Israel-Gaza war live: Up to 45 feared dead in Israeli strike on central Gaza school

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Deep divisions could limit progress in reconciliation talks between Fatah, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, and Hamas this month, five sources in the Palestinian factions have said.

The discussions will be held in China this month as international mediators attempt to reach a ceasefire deal.

One of the key sticking points is "the day-after" plan concerning how the enclave will be governed, amid concerns that Hamas will retain its influence after the war ends.

The talks come after two recent rounds of discussions in China and Russia.

- Reuters

A global human rights group has claimed that Israel used white phosphorus incendiary shells on residential buildings in at least five towns and villages in conflict-hit southern Lebanon, possibly harming civilians and breaching international law.

Human Rights Watch said there was no evidence of burn injuries due to white phosphorus but added that researchers had “heard accounts indicating possible respiratory damage”.

The white-hot chemical substance can set buildings on fire and burn human flesh down to the bone. Survivors are at risk of infections and organ or respiratory failure, even if their burns are small.

The HRW report, which was published on Wednesday, includes interviews with eight residents in southern Lebanon. The group said it has verified about 47 pictures and videos that show white phosphorus shells landing on residential buildings in the five Lebanese towns and villages.

The Lebanese Health Ministry says at least 173 people required medical care after exposure to white phosphorus.

- Associated Press

A Palestinian man and child have been wounded in an Israeli raid on the occupied West Bank city of Jenin.

The man was shot in the shoulder and the child injured by shrapnel on Wednesday morning, Wafa news agency reported. Both were taken to hospital.

Raids were reported across the Jenin refugee camp and the nearby village of Kafr Dan.

Fires were reported in the camp after a vehicle and a home were struck by the army.

Nine soldiers have been injured after a stockpile of ammunition exploded at a military base in southern Israel.

Two of the soldiers were moderately injured, the Israeli military said, while five more sustained minor injuries.

Student editors at the Columbia Law Review say they were put under pressure by the journal’s board of directors to halt publication of an academic article written by a Palestinian human rights lawyer that accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and upholding an apartheid regime.

When the editors refused the request and published the piece on Monday morning, the board — made up of faculty and alumni from Columbia University's law school — shut down the law review’s website entirely. It remained offline on Tuesday evening, with the static homepage informing visitors that the domain was “under maintenance.”

- Associated Press

Thomas Helm reports:

Jerusalem is bracing itself for a deeply controversial far-right parade, in which tens of thousands of ultranationalist Israelis are expected to march through the city’s most sensitive area.

This year’s Flag March is expected to begin at some point in the afternoon and will follow the traditional route through Damascus Gate, the main entrance to the Old City’s Muslim Quarter, and past Al Aqsa Mosque towards the Western Wall.

The march – part of Jerusalem Day celebrations, an Israeli public holiday to mark the moment Israel gained full control of Jerusalem in 1967 – led to 11 days of fighting between Israel and Hamas in 2021.

An independent group of experts said famine could possibly be under way in northern Gaza but warned that the war and restrictions on humanitarian access have impeded the data collection to prove it.

"It is possible, if not likely,” the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, or Fews Net, said about famine in the Palestinian enclave.

Concern peaked after the head of the World Food Programme said last month that northern Gaza had entered “full-blown famine” after about seven months of war. Experts at the UN agency later said Cindy McCain was expressing a personal opinion.

Tuesday’s report by Fews Net is the first technical assessment by an international organisation saying that famine is possibly occurring in northern Gaza.

-Associated Press

The death and destruction being wrought in Gaza has become so immense in scale that those seeking to end the bloodshed are seizing on even the slimmest chance for peace. 

A phased ceasefire proposed by US President Joe Biden offers some hope but is at risk of succumbing to the impasse that has characterised the war thus far.

There are also questions as to why it has taken the US so long to propose an end to this devastating war.

However, there is now at least an American proposal worth considering and supporting – and at this precarious moment, the world must not allow the worst elements in both Israel and Gaza to squander the opportunity.

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Adla Massoud reports from the UN:

The US has submitted a resolution to the UN Security Council, urging support for President Joe Biden's three-phase Gaza ceasefire plan.

The one-page document, seen by The National, welcomes the new deal announced last Friday and calls on Hamas to "fully accept and implement its terms without delay and without condition".

In a statement, US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield called on the council to "insist that Hamas accept the deal”.

Diplomatic sources indicated that the "vast majority" of council members believe the draft "should be more balanced".

“There are also some questions about the content of the so-called agreement that they are supposed to support,” said the sources.

They added that they are waiting for the US response to their comments and the “announcement of the next steps".

Russia has requested more time to submit its comments.

International food aid organisation World Central Kitchen said it has "provided more than 50 million meals by land, air and sea to Palestinian families in need" in less than eight months in Gaza.

It wrote in an article that it has two field kitchens operating, and aid lorries are now "again able to regularly cross into Gaza".

An Israeli strike on a WCK aid convoy killed seven of its members in April.

The US House of Representatives has passed a bill that would hit the International Criminal Court with sanctions, after its lead prosecutor announced last month that he was seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The vote, which passed 247-155, follows Republican threats of sanctions after Karim Khan said he was seeking the warrants for Mr Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders, in late May.

Neither the US nor Israel are parties to the ICC and do not recognise its authority.

The bid for arrest warrants was widely denounced by both Democrats and Republicans in Washington.

While the House bill had been expected to pass, it failed to attract significant Democratic support, dulling its chances in the Senate.

The White House has dismissed the legislation as overreach.

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US President Joe Biden's White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met families of Americans being held hostage by militant groups in Gaza.

"I wanted to update them directly on the proposal that’s on the table right now that will bring their loved ones home and lead to a more secure Israel," he wrote in a post on X, along with a photo from the meeting.

"As the President said last week, this deal must get done," Mr Sullivan said.

CIA director William Burns will be returning to Doha in coming days to continue discussions regarding the Gaza ceasefire efforts, a source told The National.

“Mr Burns is returning to Doha where he will meet\ Qatar's Prime Minister and continue working with mediators on reaching an agreement between Hamas and Israel on a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages," the source said.

Current talks are focused on the three-phase plan announced by US President Joe Biden on May 31.

Earlier on Tuesday, sources told The National that Palestinian and Israeli delegations are expected to return to Egypt this week to discuss details of the deal.

Slovenia's Parliament has passed a decree recognising a Palestinian state, pushing ahead with a vote in defiance of an opposition motion to derail it.

Fifty-two members of the 90-member parliament voted in favour of the government-sponsored decree to recognise a Palestinian state.

The opposition boycotted the vote except for one member who attended but abstained.

“Dear people of Palestine, today’s final decision of Slovenia is a message of hope and peace," Slovenia's Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon said on X.

"We believe that only a two-state solution can lead to a lasting peace in the Middle East.

"Slovenia will tirelessly continue to work on the security of both nations, Palestinians and Israelis.”

Seventeen of the deaths, they said, occurred in separate Israeli air strikes on the Bureij and Maghazi refugee camps and the city of Deir Al Balah in central Gaza.

By late Tuesday, tanks were shelling an area east of the Nuseirat camp, residents said.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati has rejected media reports that he had been told his country could soon be subjected to a large-scale Israeli offensive.

A local Lebanese media story had claimed that Beirut had been warned by the UK to be prepared for a major offensive from Israel later in June.

Rejecting the reports, Mr Mikati’s office said he was engaged in international efforts to ensure Israel’s attacks on south Lebanon would end.

The latest conflict between Hezbollah and Israel broke out on October 8, in parallel with the war on Gaza.

In the past few days the fighting has increased in intensity.

The EU has reaffirmed support to the ceasefire plan presented by US President Joe Biden.

"Too many civilian lives have been lost," a statement from the bloc read.

"An enduring ceasefire is urgently needed to ensure protection of civilians, the unconditional and immediate release of all hostages whose safety and well-being is of concern, and to increase the flow of much needed humanitarian relief to Gaza in view of the deepening humanitarian crisis."

Hanan Balkhy, the WHO Eastern Mediterranean director, also warned that the war was having a knock-on effect on health care across the wider region.

"There are people who are now eating animal food, eating grass, they're drinking sewage water" in Gaza, she said.

"Children are barely able to eat, while the trucks are standing outside of Rafah."

Willy Lowry reports from Washington

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke on Tuesday with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, as the US urges its Arab partners to support the latest proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The two discussed the proposal and how it would “benefit the population in Gaza through a surge of humanitarian assistance, enable the return of displaced persons to areas throughout Gaza, and permit international reconstruction efforts to begin”, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

“The Secretary and the Foreign Minister discussed how the proposed deal would further ongoing efforts to achieve lasting peace and security in the Middle East that the United States and Saudi Arabia have been pursuing bilaterally and with Arab partners."