Rescuers race to save Gaza victims buried under rubble by fresh Israeli strikes

TNA’s live coverage of the latest from the war on Gaza concludes for today. Join us again at 0800 GMT for updates from the besieged Palestinian enclave.
 

UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan is expected to warn Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel’s plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank could undermine the Abraham Accords, Israel’s Channel 12 reported ahead of their meeting in New York on Friday evening.

An Emirati source told the network that bin Zayed would emphasise Abu Dhabi’s view of the accords as a "cornerstone for a better future in the region," while voicing deep concern over actions that threaten prospects for a two-state solution.

The source added that bin Zayed would caution against "dangerous steps," including West Bank annexation and attacks on Qatar, warning that such moves risk jeopardising the historic normalisation deal.

He is also expected to brief Netanyahu on US President Donald Trump’s proposals to end the Gaza war and secure the release of hostages.

A 17-year-old Palestinian has died of starvation in Gaza, doctors at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital told Al Jazeera Arabic.

Medical staff said the boy was also deprived of proper treatment, highlighting the collapse of Gaza’s health system under Israel’s blockade and continuing war.

Israeli forces carried out raids across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem on Friday, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Troops entered areas south of Bethlehem, including al-Khader and the al-Dahaysha refugee camp, though no arrests were reported.

In East Jerusalem, Israeli forces surrounded the home of Muthana Amro, one of two gunmen accused of carrying out an attack in early September. Amro was killed during the incident.

Authorities plan to demolish the Amro family home in al-Qubayba, northwest of Jerusalem — part of Israel’s practice of destroying the homes of alleged attackers, a policy widely condemned by human rights groups as collective punishment.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, whose government has championed Hamas, said Friday he backed any ceasefire in Gaza after US President Donald Trump voiced optimism for a deal.

"Any agreement that can stop this tragedy, that can save lives and stop women and children suffering from hunger, we would support wholeheartedly," Pezeshkian told reporters on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

Pezeshkian voiced horror over Israel's relentless campaign in Gaza since the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas.

"How can human beings behave like this?" he said. "I am a doctor and even some images I cannot see."

But he denied Iranian responsibility for the October 7 attacks, saying without offering evidence that Israeli intelligence could have known ahead of time about the assault.

Inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog are "now in Iran," the country's foreign minister told the UN Security Council Friday, contradicting a claim by France that they were not present.

IAEA "inspectors are right now in Iran doing their job," Iranian FM Abbas Araghchi said.

"I signed an agreement with the agency in Cairo and the director general of the agency is quite satisfied and happy."

The Houthi movement says the death toll from Thursday’s Israeli airstrikes on Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, has risen to nine, including four children and two women.

According to the group, at least 174 others were injured, among them 59 children. Civil defence and rescue teams are still searching the rubble for further victims.

The Houthis condemned the strikes, claiming they targeted residential areas and civilian infrastructure.

At least 60 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since dawn Friday, according to medical sources cited by Al Jazeera.

Heavy airstrikes have struck multiple areas of Gaza City, including al-Wehda Street, al-Shati refugee camp, and the al-Nasr neighbourhood, Al Jazeera reported.

Medical officials added that 13 of the victims were killed while attempting to collect aid from Gaza Health Foundation distribution points.

A last-minute Israeli demand for a land corridor in Syria’s southwestern province of Suweida has stalled progress on Israel-Syria talks, according to Reuters news agency.

The corridor demand, previously rejected by Damascus as a violation of sovereignty, resurfaced this week and blocked the announcement of a security agreement that Washington believed was imminent.

Israel insists the corridor would facilitate aid delivery, but Syrian officials remain sceptical, citing ongoing Israeli airstrikes and concerns that Tel Aviv seeks greater control over Suweida, home to a large Druze community.

While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the UN General Assembly on Friday that a deal with Damascus could be achieved, a Syrian official said no discussions had taken place with Israel this week.

Israel has intensified strikes and expanded its territorial control since the fall of Syria’s longtime president Bashar al-Assad in December, declaring the 1974 security accord between the two neighbours void.

The main Israeli group representing the families of Gaza hostages decried Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's call at the UN Friday to "finish the job" in the territory, saying it endangered the remaining captives.

"Every day of continued war puts the living hostages at greater risk and threatens the recovery of those who have been murdered," the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement.

"Time and again, (Netanyahu) has chosen to squander every opportunity to bring them home."

In a defiant speech at the UN General Assembly, Netanyahu vowed to "finish the job" against Hamas in Gaza even as US President Donald Trump said he thought he had sealed a deal on a ceasefire after nearly two years of war.

During the address, Netanyahu also read out the names of some but not all of the captives held by militants in Gaza, drawing rebuke from the hostages forum.

"While President Trump consistently acknowledges all hostages, both the living and those who have been murdered, Netanyahu chose to read only the names of the living hostages," the group said in a statement.

"The families of all 48 hostages are outraged by this erasure. There are 48 hostages in Gaza, not 20."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Friday in an angry UN address to block a Palestinian state, accusing European leaders of pushing his country into "national suicide" and rewarding Hamas.

Netanyahu, who said his speech was being partially broadcast on Israeli military loudspeakers in Gaza, vowed to "finish the job" against Hamas even as President Donald Trump said he thought he had sealed a deal on a ceasefire.

Days after Britain, France and other Western powers recognized a state of Palestine, Netanyahu said that they had sent "a very clear message that murdering Jews pays off."

"Israel will not allow you to shove a terrorist state down our throats," Netanyahu said.

"We will not commit national suicide because you don't have the guts to face down the hostile media and antisemitic mobs demanding Israel's blood," he said.

Medical charity Doctors without Borders (MSF) said Friday it had been forced to suspend its work in Gaza City because of the ongoing Israeli offensive there.

The statement came after the Israeli military pressed its offensive in Gaza City, from which hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to flee.

"We have been left with no choice but to stop our activities as our clinics are encircled by Israeli forces," said Jacob Granger, MSF emergency coordinator in Gaza.

"This is the last thing we wanted, as the needs in Gaza City are enormous, with the most vulnerable people -- infants in neo-natal care, those with severe injuries and life-threatening illnesses -- unable to move and in grave danger."

Following a speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the UN on Friday, where he said that Israel would never agree to a Palestinian state, Bezalel Smotrich hailed Netanyahu reaffirming his opposition to a state.

"He laid down once again necessary and clear principles, both morally and practically: We will not stop until Hamas is defeated and the hostages are returned. And we will never agree to a Palestinian state," he said, according to the The Times of Israel.

Israel has killed 51 Palestinians in Gaza since dawn, according to Al Jazeera, citing medical sources in Gaza's hospitals. 

The death toll includes 30 Palestinians who were killed in Gaza City.

Oscar-winning US actor Jennifer Lawrence called Israel's war in Gaza a genocide and warned about the normalisation of lies in American politics during a Friday appearance at Spain's San Sebastian Film Festival.

"What's happening is no less than a genocide, and it's unacceptable," Lawrence told a news conference when asked about the war that has devastated the Palestinian territory for almost two years.

Hamas said a mass walkout of delegations before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech at the United Nations on Friday showed Israel's "isolation" as a result of the Gaza war.

"Boycotting Netanyahu's speech is one manifestation of Israel's isolation and the consequences of the war of extermination," Taher al-Nunu, the media adviser to the head of Hamas's political bureau, said in a statement.

Gaza's health authorities have said that 47 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza in the past 24 hours, with a further 142 wounded.

The death toll of Israel's assault on the enclave is 65,549 Palestinians killed, with a further 167,518 wounded.

US President Donald Trump said Friday he believed that a deal had been struck to end the war on Gaza, following recent talks with Israel and Arab states.

"I think we have a deal," Trump told reporters at the White House. "It's looking like we have a deal on Gaza, I think it's a deal that will get the hostages back, it's going to be a deal that will end the war."

Since Israel shut a vital corridor into famine-stricken northern Gaza before escalating its ground offensive this month, community kitchens and health clinics have closed and vital flows of food have slowed, residents and UN agencies say.

The Zikim Crossing was shut on September 12, days ahead of an Israeli ground offensive on Gaza City in the north of the territory, prompting warnings from aid agencies.

Since then, the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) told Reuters it had not managed to bring any supplies through Zikim, previously the route for half its food deliveries into Gaza.

There has been a reduction of about 50,000 daily meals in northern Gaza compared to 109,000 daily meals before Zikim closed, as some kitchens in Gaza City serving free meals shut, according to Amjad Al-Shawa, head of the Palestinian NGOs Network.

Residents say conditions are getting worse. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced by the latest offensive, though others have stayed put despite Israeli evacuation orders, citing fears about security and hunger if they move.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu aggressively ruled out Palestinian statehood in a speech to the UN on Friday, telling those delegates who stayed to listen that it would be tantamount to "national suicide" for his country.

"Israel will not allow you to shove a terrorist state down our throats. We will not commit national suicide because you don't have the guts to face down the hostile media and antisemitic mobs demanding Israel's blood," he said.

He also denied accusations of "genocide" in Gaza and using "starvation" as a tactic, insisting Israel was actually feeding the people of the devastated Palestinian territory.

"Those who peddle the blood libels of genocide against Israel are no better than those who peddled the blood libels against Jews in the Middle Ages," Netanyahu said.

Hezbollah's effort to blunt international pressure on Lebanon to disarm the group by appealing to Saudi Arabia last week was the result of back-channel diplomacy by Iran, two Iranian sources and a source with knowledge of Hezbollah thinking said.

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem appealed to Saudi Arabia to turn "a new page" and set aside past disputes to create a unified front against Israel in a speech last week, a move widely seen as signalling the Iran-backed Shi'ite Muslim group's alarm at the push to make Lebanon implement a plan for disarming it.

Iran's involvement, which has not previously been reported, also indicates Tehran's anxiety that its main Lebanese ally will lose more ground after suffering major reverses during last year's war with Israel.

Saudi Arabia, a Sunni power that has long regarded Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation that exercises undue influence over Lebanon on Iran's behalf, has consistently backed disarmament and has shown no signs of changing course since Qassem's appeal.

Saudi officials did not respond to Reuters requests for comment on Hezbollah's appeal to the kingdom or whether Riyadh's policy on the group's possession of weapons has changed.

The issue of Hezbollah’s weapons is bitterly divisive in Lebanon and has grown increasingly urgent as the United States presses Beirut to announce a plan to disarm the group and as Israel continues air strikes in the country.

The United Nations on Friday released a long-awaited update of its database of companies with activities in Israeli settlements, listing 158 firms from 11 countries.

Big firms such as Airbnb, Booking.com, Motorola Solutions and Trip Advisor remained on the list, while several companies including Alstom and Opodo were removed, the non-exhaustive database showed.

Most of the companies were based in Israel, while others were based in Canada, China, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Britain and the United States.

The report called on companies to "take appropriate action to address the adverse human rights impacts" of their activities.

UN rights chief Volker Turk has condemned Israel's policy of settlements on Palestinian territory in the occupied West Bank as a war crime.

"This report underscores the due diligence responsibility of businesses working in contexts of conflict to ensure their activities do not contribute to human rights abuses," Turk said in a statement as his office published the database.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the Israeli military to broadcast his upcoming UN speech into the Gaza Strip, with the military setting up loudspeakers along the border from inside Israel.

Amid Netanyahu's claims that the military were not ordered to broadcast the speech from inside Gaza, but from outsie as "part of the public diplomacy effort," the Times of Israel is reporting craines with loudspeakers are being set up inside Gaza to broadcast the speech, with a reservist being cited by I24 as saying soldiers were asked to escourt trucks with loudspeakers: "We didn't know the real reason, they only told us it was to move the population. They asked for it to be as close to the civilians as possible." 

The Times of Israel also report that families of Israeli soldiers are furious with the decision, with group Ima Era saying: "How long will you use our sons for your personal campaign?"

Iran and Russia signed a $25 billion deal to build nuclear power plants in the Islamic republic, Iranian state media reported Friday, with sweeping UN sanctions on Iran likely to return.

"A deal for the construction of four nuclear power plants with a value of $25 billions in Sirik, Hormozgan was signed between the Iran Hormoz company and Rosatom," state television said.

Iran has just one operational nuclear power plant in Bushehr in the south.

The Palestinian Authority welcomed on Friday foreign fund pledges it said would help it keep government services going while Israel withholds tax revenues it collects on its behalf.

Donor countries including Saudi Arabia, Germany and Spain pledged at least $170 million to finance the budget of the Ramallah-based PA in New York on Thursday, according to Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa's office.

The PA had sought $400 million a month for six months, and the prime minister's spokesman Mohammad Abu al-Rob told AFP it was unclear whether the pledged funds would be renewed.

The PA has long been in fiscal crisis, but its finances were further hit by the war in Gaza, with Israel withholding tax revenue meant for the PA.

In the West Bank, services provided by the PA have deteriorated in recent months, with Israel stopping tax revenue transfers amounting to 68 percent of the authority's budget, according to Abu al-Rob.

Israel’s air force carried out airstrikes Friday on eastern Lebanon, the Lebanese state-run news agency reported without giving any word on casualties. The Israeli military said it struck a site used for manufacturing precision missiles.

The airstrikes took place near the Lebanese village of Saraain in the Bekaa Valley region, according to the National News Agency. They are the latest strikes since the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war ended with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire in November.

The Israeli military said the site constituted a violation of the understanding between Israel and Lebanon. It added that the military will continue to operate to remove any threat posed to Israel.

Since the ceasefire went into effect, Israel has carried out almost daily airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon, alleging that Hezbollah is trying to rebuild its capabilities.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he reached an understanding with US President Donald Trump on how to achieve a ceasefire and lasting peace in Gaza and Palestine after talks at the White House on Thursday.

"Our meeting was very important in terms of putting forth the will to end the massacres in Gaza. Mr Trump stated during the meeting the need to end fighting in Gaza and reach lasting peace," Erdogan was cited as telling reporters according to a transcript shared by his office on Friday.

"We explained how a ceasefire can be achieved in Gaza and the whole of Palestine, and lasting peace afterwards. An understanding was reached there," he added. "We said that the two-state solution was the formula for lasting peace in the region, that the current situation cannot continue."

Erdogan also said the participation of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa in the United Nations General Assembly was very important for the global legitimacy of the new Syrian government.

Members of the European Broadcasting Union will vote in November on Israel's participation in the Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna next year, according to media reports.

Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung and the Guardian reported on Thursday that EBU members were informed of the vote in a letter from the organisation's president.

"A vote on participation in the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 will take place at an extraordinary meeting of the EBU's General Assembly to be held online in early November," the EBU told Reuters in a statement, without expressly naming Israel.

The Kronen Zeitung included a screenshot of the letter which said that the EBU executive board recognised that it could not reach a consensual position on the participation of Israeli public broadcaster, KAN. Reuters could not immediately confirm the letter's authenticity.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair seeks a senior role in running postwar Gaza under a peace plan being developed by the Trump administration, the Financial Times said on Thursday, citing people briefed on the proposal.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

Blair had been proposed to chair a supevisory board called the "Gaza International Transitional Authority," the paper added.

Blair was part of a late August meeting Trump presided over to tackle Israel's war in Gaza and post-war plans for the Palestinian territory.

In July, the paper said the Tony Blair Institute participated in a project to develop a post-war Gaza plan.

The think-tank had said none of its talks with different groups on post-war reconstruction of Gaza had included the idea of forcible relocation of people from the area.

International doctors and nurses who treated Palestinians in Gazan hospitals described wounds more severe than civilians had suffered in other modern conflicts, according to a peer-reviewed study published Friday.

For the research in the leading medical journal BMJ, 78 humanitarian healthcare workers mostly from Europe and North America answered survey questions describing the severity, location and cause of the wounds they saw during their stints in the Gaza Strip.

The British-led team of researchers said it is the most comprehensive data available about Palestinian injuries during Israel's nearly two-year offensive against militant group Hamas, given that the territory's health facilities have been devastated and international access is heavily restricted.

Two thirds of the healthcare workers had previously deployed to other conflict zones, the vast majority of whom said the injuries in Gaza were "the worst thing that they've ever seen", the study's lead author, British surgeon Omar El-Taji, told AFP.

Up to three months after they returned from Gaza, the doctors and nurses - aided by log books and shift records - filled out a survey about the injuries they saw during deployments lasting from two to 12 weeks between August 2024 and February 2025.

They catalogued more than 23,700 trauma injuries and nearly 7,000 wounds caused by weapons -- numbers which broadly echoed data from the World Health Organization, the study said.

Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip have killed at least 27 Palestinians since dawn, according to Al Jazeera, citing medical sources in the enclave, which reported that 16 were killed while attempting to receive aid. 

Israeli raids around the occupied West Bank city of Nablus have seen the arrests of 22 Palestinians, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa. 

The raids were conducted on Nablus, as well as the Askar and Balaa refugee camps and the villages of Zawata and Kafr Qallil, the agency reported. 

A group of nations providing financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority has agreed to an emergency package increasing the support, Norway's foreign ministry said on Friday.

Saudi Arabia, Spain, Britain, Japan and France were among the nations supporting the initiative dubbed the Emergency Coalition for the Financial Sustainability of the Palestinian Authority.

It was not immediately clear how much funding the initiative would raise.

The Norwegian government said its contribution was for 40 million Norwegian crowns ($4.0 million).

"This coalition was established in response to the urgent and unprecedented financial crisis confronting the Palestinian Authority (PA)," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The immediate purpose was to stabilise the PA's finances and preserve its ability to govern, provide essential services and maintain security, it added.

The countries participating in the scheme also called on Israel to release funds they said belong to the PA. Norway has for decades chaired the international donor group to the Palestinians known as the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC).