailand.

The statement emphasized the critical nature of the current situation, saying, "At this decisive moment, we call on the leaders of Israel as well as Hamas to make whatever final compromises are necessary to close this deal."

The countries involved in the joint statement are pushing for both sides to take the necessary steps to reach an agreement that will bring an end to the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

Israel is phasing out the use of a military-run detention camp for Palestinians captured during the Gaza war where rights groups say there has been abuse of inmates, justice officials said on Wednesday.
State attorneys told the Supreme Court that inmates held at the Sde Teiman site, which was opened after Hamas' Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza, would be gradually transported to permanent holding facilities.

The transfers have started and most prisoners would be relocated within a couple of weeks. This would allow conditions to improve in the meantime, they said.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), which filed a petition for the closure of the Sde Teiman site, was one of a number of groups demanding the closure of the detention facility at the former army base.

Police arrested 13 people at Stanford University after pro-Palestinian demonstrators occupied the school president and provost’s offices early Wednesday, causing what officials described as “extensive” vandalism inside and outside the building.
The takeover began around dawn on the last day of spring classes at the university in California’s Silicon Valley, and ended three hours later. Some protesters barricaded themselves inside the building while others linked arms outside, The Stanford Daily reported. The group chanted “Palestine will be free, we will free Palestine.”

Demonstrators cheered in support of those being arrested as the detainees were escorted out of the building and loaded into law enforcement vehicles.

The student newspaper said one of its reporters was among those detained.

NICEF said on Thursday that nine out of 10 children in Gaza could not eat nutrients from enough food groups to ensure their healthy growth and development.
"In the Gaza Strip, months of hostilities and restrictions on humanitarian aid have collapsed the food and health systems, resulting in catastrophic consequences for children and their families," UNICEF said.

It said that five sets of data collected between December 2023 and April 2024 had found that 9 out of 10 children in the Gaza Strip, which has been pounded by an Israeli offensive since last October, are suffering from severe food poverty, meaning that they are surviving on two or fewer food groups per day.

"This is evidence of the horrific impact the conflict and restrictions are having on families' ability to meet children's food needs – and the speed at which it places children at risk of life-threatening malnutrition," UNICEF said.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has said in a statement that it destroyed a tunnel in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip.

The statement issued on Wednesday added that the 2-km-long tunnel "was used by terrorists for force build-up and terror activities", Xinhua news agency reported.

It noted that IDF troops had located several significant tunnel shafts that led to the long tunnel route, which reached as far as the Philadelphi Corridor, a strip of land along the border between Egypt and the southern Gaza Strip.

According to the statement, the tunnel contained blast doors, inside which the troops located weapons such as AK-47 rifles, anti-tank missiles, explosives, and intelligence assets.