Israeli Blockade on Gaza Forces Suspension of UN Polio Vaccination Campaign
Gaza’s health ministry stated that the United Nations campaign sought to vaccinate over six hundred thousand children in the enclave, as international aid agencies warn of growing risks of mass spread of disease (Reuters)
Commander Dismissed After Investigation Into Deadly Attack on Medics in Gaza
The Israeli military released a statement indicating “several professional failures” contributed to the shooting that killed fourteen rescue workers and one UN employee in Rafah last month (NYT)
Meanwhile, a report by the Saudi Arabian media outlet, Al Arabiya, found that Hamas has recruited roughly thirty thousand young Palestinians to join the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the group’s military wing (Times of Israel)
Hamas Rejects Cease-Fire Proposal as Israeli Strikes Continue
Hamas rejected an Israeli proposal for a forty-five day truce in exchange for releasing ten hostages, saying that instead it was willing to release all hostages in exchange for a permanent end to the war (BBC).As fighting continues, Israeli strikes on an area housing displaced Palestinians killed at least twelve people from Wednesday night to Thursday, a rescue service said (NYT)
Hamas is struggling to pay its political staff and fighters amid restrictions on money and aid to Gaza, the Wall Street Journal reported (WSJ)
Trump Partly Confirms He Blocked Israeli Strikes on Iran
U.S. President Donald J. Trump appeared to partly confirm a New York Times report that he recently pushed back against an Israeli plan to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities; Trump said he was “not in a rush” to strike Iran and that he would like to see Iran “live happily without death” (Times of Israel)
Israel Plans to Hold “Security Zones” Indefinitely
Israel will keep troops deployed in certain zones of Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria indefinitely, Defense Minister Israel Katz said yesterday; he added they would create buffer zones to protect Israeli communities (AP)
Netanyahu Criticizes Macron for Floating Recognition of Palestinian State
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told French President Emmanuel Macron on a phone call that recognizing the state of Palestine would reward Hamas and Iran and serve as “a huge prize for terrorism;” last week, Macron announced that France could recognize an independent Palestinian state in June (Politico)
Hamas Officials Reject Egyptian Ceasefire Proposal Over Disarmament
While Egypt’s proposal states that negotiations with Israel cannot commence without Hamas laying down its weapons, Hamas reiterated that disarmament remains out of the question and that Israel must first withdraw from the Gaza Strip and end its strikes (Al Jazeera)
Israel Establishes New Security Corridor in Rafah
The Israel Defense Forces announced that it seized full control of the Morag Axis between Khan Younis and the southern city of Rafah, widening the IDF’s security zone and cutting off Rafah from the rest of the Gaza strip (ABC)
Israel Launches Raid on Balata Refugee Camp in West Bank
Palestinian sources published a video showing Israeli forces entering the refugee camp in the city of Nablus, where soldiers reportedly beat and arrested individuals and surrounded the camp with military vehicles; meanwhile, Israeli strikes on the Shujayea district in Gaza killed at least twenty-nine and left over eighty wounded (Al Jazeera)
Trump, Netanyahu Comment on Gaza
Trump said alongside Netanyahu in the Oval Office yesterday that he would like the war in Gaza to “stop,” as he believed it would in the not “too-distant” future; Netanyahu said Israel was committed to getting hostages out of Gaza and eliminating Hamas (Times of Israel)
Trump reiterated his suggestion that Palestinians be removed from Gaza (Reuters)
Also yesterday, the heads of six UN agencies issued a joint statement calling for a cease-fire and noting that no aid had entered the territory since Israel started blocking it on March 2 (Reuters)
Macron Visits Cairo for Summit on Gaza With Egyptian and Jordanian Leaders
French President Emmanuel Macron met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ahead of the summit to discuss the situation in Gaza, where Macron reiterated France’s opposition to any relocation or annexation plans for Gaza and its inhabitants; Macron also stated that Hamas “must have no role” in governing Gaza, in line with Egypt’s and the Arab League’s peace proposal (France24)
Meanwhile, medics in Gaza stated that Israeli attacks have killed at least forty-two Palestinians since dawn (Al Jazeera)
Israeli Forces Shoot and Kill Palestinian-American Teenager in West Bank
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stated that three “terrorists” hurled rocks toward their vehicle on a highway near Ramallah, which reportedly prompted the IDF soldiers to open fire on the three Palestinian teenagers, killing Omar Rabea in the process (BBC)
New Evidence on Gaza Medics’ Deaths
An unnamed Israeli military official told news organizations that Israel’s original account of the killings of fifteen Palestinian medics in Gaza last month was “mistaken;” newly published video footage of the incident showed the medics’ vehicles were not advancing with lights and emergency signals off, as Israel first claimed (AP)
Israeli forces killed eight Red Crescent personnel, six Civil Defense workers, and a UN staffer; the unnamed Israeli official said Israeli forces believed at least six of the fifteen dead were Hamas operatives, but did not provide any evidence (NYT)
Netanyahu to Begin Four-Day Visit to Hungary Despite ICC Arrest Warrant
Hungarian President Victor Orbán stated that he will not detain Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu despite Hungary’s membership in the International Criminal Court (ICC) and subsequent obligation to arrest anyone subjected to an ICC arrest warrant (Reuters)
Meanwhile, Netanyahu stated that the Israeli military plans to seize larger territory in Gaza and create a new security corridor between Rafah and Khan Younis (AP)
Netanyahu said Israel is “dividing up” the strip in order to pressure Hamas to release the remaining fifty-nine hostages, and Katz said a “large-scale” evacuation of the enclave’s population was planned amid renewed fighting (FT;Reuters)
The top UN aid official for Gaza said that 64 percent of the territory “is under active forced displacement orders or falling within the so-called ‘buffer zone” (OHCA)
Israeli Military Says It Is “Returning to Intense Operations” in Rafah
The Israeli military told tens of thousands of the area’s residents to evacuate to Al-Mawasi, a coastal area that has also been hit by Israeli strikes (FT)
Hamas and Israel Endorse Different Proposals for Return to Cease-Fire in Gaza
The reported gap between their stances remains significant after weeks of indirect negotiations and as aid organizations warn of food shortages in the enclave (NYT;AP)
Israel kicked off a return to fighting in Gaza earlier this month and has blocked the delivery of food, fuel, medicine, and other supplies (NPR)
A top Hamas official said Saturday that the group had accepted a proposal endorsed by mediators Egypt and Qatar that would reportedly have Hamas release five hostages per week, unnamed security sources told Reuters (AP;Reuters)
The proposal would return to Israel and Hamas’ original cease-fire framework, an unnamed Hamas source told CNN; that would entail the resumption of aid as well as talks on a second phase involving an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza (CNN)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that it responded with a counterproposal that had been coordinated with the United States, the third mediator (Times of Israel)
Separately, Netanyahu said Sunday that Hamas must “lay down its arms,” and that Israel planned to implement U.S. President Donald Trump’s “voluntary migration plan” from Gaza (France24)
Gazans Protests Against War, Hamas
Demonstrations on Tuesday and Wednesday in Gaza criticized the continuation of the Israel-Hamas war and included rare open chants against Hamas itself; a video of a march in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza pictured hundreds of people (FT)
There were few immediate signs of Hamas forcefully repressing the demonstrations, as has occurred in the past (NYT)
Israeli Strikes Kill at Least Thirty-Eight in Gaza in Past Day
Israeli airstrikes ramp up in central areas of the Gaza Strip, including the densely populated Nuseirat refugee camp (Al Jazeera)
Palestinians in Gaza Stage Largest Protests Against Hamas and War Since October 2023
Thousands marched through northern Gaza, expressing their displeasure with Hamas and the Israel-Hamas conflict with chants such as “Hamas terrorists” and “we want an end to the war” (CNN)
Egypt Proposes Plan to Renew Israel-Hamas Ceasefire
Cairo announced that both Hamas and the United States reacted positively to their proposal for the second stage of the original ceasefire, which would require Hamas to release five living Israeli hostages a week in exchange for Israel’s full military withdrawal from Gaza (Reuters)
An unnamed Israeli official told the Times of Israel that “we haven’t heard of any new proposal” (Times of Israel)
Meanwhile, Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip killed over sixty Palestinians on Monday, including two Palestinian journalists (Al Jazeera)
The United Nations said it would reduce its personnel in Gaza after five aid workers were killed in the renewed fighting (UN)
Israeli Security Cabinet Authorizes Separation of Thirteen Jewish Settlements From West Bank
Israel announced that the settlements in the West Bank will be officially recognized as independent, facilitating the development and management of areas Israel claims as its own; approximately 700,000 Jewish settlers reside in the West Bank and east Jerusalem (Reuters)
Israeli Defense Minister Intensifies Pressure on Hamas
Israel Katz said if Hamas does not release the hostages it is still holding, “it will lose more and more land that will be added to Israel” (NYT)
Israeli Military Launches Limited Ground Operations in Central and Southern Gaza
Israel’s defense minister said the country would soon issue evacuation orders for some parts of the territory (Times of Israel)
Meanwhile, a second day of Israeli strikes yesterday killed at least forty-eight Palestinians, according to Gaza health workers (Reuters)
Hamas said that Israeli operations in the Netzarim corridor violated the truce with Israel and called on mediators to “step in to renew the cease-fire” (Haaretz)
Later in the day, Hamas fired rockets at Israel in its first attack since Israel broke a bilateral truce on Tuesday; the group’s military wing said it was retaliating for Israel’s strikes in recent days, which have killed more than five hundred people since Tuesday, according to the Gaza health ministry (WaPo)
Israeli military forces said they intercepted one rocket and two others fell in open terrain (NYT)
Israel’s Defense Minister Says New Strikes on Gaza Would Not Stop Unless Hamas Releases All Remaining Hostages
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the strikes “just the beginning” (Times of Israel)
By midday today local time, there were no reports of Hamas retaliating militarily; the group said it was communicating with mediators (Al Jazeera)
Thousands demonstrated in Jerusalem today against the return to war and Netanyahu’s efforts to dismiss Israel’s internal security chief (Times of Israel)
Meanwhile, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called Israel’s return to fighting in Gaza “unacceptable” (Times of Israel)
Israel Launches Extensive Air Strikes Across Gaza Strip
It is Israel’s first major attack on the territory since a cease-fire with Hamas began two months ago; more than four hundred people were killed and hundreds were injured, according to Gaza’s health ministry (Reuters)
Targets were struck in northern, central, and southern Gaza within hours; Israel’s prime minister said they had ordered the attacks after negotiations with Hamas had stalled—and that Israel would “act against Hamas with increasing military strength” going forward (NYT)
Israel’s military said that its operations are expected to expand beyond air attacks, telling Gaza residents living in border areas to evacuate (CNN)
Hamas confirmed five of its senior officials were killed in the strikes, while hospitals reported that women and children were among those dead (NPR;AP)
Hamas said Israel had broken the cease-fire agreement through an “unprovoked escalation” and exposed the hostages in Gaza “to an unknown fate” (AP;FT)
In the hours following Israel’s strikes, there were no immediate reports of Hamas military retaliation (NYT)