• Israeli attacks on Gaza City and Nuseirat killed at least 10 Palestinians on Wednesday, including the police chief of the women’s department, Colonel Fatina al-Sahhar, and several police commanders in a strike on police headquarters. Hamas condemned it as “a new war crime”.
• Australia has summoned Israel’s ambassador after the Israeli military decided not to pursue criminal proceedings over Israel’s 2024 air strike in Gaza that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers, including Australian Zomi Frankcom.
• During a visit to aid facilities in Egypt, UK Middle East Minister Stephen Doughty called on Israel to ensure that “significantly more humanitarian aid” reaches Gaza.
• UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has condemned an Israeli government tender for the E1 colony project in the occupied West Bank as an “unacceptable and destructive act” and announced a summons for Israel’s Chargé d'Affaires.
• Israeli colonists have seized near-total control of land in the Ramallah-area village of Um al-Safa by using bulldozers and vehicles to pave a road connecting colony outposts in the occupied West Bank,

Arab League warns Israel executing Palestinian prisoners would be ‘war crime’

The Arab League has condemned Israel’s announcement that it had begun establishing a facility to carry out death sentences of Palestinian prisoners, warning that any executions would constitute a war crime warranting international accountability.

The bloc described the move as a dangerous and unprecedented escalation in violations against Palestinian prisoners, saying it breaches international humanitarian law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention and its protocols, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both of which prohibit the death penalty in occupied Palestinian territory and require protection of detainees from inhumane or arbitrary treatment.

The Arab League said a death penalty law passed in March, combined with current preparations to build execution infrastructure, forms part of a systematic policy aimed at eliminating the Palestinian cause and turning Israeli detention facilities into sites for executions, in flagrant violation of international law.

Israel’s Knesset passed a law in March expanding the use of the death penalty for “terrorism”-related offences, drawing criticism from rights groups who warned it could be applied disproportionately against Palestinians. Thousands of Palestinians remain in Israeli prisons, many held without trial under administrative detention orders that rights groups have long criticised as arbitrary.

Palestinian Prisoner’s Society calls for global intervention as Israel builds death row wing

The head of the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society has called for international action to stop Israel from executing Palestinian prisoners, after Israeli officials confirmed that construction has begun on a death row wing containing a dedicated execution chamber.

Abdullah al-Zaghari told local media that the development turns years of Israeli rhetoric and legislation into concrete steps towards carrying out executions, warning of serious consequences.

Israel’s parliament passed a law in March making the death penalty mandatory for Palestinians convicted of killings in military courts, unless judges find exceptional grounds to commute the sentence to life in prison.

According to Al-Quds newspaper, al-Zaghari said that Israel holds over 9,400 Palestinian prisoners, including women and children, and stated that rights groups have documented widespread torture, starvation and medical neglect across Israeli detention facilities, which have led to dozens of Palestinian prisoners dying in custody.

He accused Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir of targeting prisoners out of revenge, pointing to repeated raids on their cells.

The construction was first reported by Israeli broadcaster i24NEWS, citing Ben-Gvir’s office. Israel has carried out the death penalty only once before in its history, when Nazi official Adolf Eichmann was executed in 1962.

Turkey, Egypt, Qatar condemn Israeli attacks on Gaza

Turkey, Egypt and ⁠Qatar ⁠on Thursday strongly condemned recent Israeli strikes in Gaza, saying in ⁠a joint statement that Israel must comply with ⁠its obligations under a ceasefire agreement and refrain from steps that could escalate tensions.

“The mediating countries ‌underline that the intensification of Israeli attacks undermines regional and international efforts at a critical juncture, as intensive efforts are under way to implement ⁠the Comprehensive Plan to ⁠End the Gaza Conflict, including the meeting between the Board of Peace ⁠and Israeli officials, and constructive steps are ⁠being taken in ⁠the negotiation process,” they said.

The international community and Board of Peace must take ‌the necessary steps to ensure compliance with the ceasefire and prevent ‌further ‌escalation, they added.

Turkish FM discusses Gaza, Syria and Hormuz with Saudi, Egyptian counterparts

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan says he has discussed several regional issues with his Egyptian and Saudi counterparts.

Fidan spoke to Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud and Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty on the latest developments in Syria, the Gaza peace plan and the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, he said in a post on X.

“As three brotherly countries that desire peace and prosperity in our region, we will continue to strengthen our cooperation and coordination in every field”, he said.

94 percent of Gaza population in need of shelter aid: NRC

An estimated 1.98 million Palestinians in Gaza, or 94 percent of the population, need shelter and basic household assistance, according to a new report by the Shelter Cluster, led by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

The report reveals that nearly two-thirds of households live in tents or makeshift shelters, structures not designed for long-term accommodation.

According to the report’s severity classification, more than four in five households face “critical” or “catastrophic” living conditions in their current shelter.

NRC says its assessment drew on 1,951 household interviews conducted between June 14 and 28 this year in accessible areas of northern Gaza, Gaza City, Deir el-Balah, and Khan Younis. Rafah and other inaccessible or unsafe areas were excluded.

MSF strongly condemns Israel closing cases on attacks that killed 4 employees

Doctors Without Borders (also known by its French acronym, MSF) has condemned Israel’s decision not to open criminal investigations into attacks that killed four of its staff and their family members in Gaza City in November 2023 and Khan Younis in February 2024.

The NGO said in a statement that “this does not come as a surprise”, adding that “it is the predictable output of a military apparatus investigating itself: a system which has demonstrated itself unwilling to respond to the extent of violations that may amount to war crimes emerging from Gaza”.

“These responses come nearly two years after MSF’s request was submitted,” it said, and after a submission to the Israeli High Court of Justice challenging Israel’s failure to provide any answer to formal requests.

MSF’s statement comes days after the Israeli army announced investigations into two fatal incidents in Gaza, one of which is the killing of Hind Rajab, a five-year-old Palestinian girl who became a symbol for Israel’s killing of civilians during its genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.

“MSF staff and their family members are dead,” it continued. “Their names are known. Their locations were shared. Their vehicles were identified. We have always maintained that all elements point to a clear responsibility of the Israeli army for the deadly attacks.”

The organisation said it was demanding these cases be reviewed by an impartial investigative body.

It added that 15 MSF staff members have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 2023, along with 1,700 healthcare workers.

UK demands Israel halt E1 colony expansion in occupied West Bank

The UK’s secretary for the Middle East, Stephen Doughty, has joined Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband in condemning Israel’s decision to launch a construction tender for the E1 colony project, which would see thousands of colony units built along a 12sq km (4.6sq mile) corridor near Jerusalem, effectively cutting the occupied West Bank in half.

Doughty called on the Israeli government to urgently reverse the move, describing it as a “deliberate and destructive act designed to undermine a two-state solution”.

The comments followed a sharp rebuke from Miliband, who demanded that Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar halt the project immediately, calling all colonies a flagrant breach of international law.

The UK summoned Israel’s chargé d’affaires to lodge a formal protest. Miliband confirmed that the UK will announce new measures within weeks targeting illegal colony expansion.

Ben-Gvir slams UK foreign secretary over settlement remarks

Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has criticised British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband over remarks against the Israeli government’s “unacceptable and destructive” tenders for the illegal E1 settlement project in the occupied West Bank.

Ben Gvir wrote on X, “Someone should update Ed that the British Mandate for the Land of Israel ended in 1948 and that Israel is an independent state”.

“Perhaps instead of playing make-believe about the Mandate era, he ought to look out of the window at his London, which is rapidly turning into an Islamic Caliphate”.

Ben-Gvir's "Mandate era" included the 1947 the conquest and the seizure of the Palestinian land by going for war against the British following the European Zionist colonist invasion, which ended in 1948 with ethnic cleansing, hundreds of committed massacres and genocide.

To be blunt and upfront:

Israelis are an invention as their name is borrowed from a tribe that did exactly the same thing: killing women, children and animals. Moses was their leader.

Palestinians have their name from the land where they always have lived.

Happened in the occupied West Bank

According to the Palestinian Wafa news agency, Israeli forces and colonists have continued a campaign of arrests, raids, demolitions, and land seizures across the occupied West Bank on Wednesday.

• For the 11th consecutive day, colonists under Israeli military protection continued besieging three homes in the village of Qusra, near Nablus, preventing families from entering or leaving amid a declared closed military zone.
• A 28-year-old Palestinian was beaten by Israeli soldiers during a raid in Nablus and taken to the hospital.
• The Israeli army arrested 31 Palestinians across the West Bank in a single day—including in Tulkarem, Qalqilya, Hebron, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Ramallah, and Nablus. Those detained include journalist Abdul Rahman Abdul Karim Mohammed Hassan and Jerusalem Affairs Minister Ashraf al-A’war. Several homes were also searched and damaged during the raids.
• Israeli forces stormed a town in the Tubas governorate overnight, raiding several homes and damaging their contents before withdrawing without reporting any arrests.
• Meanwhile, colonists bulldozed land and expanded an outpost on private property in the village of Umm Safa, near Ramallah. Colonists also forced residents off their grazing lands in Tubas, chasing away their livestock.

Armed Israeli colonists set fire to Palestinian home in Hebron

Armed Israeli colonists set fire to a home in Khalat al-Farra in southern Hebron, in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian media reported that colonists from the nearby illegal colony of Otniel were involved in the attack.

“Five armed and masked colonists attacked our home in the early hours” while the family members were asleep, Mohamad al-Nawajaa, the owner of the house, told Palestine’s Wafa news agency. “One of the colonists broke a window then threw a flammable substance into the house.”

The other Israeli colonists’ siege on Palestinian homes is in Qusra, southern Nablus, amd is entering its 12th day while the Israeli army continues to protect the colonists.

The chairman of the village council, Abduladheem Wadi, said three homes are still under siege and residents cannot leave or enter their homes. One of the homes is being used as a military position. Wadi also said that the families are experiencing shortages of food and medicine, Wafa reported.

Escalating Israeli settler attacks displaced 107 communities in OWB since 2023: HRW

Escalating Israeli colonist attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have fully or partially displaced 107 communities since January 2023 alongside unprecedented colony expansion, according to a new Human Rights Watch report released on Thursday.

The HRW also accused the administration of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of backing the colonist violence.

“Colonists responsible for attacks operate with the financial, material, and legal backing of the Israeli state. Attacks by armed colonists often occur alongside Israeli army units or with soldiers standing by,” the report said.

The rights group called for an international action against colonist assaults. It suggested the following measures:

Targeted sanctions on those implicated in ongoing grave abuses against Palestinians

• Suspend arms transfers to Israel, ban trade with illegal colonies
• Consider suspending preferential trade agreements with Israel

There should be an alternative for what is called "United Nations" with no Israelis and the United States, no permanent members, no veto rights and no "security council"

Israeli raids, colonist violence continue: Latest reports from the occupied West Bank

Israeli forces have arrested two Palestinians from the village of az-Zawiya in western Salfit early today. Local sources told Palestinian news agency Wafa that the arrests took place after home raids.

A man in Qalqilya was also arrested after Israeli forces raided his home, Wafa reported.

At least 10 Palestinians were arrested and three were injured as Israeli forces stormed the city of Nablus and its surrounding villages, where they assaulted people and searched their homes.

In Bethlehem, Israeli forces invaded the village of Husan and arrested a man after searching his home.

Meanwhile, colonists have invaded Khirbet Samra in the Aghwar Shamaliyah district. Local sources say these raids are recurring, Wafa reported.

Happened in the occupied West Bank

• At least six Palestinians who were injured in an attack by Israeli colonists northeast of Ramallah, near the towns of al-Mughayyir and Abu Falah, have been taken to hospital, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent. Settler attacks near al-Mughayyir came after Israeli forces stormed various houses in the town.
• Israeli colonists set fire to a Palestinian home in the Khallet al-Farra area, west of Masafer Yatta, a collection of hamlets in the southern occupied West Bank.
• Colonists are rebuilding an outpost demolished by Israeli forces just days ago in the Wadi al-Rukhaym area near Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, according to Palestinians in the area.
• The Israeli military has been redeployed in the vicinity of homes of besieged Palestinians in Qusra village amid difficulties in delivering food supplies to families.
• Hamas has warned colonists praying inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, calling the move a “blatant and frenzied aggression against Palestinian identity”.
• Dozens of Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank are at risk of erasure due to escalating attacks by Israeli colonists, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch. HRW said that colonists are operating with “financial, material, and legal support” from the State of Israel and are often accompanied by Israeli army units during attacks and pogroms.

France, Germany, Italy and UK condemn Israel’s E1 colony expansion

In a joint statement, France, Germany, Italy and the UK have described as “unacceptable” Israel’s decision to publish new construction bid offers for the E1 colony project in the occupied West Bank.

“The international community has long opposed this settlement expansion, and has voiced their grave concerns privately and publicly,” they said, adding that the E1 settlement would “undermine the prospect of the two-state solution by driving a wedge through the West Bank and harming the territorial contiguity of the Palestinian Territories”.

Noting the illegality of settlements under international law, the countries urged Israel to retract its plans and “end its expansion of settlements”, saying they “further undermine Israel’s international standing”.

Palestine welcomes joint Western statement rejecting E1 settlement plan, calls for concrete action

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has welcomed a joint statement by the leaders of the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada and Norway rejecting Israel’s E1 settlement plan, calling on the international community to translate the position into practical measures.

The ministry said the seven countries’ stance reflects clear recognition that the plan “directly undermines” the two-state solution by “splitting the occupied West Bank and severing its geographic continuity”.

It urged all states to join the position and press Israel to halt settlement activity and reverse the E1 plan, and welcomed the countries’ call on companies to avoid participating in settlement construction tenders, citing the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion barring assistance that sustains Israel’s occupation.

The ministry called for full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 and said ending the occupation and settlement construction remains “essential to achieving a two-state solution and lasting peace”.

Israeli forces prevent ambulances from reaching injured Palestinians in occupied West Bank

The Palestinian Red Crescent says Israeli forces have prevented ambulances from reaching Palestinians who were injured in attacks by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

The incident took place in Khirbet Deir Shams, south of Hebron, when three Palestinians were injured in Israeli settler attacks on their homes.