Palestinian Authority PM warns of growing disaster in Gaza

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa has thanked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for supporting the Palestinian cause during Israel’s onslaught.

Mustafa expressed appreciation for Turkiye’s efforts to end attacks on Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

During their meeting, the prime minister emphasised the need for increased international pressure to stop Israel from creating famine in Gaza because of its total blockade of desperately needed humanitarian aid.

Mustafa also briefed Erdogan on the deteriorating situation in the occupied West Bank during weeks-long Israeli military raids and settler attacks.

Erdogan reiterated Turkiye’s unwavering support for Palestine and readiness to contribute to Gaza’s reconstruction once Israel’s war ends.

Qassam Brigades releases footage of Israeli American captive

The  armed wing of Hamas has released a video showing captured Israeli soldier Edan Alexander who holds dual Israeli-US citizenship.

Alexander is seen sitting in a tiny space in the more than three-minute clip.

“We really think we’ll come home dead. There’s nothing to say, no hope,” he says.

Getting aid into Gaza ‘very difficult’: Red Cross chief

Attacks on humanitarian workers must immediately stop, the head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies says.

“Getting humanitarian assistance to Gaza has been very, very difficult, and for the last more than a month, no aid has been entering the country,” Jagan Chapagain told Anadolu news agency during Turkiye’s Antalya Diplomacy Forum.

Israel halted the entry of all humanitarian aid into Gaza on March 2. Its soldiers also gunned down 15 Palestinian rescue personnel in Rafah last month.

“We have asked, really, that … killings of the humanitarian workers must stop everywhere in the world,” he said, adding “fundamental principles and international emergency law must be respected.”

The Israeli military is shooting anyone who moves in Shujayea

The  situation in Gaza City’s Shujayea has been very intense and very dangerous, as the Israeli forces have advanced after the evacuation orders were issued yesterday.

Palestinians in that area, especially those who did not evacuate, are now trapped.

The Israeli tanks are surrounding the area, and they have been stationed in a very strategic point that overlooks the entire neighborhood.

Palestinians in that area are saying that whoever is moving or tries to move from one place to another is being shot by the Israeli soldiers.

Israeli forces have also been targeting different areas in Khan Younis. The last one was an air strike on a group of people, where a Palestinian was killed.

Israeli forces have also announced that they have completed the Morag corridor, which they have been working on since they started their invasion in Rafah.

According to Israeli officials, this is another Philadelphi Corridor, but this one splits Khan Younis and Rafah.

It’s important to know that most agricultural lands are in Rafah, specifically near the Morag corridor.

Teenage boy shot by Israeli forces near Bethlehem

Wafa  news agency, citing local security sources, reports that a Palestinian teenager was shot by Israeli forces during a military raid on the town of Beit Fajjar, south of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, last night.

The Palestinian news agency said soldiers stormed the town and fired live ammunition and sound grenades towards residents.

The boy, who is 17 years old, was shot in the foot and is receiving treatment at a hospital, Wafa reported.

Qatar condemns Israel’s closure of UNRWA schools in Jerusalem

A statement from the country’s Foreign Ministry says “it considers the deprivation of children from education a new crime in the ongoing series of Israeli crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories”.

Israel effectively banned UNRWA, the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, via legislation at the beginning of this year, rendering the agency unable to carry out its work in the occupied West Bank, Israel or occupied East Jerusalem.

Qatar’s statement also stressed “the need for the international community to act urgently to hold Israel accountable and oblige it to comply with international laws”.

Gaza City official: Israel prevents water pipeline repair

A spokesperson for the Gaza City municipality says Israel’s continued disruption of the Mekorot pipeline is exacerbating the Strip’s water crisis.

The military halted the flow of water from Israeli company Mekorot to the Gaza Strip in early April, cutting off 70 percent of the Palestinian enclave’s water supply.

The spokesperson said Israeli forces are denying access to repair crews seeking to fix damaged water infrastructure, and that repairs could be made, bringing desperately needed water to parts of the city, in only 24 hours.

Israel kills one in Khan Younis

Another Palestinian has been killed in an Israeli drone attack in central Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, our correspondent reports.

Israel has been attacking Khan Younis all day, killing in one strike several displaced people in a tent shelter.

Medicine stocks in Gaza hospitals ‘dangerous, unprecedented’

The  Ministry of Health in Gaza said hospitals and medics are experiencing a severe shortage of medicines and medical supplies, which have not been replenished for some 40 days due to Israel’s complete blockade of the Strip.

Israel has destroyed 34 of the 38 hospitals in the Gaza Strip so far, leaving only four hospitals operating at limited capacity despite their severe damage, according to the latest statistics from the Government Media Office.

The situation in Gaza is now ‘absolutely catastrophic’: OCHA

Olga Cherevko, a staff member with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), spoke to Al Jazeera from Deir el-Balah.

Here is a summary of what she said:

• More than 400,000 people have now been displaced in just over three weeks.
• A “massive shortage of water” and water facilities have been damaged and destroyed, leading to “absolutely appalling” hygiene conditions.
• The destruction is so vast that OCHA has been unable to repair all facilities, and some water wells are currently within the areas that are under evacuation orders.
• OCHA has had to rely on water trucking and has set up water points across the Gaza Strip.
• A lack of water has contributed to the spread of skin rashes and public health issues, including fleas, mites and lice.
• “Absolutely zero supplies have come in in over 40 days”, which means OCHA  is “running out of everything, including critical medical and trauma supplies.”

Israel continues to escalate its attacks across the Gaza Strip

Israeli forces have just bombed a house in Khan Younis. Injuries have been reported, and ambulances are heading to that area.

But let me remind you that it’s very hard for ambulances to reach that house because of the destroyed roads and all the rubble on the streets.

An Israeli quadcopter has also targeted a Palestinian in Nuseirat.

Overnight, Israeli forces bombed a house in Gaza City’s Shujayea where two Palestinians were killed.

There have been evacuation orders for Shujayea and Khan Younis yesterday.

There has been ongoing artillery shelling in different areas across the Gaza Strip, in the north, in the central area, and also in the South, in Rafah and Khan Younis.

Palestinians are still trapped under the rubble, and most of those injured and killed are women and children.

It’s not only the ongoing air strikes that are making the situation so dire across the Gaza Strip. It’s also the mass displacement and the mass starvation. Not a single truck carrying aid, food, cooking gas, or fuel has entered the Strip for almost six weeks.

Israel Katz said that the military would continue its ground operation in Gaza “with increasing intensity” until all of the hostages “both living and dead” were returned.

It is thought 24 of the 59 hostages still held in Gaza are alive, but their fate remains in the balance after negotiations on the second phase of the ceasefire deal failed to progress.

The fragile ceasefire that had been in place since January ended this week as Israel resumed its ground campaign and bombing of Gaza, killing hundreds of people.

The situation in the Strip has been described as “gravely, gravely concerning” with “absolutely desperate tragedies occurring all over Gaza” by Sam Rose from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa.

Israel and the US have accused Hamas of rejecting proposals to extend the ceasefire. Hamas has said it is “engaging with the mediators with full responsibility and seriousness”.

However, Katz said in a statement on Friday that “the more Hamas continues its refusal, the more territory it will lose to Israel”.

Katz added that Israel still agreed to a proposal, which was brought by US envoy Steve Witkoff, “to release all the kidnapped, both living and dead, in advance and in two stages with a ceasefire in between”.

“We will intensify the fighting with strikes from the air, sea and land and by expanding the ground manoeuvre until the hostages are released and Hamas is defeated,” Katz wrote.

The defence minister also said Israel would “implement US President Trump’s voluntary transfer plan for Gaza residents”.

Trump said he wants the US to take over and rebuild the Gaza Strip, while permanently removing its population of two million Palestinians.

The Palestinian Authority and Hamas have said Gaza is “not for sale”, while the UN warned that any forced displacement of civilians from occupied territory is strictly prohibited under international law and “tantamount to ethnic cleansing”.

Months of negotiations, led by the US, Qatar and Egypt, saw a ceasefire deal proposed in three stages. Israel and Hamas failed to agree on how to take the truce beyond the first phase.

The plan stalled when the US and Israel proposed to extend stage one. Hamas rejected the change and said it was a “blatant attempt” by Israel “to evade the agreement”.

The ceasefire was broken on Tuesday when Israel launched a heavy wave of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, killing more than 430 people in two days, the Hamas-run health ministry said. On Thursday, Hamas launched three rockets at Tel Aviv.

Blaming Hamas for the resumption of violence, Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said the group had “rejected every hostage deal”.

Israel says Hamas is still holding 59 hostages, 24 of whom are believed to still be alive.

On Friday, the acting US ambassador to the UN squarely blamed Hamas for the ongoing war and resumption of fighting.

“Every death would have been avoided had Hamas accepted the bridge proposal,” Dorothy Shea told the UN Security Council.

Hamas has denied it is responsible for stalling the negotiations, and said it “remains deeply involved” and is “engaging with the mediators with full responsibility and seriousness”.

In a statement on Telegram, Hamas wrote it is discussing “the Witkoff proposal and other different ideas put forward, all with the goal of securing a prisoner exchange deal that ensures the release of prisoners, ends the war, and achieves a withdrawal” [of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip].

In his statement, Katz also said that civilians would be evacuated from the areas the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are targeting.

Previous evacuation orders have sent panic through Palestinians families, many of whom have been displaced repeatedly by the war and have few safe options left.

Israel blocked all food, fuel and medical supplies entering Gaza at the beginning of March in order to put pressure on Hamas. It accused Hamas of commandeering the provisions as part of its strategy against Israel, though did not provide evidence for this claim.

The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.

More than 49,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since then, the Hamas-run health ministry says, and there is large-scale destruction to homes and infrastructure in the Strip.

Hours later, Israel’s military said it had intercepted three rockets, which Hamas’s armed wing said it fired at Tel Aviv in response.

It comes after Israel resumed its bombing campaign and ground operations in Gaza this week, with air strikes having already killed more than 500 people over the past two days, according to the health ministry.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Thursday that it had started a ground operation in northern Gaza. There had been a reprieve from large-scale military action since January, when a ceasefire had begun.

Gaza’s health ministry also reported that 133 people were injured in the latest attacks on Thursday.

Israel resumed attacks on Tuesday as talks to extend the ceasefire deal failed to progress, warning that they would intensify until Hamas released the remaining hostages.

Israel says Hamas is still holding 59 hostages, 24 of whom are believed to still be alive.

IDF spokesperson Col Avichay Adraee said Hamas had fired three rockets from southern Gaza. One was intercepted, while the other two fell in an “open area”, he wrote in a post on X.

The Israeli military said earlier on Thursday that it had begun “targeted ground activities” to create what it called a “partial buffer between the north and south” of Gaza. It called the action a “limited ground operation”.

Col Adraee said forces were deployed up to the centre of a strip, known as the Netzarim Corridor, which divides northern and southern Gaza.

Gaza’s health ministry says at least 591 people, including more than 200 children, have been killed since Israel resumed fighting on Tuesday.

Israeli government spokesman, David Mencer, blamed Hamas for the resumption of violence, saying it had “forced this escalation, it rejected every hostage deal, including the offers mediated by the US and others”.

Meanwhile, five staff members of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency Unrwa were among those killed over the “past few days”, the agency’s chief Philippe Lazzarini said in a post on X.

“They were teachers, doctors and nurses,” he added, warning that “the worst is yet to come” amid the ongoing ground invasion.

On Wednesday, the UN said that one of its workers had been killed after its compound in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza was damaged. While it said the circumstances remain unclear, UN Office for Project Services head Jorge Moreira said it was “not an accident” and “at least an incident”.

Gaza’s health ministry blamed an Israeli strike, which it said injured five others. Israel’s military said it did not attack the compound but was investigating the incident.

The US – a major weapons supplier to Israel – said that it was committed to international law regarding the supply of weapons supplies.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said US President Donald Trump “fully supports Israel and the IDF in the actions that they’ve taken in recent days”.

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy confirmed on Thursday that a UK national had been wounded in the compound attack. It comes after a charity said one of its workers, a 51-year-old British bomb disposal expert, had been injured.

“Our priority is supporting them and their family at this time,” he told MPs.

At the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, Qasim Abu Sharqiya said his two-year-old son, Omar, had been born through in vitro fertilisation (IVF) after five years of trying.

“They bombed a tent next to us and he died,” he told AFP. “Omar is my only son, oh world, and I have no one else.”

A doctor there, Tanya Haj Hassan, told the BBC’s Newshour that she had heard of at least 76 people who “didn’t even make it into the ER” but were taken “straight to the mortuary”.

She recalled “a level of horror and evil that is really hard to articulate – it felt like Armageddon”.

Thousands of Israelis joined anti-Netanyahu protests in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, calling for the return of the hostages.

Several arrests were made, with police in Jerusalem deploying a water cannon against demonstrators.

Elsewhere, Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired a ballistic missile at Israel on Thursday, aiming for Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, the Iran-backed group’s military spokesperson said.

No injuries were reported and the IDF said the missile was stopped before entering Israel.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that it had “resumed combat in full force” and any ceasefire negotiations would now take place “under fire”.

A group representing hostages’ families has accused the Israeli government of choosing “to give up the hostages” by launching new strikes.

Israel and Hamas have failed to agree how to take the ceasefire beyond the first phase, which expired on 1 March.

Hamas did not agree to a renegotiation of the ceasefire on Israel’s terms, although it offered to release a living American hostage and four hostages’ bodies as mediators tried to prolong the ceasefire.

Israel blocked all food, fuel and medical supplies entering Gaza at the beginning of March in order to put pressure on Hamas. It accused Hamas of commandeering the provisions as part of its strategy against Israel, though did not provide evidence for this claim.

The war was triggered by Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people, mainly civilians, were killed and 251 other taken hostage. Twenty-five Israeli and five Thai hostages were released alive during the first phase of the ceasefire.

Israel responded to the 7 October attack with a massive military offensive, which had killed more than 48,500 Palestinians, mainly civilians, before Israel resumed its campaign, the Hamas-run health ministry says. Israel’s offensive has also caused huge amounts of destruction to homes and infrastructure.

In a letter dictated over the phone to his family from an ICE detention facility in Louisiana, Mahmoud Khalil said he is a “political prisoner” and that he believes he was targeted for “exercising my right to free speech”.

Born in Syria, Mr Khalil is a green card holder and recent graduate of Columbia University. He was a prominent figure during the Gaza war protests on campus in the spring of 2024.

His arrest has been linked to President Donald Trump’s promise to crack down on student demonstrators he accuses of “un-American activity.”

Trump has alleged repeatedly that pro-Palestinian activists, including Mr Khalil, support Hamas, group designated as a foreign terrorist organisation by the US. The president argues these protesters should be deported and called Mr Khalil’s arrest “the first of many to come”.

The day after, Mr Khalil’s arrest, Secretary of State Marco Rubio reaffirmed the administration’s stance, posting on X: “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”

The 30-year-old’s lawyers have argued that he was exercising free speech rights to demonstrate in support of Palestinians in Gaza and against US support for Israel. They accused the government of “open repression of student activism and political speech”.

In his letter, released Tuesday, Mr Khalil said he believes he was arrested because he “advocated for a free Palestine”.

He also detailed his arrest, saying he and his wife were “accosted” on their way home from dinner by Department of Homeland Security agents “who refused to provide a warrant”.

“Before I knew what was happening, agents handcuffed me and forced me into an unmarked car,” he said, adding that he was not told anything for hours, including the cause for his arrest.

Mr Khalil said he spent the night at 26 Federal Plaza, a federal office building in New York that includes an immigration court. Later, he was transported to a detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where he said he was refused a blanket and forced to sleep on the ground.

He was transferred again to a detention facility in Louisiana, where he remains in custody. Mr Khalil’s lawyers have been in court since to fight for his release.

Last week, his lawyers pushed to bring him back to New York and accused the Trump administration of attempting to restrict access to their client. The judge did not issue a ruling at the hearing, but directed prosecutors to prove why the case should take place elsewhere.

In his letter, Mr Khalil called his detention “unjust” and said it was “indicative of the anti-Palestinian racism that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past 16 months.”

He added that both administrations have “continued to supply Israel with weapons to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention”. He noted Israel’s resumption of air strikes on Gaza on Monday night that killed 400, according to the Hamas-run health authority.

Mr Khalil also took aim at Columbia University’s leadership for its disciplining of pro-Palestinian students, saying that the school’s actions laid the groundwork for students like him to be targeted.

Columbia University has stated that law enforcement can enter campus property with a warrant, but the school denied that university leadership had invited ICE agents.

Amid the protests early last year, Mr Khalil was briefly suspended from the university, after police swarmed the campus following the occupation of a building.

At the time, he told the BBC that while he was acting as a key protest negotiator with Columbia officials, he had not participated directly in the student encampment because he was worried it could affect his student visa.

Back then, he said that he would continue protesting. But more recently, Mr Khalil’s wife said her husband had grown worried about deportation, after facing online attacks that “were simply not based in reality”.

She said he sent Columbia University an email asking for urgent legal help on 7 March, the day before immigration agents arrested him. Mr Khalil’s wife, who is a US citizen, is now eight months pregnant.

The White House has continued to defend its move.

“This administration is not going to tolerate individuals having the privilege of studying in our country and then siding with pro-terrorist organisations that have killed Americans,” said Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary.

Mr Khalil said his story is a warning to others in the US, saying it is part of a broader strategy by the Trump administration to “suppress dissent.”

“Visa-holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs,” he warned.

But then the rat-a-tat of gunfire began, and explosions. Then came the sound of people screaming.

Essam Abu Odeh and his family had been sleeping when the war planes came again.

“Around 02:00 [midnight GMT], we were suddenly awakened by the sounds of heavy shelling,” he told the BBC’s Gaza radio service.

“My daughter woke me up, warning me about the bombs. We quickly took shelter against the walls, fearing that rubble might fall on us.”

Israel’s planes tore in from the north to sweep across the strip, striking Gaza City in the centre and then targets further south in Rafah and Khan Younis.

The blitz on Monday night killed more than 400 people, mostly women and children, local health authorities run by Hamas said. They did not identify the number of combatants killed – Israel says it targeted Hamas commanders.

More than 600 more are injured. Once again, hospitals in the territory were inundated, doctors on night shift battling a sudden influx of injured, many of them children.

The BBC met the family of one injured man, Ahmad Mo’in al-Jumla, at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. He had been at the Beach refugee camp in al-Ahrar when it was hit.

“We were shocked this area was targeted,” says his sister, noting they couldn’t find him at first.

“From the night until morning, we couldn’t figure out if he was injured or not, because the scene was horrific, and no one had any news – the entire building had collapsed on everyone in that area.”

At 05:00, they pulled him out from under the rubble. He was alive – but was rushed to hospital with fractures and a brain injury.

His family too endured their own ordeal when their neighbourhood was hit. “Suddenly, we found the house collapsing on us, rubble falling from every direction,” his sister said.

“We tried to get out, we wanted to escape but there was nothing. It was night and suddenly there was bombing on the house.”

“The war resumed abruptly, without warning,” says another Gaza resident M.

He was getting up for his Suhoor, or pre-dawn meal, when his street was struck by gunfire and shelling.

“A sense of terror swept through the area,” he says. “Everyone was filled with fear – unsure of where to go or if we could be displaced again.”

“Fear has once again gripped the people, especially as we are in the month of Ramadan,” he said.

Israel pounded Gaza throughout the morning, the strikes easing as the sun came up.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the attacks, his office said, after Hamas failed to release more hostages or accept US proposals for extending a ceasefire that had held since late January.

Since the first phase of the ceasefire had come to an end earlier this month, there had been fears of the fighting resuming again – especially as talks stalled two days ago.

The White House on Monday night was briefed by Israel before they resumed their attacks.

But those living in Gaza were blindsided. The return of the warplanes shattered what had been two months of a fragile peace.

“I was shocked that the war started again, but at the same time, this is what we expect from the Israelis,” Hael a resident from Jabalia al-Balad told BBC Arabic.

“We were not surprised; we expect this at any moment,” he says about the truce’s collapse. “But the shock is enormous – 200 martyrs [people killed] in moments. As a citizen, I’m exhausted. We’ve had enough – a year-and-a-half to this! It’s enough”, he said.

Before the ceasefire in late January, the war had gone on for 15 months with Israeli airstrikes and bombardments killing more than 46,000 Palestinians in Gaza.

Umm Mohammed Abou Aisha, living in Deir al-Balah in the east, had managed to survive with her mother throughout that period.

But her mother was killed on Tuesday morning. Her last memory is of her entering the kitchen, saying she wanted to make her morning meal.

“My mother woke up as usual to prepare her Suhoor meal, getting ready to fast but not ready for fighting,” she told Reuters news agency.

The strike hit their neighbour’s home, blasting the vicinity, she said.

She has questioned the state of the supposed peace. “Life is getting harder, there is no truce or ceasefire.”

“There are snipers [stationed] daily in front of the citizens, continuous strikes. There is nothing of what was agreed upon [in the ceasefire].

Another resident, Mohammed Bdeir, said his daughter was killed – their street was bombed as the whole family was sleeping.

“[We] suddenly woke up on the strike, they hit our neighbours… we found this girl beneath the rubble, we pulled her mother and father from under the rubble.”

He then found his daughter’s body there too, he told AFP news agency.

South-east of Gaza City, Ramez Alammarin, 25, described carrying children to a hospital.

“They unleashed the fire of hell again on Gaza,” he told AFP, adding that “bodies and limbs are on the ground, and the wounded cannot find any doctor to treat them”.

Hospital authorities in Gaza have told the BBC many patients being carried in are suffering severe head injuries and bleeding, burns, fractures.

“The attacks were so sudden that the number of medical staff was inadequate for the scale of these large strikes,” said Dr. Mohammed Zaqout, Director General of Gaza Strip’s hospitals.

He notes there are only seven hospitals able to operate across the territory at the moment, after 15 months of war. And despite the truce, few medical supplies had been allowed into Gaza.

Another doctor described the situation as catastrophic. There’s a severe shortage of medical and surgical equipment, intensive care beds, medications.

“Even the medical staff have been completely exhausted after more than a year-and-a-half of continuous emergency work,” said Dr Muhammad Abu Salmiya.

“We have seen many wounded people lose their lives right in front of us simply because there are no medical supplies or any possible way to offer them care.”

He called Israel’s actions at dawn a “massacre against sleeping civilians in the Gaza Strip”.

The most admissions so far have been at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis in the south. People were rushing stretchers with the wounded to the hospital.

Bodies covered in white sheets were also taken to the hospital’s mortuary. Families were gathering for funerals in the street.

Essam, the father woken by his young daughter this morning, says he’s begging mediating countries to bring an end to their suffering.

“We do not want war to be resumed. We seek peace so that we can live and sleep without fear,” he told the BBC.

Last year, pro-Palestine protesters staged demonstrations at Senate House Yard and Greenwich House which “forced” a graduation ceremony to be moved, university lawyers said.

A previous effort to impose a five-year injunction prohibiting direct action relating to the conflict without its consent on several sites was rejected by a judge in February.

The European Legal Support Center (ELSC), which opposes the university’s bid, said an injunction would be a “disproportionate infringement” on the protesters’ human rights.

The university’s latest bid seeks to block protests on graduations planned until 26 July.

Myriam Stacey KC, for the university, told a High Court hearing on Wednesday there was a “real and imminent risk” of further action on campus.

She said the protesters seemed to be mostly affiliated with the group Cambridge for Palestine, whose stated aims online include for the university to “divest from institutions and companies complicit in the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine”.

The sought-after injunction is against “persons unknown”, as it is impossible to know which individuals will take part in demonstrations in the future, Ms Stacey said.

She told the court it was the activity the university sought to stop, “not the viewpoint”, and it took “an entirely neutral approach” aiming to “balance the rights of all students and parties”.

Owen Greenhall, for ELSC, said the university was discriminating against the “race and/or political belief” of protesters as it was only after pro-Palestine actions that it sought the injunction, allowing other demonstrations such as those for Ukraine or industrial action.

He also said the proposed injunction was “not necessary” and that the university “has not identified any serious risk sufficient to justify the extreme rights infringement now sought”.

The hearing, before Mr Justice Soole, is expected to conclude on Thursday with judgment given on Friday.

In a defiant video statement, he warned that “negotiations will continue only under fire” and that “this is just the beginning”.

His comments came after Israeli aircraft launched massive airstrikes against what the military said were Hamas targets in Gaza.

More than 400 people have been killed in the attacks, the Hamas-run health ministry said, andhundreds more injured.

The wave of strikes was the heaviest since a ceasefire began on 19 January.

The fragile truce had mostly held until now, but this new wave of attacks suggests plans for a permanent end to the war may be off the table.

The airstrikes which hit Beit Lahia, Rafah, Nuseirat and Al-Mawasion Tuesday shattered the relative peace that Gazans had been experiencing since January, and hospitals are once again overrun with casualties.

The attacks on Gaza have been condemned by Egypt, a mediator in the talks.

The air strikes are “a blatant violation” of the ceasefire agreement and represent “a dangerous escalation”, said Tamim Khallaf, the spokesman for the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“I was shocked that the war started again, but at the same time, this is what we expect from the Israelis,” Hael a resident from Jabalia al-Balad told BBC Arabic.

“As a citizen, I’m exhausted. We’ve had enough – a year-and-a-half to this! It’s enough,” he added.

Key Hamas figures were killed in the airstrikes, including Major General Mahmoud Abu Watfa, deputy interior minister in Gaza and the highest-ranking Hamas security official.

In his address, Netanyahu said Israel had tried to negotiate with Hamas to release the Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza. He accused Hamas of rejecting the proposals every time.

Israel and Hamas have disagreed on how to take the ceasefire deal forward since the first phase expired in early March, after numerous exchanges of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.

The deal involves three stages, and negotiations on the second stage were meant to have started six weeks ago – but this did not happen.

Instead, the agreement was thrown into uncertainty when the US and Israel wanted to change the terms of the deal, to extend stage one which would see more hostages released.

That would have delayed the start of phase two, which was meant to establish a permanent ceasefire and required Israeli troops to pull out of Gaza.

But Hamas rejected this proposed change to the agreement brokered by US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators, calling it unacceptable.BBC Verify: mapping Israel’s wave of strikes

On Tuesday evening, Netanyahu said Israel would continue to fight to achieve all of its war goals – “to return the hostages, get rid of Hamas and make sure Hamas is not a threat to Israel.”

US President Donald Trump’s administration was consulted by Israel before it carried out the strikes, officials said.

The US National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said: “Hamas could have released hostages to extend the ceasefire, but instead chose refusal and war.”

Hamas warned the resumption of violence by Israel would “impose a death sentence” on the remaining living hostages held in Gaza, and accused Israel of trying to force it into a surrender.

Speaking to the BBC about the attacks, Dr Sabrina Das, an obstetrician training Palestinian doctors in southern Gaza, said: “It was all very sudden… everybody’s mood was just shattered because we knew it was the start of the war again.”

Dr Das said her colleagues in Nasar hospital were “up all night operating” because “mass casualties had started coming in again”.

Mohammed Zaquot, director general of the Gaza Strip’s hospitals, told BBC Arabic “the attacks were so sudden that the number of medical staff available was inadequate for the scale of these large strikes, and additional teams were called in immediately to assist”.

A group representing hostages’ families has accused the Israeli government of choosing “to give up the hostages” by launching new strikes – and has been protesting outside the Israeli parliament.

The news of the strikes terrified some of the families of Israeli hostages still being held by Hamas.

“The Israeli government is not perfect, and Israel is not doing enough, because my brothers are not home”, Liran Berman, whose twin brothers are still being held in Gaza, told the BBC.

“But if Hamas wanted, the hostages would be back. They are in their hands.”

Israel says Hamas is still holding 59 hostages, 24 of whom are believed to be alive.

The war was triggered when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 back to Gaza as captives.

Israel responded with a massive military offensive, which has killed more than 48,500 Palestinians, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says, and caused huge destruction to homes and infrastructure.

It comes after Israel resumed its bombing campaign and ground operations in the territory this week, with air strikes killing more than 430 people over two days, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Hamas says the ground operation announced by Israel on Wednesday is a “new and dangerous” violation of the ceasefire deal, which began in January. Israel resumed attacks on Tuesday as talks to extend the deal failed to progress.

Israel has warned that attacks will intensify in Gaza until Hamas releases the remaining hostages.

Israel says Hamas is still holding 59 hostages, 24 of whom are believed to be alive.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Thursday it had begun “targeted ground activities” to create what it called a “partial buffer between the north and south” in Gaza. It called the action a “limited ground operation”.

IDF spokesperson Col Avichay Adraee said forces were deployed up to the centre of a strip known as the Netzarim corridor which divides northern and southern Gaza.

On Tuesday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it had “resumed combat in full force” and any ceasefire negotiations would now take place “under fire”.

Israel and Hamas have failed to agree how to take the ceasefire beyond the first phase, which expired on 1 March.

Hamas did not agree to a renegotiation of the ceasefire on Israel’s terms, although it offered to release a living American hostage and four hostages’ bodies as mediators tried to keep the ceasefire going.

Israel blocked all food, fuel and medical supplies entering Gaza at the beginning of March in order to put pressure on Hamas. It accused Hamas of commandeering the provisions as part of its strategy against Israel, though without providing evidence.

The war was triggered by Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 in which about 1,200 people, mainly civilians, were killed and 251 other taken hostage. Twenty-five Israeli and five Thai hostages were released alive during the first phase of the ceasefire.

Israel responded to the October attack with a massive military offensive, which had killed more than 48,500 Palestinians, mainly civilians, before Israel resumed its campaign, the Hamas-run health ministry says. Israel’s offensive has also caused huge amounts of destruction to homes and infrastructure.

Answering questions in the Commons on Monday, Lammy twice stated Israel’s 16-day blockade preventing humanitarian supplies into Gaza was a “breach” of international law.

This led to the prime minister’s official spokesperson reconfirming that the government’s position is Israel was “at risk” of breaching humanitarian law.

Lammy told Bloomberg it was a “matter for the court” to decide if international law had been broken.

Asked if he regretted his statement, Lammy said it was “difficult to see how denying humanitarian assistance to a civilian population can be compatible with international humanitarian law”.

The row over his comments came as Israel launched its biggest wave of air strikes on Gaza since the ceasefire began.

The Hamas-run health ministry said over 400 people had been killed, with Benjamin Netanyahu warning it was “just the beginning”.

Since 2 March, Israel has stopped all food, fuel and medicine entering Gaza in an attempt to force Hamas into offering new concessions.

Asked about the aid blockade by Labour MP Dr Rupa Huq, Lammy said on Monday: “This is a breach of international law. Israel quite rightly must defend its own security. But we find the lack of aid – it’s now been 15 days since aid got into Gaza -unacceptable, hugely alarming and very worrying.

“We urge Israel to get back to the number of trucks we were seeing going in – way beyond 600 – so that Palestinians can get the necessary humanitarian support they need at this time.”

Lammy told MPs he was “a little jetlagged” having returned to the UK from a G7 meeting in the US only hours before his Commons appearance.

Later in the same debate, ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn pressed Lammy to call Israel’s aid blockade and bombing of the Gaza Strip a breach of international law.

Lammy said: “I did say in my contribution that Israel is in breach of international humanitarian law.

“The decision that I made back in September to suspend arms sales, which was largely because of that breach.”

He was referring to the government freezing 30 arms export licenses to Israel after a review ordered by Lammy found a “clear risk” they could be used in violations of international humanitarian law.

Asked about Monday’s comments that appeared to go further, the prime minister’s official spokesperson said: “Our position remains that Israel’s actions in Gaza are at clear risk of breaching international humanitarian law, and we continue to call the government of Israel to abide by its international obligations.”

They added: “The government is not an international court, and, therefore, it is up to courts to make judgments.”

Asked whether the foreign secretary had mistakenly gone beyond official government policy, the spokesperson said: “I’d refer to the Foreign Office on that, but there’s no change in policy here.”

Asked whether Lammy should apologise, they added: “I’ll leave that to the Foreign Office.”

The Palestinian territory’s Hamas-run health ministry blamed an Israeli strike and said five critically injured foreign workers had arrived in hospital. Israel’s military denied striking the UN compound in Deir al-Balah.

It comes after Israel said it was resuming fighting in Gaza following a two-month ceasefire – launching a wave of strikes that killed more than 400 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

On Tuesday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it had “resumed combat in full force”.

The UN initially said two of its workers had been killed but later clarified that the second person was not a staff member.

The UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) said an “explosive ordnance was dropped or fired” at the building, which was in an “isolated” location.

It added there was no confirmation on the nature of the incident or the type of artillery used.

UNOPS executive director Jorge Moreira da Silva described the incident as “not an accident” and added that “UN personnel and its premises must be protected by all sides”.

Footage verified by the BBC showed injured people – two still wearing blue UN flak jackets – arriving at a hospital in an ambulance and a UN car.

Separately, at least 20 people were killed in air strikes across Gaza overnight, after Israel said it was resuming fighting in the Palestinian territory.

Two civilians were killed and five others injured when an Israeli drone hit a tent near the al-Mawasi humanitarian zone, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reports, citing Red Crescent medics.

Israel’s army said it had targeted what it called a Hamas military site, from where the group was preparing to fire into Israel. Vessels controlled by Hamas were also hit, the army said.

The bombing is not of the same scale as it was on Tuesday – but it shows no let-up in Israel’s fresh assault.

Tom Fletcher, the UN’s under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief, said of Tuesday’s strikes that “the intensity of the killings is now off the scale”.

Wafa says a woman and child were killed in an air strike north of Khan Younis overnight into Wednesday, while four others were killed in a strike in Gaza City.

Gaza’s health ministry said that 436 people had been killed in strikes since Tuesday, including 183 children.

Tuesday’s strikes constituted the heaviest bombardment since a fragile ceasefire and hostage exchange deal came into effect on 19 January, and came after Israel and Hamas failed to agree how to take it beyond an initial phase.

The deal involves three stages, and negotiations on the second stage were meant to have started six weeks ago – but this did not happen.

Under the proposed second phase, Israel would withdraw troops from Gaza – but Israel and the US instead pushed for an extension of the first phase, with more hostages being released in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners.

Netanyahu cast the resumption of fighting as a return to Israel’s primary aims – to return the hostages and “get rid” of Hamas – but families of hostages have criticised the decision, saying it showed the government had given up on their loved ones.

Thousands of Israelis have joined a protest in Jerusalem, accusing Netanyahu of undermining democracy and restarting the offensive in Gaza without regard for the hostages.

Israel says Hamas is still holding 59 hostages, 24 of whom are believed to be alive.

Egypt, a mediator in talks, said the fresh strikes were a “blatant” violation of the ceasefire.

Israel previously imposed a total halt on all humanitarian aid entering Gaza, causing widespread international alarm.

“For two weeks now, our food supplies are rotting at the borders, the medicines are expiring, the water’s been cut off, the power’s been cut off – and all that to punish civilians further,” Mr Fletcher told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

He said he had spoken to the UN security council on Tuesday in a bid to lift the blockade and get the ceasefire deal back on track, including the release of hostages.

“I’m not asking for the moon here,” the UN chief added.

He said his team would “carry on going” in Gaza because they are “determined to do everything they can to save as many survivors as possible.

“They’re saying to us: What does it say about our values that we can’t stop a 21st Century atrocity happening before our eyes – and not just happening, but being cheered on before our eyes?”

Hamas has confirmed that several of its leaders were killed in Tuesday’s strikes, including its de facto head of government, Essam a-Da’lees.

Meanwhile, Islamic Jihad – whose fighters participated in the 7 October 2023 attack which triggered the current conflict – said the prominent spokesman of its armed wing, known as Abu Hamza, was killed.

However, there were also many civilians, including dozens of children, thought to be among the dead.

Regional mediators are now said to be pushing Hamas to release some of the Israeli hostages it still holds in exchange for a de-escalation.

But Netanyahu has said that going forward, all ceasefire talks will take place “under fire”.

The 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel saw about 1,200 people killed and the capturing of 251 hostages – 25 of whom were released alive during the first phase of the ceasefire.

Israel responded with a massive military offensive, which has killed more than 48,500 Palestinians, the Hamas-run health ministry says, as well as causing large-scale destruction to homes and infrastructure.