Israeli forces kill at least 34 Palestinians as ground offensive continues in Gaza City

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The Israeli army has claimed to have killed Mohammad Saleh Bardawil, a senior Hamas member.

In a statement on X, it said Bardawil was a central figure in "Hamas’ propaganda apparatus, systematically spreading false information and serving as a tool for the organisation to promote a false narrative and psychological warfare."

It added that the fighter was involved in the production of the Palestinian group’s videos, in which captives in Gaza were also featured.

Bardawil was killed alongside his wife after Israeli struck tents housing displaced people in Khan Younis last month.

At least 100 children are reported killed or injured every day in Gaza since Israel renewed its fighting in the territory on 18 March, UNICEF says.

Philippe Lazzarini described Gaza as "no land" for children.

"The resumption of the war is again robbing them of their childhood. The war has turned Gaza into a ‘no land’ for children. This is a stain on our common humanity."

Israel's internal security chief who the government has sought to dismiss said in a letter made public Friday that Benjamin Netanyahu had requested his intervention in the prime minister's corruption trial.

"In November 2024, the prime minister repeatedly asked that I provide a security assessment that would determine that the security circumstances do not allow for his continuous testimony in his criminal trial", which could extend gaps between court appearances, Ronen Bar said in a letter to the supreme court to challenge the government decision to dismiss him. The letter was published by the attorney general.

 Israel does not seek conflict with Turkey in Syria, a senior Israeli official said on Friday, following days of rising tensions between the two countries and Israeli strikes on military sites in Syria.

"We're not looking for a conflict with Turkey and we hope that Turkey isn't looking for a conflict with us," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told reporters. "But we also do not want to see Turkish entrenchment on our border and there are all kinds of ways to handle this," the official said.

Global medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Friday it was appalled and saddened by the killing of one of its staff by an air strike in Gaza, the second within two weeks.

Hussam Al Loulou died in the strike on 1 April in central Gaza, alongside his wife and 28-year-old daughter, the organisation said.

(Reuters)

The military spokesperson for Yemen's Houthi movement says the group targeted the USS Harry Truman in the Red Sea in an hours-long attack earlier today.

Other US warships were targeted with cruise missiles, Yahya Saree said.

The US military has escalated airstrikes against the rebel group in recent weeks, most recently hitting a number of targets across Houthi-controlled territory on Wednesday.

The US is yet to comment on the Houthis' claims.

Hundreds of Jordanians have taken to the streets of Amman today to protest against the massacres committed by Israel in Gaza.

🔹شاهد..
هتافات مؤيدة للــمقاومة أثناء وقفة احتجاجية في العاصمة الأردنية عمان pic.twitter.com/FmjoRQSb5c

— المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام (@PalinfoAr) April 4, 2025

The number of Palestinians killed by the Israeli military today has risen to 34, medical sources tell Al Jazeera Arabic.

The Trump administration moved forward with the sale of more than 20,000 US-made assault rifles to Israel last month, according to a document seen by Reuters and a source familiar with the matter, pushing ahead with a sale that the administration of former president Joe Biden had delayed over concerns they could be used by extremist Israeli settlers.

The State Department sent a notification to Congress on 6 March for the $24 million sale, saying the end user would be the Israeli National Police, according to the document.

The rifle sale is a small transaction next to the billions of dollars worth of weapons that Washington supplies to Israel. But it drew attention when the Biden administration delayed the sale over concerns that the weapons could end up in the hands of Israeli settlers, some of whom have carried out attacks on Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The Biden administration has imposed sanctions on individuals and entities accused of committing violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which has seen a rise in settler attacks on Palestinians.

Turkey wants no confrontation with Israel in Syria after repeated Israeli attacks on military sites there undermined the new government's ability to deter threats, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told Reuters on Friday.

In an interview on the sidelines of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels, Fidan said Israel's actions in Syria - where the administration of President Ahmed al-Sharaa is a close Turkish ally - were paving the way for future regional instability.

If the new administration in Damascus wants to have "certain understandings" with Israel, which like Turkey is a neighbour of Syria, then that is their own business, he added.

NATO member Turkey has fiercely criticised Israel over its attacks on Gaza since 2023, saying they amount to a genocide against the Palestinians, and has applied to join a case at the World Court against Israel while also halting all trade.

Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Sa'ar said that a Palestinian state encompassing the West bank is "not possible", because it would be "lead by Hamas which would endanger Israel's security," in a statement to French newspaper Le Figaro.

When asked if there are plans to annex the occupied West Bank, he described the area as "disputed territories, not occupied ones".

"For us, these are disputed territories, not occupied ones. We have often been ready to negotiate. But that’s not possible with the current Palestinian Authority," Sa'ar added.

The Gaza death toll has risen to 50,609, according to the latest figures from the strip's health ministry.

More than 115,000 others have been wounded in Israel's 17-month assault.

The Israeli army said Friday that its soldiers shot dead a Palestinian who threw stones at troops near the occupied West Bank village of Husan, whose mayor told AFP the boy was 17.

The army said that on Thursday evening it had "eliminated one terrorist" who was throwing stones at Israeli soldiers.

Husan mayor Jamal Sabateen said the army had opened fired on youngsters throwing stones in the village west of Bethlehem.

"The Israeli army opened fire on them - killed one and injured another. The army took them, and up until now, they haven't been returned," Sabateen told AFP.

(AFP)

Two-thirds of the Gaza Strip is now inaccessible to Palestinians as Israel expands 'no-go zones' and issues more displacement orders, according to the UN's chief humanitarian agency.

Two-thirds of the #Gaza Strip are under Israeli displacement orders or in 'no go' zones.

All crossings are completely closed for incoming supplies - now for the 2nd month.

Humanitarian operations are obstructed.

Nowhere is safe. #CeasefireNow pic.twitter.com/z4i4H5jInk

— OCHA OPT (Palestine) (@ochaopt) April 3, 2025

More than 100 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have been arrested by Israeli security forces over the past week, the Palestinian Prisoners' Club said Friday.

More than 15,800 Palestinians have been detained in the West Bank since the beginning of the war, it said.

Gaza's civil defence agency said Friday that Israeli military operations had killed at least 30 people in the Palestinian territory since dawn.

The agency said there had been "30 martyrs in the Gaza Strip since dawn today, and the toll is not final".

A single Israeli strike on Khan Younis killed at least 25 people, a medical source at the southern city's Nasser Hospital told AFP.

(AFP)

Hungary is "giving a seal of approval to Israel's genocide" by hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes, Amnesty International said Thursday.

Hungary's right-wing prime minister Viktor Orban welcomed the wanted Israeli leader to the country for talks on Thursday in defiance of the international court.

During the visit, Orban announced that Hungary would leave the ICC - a decision that was lauded by Netanyahu.

“Hungary's purported withdrawal from the ICC is a brazen and futile attempt to evade international justice and to stymy the ICC’s work," Amnesty said in a statement.

"This cynical announcement does not change the fact that Hungary still has a fundamental obligation to arrest and surrender Benjamin Netanyahu to the ICC."

The ICC last year served Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant with arrest warrants for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Gaza.

Hamas's military wing said Friday that two of its members were killed in an Israeli strike in Lebanon after the Israeli army said the strike had killed a Hamas commander.

In a statement, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades said commander Hassan Farhat had been killed "inside his apartment in the city of Sidon, southern Lebanon, along with his martyred daughter Jenan Hassan Farhat, and his son" Hamza, also a member of the Palestinian group's military wing.

(AFP)

At least 19 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in Khan Younis this morning, Palestinian news agency WAFA is reporting.

The attack occurred in the Al-Manara neighbourhood on the eastern outskirts of the city.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu applauded Hungary for its "bold and principled" decision to leave the International Criminal Court as he visited Budapest on Thursday, a rare trip abroad in defiance of an ICC arrest warrant.

Netanyahu, invited by Hungary's right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban, has been charged by the international court of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Hungary has rejected the idea of arresting the Israeli prime minister and called the warrant "brazen."

(Reuters)

UN human rights chief Volker Turk has said that Israeli forces may have committed war crimes after the bodies of 15 medics and humanitarian workers were discovered in south Gaza last month.

"I am appalled by the recent killings of 15 medical personnel and humanitarian aid workers, which raise further concerns over the commission of war crimes by the Israeli military," Turk said at the UN Security Council on Thursday.

The bodies of 15 rescuers and humanitarian workers, including eight from the Palestinian Red Crescent and one from the UN, were found near Rafah in what the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) called a "mass grave."

This is "one of the darkest moments in this conflict that has shaken our shared humanity to its core," Palestinian Red Crescent Society President Younes Al-Khatib told the Security Council.

(AFP)

The Israeli army said this morning it had begun a new ground offensive east of Gaza City on Friday to seize additional territory and incorporate it into its 'security zone' .

"IDF forces began operating in the Shujaiyah area in the northern Gaza Strip in recent hours, with the aim of deepening control and expanding the security area," the army said in a statement.

The Israeli military has claimed to have killed a Hamas commander in a pre-dawn strike on the Lebanese port city of Sidon on Friday.

"Overnight, the [army and the domestic security agency Shin Bet] conducted a targeted strike in the Sidon area, eliminating the terrorist Hassan Farhat, commander of Hamas's western arena in Lebanon," the military said in a statement.

(AFP)

More than a dozen Palestinians were killed in fresh Israeli strikes in Gaza on Thursday morning as Israeli forces continue to target civilian infrastructure across the shattered territory.

Medical sources say that at least 23 people were killed by the Israeli military since dawn on Thursday, according to Al Jazeera Arabic.