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Here’s where things stand on Thursday 17 July 2025:
- Israeli attacks across Gaza have killed at least 29 people so far today, including two elderly people in a strike on the only Catholic church in the besieged territory.
- In Syria, government forces are withdrawing from the southern region of Suwayda as part of a ceasefire agreed with the Druze minority.
- The Syrian president accuses Israel of sowing divisions and trying to “ignite tension and chaos” in his country after Israel’s military hit the heart of Damascus in what it says was support for the Druze.
- Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 58,573 people and wounded 139,607, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks, and more than 200 were taken captive.
Death toll in Gaza rises to 29 since dawn
The number of people killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip today has risen again, reaching at least 29.
Twenty-three of the victims were in Gaza City, medical sources have told Al Jazeera.
Israeli Foreign Ministry expresses ‘deep sorrow’ over church attack
In a rare move, the Israeli Foreign Ministry has offered an apology regarding the attack on the Gaza church.
“Israel expresses deep sorrow over the damage to the Holy Family Church in Gaza City and over any civilian casualty,” the ministry said in a social media post, adding that an investigation was under way.
The ministry claimed that “Israel never targets churches or religious sites,” even though it has attacked dozens of mosques and churches since the start of the war on Gaza.
Last month, an independent United Nations commission report said Israel has committed the crime against humanity of “extermination” by attacking Palestinian civilians sheltering in religious sites and schools in Gaza.
The report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, said Israel has destroyed more than half of all religious and cultural sites in the territory, as well as more than 90 percent of school and university buildings in Gaza.
Syrian official says Israel’s attacks hinder search for chemical weapons
The Israeli air attacks on Damascus are hampering Syria’s efforts to find and destroy chemical weapons stockpiled during the rule of Bashar al-Assad, according to Syrian government adviser Ibrahim Olabi.
A planned visit by inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has already had to be postponed, Olabi, who is the legal adviser to Syria’s Foreign Ministry tasked with the chemical weapons file, told Reuters.
Syria’s interim government has pledged to rid itself of chemical weapons.
Since March, there have been several visits by inspectors to previously unseen production and storage locations for chemical weapons, to prepare for the task of destroying remnants of the illegal stockpile.
Israel to boost military spending in 2025 and 2026
The government will raise defence spending by 42 billion shekels ($12.5bn) this year and in 2026, the Israeli ministries of finance and defence have said.
The budget agreement will allow the Defense Ministry to “advance urgent and essential procurement deals critical to national security”, they said in a statement.
Pope Leo ‘deeply saddened’ over deadly Israeli church attack
The head of the Roman Catholic Church has said he is “deeply saddened to learn of the loss of life and injury caused by the military attack” on the Gaza church, according to a telegram signed on his behalf by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state.
Pope Leo “assures the parish priest, Father Gabriele Romanelli, and the whole parish community of his spiritual closeness”, the telegram said.
The pontiff renewed his “call for an immediate ceasefire, and he expresses his profound hope for dialogue, reconciliation and enduring peace in the region”.
The statement made no reference to the pope condemning the attack.
Photos: Protests in Syria’s Hama against Israeli attacks
‘We know for sure tank hit Gaza church directly’: Cardinal
Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, says in comments to Vatican News that two of the people wounded in the Israeli attack on the Catholic church in Gaza are at risk of death.
“There are four people seriously wounded. Among these four, two are in very dramatic conditions, and their lives are in serious danger,” Pizzaballa was quoted as saying.
“What we know for sure is that a tank – the [Israeli army] says by mistake, but we are not sure about this – they hit the church directly, the Church of the Holy Family, the Latin church,” he added.
Israeli settlers harass shepherds in occupied West Bank
In the latest incident of settler violence in the West Bank, Israeli settlers have chased Palestinian shepherds and tried to steal their livestock in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, Wafa reports.
The news agency quoted residents as saying that the incident took place in the area of Khirbet Aqwawis. No injuries were immediately reported.
The area was the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, a Palestinian-Israeli production that depicts life in the beleaguered community.
Muslim country group slams transfer of Ibrahimi Mosque to settler council
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has condemned an Israeli decision to transfer the administration of the occupied West Bank’s Ibrahimi Mosque from the Palestinian-run Hebron municipality to the Jewish religious council in the Kiryat Arba settlement.
In a statement, the OIC called the move “a blatant violation of international resolutions, including those issued by UNESCO”.
It added the decision reflects Israel’s attempts to “alter the historical, legal and religious status of Islamic holy sites in the occupied Palestinian territory” and to “impose purported Israeli sovereignty over Palestinian land”.
The OIC stated that all Israeli decisions and actions in the occupied Palestinian territory are illegal and invalid under international law and urged the international community to act to protect the Palestinian population and its holy sites.
Israel’s church attack kills 60-year-old janitor, 84-year-old woman
We have more information on the two people killed in the Israeli attack on the Catholic church in Gaza City today.
They have been identified as the parish’s 60-year-old janitor and an 84-year-old woman who was receiving psychosocial support inside a Caritas tent in the church compound, according to the Catholic charity Caritas Jerusalem.
Israel’s Syria strikes: A show of ‘regional strength’ and a nod to Druze ‘influence’
Meron Rapoport, editor of the Israeli news site Local Call, says two main political calculations factored into the Israeli decision to strike Syria: responding to the pressure from the Israeli Druze community and showing that Israel has become the dominant power in the region.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, he said members of Israel’s Druze community “play quite an important role in the Israeli army” and “are very vocal in supporting brothers” in Syria.
This is something that Israel “cannot ignore because they serve in such high places in the army”, Rapoport added.
“But it is also part of Israel trying to show it is the hegemonic power in the Middle East, that everything in the region should be played according to its will, especially in Syria, which is becoming a sort of playground for Israel,” he said.
“It wants Syria weak and divided, and it seems it is getting what it wants.”
Number of people killed in Gaza rises
The number of people killed in Israeli attacks so far today across the Gaza Strip has risen to at least 25, according to medical sources.
Nineteen of the victims were in Gaza City, the sources told Al Jazeera.
Netanyahu facing divisions in Israel after Syria attacks
Netanyahu is accused within Israel of recklessness in attacking Damascus and of attempting to buy time in order not to reach a ceasefire agreement in Gaza.
The head of the opposition, Yair Lapid, said that while he has a lot of respect for Israeli Druze, what Netanyahu did was irresponsible and not strategic. Some experts within the intelligence community have made similar comments.
But there is a lot of focus in Israeli media on what the Israeli Druze leaders are saying and how they appreciate what Netanyahu is doing.
The leaders of the sect in Israel have welcomed the military intervention, completely sidelining the Druze community of the occupied Syrian Golan, who identify as Syrians and have rejected Israel’s exploitation of their plight to achieve territorial expansion.
The UK celebrities rallying for Gaza
Egyptian British actor Khaled Abdalla remembers sitting on his father’s shoulders as a three-year-old, peering over a sea of heads and waving flags as chants of “free Palestine” rose around him.
It was the early 1980s, a time when hearing “Palestine” was rare in the UK. The details of those moments in Glasgow are faint, but he remembers how important the protest felt to his father and the crowds around them.
Decades later, Abdalla – most known for his roles in The Kite Runner and The Crown – is still marching. But now he carries the weight of his public platform.
“After October 7, my first act was at The Crown premiere in LA, with ‘Ceasefire Now’ written on my hand,” he said. “I didn’t know if that would immediately terminate my career. But it opened up a space far more positive than I expected. In standing up, I found my people, and my people found me.”
Since then, Abdalla has used every stage he can. At the Emmys, he wrote “Never Again” on his palm before stepping onto the red carpet.
“Each time I’ve done something like that, there has been fear,” he said, adding that while being cancelled does not worry him, he sometimes feels uncertain about how his protests might be received. “My first protest was on my father’s shoulders when I was three. I don’t want that to be the fate of my grandchildren.”
Read more here.
Photos: Aftermath of Israeli attack on UNRWA-run school in central Gaza
Time for a recap
If you have just joined us, let’s bring you up to speed with the latest developments:
- Medical sources tell Al Jazeera that at least 22 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks so far today.
- Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has condemned an Israeli attack on Gaza’s only Catholic church that wounded at least six people, including a priest.
- An investigation by a journalism consortium has found that Europe’s top missile manufacturer is supplying Israel with essential parts of bombs, which may have killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
- Two Israeli soldiers have been “seriously injured” in fighting in northern Gaza, the Israeli military says.
- At least one person has been killed and two have been wounded in an Israeli attack on southern Lebanon, the country’s Health Ministry says.
- Syrian government forces have withdrawn from areas they entered in recent days in Suwayda, the heartland of the Druze minority in southern Syria.
How long have Christians lived in Gaza?
Gaza’s Christian legacy stretches right back to the days when the faith was a persecuted sect, promising salvation to the downtrodden.
In the Bible, after Jesus Christ’s crucifixion, Philip the Apostle travelled down the desert road from Jerusalem to Gaza to spread the word. According to the scriptures, Philip was present at the wedding feast at Cana in Galilee, where Jesus turned water into wine.
The oldest church in the territory is the Church of Saint Porphyrius, which was bombed by Israel early on in the war. It was originally founded in the 5th century after the death of the eponymous bishop who converted the city’s pagans to Christianity, burning idols and temples. After the Persian conquest of the 7th century, the church was converted into a mosque. It was later rebuilt by the Crusaders in the 12th century.
Palestine’s Christians, totalling 50,000 across the occupied territory, are sometimes referred to as “living stones”, a metaphor first invoked by Peter the Apostle – the ex-fisherman called upon to be a disciple of Jesus – to describe the role of believers in building the spiritual house of God.
Today, the term harks back to their special status as custodians of a faith born on their land.
Israeli army issues statement on church attack
We have the first statement by the Israeli army on the attack on the Catholic church in Gaza.
In a statement on Telegram, a spokesman said the army is aware of the “claim” regarding damage to the church and injuries at the site.
The incident is “under investigation”, the spokesman added.
Since the start of the war on Gaza, Israel has repeatedly attacked religious sites, including mosques and churches.
In October 2023, just days after the war began, Israeli forces bombed the Church of Saint Porphyrius, the Gaza Strip’s oldest, killing at least 18 people.
What is the Holy Family Church that was hit in Gaza?
- The Holy Family Church is the only Catholic church in the Gaza Strip.
- The church was sheltering both Christians and Muslims, including several children with disabilities, according to Fadel Naem, the acting director of al-Ahli Hospital that received those wounded in the attack earlier today.
- The injured include one child with disabilities, two women, and an elderly person.
- Naem told AP that at least two people were in critical condition.
- The church is a short distance from the al-Ahli Hospital, and the area has been repeatedly struck for more than a week, he said.
- Only about 1,000 Christians live in Gaza, an overwhelmingly Muslim territory, according to a US State Department report in 2024.
- The majority of Palestinian Christians are Greek Orthodox, but there are also other denominations, including Roman Catholic.
Syrian president accuses Israel of ‘sowing division’ after attacks
Ahmed al-Sharaa has addressed the nation in a televised address during which he accused Israel of trying to turn Syria into a “theatre of endless chaos”.