The UN is warning that displaced families are being forced to use “dirty sea water” for their daily needs due to a lack of clean water access as Israeli forces destroy essential infrastructure and keep Gaza’s borders closed to vital humanitarian relief.

The UNRWA agency for Palestinian refugees, said access to clean water is critical for the health and “survival of hundreds of thousands across the Gaza Strip”. “Increasing heat & lack of hygiene are making an already dire situation far worse,” the UNRWA said on social media, alongside video of children collecting water from the sea on Gaza’s coastline.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said international reporters must be given access to the Gaza Strip “to support the heroic work” of Palestinian journalists.

Foreign journalists need access to the war-torn Palestinian territory “so that independent, factual and courageous reporting continues”, Lazzarini said.

The UNRWA chief made the call in a post on social media in which he said it was time for “independent investigations + accountability” in Gaza as “no one is being held accountable”. And “UN premises damaged, destroyed, targeted or used for military purposes almost on a daily basis” and “humanitarian convoys attacked, looted or denied access”, he added.

As disinformation against UNRWA also continues to “rage”, it “puts the lives of my colleagues in Gaza and elsewhere at risk”, Lazzarini added.

An alliance of mostly Muslim-majority countries including Turkey, Egypt and Iran have demanded full Palestinian membership of the United Nations and greater international pressure on Israel amid its war on Gaza.

The D-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation, which also includes Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria and Pakistan, called for an immediate ceasefire in the besieged Palestinian territory.

Foreign ministers from the group meeting in Istanbul called on the United States to lift its veto on full Palestinian UN membership and on all countries to “exert diplomatic, political, economic and legal pressure” on Israel.

They also urged states to ensure Israel complies with the International Court of Justice’s decisions, withdraws from the southern Rafah governorate and guarantees the safe entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Denouncing an “ongoing genocide and grave violations of international law”, the group called on states to contribute to and join legal proceedings against Israel at international courts.

The eight countries also demanded an end to arms and ammunition deliveries to Israel and that all measures be taken to protect Palestinian civilians, rejecting any attempted forced displacement.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro has announced that his government will suspend coal exports to Israel while it continues its war in the Gaza Strip.

“We are going to suspend coal exports to Israel until the genocide stops,” he wrote on X.

In May, Petro, who describes Israel’s war in Gaza as “genocidal”, announced Colombia would sever ties with Israel over the conflict.

Failing to hold Israel accountable for its use of “excessive force” against Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank has allowed its armed forces to violate international humanitarian law, says Norwegian Refugee Council chief Jan Egeland.

Egeland said that while all eyes are currently on Rafah, focus should not be taken off what Israel is doing in the West Bank where on Thursday, Israeli military helicopters used heavy machine guns in the Jenin refugee camp.

According to the UN, Egeland said in a post on social media, between June 2023, and May 15, 2024, Israel carried out 64 air strikes in the occupied West Bank which killed 123 Palestinians and injured 203.

“The failure to hold Israel accountable has allowed its forces to violate IHL [international humanitarian law] without consequence,” he said.

Palestinian resident forced to self-demolish home in occupied East Jerusalem

The former head of Mossad’s intelligence gathering department, Haim Tomer, told Israel’s Hayom media outlet that a war with Hezbollah would mean “a threat to the Zionist vision of Israel”.

• A large-scale war with Hezbollah will undermine Israel’s ability to continue its work as a state with an economy, as a community and as an international player.
• If a war breaks out, Hezbollah rockets will paralyse Israel for weeks.
• A full-scale war will make the fate of Acre, Haifa, Tiberias and possibly Tel Aviv the same as that of Kiryat Shmona and the Galilee, where destruction and devastation are severe.
• Hezbollah has precision missiles that can blow up Israeli gas fields in seconds.
• The Israeli Air Force is no longer free to operate over Lebanon because of the detection system provided by Iran.
• Hezbollah has 100,000 to 150,000 warheads and can fire 1,500 rockets a day during the first days of the war.

Hezbollah says several Israeli targets hit

Rishi Sunak says on X that the rescue of four Israeli captives from the Nuseirat area, where Israeli attacks killed at least 210 Palestinians and wounded 400, is a “huge relief”.

It is “heartwarming to see the pictures of them reunited with their families”, he continued, without mentioning the unusually high death toll from today’s Isralei attacks on the Gaza Strip.

“We will continue to strive towards an end to the fighting as well as safety and security for all”, he added.

Fuck you Sunak, there's no relief here. I also feel sorry for the hostages that will have to live with survivor's guilt for the rest of their lives.

US State Department welcomes rescue of four captives

In a statement on X, the ministry says that Israel’s attack, which has killed at least 210 people, is “a practice that reflects the systematic targeting of Palestinian civilians, the Israeli persistence in violating international law and international humanitarian law, and continuing to commit war crimes”.

“The ministry’s official spokesman, Ambassador Dr. Sufyan Al-Qudah, affirmed the kingdom’s condemnation and absolute denunciation of Israel’s continued commitment of genocide crimes in the Gaza Strip, which is suffering an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe as a result of the Israeli aggression”, the statement continues.

Iran blames Israeli Nuseirat attack on ‘inaction’ from world states

The Cairo-based organisation has denounced the “massacre perpetrated by the Israeli occupation entity today in the Nuseirat camp … in which dozens of citizens were killed and hundreds injured, most of them children and women”.

It held Israel and the US administration responsible, saying that Washington’s silence on Israel’s war crimes, and failure to stop it, makes the US an accomplice.

The Arab Parliament added that the “continued massacres of the occupying entity against Palestinian civilians is a blatant challenge to the international community and its decisions, and a disregard for international law”.

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has condemned what it calls “the horrific massacre carried out by the Israeli occupation army, which resulted in the murder and injury of hundreds of Palestinians, most of them women and children”.

In a statement, the organisation emphasised the need for an investigation, accountability and punishment in accordance with international law, stressing the importance of the role of the International Criminal Court in this regard.

The OIC reiterated its call to the international community, especially the UN Security Council, to urgently intervene to halt the war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Gaza reports that Israeli warplanes have targeted a house in the al-Dawa area in the east of Nuseirat refugee camp. Today, Israeli attacks on Nuseirat killed at least 210 Palestinians and injured 400, in an operation that reduced four Israeli captives held there.

The rescue organisation says on its Telegram channel that it received a distress call from residents of the Daraj neighbourhood of Gaza City, saying that Israeli aircraft targeted a house next to a medical clinic there.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has said its teams are working alongside medical staff at Al-Aqsa and Nasser hospitals “to treat an overwhelming number of severely injured patients, many of whom are women and children”, following Israeli bombings this morning in the middle area of Gaza.

“It’s a nightmare at Al-Aqsa. There have been back-to-back mass casualties as densely populated areas are bombed. It’s way beyond what anyone could deal with in a functional hospital, let alone with the scarce resources we have here,” said Samuel Johann, MSF coordinator in Gaza.

“How many more men, women and children have to be killed before world leaders decide to put an end to this massacre?” Johann said.

The Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, says in a statement that it bombarded the areas surrounding the Gaza Strip with rockets.

In tandem, Israeli media is reporting that air raid sirens have sounded in the Israeli cities of Sderot, Kfar Azza and Nir General, all close to the Gaza Strip.


Anyone think Israel will stop after 'dismantling' Hamas? PIJ and other groups are fighting back and recruiting as well. A permanent ceasefire is the only way to get the fighting to end. Even killing everyone in Gaza will only move the conflict further to the West Bank, then North Israel with Hezbollah, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Iran. And at some point the other Arab countries will see nothing to gain anymore as well from trying to have 'normal' ties with Israel.

There is no possible victory here, for any side. Only more death and destruction.

Israeli Nuseirat attack will not affect swap deal: Islamic Jihad

Smoke, dust fill the air after Israeli attack on Nuseirat camp

<sub>A rescue worker helps to douse a fire after an Israeli attack on a residential building in Nuseirat refugee camp that Gaza authorities say killed 210 people


Smoke rises from a residential building in Nuseirat refugee camp on Saturday</sub>

_{The Gaza Government media office also said that at least 400 people were inhured in Israeli attacks on Nuseirat refugee camp on Saturday}

About 492 metric tonnes of humanitarian aid were transferred via the pier on Saturday, an unnamed US official told the Associated Press (AP) news agency, after the floating dock was reinstalled on Gaza’s coast on Friday.

The $320m pier, titled the “Trident Pier”, took about 1,000 US military personnel to build but operated for little more than a week before parts of it broke off last month during bad weather, requiring it be towed to Israel for repairs.

Though it was supposed to last until September, it facilitated the landing of just 1,000 metric tonnes of food aid while it was in operation.

Brad Cooper, the deputy commander of US Central Command, told reporters on Friday that the goal now was to get 450 tonnes of food and other supplies moving through the pier into Gaza every two days.

Aid agencies have said that only Israel’s reopening of land border crossings with Gaza – which its military has closed – can quickly deliver the quantities of fuel, food, clean water and medical supplies desperately required in the war-torn territory.

US Central Command, which is responsible for American forces in the Middle East, said the Gaza aid pier played no role in Israel’s attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp that killed 210 people and wounded hundreds during a military raid to free four captives.

“The humanitarian pier facility, including its equipment, personnel, and assets were not used in the operation to rescue hostages today in Gaza,” CENTCOM said in a post on social media.

“An area south of the facility was used by the Israelis to safely return the hostages to Israel,” it said. “Any such claim to the contrary is false. The temporary pier on the coast of Gaza was put in place for one purpose only, to help move additional, urgently needed lifesaving assistance into Gaza.”

The pier was returned to the Gaza coast on Friday from repairs in Israel after suffering damage during bad weather last month.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called on war cabinet minister Benny Gantz to remain in Israel’s emergency government. “This is the time for unity and not for division. We must remain united within ourselves in the face of the great tasks before us”, Netanyahu said in an X post.

Reports emerged in Israeli and US media that Gantz was to resign from Israel’s government today, after a deadline he imposed for the formulation of a post-war plan for Gaza elapsed.

Israel’s culture minister, Miki Zohar, echoed these calls, also in an X post. “Precisely and especially now, Gantz must remain in the government, for the sake of Israel’s future”, he wrote.

As the day comes to a close in Israel, Gantz has so far yet to resign.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has shared a post on X about a memorial to UN staff killed in 2023, held earlier this week.

Guterres noted that 135 of the “188 UN colleagues who lost their lives in the line of duty last year” worked for UNRWA, and said that this was “by far the highest number of our personnel killed in a single conflict”.

Guterres also noted that “scores of Palestinian civilians continued to be killed in Israeli military operations” since the memorial was held on Thursday.

“This horror must stop,” he said.

At the time of the wreath-laying memorial on Thursday, Guterres said the UN was unable to reach the family members of many UNRWA staff to confirm they gave consent for their names to be read out, “because they have either been killed or forced from their homes by Israeli military operations”.