- Hamas has rejected an Israeli plan to bypass international aid agencies and distribute supplies directly inside Gaza’s militarised zones, saying aid must be handled by competent international or local government organisations, not used as “a tool of political blackmail”.
- The UN and humanitarian groups have repeatedly decried a “dangerous” Israeli “scheme” they say will deliver “rations” in “militarised zones”. The proposal comes as Israel has blocked all food deliveries for nine weeks.
- Meanwhile, Israel’s army chief Eyal Zamir says the military will call up tens of thousands of reservists to expand the assault on the besieged Gaza Strip.
- Israel’s war has killed at least 52,567 Palestinians and wounded 118,610, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The Government Media Office updated the death toll to more than 61,700, saying thousands of people missing under the rubble are presumed dead.
- An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, and more than 200 were taken captive.
Four more killed in Israeli air attack near Khan Younis
Israeli forces have carried out several more aerial attacks near southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, following raids earlier this morning, according to our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic.
One of the latest attacks hit the town of al-Qarara, killing at least one person and injuring another.
Separate bombardment targeted a home in Khan Younis’s Maen area, killing three others, according to our colleagues.
‘The occupation cannot be a humanitarian mediator’: Gaza Media Office
Gaza’s Government Media Office has categorically rejected “the malicious Israeli plan to distribute aid through it, as an occupying force, which violates humanitarian principles and perpetuates the blockade”.
It said Israel is seeking to impose a new mechanism for distributing humanitarian aid through centres under the control of its army and subject to arbitrary security conditions.
“This transforms aid from a neutral humanitarian effort into a tool for political blackmail and collective punishment,” an office statement published on Telegram said.
“The occupation cannot be a humanitarian mediator; rather, it is the source and instrument of the tragedy. Gaza needs no more promises, but rather an immediate lifting of the blockade, the opening of the crossings, the entry of aid, and the restoration of human dignity, which the occupation violates every hour,” it added.
‘Complete limbo’: Gaza’s morgues unable to identify thousands of dead bodies
Thousands of unidentified bodies have been brought to Gaza’s morgues, which, without access to DNA testing, are forced to bury them without names.
“The situation is devastating for their families on so many levels,” said Maha Hussaini, strategy director of the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.
“I know families who have been looking for their sons for around a year. They go to the morgues, they go to the hospitals, they go to mass graves. They sometimes go to the rubble and dig with their bare hands.”
“These families are left in limbo, complete limbo,” she told Al Jazeera from Gaza City.
With hundreds of Palestinians killed across Gaza every week – and 11,000 more already missing and presumed dead – the need for a sophisticated identification process in the Strip is “overwhelming”, added Hussaini.
But Israel is not even letting in heavy equipment to retrieve bodies from the rubble, let alone equipment to identify them, she said, calling it part of a strategy to “keep the situation unlivable”.
Israeli army claims to have destroyed bunkers, weapons near Lebanon-Syria border
The Israeli military says its forces have discovered the “central headquarters” of the former Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad at Mount Hermon in Syria’s occupied Golan Heights near the border with Lebanon.
“The forces located military infrastructure of the old regime, bunkers and numerous weapons, including cannons, launchers, mortars, rockets, explosive charges and mines,” it said in a statement. “All the resources were destroyed or confiscated by the forces.”
The Israeli military, which continues to occupy parts of Syria, including the Golan Heights, has continued to launch attacks across the country despite international condemnation.
Hamas urges global action to end Israeli ‘abuse’ of Palestinian prisoners
A statement attributed to Hamas leader Mahmoud Mardawi highlights “daily torture and abuse” facing Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Mardawi said international rights groups, specifically the Red Cross, have a responsibility to monitor Palestinian prisoners’ conditions and “take serious action” to end Israel’s “crimes” against them.
The appeal came a day after a 60-year-old prisoner died in Israeli custody – the 66th such death during Israel’s war on Gaza, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society.
Mardawi, according to the Hamas statement, “stressed the need for effective Palestinian action at all levels to rescue prisoners from the hell of prisons and send a clear message to the world that the Palestinian people will not abandon their prisoners to the oppression of the occupation”.
Two more killed in Gaza City, death toll since dawn rises to 28
Israeli forces have carried out another attack in Gaza City, targeting a residential building on the main Omar al-Mukhtar Street, according to our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic.
The attack killed at least two people and injured others, the team on the ground reported.
The latest deaths bring the total number of people killed in Gaza today to 28, according to local medical sources.
