Israeli strikes have pounded the Gaza Strip, killing dozens, including people in a school-turned-shelter that was hit as people slept.
Israeli strikes pounded the Gaza Strip early on Monday, killing dozens, including people sleeping in a school-turned-shelter, local health officials said. The Israeli military said it targeted militants operating from the school.
Israel has vowed to seize control of Gaza and keep fighting until Hamas is destroyed or disarmed and exiled, and until the militant group returns the remaining 58 hostages, a third of them believed to be alive, from the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war.
Israel had blocked all food, medicine and fuel from entering Gaza for 2 1/2 months before letting a trickle of aid enter last week, after experts’ warnings of famine and pressure from some of Israel’s top allies. It says the militant Hamas group has been siphoning off aid but U.N. aid groups say there is no significant divergence of aid.
Meanwhile, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which is supposed to take over aid distribution under a new, U.S. and Israeli-backed system, says it’s still going ahead with its launch of aid operations in the enclave despite the unexpected resignation of its executive director over the weekend.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people in the Oct. 7 attack. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed around 54,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.
Here’s the latest:
The Israeli prime minister spoke at a special government meeting marking Israel’s conquest of the city’s eastern sector. The meeting was held in a controversial east Jerusalem archaeological site located in a Palestinian neighborhood.
At the meeting, the government approved a resolution to encourage and financially support foreign countries in establishing or relocating their embassies to Jerusalem, according to a joint statement by Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and the Minister for Jerusalem Affairs and Jewish Heritage Meir Porush.
Israel captured east Jerusalem, home to the city’s most sensitive holy sites, in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed the area in a move that is not internationally recognized. The Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as the capital of a future independent state.
“Jerusalem, our eternal capital, was reunited 58 years ago in the Six-Day War. It will never be divided again,” Netanyahu said in remarks at the start of the meeting. “We will preserve a united, complete Jerusalem, and the sovereignty of Israel.”
Groups of young Israelis made their way through Muslim neighborhoods of Jerusalem’s Old City ahead of an annual march marking Israel’s conquest of the eastern part of the city.
Palestinian shopkeepers had closed up early and police lined the narrow alleys ahead of the march, which often becomes rowdy and sometimes violent. The march commemorates Jerusalem Day, marking Israel’s 1967 capture of east Jerusalem, including the Old City and its holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims.
Police said they had detained a number of individuals to prevent confrontations.
Friedrich Merz told a forum organized by WDR television that “what the Israeli army is now doing in Gaza — I don’t understand, to say it openly.”
“Affecting the civilian population to the extent that has increasingly been the case in recent days can no longer be justified by a fight against the terrorism of Hamas,” Merz said.
The Israeli protesters who stormed the UNRWA compound in east Jerusalem were joined by Yulia Malinovsky, one of the legislators behind an Israeli law that banned UNRWA.
Israel has accused the agency, which is the biggest aid provider in Gaza, of being infiltrated by Hamas, allegations denied by the U.N.
There was no immediate comment from Israeli police.
The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees says Israeli protesters have broken into its compound in east Jerusalem.
UNRWA West Bank coordinator Roland Friedrich said around a dozen Israeli protesters, including a member of parliament, forcefully entered the compound on Monday.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said Jewish worship was allowed at a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site as he visited the holy hilltop compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.
“Today, thank God, it is possible to pray on the Temple Mount, to bow (in prayer) on the Temple Mount,” he said, according to a statement from his office.
Palestinians and the broader Muslim world view Jewish visits to the sacred site as a provocation. An understanding between Israeli and religious authorities at the site holds that Jews cannot pray there.
Hamas is warning Palestinians in Gaza not to cooperate with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, claiming that the group aims to further Israel’s plans to transfer Gaza’s population to other countries. Hamas didn’t offer evidence for the claim.
