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Israel army issues evacuation warning for 14 areas of north Gaza
The Israeli army issued an evacuation warning on Thursday for 14 neighbourhoods in the northern Gaza Strip, including parts of Beit Lahia and Jabalia.
According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), the Israeli army said in an Arabic-language statement that it was “operating with intense force in your areas, as terrorist organisations continue their activities and operations in the mentioned regions”.
A similar warning for northern Gaza was issued on Wednesday evening in what the army said was a response to rocket fire.
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Italy condemns attack on Israeli embassy employees
Italian foreign minister Antonio Tajani has condemned the shooting near the Capital Jewish Museum on Wednesday night that left two Israeli embassy staff dead.
Tajani said in a statement:
Antisemitic violence that is the child of hatred against Jews is not acceptable and must be stopped.
He said Italy was committed to fighting all forms of hatred and discrimination and promoting “a culture of respect and peaceful coexistence through education, remembrance and the firm defense of human rights”.
Israel’s military said it intercepted two missiles launched from Yemen and that sirens had sounded twice across the country including in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank on Thursday, as the Houthis stepped up attacks.
Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the group launched a ballistic missile towards Israel’s Ben Gurion airport and two drones towards the Tel Aviv area, reports Reuters.
Undeterred by Israeli strikes on Yemen, the Houthis said they would continue to fire at Israel even though they have agreed to a ceasefire with the United States to halt attacks on US ships in the Red Sea.
Israel has carried out retaliatory strikes including one on 6 May that damaged Yemen’s main airport in Sana’a, and another last week targeting the Red Sea ports of Hodeidah and Salif.
France and EU condemn shooting outside Jewish museum in Washington
French president Emmanuel Macron said he had contacted his Israeli counterpart after the killings of two Israeli embassy staff members in Washington DC. Macron posted on X:
To President @Isaac_Herzog, I extended our thoughts to the families and loved ones of the victims.
France’s foreign minister called the shooting on Wednesday “an abhorrent act of antisemitic barbarity”. In a post in English on X, the minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said:
Nothing can justify such violence. My thoughts go to their loved ones, their colleagues, and the State of Israel.
The European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, also condemned the shooting. Kallas said:
There is and should be no place in our societies for hatred, extremism, or antisemitism.
Aid groups have collected humanitarian aid carried by about 90 trucks, out of a total of nearly 200 that have entered Gaza since Israel began allowing limited goods in earlier this week, the United Nations said on Thursday.
Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), said the trucks that entered carried medicine, wheat flour and nutrition supplies, reports the Associated Press (AP). Aid groups faced significant challenges distributing the aid because of insecurity, the risk of looting and coordination issues with Israeli authorities, Laerke added.
Here is the Guardian’s report on the fatal shooting near Washington DC Jewish museum that Irish deputy premier Simon Harris commented on:
A suspect is in custody after shooting dead two Israeli embassy staff outside a Jewish museum in Washington on Wednesday night.
The gunman, named by police as Elias Rodriguez, 30, of Chicago, approached a group of four people leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum and opened fire, killing a man and woman.
Metropolitan police chief Pamela Smith said the shooter had been pacing outside the museum, which is steps away from the FBI’s field office, before the shooting.
After killing the pair, he walked inside, where event security detained him. The suspect yelled: “Free, free Palestine,” after he was arrested, police said.
He was not on any security watchlists and there were no heightened security threats before the shooting, officials said. The firearm was retrieved as well, officials said.
The two victims of the shooting have been named as Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim. They were both Israeli embassy employees, and, according to the Israeli ambassador, Yechiel Leiter, they were a young couple who were about to become engaged.
“Yaron and Sarah were our friends and colleagues,” the embassy said on X. “They were in the prime of their lives. This evening, a terrorist shot and killed them as they exited an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in DC.”
Tánaiste Simon Harris also condemned shots fired near an EU delegation in the West Bank on Wednesday. Two Irish officials were among those present when what the Israeli military called “warning shots” were fired near delegates.
“This is an utterly, utterly inappropriate and indeed illegal action,” Ireland’s deputy premier said, adding:
A number of diplomats, including the Irish head of mission to Palestine and his deputy, were visiting Jenin, a region in the West Bank. They were visiting, effectively, an area that’s a refugee camp. They were standing at the gates of that refugee camp, and the governor of Jenin, a member of the Palestinian Authority, was speaking and giving them an update.
When his speech ended and the diplomats began to disperse, my understanding from speaking to our people on the ground is that a number of members of the Israel Defense Forces stepped forward and fired warning shots over their heads, or what is described as warning shots – whether they were warning shots or otherwise, they were shots – and firing shots at diplomats is an absolute, clear breach of international law.
Asked about the Israeli authorities’ explanation that shots were fired because diplomats had deviated from the agreed route, Harris said:
Do they think we’re thick? They knew that diplomats were visiting the region, and the diplomats notified the Israel Defense Forces in advance.
I don’t accept in any manner or means the Israel Defense Forces’ explanation in relation to this. I find it utterly offensive, in fact. There needs to be – as we’ve said at an EU level – a full investigation in relation to this, and those who fired the shots, or those who gave the commands to fire the shots, need to be held accountable.
Harris also condemned the shooting of two Israeli embassy officials at an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington DC as a “vile antisemitic murder”.
He said a young woman from the Irish embassy was also at the event at the museum. Harris said:
This is a vile antisemitic murder of two young members of the Israeli embassy – a young couple, I believe, who were due to very shortly be engaged.
It is a despicable act. It’s a heinous crime. It is antisemitic and it’s vile.
Ireland's deputy premier accuses Israel of 'genocidal activity' in Gaza
Ireland’s deputy premier has accused the Israeli government of “genocidal activity” in Gaza, reports the PA news agency.
Tánaiste Simon Harris said it was “clear” that Israel wants to remove Palestinians from the Gaza Strip as part of what he said was “a consistent pattern of war crimes”.
He said the world had “not done enough” to put pressure on Israel to change course, and said he would look to draft a bill that would ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.
Asked on Newstalk radio whether what was happening in Gaza was ethnic cleansing, Harris said:
In light of the very clear comments that we’ve seen from the Israeli government in recent days, we’re very much now in the space of genocidal activity.
I think that is just a statement of fact, we have seen a consistent pattern of war crimes, and we now have an Israeli government that is being very blunt in terms of outlining what it is intending to carry out in Gaza and they’ve dropped the pretence, quite frankly, in terms of what they actually want to achieve.
The foreign affairs minister also said that the Israeli government’s “convoluted” scheme “to pretend” to provide the most basic level of aid to thousands of starving Palestinians was “despicable”. Harris said:
This idea that the Israeli government will come up with some sort of a convoluted scheme to effectively pretend to be providing the most basic level of aid is despicable.
Benjamin Netanyahu has been very clear about this in recent days, when he has effectively said, to paraphrase him, the only reason we’re doing this is to allow us to continue what he describes as their ‘political objectives’, and their political objectives now are very clear.
They want to clear the Gazan Strip, they want to clear Gaza of Palestinian people, and that is a war crime and the forcible displacement of people, as you say, with the offer of food somewhere else, it really is despicable.
He said that a two-state solution seemed “further away than ever before” and that the EU-Israel association agreement should be suspended as it is being reviewed.
UN dispatches aid as Netanyahu says he wants full control of Gaza
The United Nations (UN) said on Wednesday it had “dispatched” about 90 trucks carrying aid into Gaza, as international pressure intensified over Israel’s renewed offensive and blockade of the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
The first aid distribution in Gaza since early March came as Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was open to a “temporary ceasefire”, but reaffirmed the military aimed to bring the entire territory under its control.
Three days after Israel announced it would allow in limited aid, the UN “collected around 90 truckloads of goods from the Kerem Shalom crossing and dispatched them into Gaza“, said Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN secretary general António Guterres, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The development came hours after Israeli troops fired what the military called “warning shots” near a delegation of foreign diplomats visiting the occupied West Bank, triggering global condemnation.
In Gaza, the Hamas government media office reported the arrival of 87 aid trucks, which it said were allocated to international and local organisations to meet “urgent humanitarian needs”.
Netanyahu said it was necessary to “avoid a humanitarian crisis in order to preserve our freedom of operational action” in Gaza.
Palestinians have been scrambling for basic supplies after weeks of near-total isolation, with Israel’s blockade leading to critical food and medicine shortages.
Israel has meanwhile kept up its bombardment, with Gaza’s health ministry reporting Wednesday that the bodies of 82 people were taken to hospitals across the territory over the previous 24 hours.
More on this in a moment, but first here are some other key updates:
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Two staff members of the Israeli embassy in Washington were fatally shot while leaving an event at a Jewish museum. The suspect yelling, “Free, free Palestine” after he was arrested, according to Washington police and federal authorities.
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Netanyahu said Israeli forces had “probably” killed Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar, the younger brother of the former Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar. He said Israel has achieved “a lot” in its “clear and justified” goal of defeating Hamas, but he adds that “our work isn’t over yet”.
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The Israeli leader said the entire of the Gaza Strip will be under Israeli security control by the end of its new offensive. Netanyahu said he is “prepared” to end the war “under clear conditions that ensure Israel’s security”, which would include the Palestinian territory being “completely disarmed” and Israel “making the most of the Trump plan”.
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International criminal court (ICC) prosecutors have urged judges to reject a request by Israel to scrap arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defence minister while the court reconsiders its jurisdiction over Gaza and the West Bank. In a 10-page written submission posted on the ICC website late Wednesday, prosecutors argue there is “no basis to withdraw or vacate” the pending warrants for Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant.
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Ireland’s deputy premier has accused the Israeli government of “genocidal activity” in Gaza. Tánaiste Simon Harris said it was “clear” that Israel wants to remove Palestinians from the Gaza Strip as part of what he said was “a consistent pattern of war crimes”.
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The UN secretary general condemned Israel’s firing at diplomats which he said was “unacceptable”. Countries including the Netherlands, Turkey, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Ireland and France all condemned the incident. The British, French and other European ministers summoned the Israeli ambassadors in their respective capitals to explain the “unacceptable” incident.
