Israel continues Gaza attacks amid criticism of West Bank settlement plan

The live blog has now ended and will be back tomorrow at 9am BST. You can read more of The New Arab's coverage of Israel's war on Gaza here.

South Sudan and Israel are discussing a deal to resettle Palestinians from war-torn Gaza in the troubled African nation, three sources told Reuters - a plan quickly dismissed as unacceptable by Palestinian leaders.

The sources, who have knowledge of the matter but spoke on condition of anonymity, said no agreement had been reached but talks between South Sudan and Israel were ongoing.

The plan, if carried further, would envisage people moving from an enclave shattered by almost two years of war with Israel to a nation in the heart of Africa riven by years of political and ethnically-driven violence.

The three sources said the prospect of resettling Palestinians in South Sudan was raised during meetings between Israeli officials and South Sudanese Foreign Minister Monday Semaya Kumba when he visited the country last month.

Their account appeared to contradict South Sudan's foreign ministry which on Wednesday dismissed earlier reports on the plan as "baseless".

The ministry was not immediately available to respond to the sources' assertions on Friday.

Gaza's Ministry of Health has said that Israeli attacks on the enclave in the past 24 hours have killed 51 Palestinians and wounded a further 369 others, adding that since the start of the war, 61,827 Palestinians have been killed and 155,275 have been wounded.

The Israeli military on Friday said its troops were conducting a range of operations on the outskirts of Gaza City, ahead of a new major offensive to capture the sprawling municipal area.

The announcement came a week after Israel's security cabinet approved the capture of the Palestinian territory's largest city following 22 months of war that have created dire humanitarian conditions.

"Over the past few days, [Israeli army] troops have been operating in the Zeitoun area, on the outskirts of Gaza City," said the statement released by the Israeli military.

"The troops are operating to locate explosives, eliminate terrorists, and dismantle terrorist infrastructure above and below ground. As part of their activity, the troops struck and dismantled a booby-trapped structure that stored weapons."

The military said that its troops had also been targeted by insurgents firing an anti-tank missile, but said that no personnel were injured during the incident.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam on Friday slammed what he described as Hezbollah "threats" of civil war after the group's leader vowed to fight against government efforts to disarm it.

Publishing on X an excerpt from an interview he gave to a Saudi newspaper, Salam said the remarks by Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem "constitute an implicit threat of civil war", calling "any threat or intimidation related to such a war is totally unacceptable".

The UN human rights office said Friday that at least 1,760 Palestinians had been killed while seeking aid in Gaza since late May, a jump of several hundred since its last published figure at the beginning of August.

"Since 27 May, and as of 13 August, we have recorded that at least 1,760 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid; 994 in the vicinity of GHF (Gaza Humanitarian Foundation) sites and 766 along the routes of supply convoys. Most of these killings were committed by the Israeli military," the agency's office for the Palestinian territories said in a statement.

That compares with a figure of 1,373 killed the office reported on 1 August.

The update came as Gaza's civil defence agency said at least 23 people were killed by Israeli fire on Friday, including 12 who were waiting for humanitarian aid.

Oxfam's spokesperson Chris McIntosh has accused Israel of delaying the entry of aid into Gaza, telling Al Jazeera's Arabic language service that "Israel is preventing us from bringing in generators, citing security concerns. Israel is using blocking tactics as a weapon to frustrate us in providing relief to the people of Gaza," according to Al Jazeera.

The Mujahideen Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement, said that fights conducted an attack against Israeli soldiers in Gaza City's Zeitoun neighbourhood alongside the al-Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees.

In a statement, it said the attack "destroyed" a group of soldiers and vehicles in an attack using 60mm mortar shells, according to Al Jazeera.

Israeli settlers have attacked the occupied West Bank village of Shallalat al-Auja, northeast of Jericho, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa. 

The settlers broke into the area and roamed around the homes of the village's residents, the agency added.

Medical Aid for Palestinians has said that the Nasser Hospital is overoccupied and under-resourced, saying: "Bed occupancy rate for all the hospital is more than 200 percent in all departments. In some departments it exceeds 300 percent, such as the orthopedic and surgical departments. Patients are everywhere, in departments, corridors, everywhere in the hospital.  Some patients are left waiting in the ER department to be admitted."

"For supplies, we have shortages in nearly all consumables, especially in dressing supplies such as latex gloves, sterile gauze and abdominal gauze. This is in addition to shortages in essential medications, including ICU medications such as propofol for anaesthesia," the officer added.

President Donald Trump said on Thursday he would like to see journalists gain access to Gaza to see humanitarian efforts.

Israel has not allowed foreign reporters to enter Gaza since the start of its war in October 2023, unless they are under
Israeli military escort.

"I'd like to see that happen. Sure," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "I would be very fine with journalists going.

And it's a very dangerous position to be in, as you know, if you're a journalist, but I would like to see it."

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry and the wife of imprisoned leader Marwan Barghouti have condemned what they called a provocative and dangerous raid by extremist Israeli Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on Barghouti's prison cell.

On Thursday, Israel's National Security Minister stormed Barghouti’s cell at the Ramon Prison, telling him that Israel will win the war in Gaza.

"Whoever messes with the people of Israel, whoever murders our children, whoever murders our women, we will obliterate them. You will not defeat us," Ben-Gvir told the iconic Palestinian figure who has been imprisoned for over two decades.

"You will come to learn this throughout history."

A short clip showing the incident has been shared online.

Israeli forces have dropped leaflets on Gaza City's Zeitoun neighbourhood ordering the forced displacement of its residents, according to Al Jazeera. 

The number of Palestinians who have been killed by Israel in Gaza since dawn has risen to 16, according to Al Jazeera, citing medical sources in the enclave. Five of those killed were aid seekers shot dead by Israeli forces while waiting for aid.

The U.N. human rights office said on Friday Israel's decision to build a new settlement near East Jerusalem was illegal under international law and that it put nearby Palestinians at risk of forced eviction, which it described as a war crime.

Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich approved plans for a settlement that would split East Jerusalem from the Israeli-occupied West Bank, saying the move would "bury" the idea of a Palestinian state.

Eleven Palestinians have been killed by Israel since dawn, according to Al Jazeera, which said that the figure includes two aid seekers who were shot dead by Israeli forces near the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza.

Two Palestinians have been wounded by Israeli settlers who fired on them in an attack on the town of al-Mazara'a Al-Sharqiyah, east of Ramallah, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa, which added that the two were taken to the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah.

Germany on Friday called on the Israeli government to stop settlement construction in the West Bank after Israel's far right finance minister said work would start on a plan for thousands of home that would divide the Palestinian territory.

Germany "firmly rejects the Israeli government's announcements regarding the approval of thousands of new housing units in Israeli settlements in the West Bank," said a foreign ministry spokesperson in a statement.

Plans for the "E1" settlement and the expansion of Maale Adumim would further restrict the mobility of the Palestinian population in the West Bank by splitting it in half and cutting the area off from East Jerusalem, said the spokesperson.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced on Thursday that work would start on the long-delayed settlement, a move that his office said would "bury" the idea of a Palestinian state.

In a statement, Smotrich's spokesperson said the minister had approved the plan to build 3,401 houses for Israeli settlers between an existing settlement in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Germany has repeatedly warned the Israeli government to stop settlement construction in the West Bank, which violates
international law and UN Security Council resolutions.

Such moves complicate steps towards a negotiated two-state solution and end to Israeli occupation of the West Bank, said
the spokesperson.

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem accused the Lebanese government on Friday of "handing" the country to Israel by pushing for the group's disarmament, warning it would fight to keep its weapons.

Qassem delivered a televised address after meeting Iran's top security chief, whose country has backed the Lebanese militant group for decades. Hezbollah emerged badly weakened from last year's war with Israel, and the government is pushing to disarm it by the end of the year.