Palestinians flee Gaza City as Israeli assault intensifies

TNA’s live coverage of the latest from the war on Gaza concludes for today. Join us again at 0900 GMT for updates from the besieged Palestinian enclave.
 

Amnesty International has condemned the United States for vetoing a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate and lasting ceasefire in Gaza and unrestricted humanitarian access.

This marks the sixth US veto on such resolutions, which Amnesty’s Secretary-General Agnes Callamard described as “morally reprehensible”, accusing Washington of giving Israel a “greenlight for genocide” against Palestinians.

Callamard said the veto comes amid Israel’s “unprecedented campaign of annihilation” in Gaza City, forcing mass displacement to unsafe southern areas and erasing the city’s heritage and Palestinian identity.

She warned that US support and arms sales to Israel risk complicity in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, urging all governments to halt weapons transfers, surveillance equipment, and investments linked to Israeli crimes.

Portugal will officially recognise a Palestinian state on Sunday, Lisbon's foreign ministry said on Friday, ahead of a UN General Assembly where around 10 other countries are set to follow suit.

Lisbon had already announced in July that it intended to do so given the "extremely worrying evolution of the conflict", as well as the humanitarian crisis and Israel's repeated threats to annex Palestinian land.

"The ministry of foreign affairs confirms that Portugal will recognise the State of Palestine... the official declaration of recognition will be made on Sunday, September 21," a statement on the ministry's website said.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told AFP news agency Friday that the world should not be "intimidated" by Israel as it presses its devastating Gaza war and pursues a "creeping" West Bank occupation.

Israel has reportedly threatened to annex the West Bank if Western nations press ahead with recognizing a Palestinian state at next week's UN high-level gathering in New York.

"We should not feel intimidated by the risk of retaliation, because with or without doing what we are doing, these actions would go on and at least there is a chance to mobilize international community to put pressure for them not to happen," he said.

"I don't think we are talking about retaliation in relation to this or that. There has been a constant progress of the measures of the Israeli government in order to now completely destroy Gaza and have a creeping annexation in the West Bank."

Guterres has led calls for Israel to hold back from its fierce campaign in Gaza and to back off from the "unprecedented" assault it has threatened on Gaza City.

"It is the worst level of death and destruction that I've seen my time as secretary general, probably my life and the suffering of the Palestinian people cannot be described -- famine, total lack of effective health care, people living without adequate shelters in huge concentration areas."

The UN chief has nonetheless held off characterizing Israel's conduct in Gaza as a "genocide," even as UN organs have used the phrasing which Israel bitterly contests.

"The problem is that it's not in my functions to do the legal determination of genocide," he said.

"It's not in my power. But let's be clear, the problem is not the word. The problem is the reality on the ground."

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has announced he will join The Hague Group’s initiative at the UN General Assembly in New York next week to push for action against Israel’s violations of international law.

In a statement, Anwar said Malaysia, a founding member of the group, would stand with its partners in confronting what he described as the “moral, legal and humanitarian abyss” of the Gaza genocide.

He added that The Hague Group was created for this purpose and would continue to grow in influence and collective conscience.

A senior Austrian official has dismissed cultural boycotts of Eurovision as “dumb and pointless” after several countries threatened to withdraw from next year’s contest in Vienna if Israel is allowed to participate.

Spain announced this week it would boycott the competition, with Ireland, Slovenia, Iceland and the Netherlands making similar warnings.

Austria is hosting Eurovision 2026 after singer JJ won the 2025 edition in Switzerland.

“Cultural boycotts are dumb and pointless; they don’t get us anywhere,” Sepp Schellhorn, a senior foreign ministry official, told Kurier in an interview published Thursday. The ministry confirmed his remarks on Friday.

Schellhorn added that he and the foreign minister plan to send a letter urging European governments not to pursue such boycotts.

The Trump administration has told Congress it plans to sell nearly $6 billion in weapons to Israel, a fresh surge of support for the U.S. ally as it faces increasing isolation over its war in Gaza.

It includes one $3.8 billion sale for 30 AH-64 Apache helicopters, nearly doubling Israel's current stocks, and a second $1.9 billion sale for 3,200 infantry assault vehicles for Israeli army, according to a U.S. official and another person familiar with the proposal who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss plans that have not been made public.

The packages would not be delivered for two to three years or longer.

The huge sales come as U.S. plans to broker an end to the nearly two-year war in the Palestinian enclave have stalled and after Israel's strike on Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, drew widespread condemnation among U.S. allies in the Middle East.

The U.S. has kept up its support despite growing international pressure on Israel and attempts from a growing number of U.S. Senate Democrats to block the sale of offensive weapons to Israel.

The State Department declined to comment on the sales, which were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

A 25-year-old Palestinian man has been hospitalised with multiple fractures after being assaulted by Israeli forces in the village of Raba, southeast of Jenin, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) reported.

The attack comes amid intensified Israeli raids across the occupied West Bank, with Jenin and its refugee camp frequently targeted in recent months.

Military incursions have destroyed homes and infrastructure, displaced families, and forced thousands to flee, while near-daily operations involve live fire, mass arrests, and damage to essential utilities as Israel accelerates settlement expansion.

Canada has barred Irish rap trio Kneecap from entering the country ahead of concerts scheduled for next month, accusing the band of promoting hate and supporting groups including Hamas in Gaza, a member of Canada's government said on Friday.

But the Belfast-based group rejected the accusations as an attempt to silence them, arguing their support for Palestinians under Israeli attack in Gaza is being wrongly portrayed as antisemitic hate.

Vince Gasparro, a member of parliament and parliamentary secretary for combatting crime, said in a video on X that Kneecap members were deemed ineligible for entry because of actions and statements that violate Canadian law.

He said the group has amplified political violence and has publicly displayed support for terrorist organizations, including Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Hamas.

"Advocating for political violence, glorifying terrorist organizations and displaying hate symbols that directly target the Jewish community are not protected forms of expression and will not be tolerated by our government," Gasparro said.

Kneecap responded by denying Gasparro's allegations as "wholly untrue and deeply malicious," adding that no member of the group had ever been convicted of a crime in any country.

The group also threatened to take legal action against him.

"We will be relentless in defending ourselves against baseless accusations to silence our opposition to a genocide being conducted by Israel," the group said in a statement posted on X.

A message to Vince Gasparro and our many fans across Canada. 👇 https://t.co/66avCapPgn pic.twitter.com/ySsrgpMs6J

— KNEECAP (@KNEECAPCEOL) September 19, 2025

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed never to return the ancient Siloam (Silwan) inscription to Israel, calling it part of Ottoman heritage.

The 2,700-year-old Hebrew tablet, discovered in 1880 inside Jerusalem’s Siloam tunnel, was taken to Constantinople during Ottoman rule and remains housed in Istanbul’s archaeology museum.

The dispute resurfaced after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recalled that his 1998 request for the artefact was rejected by Ankara. Erdogan accused Netanyahu of “spewing hatred” against Turkey for refusing to hand over what he described as a legacy of Ottoman ancestors.

“Jerusalem is the honour, dignity and glory of all humanity and all Muslims,” Erdoğan said on Friday. “We will not return the inscription, not even a single pebble from Jerusalem.”

Israel has long sought the tablet, seeing it as historical evidence of Jewish presence in Jerusalem.

A nine-year-old child has died from severe malnutrition in the paediatric ward of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza, a medical source confirmed.

The tragedy comes as famine deepens in the enclave, with hunger-related deaths continuing to rise under Israel’s blockade, which restricts food and fuel supplies.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, this latest case brings the total number of deaths from starvation since the war began to 441.

The Israeli military warned on Friday it would operate with "unprecedented force" in Gaza City, telling residents to flee as it presses its ground offensive on the territory's largest urban centre.

Israel has pummelled Gaza City with air strikes and tank fire in its bid to seize it, nearly two years into the war that has devastated the Palestinian territory and left Gaza City gripped by a UN-declared famine.

The assault comes ahead of a planned move by several Western governments, including Britain and France, to recognise a Palestinian state at a UN summit next week.

The military launched its ground assault on Tuesday and has for days been telling residents to head south, but many Palestinians say the journey is prohibitively expensive and they do not know where to go.

"For several days, we've been trying to evacuate to the south, but we haven't been able to find any means of transport," Khaled al-Majdalawi, a displaced Palestinian in western Gaza City told AFP news agency, describing "intense and continuous" shelling.

"We finally found a way to leave early this morning. We packed our belongings and waited for hours, but until now, no one has come, and the driver isn't answering us," the 32-year-old said.

American forces carried out a raid in Syria on Friday, killing a senior operative from the Islamic State (IS) group, the US military said.

"Omar Abdul Qader was an ISIS member actively seeking to attack the United States," the military's Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement, using an alternate acronym for IS.

"His death disrupts the terrorist organization's ability to plot and carry out future attacks threatening Americans and our partners," CENTCOM said.

It is the second raid -- a term that indicates US forces were on the ground -- in Syria in less than two months, following another that CENTCOM said killed an IS leader in late July.

IS rose out of the chaos of the Syrian civil war to seize swaths of territory there and in neighboring Iraq over a decade ago.

It has since suffered major defeats in both countries, but the United States still periodically targets the group's remnants with raids or strikes to prevent it from resurging.

Malta and Luxembourg have told the leadership of the Palestinian Authority that they will recognise the State of Palestine at an upcoming UN General Assembly in New York, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa.

The United States has held talks with Gulf Arab states about the possibility that they could administer Gaza once the war is over, US Ambassador Mike Huckabee told Reuters on Friday.

Huckabee said there had been conversations around an interim governing structure involving Gulf Arab states, potentially with the US taking on a supervisory role, with a decision on a permanent arrangement to be made later.

"It's a discussion. It's not something that has been accepted by the administration, by Israel, by anyone. I'm not familiar with anything that is ready for signature," he said.

Israel's foreign minister called on the world on Friday to prevent arch foe Iran from ever acquiring nuclear weapons, after the UN Security Council voted to reimpose sanctions against Tehran.

"A nuclear-armed Iran would mean that the most dangerous regime possesses the most dangerous weapon, dramatically undermining global stability and security. The international community's goal must remain unchanged: to prevent Iran from ever acquiring nuclear capabilities," Gideon Saar posted on X.

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem called on Saudi Arabia to turn "a new page" and open dialogue with the Lebanese armed group on Friday.

Lebanon is under pressure from the US, Saudi Arabia and Hezbollah's domestic rivals to disarm the group.

The United Nations General Assembly on Friday voted to allow Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to address the annual gathering of world leaders next week via video after the United States said it would not give him a visa to travel to New York.

The resolution received 145 votes in favor and five votes against, while six countries abstained.

An Israeli airstrike that targeted a car near the entrance to the Tebnin Governmental Hospital killed one person and injured eleven, according to Lebanon's National News Agency, citing the country's health ministry.

Four Palestinians have died from malnutrition, including a child, in the Gaza Strip, according to Gaza's ministry of health, which added that Israeli attacks have killed 33 Palestinians and injured 146 in the last 24 hours.

The Israeli military on Friday said around 480,000 Palestinians have fled southwards from Gaza City since late August, as it presses its ground offensive in a bid to seize the territory's largest urban centre.

When asked by AFP for a figure since the end of August, the military said: "The estimate is approximately 480,000." The United Nations estimated at the end of August that about one million people were living in Gaza City and its surroundings.

British trip-hop group Massive Attack announced they are joining a new music industry initiative to block their music in Israel and have also asked for their songs to be removed from Spotify.

The Bristol natives said they had joined "No Music for Genocide", a collective of musicians modelled on the "Film Workers for Palestine" group, which has also called for a cultural boycott of Israel over the war in Gaza.

"We'd appeal to all musicians to transfer their sadness, anger and artistic contributions into a coherent, reasonable and vital action to end the unspeakable hell being visited upon the Palestinians hour after hour," the group wrote on Instagram on Thursday.

A website for "No Music for Genocide" says it brings together more than 400 artists and labels that "have geo-blocked and removed their music" from Israel in protest at the country's Gaza campaign.

It offers advice to artists about how to geo-block their songs so they are unavailable on streaming platforms in Israel.

Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli airstrike on a car outside Tibnin Governmental Hospital killed one person and injured three others.

The ministry confirmed the casualties as an initial toll following the attack on the hospital entrance in southern Lebanon.

Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed 21 Palestinians since dawn, according to Al Jazeera, citing medical sources. 

Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz has threatened the leader of the Houthis and said that the Israeli flag would fly over Sanna under a united Yemen. 

In a post on X, Katz said: "Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, your time will come. You will be sent to meet you government plenary and all the eliminated members of the axis of evil who are waiting in the depths of hell." 

"The slogan 'Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews' written on the Houthi flag will be replaced by the Israeli blue-and-white flag that will fly over the capital of a united Yemen," he added.

Palestinian authorities have arrested a key suspect in an antisemitic attack on a Jewish restaurant in Paris which left six people dead in Paris in 1982, French prosecutors said on Friday.

The office of the France anti-terror prosecutor said it was informed by Interpol of the arrest of Hicham Harb, welcoming "this major procedural breakthrough" and thanking the Palestinian authorities for their cooperation.

Harb, now 70, who is suspected of leading the attackers in the gun assault on the Jo Goldenberg restaurant in the heart of Paris, was arrested in the occupied West Bank, according to the Le Parisien daily, which first reported the arrest.

The Israeli military warned on Friday it will operate with "unprecedented force" in Gaza City, urging residents to flee southwards while announcing the closure of a temporary evacuation route opened 48 hours earlier.

In a post on X addressing residents of Gaza City, the military's Arabic-language spokesman, Avichay Adraee, said: "From this moment, Salah al-Din Road is closed for southbound travel. The Israeli Defence Forces will continue to operate with unprecedented force against Hamas and other terrorist organisations."

He added the only possible route south was via Al-Rashid street and urged residents to "take this opportunity and join the hundreds of thousands of city residents who have moved south to the humanitarian area".

Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed sixteen Palestinians since dawn, according to Al Jazeera citing medical sources in the enclave.

Algeria has criticised the UN Security Council for failing to adopt its draft resolution calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

The US was the only member to veto the text, arguing it did not denounce Hamas or affirm Israel's right to self-defence.

Algeria's ambassador to the UN, Amar Bendjama, apologised to Palestinians, saying the council had "failed to save your children." He described the outcome as "a stain on the conscience of humanity" and pledged that Algeria would "never abandon" the Palestinian cause.

The draft resolution also urged expanded humanitarian access to Gaza.

Earlier, a UN official described conditions in Gaza City as "nothing short of cataclysmic".

The Gulf Cooperation Council’s Joint Defence Council approved new defensive steps after an emergency meeting on Israel’s strikes on Doha.

Qatar’s news agency QNA cited GCC Secretary-General Jasem al-Budaiwi as saying the measures included greater intelligence sharing, integrated aerial surveillance across Gulf states, and an accelerated joint early-warning project for ballistic missiles.

The council also agreed to update joint defence plans, hold combined air defence exercises within three months, and stage a live air drill.

Budaiwi said the council “condemned, in the strongest terms, the serious Israeli military aggression on Qatar.”

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty met his Saudi counterpart Faisal bin Farhan in Riyadh on Tuesday, where both reiterated opposition to Israel's ongoing assault on Gaza City.

Egypt's foreign ministry said the two ministers discussed Israel's strike on Qatar as well as developments in Gaza and the West Bank.

The statement described Israel's operation as "an extremely dangerous escalation and a serious violation of the rules of international humanitarian law."

Talks also touched on preparations for an international conference on Gaza, due to be held alongside the UN General Assembly in New York on 22 September.

Hamas has warned that Israeli hostages in Gaza face growing danger as the army pushes further into Gaza City, threatening to "scatter them throughout neighbourhoods".

The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's armed wing, said in a statement on Tuesday: "We will not spare their lives as long as Netanyahu has decided to kill them."

The group vowed to turn Gaza into "a graveyard" for Israeli soldiers and declared that Israel "will not obtain a single hostage, neither living nor dead," drawing a parallel to the fate of Ron Arad, an Israeli pilot missing since his plane was downed over Lebanon in 1986.

Hamas official Bassem Naim told Al-Araby TV that "what befalls our people during the operation in Gaza City will befall Israeli hostages."

The Houthi movement said it had launched fresh projectile attacks on Israel, two days after Israeli strikes targeted the strategic Yemeni port city of Hudaydah.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya al-Sarea wrote on X that the group had fired a ballistic missile at a "sensitive military target" in Jaffa - likely referring to Tel Aviv - and had also targeted sites in Eilat and Beersheba using drones.

Meanwhile, Houthi leader Abdulmalek al-Houthi paid tribute to journalists killed in Israeli strikes on Yemen earlier this month, calling them “martyrs in an important field.”

In his weekly televised address, the rebel chief highlighted the role of journalists in countering disinformation and stressed the importance of their work.