Southern, central Gaza ‘completely crowded’: Media office

Gaza’s Government Media Office says the Israeli army is “promoting lies and false allegations” to forcibly displace Palestinians and worsen the humanitarian situation in the enclave. In a statement, the office said the army’s push for an idea of southern Gaza having “vast empty spaces” was a “false claim that contradicts the facts on the ground”.

“The southern and central governorates of the Gaza Strip are completely crowded with more than one and a quarter million forcibly displaced people who fled the ongoing bombardment, where they live in random tents that lack the most basic equipment and do not have the minimum necessities of life,” the office said.

“The areas referred to by the occupation, whether in the Mawasi or Deir el-Balah areas, are limited lands not equipped to accommodate this massive number of people,” it added.

The office emphasised that the army’s continued forced displacement of Palestinians was a “war crime and a crime against humanity under international law”.

Al Jazeera investigation challenges Israeli claims of ’empty areas’ available for Gaza City residents

On Wednesday, the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said residents of Gaza City, which the Israeli military plans to seize, will inevitably be forced out.

In a post on X, Adraee posted a map highlighting areas where residents could move to, including in central Gaza and southern Gaza’s al-Mawasi area, where there have been near-daily attacks, despite Israel designating al-Mawasi a so-called “humanitarian zone”.

However, an investigation by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking unit Sanad showed “only 38 plots of land”, eight in southern Gaza and 30 in central areas, with a total area of ​​no more than 7 square kilometres (2.7 square miles), noting that “hundreds of thousands of residents of the northern Gaza Strip are threatened with displacement”.

“When these plots were compared with the evacuation orders issued by the army since the resumption of military operations, it was found that 29 of the 38 plots were located within areas already subject to evacuation warnings,” Sanad revealed.

“More importantly, these plots were not, as the occupation portrayed them, ‘vast, empty areas’ ready to accommodate the displaced. Rather, they appeared to be disparate in nature, ranging from fenced private properties, to open landfills, to densely populated residential neighbourhoods, as well as areas already crowded with displaced people’s tents or used for agricultural purposes.”

According to Sanad, citing satellite imagery, “occupancy rates in some of these sites exceeded 80 percent”.

‘Skin and bone’: Israeli-made starvation crisis taking a toll on Gaza’s elderly

Hunger has carved away at the bodies of Gaza’s elderly, turning them into living skeletons. “The famine has caused me to lose weight – I dropped from 78kg [172 pounds] to just 42kg [92.6 pounds],” Riyad al-Ghazali told Al Jazeera.

“There’s no food, and we have no money to buy any. Prices are extremely high. Look at what has become of me. My hands used to be full and strong; now they’re just skin and bone,” he added. “All I eat is half a loaf of bread because that’s all we have. Sometimes I eat only salt, because there is nothing else.”

His wife, Nadia Abu Shaaban, says sometimes they go to sleep without dinner. “Many times, Riyad goes to sleep without dinner – there is just no food,” she said.

Meanwhile, in Gaza’s nursing homes, caregivers have little to offer to their elderly patients. Some are so weak that they can no longer move.

“In recent months, we lost five elders to hunger and starvation,” Ashraf Hamada, head of the elderly care department, told Al Jazeera. “We have no basic supplies – nothing is available in markets or even charity kitchens.”

Two children among 4 Palestinians starved to death in Gaza

Gaza’s Health Ministry has recorded four deaths “due to famine and malnutrition” over the past 24 hours, including two children. This brings the total number of hunger-related deaths in the enclave to 317, including 121 children, the ministry said on Telegram.

Israeli settlers steal 300 sheep, injure shepherd near occupied West Bank’s Ramallah

Israeli settlers have injured a Palestinian man in an attack near the village of Kafr Malek, northeast of Ramallah city, in the occupied West Bank, according to the Wafa news agency.

Security sources told Wafa that a group of settlers attacked shepherds near the east of Kafr Malek and stole 300 sheep belonging to Khaled Ghneimat and Mustafa Rabie.

Settlers assaulted Rabie while he was confronting them over the theft of his sheep. Israeli forces stationed at the Ein Siniya checkpoint north of Ramallah prevented the ambulance transporting him from passing.

Israeli settlers had also attacked the village of Taybeh, east of Ramallah.

Israeli forces arrest 12 Palestinians across occupied West Bank

Since dawn, Israeli forces have arrested 12 people across the occupied West Bank, targeting journalists, reform activists, and freed prisoners amid intense raids and home invasions, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Media Office (ASRA).

In the Bethlehem governorates, four people were arrested, including freed prisoner and journalist Aseed Amarneh, Shadi Badawneh, Abdullah Hussein al-Wahsh, and Shadi Muhammad Abd al-Razzaq Badawneh.

In the Hebron governorate, three people were arrested, including reformist Sheikh Khader Dheeb al-Haroub, Zahir Yousef Hamidat, and Professor Yasser Mustafa Sidr.

In the Jenin governorate, four people were arrested, including Muhammad Salih Ghuwadra, Laith Gwadra, Hail Gwadra, and Firas Ghawadra.

In Qalqilya, Israeli forces arrested Mustafa Riyashi.

Israeli authorities issue military orders to seize land east of Qalqilya

Israeli authorities have issued two military orders to seize lands from the village of Jinsafut, east of Qalqilya city, in the occupied West Bank, according to the Wafa news agency.

It quoted local officials as saying that the two orders aim to seize approximately 16 dunams (3.9 acres) to pave new sections of roads connecting the illegal Yakir and Karnei Shomron settlements, as well as the Emmanuel settlement to the Karnei Shomron settlement.

The settlements are located on the lands of the Palestinian villages of Jinsafut, Amatin, Kafr Laqif, Far’ata, and Deir Istiya.

According to the department, the decisions will deprive about 150 farmers of accessing their agricultural lands, even if they obtain permits from the Israeli authorities, on the pretext that the lands are located adjacent to off-limits settlement roads.

Microsoft fires 2 workers over protest against company ties to Israel

A Microsoft spokesperson says the workers were terminated following “serious breaches of company policies and our code of conduct” after they took part in a sit-in at the office of the firm’s president protesting against the organisation’s ties to Israel.

Anna Hattle and Riki Fameli received voicemails informing them that they were fired, the protest group No Azure for Apartheid said in a statement.

They were among seven protesters who were arrested on Tuesday after occupying the office of company President Brad Smith. The other five were former Microsoft workers and people from outside the company.

“We are here because Microsoft continues to provide Israel with the tools it needs to commit genocide while gaslighting and misdirecting its own workers about this reality,” Hattle said in a statement on Wednesday.

No Azure for Apartheid, whose name references Microsoft’s Azure software, has demanded that the company cut its ties to Israel and pay reparations to Palestinians.

A joint media investigation has said an Israeli military surveillance agency was making use of Azure software to store countless recordings of mobile phone calls made by Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

Trump-led meeting on Gaza suggests growing ‘awareness’ about need for political solution

On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump presided over a policy meeting on Israel’s war in Gaza and post-war plans for the coastal enclave. Academic Lorenzo Kamel told Al Jazeera that the meeting suggested a “political awareness” that there was no military solution for a “political problem”.

However, he noted that “little” had changed in terms of the flow of weapons, imposition of sanctions or embargoes amid Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza.

Moreover, Kamel, a professor of international history at the University of Turin, said while the meeting was about Gaza, it was also about the implications for the wider region as a whole.

“What starts in Gaza does not remain in Gaza,” he noted. “So, for instance, a large part of Lebanon is set to receive a similar fate as Gaza,” he added, pointing out that Trump and Israeli PM Netanyahu were using the “narratives” of destroying Hezbollah for “the mass destruction of a large part of Lebanon”.

Israeli public unsupportive of government plans to seize Gaza City

Former Israeli diplomat Alon Pinkas says Israelis are “not supportive” of the continuation of the war in Gaza and remain “sceptical” about the government’s claim of wanting to achieve a “total victory” over Hamas.

“Most importantly, they [Israeli public] have very strong doubts and reservations about the idea of launching another military operation that begins with the encircling of Gaza City and will inevitably end up with the occupation of Gaza City,” Pinkas told Al Jazeera.

“The public is not supportive of the government… This is expressed in multiple polls in the last two or three weeks; there is almost 70 percent support in the Israeli public to end the war,” he added.

With international pressure on the government to end the war, the former diplomat explained that the government is in “denial” as it verges on a “pariah state”.

“[The government] is relying entirely on the whims of [US] President Donald Trump… It is within Trump’s power to stop the war with one phone call,” Pinkas said.

Efforts to secure Gaza ceasefire deal continue: Egypt’s top diplomat

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty has said Cairo is continuing efforts to put pressure for securing a ceasefire deal in the middle of “Israeli intransigence”.

During a news conference in the northern Egyptian town of el-Alamein with his Qatari counterpart, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, Abdelatty said “tireless” efforts between the two countries, in coordination with the US, were ongoing “to stop the genocide in Gaza and reach a deal”.

“We are working to stop the famine and systematic starvation campaign taking place in the Gaza Strip, and to use starvation as a weapon and collective punishment,” Abdelatty said.

“The displacement of the Palestinian people is completely unacceptable under any pretext or name,” he added.

Pressure mounts on UN high commissioner after staff letter calls for genocide acknowledgement

This letter was transmitted from staff members of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to the high commissioner, Volker Turk, in Geneva.

The letter says, “the High Commissioner for Human Rights has a strong legal and moral responsibility to denounce acts of genocide, failing to denounce an unfolding genocide undermines the credibility of the UN and the human rights system itself.”

We’re being told that about 515 staff members of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights globally have signed this letter. If true, that would be about a quarter of the global staff from this office.

This is part of a growing movement, if you will, within the UN: Staff members urging the UN as a body to call what’s taking place in Gaza a genocide. So, this is all part of that, that we’ve been seeing building momentum in the last few weeks and months.

Guterres says West Bank developments ‘profoundly alarming’

The UN secretary-general has also addressed the situation in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces have carried out a series of intensive raids in recent days, including in Ramallah and Nablus.

“In the West Bank, the situation is also profoundly alarming,” said Guterres. “Military operations, settler violence, demolitions and discriminatory policies are driving displacement and deepening vulnerability. The relentless expansion of settlements is fracturing communities and cutting off access to vital resources.”

He also condemned the Israeli government’s plan to construct thousands of new settlement units in the E1 area of the occupied West Bank, saying it would split the territory in two, posing “an existential threat to the two-state solution”.

“I repeat: The Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law,” said Guterres. “Israel must cease such actions and comply with its obligations.”

UN chief repeats appeal for ‘immediate ceasefire’ in Gaza, says ‘no more excuses’

Concluding his remarks, Guterres says “there is no military solution” to the bloodshed in Gaza and repeats his call for “an immediate and permanent ceasefire, unfettered humanitarian access across Gaza, and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages”.

“Starvation of the civilian population must never be used as a method of warfare. Civilians must be protected, humanitarian access unimpeded,” he said. “No more excuses, no more obstacles, no more lies.”

Israeli forces hit Yemen capital: Report

The Israeli army has attacked Sanaa for the second time in less than a week, Houthi-affiliated media outlet Al Masirah TV is reporting.

After nearly 5 decades, UN to draw down Lebanon peacekeeping force in 2027

The UN Security Council has unanimously extended a long-running peacekeeping mission in Lebanon until the end of 2026 when the operation will then begin a yearlong “orderly and safe drawdown and withdrawal”.

The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), established in 1978, monitors cessation of hostilities in southern Lebanon, supports the Lebanese armed forces, facilitates humanitarian access, and helps ensure the area is free of unauthorised armed personnel, weapons and infrastructure.

In a statement, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam welcomed the decision, thanking the council for the additional year and four months of operations.

He encouraged more international support for the Lebanese army after the drawdown and said that today’s council resolution called on Israel to withdraw from the five positions it still occupies in southern Lebanon.

Fallen Israeli drone explodes, kills two military personnel in southern Lebanon: Report

The Lebanese army’s media branch reports that two military personnel have been killed when a fallen Israeli drone they were inspecting exploded in the southern area of Naqoura, according to a statement cited by Lebanon’s National News Agency.

The victims include an officer and a soldier, and two other personnel were injured, the statement said.

Israel welcomes UN move to end UNIFIL’s mission in 2027

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, has responded to the UN decision by saying: “For a change, we have some good news coming from the UN.”

Israel has long been wary of UNIFIL, which was founded to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon after Israel’s 1978 invasion.

Last year, Israeli forces repeatedly fired at UNIFIL headquarters and bases. Today, Israeli forces continue to occupy several positions in southern Lebanon in violation of a November ceasefire.

Protesters calling for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza gather in Berlin, Amsterdam


_{Demonstrators gathered at Amsterdam Central Station in solidarity with Palestinians, expressing their anger over the recent killing of journalists in Gaza by Israel}

_{Police crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters in the Hackescher Markt in Berlin, Germany}

German police officer punches protester in the face at demonstration against Israel’s war on Gaza


<sub>A police officer punches a protester during a demonstration calling out Israel’s killing of journalists and attacks in Gaza at Hackescher Markt in Berlin, Germany


The injured protester is detained by police</sub>

Australian students launch historic national referendum on Gaza divestment