Gaza death toll nears 51,400 as Israel continues brutal war
PA’s Abbas urges Hamas to release hostages
Illegal Israeli settlers attack Palestinian village in northern Jordan Valley
UN wants 'independence' for aid work in Gaza
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Fifty-three days into Israel’s renewed blockade of Gaza, humanitarian groups are warning of a total collapse in the besieged territory, as air strikes resume and critical aid remains barred from entry.
With the March collapse of a ceasefire deal and deteriorating humanitarian situation, over 2.1 million Palestinians are now facing acute shortages of food, fuel, medicine and clean water.
“There is a total collapse of the humanitarian situation,” Riham Jafari, ActionAid’s Palestine advocacy and communications coordinator, told Anadolu. “There is a catastrophic level of food insecurity and famine, which has started to affect the people, especially pregnant women, children, elderly.”
Jafari stressed that by cutting off aid, Israel is deliberately using starvation as a weapon of war — a tactic that violates international humanitarian law.
“Starvation, aid, food are being used as a weapon of war in a clear violation of international law,” she said. “The dream of Gazan people is to get a piece of a bread or a piece of food.”
Shaina Low, communications adviser for the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in Palestine, said the collapse of food systems has forced people to forego eating altogether, in some cases.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Bedr Abdelatty said that Italy fully supports an Arab plan for the reconstruction of Gaza without displacing Palestinians.
Abdelatty’s remarks came during a press conference with his Italian counterpart Antonio Tajani in Cairo.
According to a statement from the Italian Foreign Ministry, Tajani confirmed “the support for initiatives for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza and its reconstruction.”
Abdelatty said they discussed the regional developments in Palestine, stressing the urgent need to provide entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
He said they also evaluated the developments in the Red Sea region and agreed on “the necessity of reducing escalation in the Red Sea and ensuring freedom of navigation in it.”
Appeals judges at the International Criminal Court ordered a lower panel to reconsider Israel’s objections to the court’s jurisdiction over arrest warrants issued against Israeli leaders last year.
The appeals chamber said the court had not properly weighed challenges by Israel to its jurisdiction and the legality of arrest warrant requests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for their conduct of the Gaza war.
The so-called Pre-Trial Chamber had ruled that Israel's challenges had been premature, but the appeals judges now said that had been an "error of law".
It said Israel's argument that it was entitled to challenge the jurisdiction was not sufficiently addressed. "The Appeals Chamber therefore reversed the decision and remanded the matter to the Pre-Trial Chamber for a new ruling on the substance of Israel's challenge to the jurisdiction of the Court," they said.
A French Foreign Ministry spokesperson has said that France might consider sanctions against Israel through discussions at European and UN level.
“We made a statement yesterday condemning the closure of Gaza to humanitarian access. All of these are part of France’s traditional position. It is a position that demands, and does not rule out, sanctions, which are possibly under consideration against Israel,” said Christophe Lemoine.
He noted that if France were to impose sanctions on Israel, it would be decided through discussions at the European or UN level. Lemoine also reiterated his country’s “consistent position” for a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine, stating: “This is a consistent position on France’s part, that the only viable path, in our view, is a political solution based on a two-state solution.”
Arab foreign ministers have rejected any displacement of Palestinians from their land, calling on the US to reconsider its bias for Israel.
In a resolution adopted following a meeting at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo, the foreign ministers called on the US to revise its bias for Israel.
They urged Washington “to work diligently and sincerely with the relevant parties to implement the two-state solution” to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the pre-1967 border.
The ministers called for “enabling the Palestinian people to determine their fate in their independent, sovereign, viable, and geographically contiguous state."
They urged the US to pressure Israel “to end its occupation and cease its unilateral actions that are destroying the two-state solution." They also called for providing political, financial, and legal support for the rebuilding of Gaza following Israel’s destructive war.
Gaza rescue teams and medics said Israeli air strikes killed at least 53 people, as the military issued fresh evacuation orders ahead of a planned attack.
Israel's army chief, visiting troops in Gaza, threatened a "larger" offensive in Gaza if hostages are not freed.
"If we do not see progress in the return of the hostages in the near future, we will expand our activities to a larger and more significant operation," Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said.
Spain's government moved to cancel a controversial arms contract with an Israeli company following mounting pressure from its left-wing coalition partner, the Sumar party.
“You cannot do business with those who violate international law while they massacre the Palestinian people,” Sumar posted on the social network Bluesky, taking credit for the government’s reversal.
“We did it after demanding it firmly: for coherence, for justice, for Palestine,” the party added.
The contract, worth more than $6.8 million, involved the purchase of over 15 million 9mm bullets for the Guardia Civil from Guardian Homeland Security S.A., a subsidiary of Israel's IMI Systems, according to Spanish daily El Diario.
An Israeli air strike hit a police station in Jabalia in northern Gaza, killing at least 10 people, local health authorities said, and Israel's military said it had struck a command centre of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad groups.
Medics said two Israeli missiles hit the police station, located near a market, which led to the wounding of dozens of people in addition to the 10 deaths. The identities of those killed were not immediately clear.
Local health authorities said Israeli strikes have killed at least 34 other people in separate air strikes across the enclave, bringing Thursday's death toll to 44.
Israel's military said that the initial findings from an investigation into the death of a UN worker in central Gaza last month showed he was killed by Israeli tank fire.
"According to the findings collected so far, the examination indicates that the fatality was caused by tank fire from IDF (Israeli military) troops operating in the area. The building was struck due to assessed enemy presence and was not identified by the forces as a UN facility," the military statement said, referring to the incident on March 19.
The Israeli army has now killed at least 30 more Palestinians in a series of fresh strikes across the war-ravaged Gaza, medics and local media said.
Four people lost their lives when Israeli fighter jets shelled a group of civilians in the Zeitoun neighbourhood in eastern Gaza City, a medical source said.
Ten more people were killed and several others were wounded in another strike on a marketplace in the northern town of Jabalia, the source told Anadolu.