Israel to send negotiators to Cairo as protests against Netanyahu continue

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has released a statement saying that the negotiating team is expressing cautious optimism after returning from Doha from two days of talks.

They say that they hope mediators like the United States can now put more pressure on Hamas in order to accept a ceasefire deal that would be based on the framework outlined by US President Joe Biden at the end of May.

But Hamas has accused Israel of continuously adding new conditions to the deal.

All of this comes as Israel has confirmed a negotiating team will be dispatched to Cairo on Sunday to continue talks.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to arrive in the region and meet with Netanyahu in order to further emphasise the pressure that he is under while tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets to protest and say that the time for a deal is now.

Photos: Protesters in Tel Aviv say ‘a deal is the only hope’

Thousands of Israelis took to the streets in Tel Aviv and across the country on Saturday to protest against Netanyahu and call for an immediate captive exchange deal.

Many of the protesters held signs expressing anger at the Israeli prime minister.

Iran reiterates right to respond over Haniyeh’s assassination

Iran’s acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani spoke to his Egyptian counterpart on Saturday and said that Tehran “reserves the right to a legitimate response” against Israel over the assassination of Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh, according to the IRNA news agency.

The killing on July 31 is widely blamed on Israel though it has not claimed responsibility for the attack.

Bagheri Kani described the Israeli government as a “criminal gang” and rebuked the United States for supporting the country in its war on Gaza.

He added that the US cannot be a neutral mediator in the ongoing ceasefire negotiations due to its unwavering support for Israel, which makes it complicit in the crimes against Palestinians in Gaza.

Phone call lured Hezbollah’s Shukr to killing location: WSJ report

Senior military commander Fuad Shukr received a phone call to go to the seventh floor of his residential building in Beirut before he was assassinated by an Israeli air attack, according to The Wall Street Journal quoting an unnamed Hezbollah official.

“The call to draw Shukr to the seventh floor, where he would be easier to target amid the surrounding buildings, likely came from someone who had breached Hezbollah’s internal communications network,” the official reportedly said.

The official added Hezbollah and Iran continue to investigate the intelligence failure, but believe that Israel beat the group’s countersurveillance system, the report added.

Israel assassinated Shukr on July 31, prompting vows of retaliation from the Lebanese movement.

Netanyahu refused meeting with UK foreign minister: Report

The Israeli prime minister turned down an opportunity to meet with David Lammy during the British foreign minister’s visit to Israel on Friday, according to Israel’s Channel 13 News.

The broadcaster said Netanyahu was angered by the new British government’s decision to drop a challenge to the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction to issue an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister.

Al Jazeera could not immediately confirm the reports.

Lammy who was in Israel along with his French counterpart Stephane Sojourne on Friday said the pair met Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz as well as Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa.

_{Lammy, who was on a joint visit with French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne (left), did meet with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa (center) on Friday}

‘Uncommitted’ delegates bring Gaza-war message to Democratic convention

It started as a last-minute effort in February: Organisers in Michigan hoped to use the state’s Democratic primary to send a message to President Joe Biden to end his support for Israel’s war in Gaza.

Six months later, Biden is no longer the Democratic presidential candidate. But the US’s “ironclad” support for the war continues. And so has the “uncommitted” movement, the protest effort born in Michigan.

Initially, the aim was to encourage primary voters across the country to cast their “uncommitted” ballots in protest of the war. But now that the primary season is over, the “uncommitted movement” has set its sights on a new platform: the Democratic National Convention.

_{People gather to protest a campaign event for Democratic presidential candidate US Vice President Kamala Harris on August 14 in New York City}

Clashes as Israeli forces raid village near Nablus: Report

Young Palestinians threw Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers who raided the village of Sebastia, northwest of Nablus, in the occupied West Bank, according to Palestinian media.

Israeli forces also raided the Balata refugee camp and the town of as-Samu, south of the city of Hebron, according to our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic.

The latest raids come hours after two Palestinians were killed in an Israeli drone strike on their car in the city of Jenin.

Two Qassam Brigades fighters killed in Jenin

The armed wing of Hamas said that two of its fighters Raafat Dawasi and Ahmed Abu Ara were killed in the Israeli drone attack earlier on a car in Jenin.

Qassam Brigades said the two were responsible for planning and executing attacks on Israeli forces in Jenin in June, an ambush near the village of Matla in July and an operation in Jordan Valley last week.

_{Mourners carried the bodies of Raafat Dawasi and Ahmed Abu Ara through the streets of Jenin}

Clashes in Balata as Israeli raids on West Bank continue

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade said its fighters confronted and fought with Israeli soldiers who were raiding the Balata refugee camp, east of the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. Footage posted on social media, verified by Al Jazeera, showed several Israeli vehicles including a bulldozer driving into the camp in the early hours of Sunday.

The Wafa news agency, citing local sources, reported that the Israeli raid triggered clashes in Balata.

Israel forces also raided the city of Tulkarem and the nearby town of Zita, where they arrested a young man identified as Laith Abu al-Ezz, according to local media.

Four Palestinians killed in Israeli attack on Deir el-Balah

The Wafa news agency is reporting that Israeli forces killed at least four Palestinians in an air raid on central Deir el-Balah on Saturday evening. The raid on the house in the al-Hakr area wounded several more people.

Earlier, we reported that five other Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on Khan Younis and Jabalia. According to Al Jazeera Arabic’s tally, at least 48 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since dawn on Saturday.

Casualties arrive at Nasser Hospital, 7 killed in Nuseirat in Israeli strikes

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic report that four Palestinians killed and five wounded in an Israeli attack on a family home have arrived at Nasser Hospital in the south of the Gaza Strip.

They also report that seven people have been killed, including three children, in an Israeli attack on a house in the Nuseirat camp located in the centre of the Gaza Strip.

The Nuseirat camp was established in the aftermath of the Nakba, and before Israel’s war on Gaza, it was densely populated – home to 85,409 Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA. The camp has been the target of Israeli raids and attacks since the start of the war.

‘Remarkable surge in Israeli strikes’

More deadly air strikes were conducted overnight and in the early hours of this morning when residential houses where Palestinians were sleeping were targeted without any warning. A Palestinian mother, alongside her six children, was killed – four of her children were twins, and they have been lined up to be buried in cemeteries here in this town.

We have seen really heartbreaking scenes this morning, with dozens of bodies lined up in the morgue outside Al-Aqsa Hospital. There has been a remarkable surge in Israeli strikes in Deir el-Balah, where Palestinians were told to seek refuge. Also, we woke up to the sound of Israeli fighter jets breaking the sound barrier and carrying out more strikes on the eastern side of the city. We continued to hear explosions in the past couple of hours.

This was not the only place that was targeted. Four others were killed in Khan Younis city, where the army continued to blow up full residential buildings. Israeli forces are also targeting the north of the Strip, killing four Palestinians in the Jabalia refugee camp, where a house was levelled to the ground. We are talking about the grim reality of more than 40 Palestinians killed in the past 48 hours and this number is expected to rise given the new Israeli orders to evacuate Maghazi.

Woman killed, many wounded in Khan Younis attack

A Palestinian woman has been killed and several others injured after Israeli forces opened fire in the northwest of Khan Younis in southern Gaza earlier this morning, according to Wafa.

The news agency quoted witnesses as saying military vehicles fired at civilians in the vicinity of Hamad City, a housing complex that has been repeatedly besieged since the start of the war.

_{Palestinians flee from Hamad City following an evacuation order by the Israeli army, August 11}

Palestinians flee as Israeli forces advance in Khan Younis

_{People flee as smoke rises amid the advance of Israeli military vehicles in an area sheltering internally displaced Palestinians, in Khan Younis}

There is no more space in Gaza to shelter in: UNRWA

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees has repeated its call for a ceasefire in Gaza. In a post on X, it said families have been forced to flee Maghazi after the Israeli authorities issued a new evacuation order on Saturday.

“Thousands of people in Gaza continue to face displacement with nowhere safe to go. There is no more space for them to shelter in. Gaza needs a ceasefire now,” it said.

Families have been forced to flee the Al Maghazi area, after the Israeli authorities issued more evacuation orders.

Thousands of people in #Gaza continue to face displacement with nowhere safe to go. There is no more space for them to shelter in. Gaza needs a #CeasefireNow pic.twitter.com/mhDhRa5gQq

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) August 18, 2024

Two killed in Israeli shelling in northwest of Rafah

Some people have been injured in the attack in Shakoush, located in southern Gaza, according to Wafa. Local sources told the news agency the casualties were the outcome of an Israeli air strike targeting a group of people.

Thousands still missing in Gaza, many with ‘disintegrated bodies’

The Palestinian Civil Defence says the true death toll in Gaza is likely much higher than more than 40,000 confirmed since thousands of people remain missing.

The organisation confirms that at least 10,000 Palestinians remain under the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israeli military attacks, and rescuers are unable to get to them due to the ongoing attacks, including the deliberate targeting of civil defence crews.

It says it has observed about 1,760 presumed-dead Palestinians in Gaza whose bodies “disintegrated” due to the use of high-intensity weapons.

Moreover, there are approximately 8,240 people who have been “forcibly disappeared” by the Israeli military, along with about 2,210 bodies that have disappeared from graves across the Gaza Strip.

• 82 civil defence responders have been killed and 270 wounded since October 7. That means 40 percent of crews have been subjected to physical harm, in addition to all losing relatives or homes.
• Civil defence headquarters were completely levelled, with 12 administrative vehicles, 11 fire engines, eight ambulances, three rescue and rapid intervention vehicles and four water tankers also destroyed.
• The Israeli military prevented the retrieval of 7,552 injured Palestinians across Gaza.
• Nearly 85,000 explosives were dropped over Gaza – with 17 percent remaining unexploded – leading to the destruction of 80 percent of total urban infrastructure.
• Over 90 children have been killed so far after handling explosives that were placed inside cans of food.
• Over 72,000 distress calls were answered, but some 15,000 could not be responded to by civil defence crews due to chronic fuel shortages.

Rafah’s Kuwaiti Hospital stops surgeries due to lack of doctors, supplies

Suhaib al-Hams, director of the Kuwaiti Hospital in Gaza’s Rafah city, has said a shortage of doctors, medicines and fuel has forced the facility to stop performing surgeries.

“We are witnessing the collapse of the health system and an inability to care for patients and the increasing number of injuries due to the bombing,” he was quoted as saying by the Palestinian Information Center.

Palestinians endure in unsafe designated areas

The area shown in the video is part of al-Mawasi in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, where many Palestinians are forced to survive in tents in dire conditions amid expanding Israeli military evacuation orders.

أوامر بإخلاء منطقة المواصي بعد تصنيفها"إنسانية" #حرب_غزة #فيديو pic.twitter.com/9tjM7ILjvO

— الجزيرة فلسطين (@AJA_Palestine) August 18, 2024

Palestinians in Gaza take precautions after polio virus detected

Health authorities and aid agencies are racing to avert an outbreak of polio in Gaza after the virus was detected in the territory’s wastewater, and cases with suspected polio symptoms have been reported

_{A Palestinian woman bottle-feeds her baby girl at Al-Aqsa Hospital amid fears over the spread of polio after the Ministry of Health reported the first case in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza}

_{A doctor examines a Palestinian girl amid fears over the spread of polio in Gaza}

Hezbollah reacts to ‘fabricated’ WSJ story on Fuad Shukr’s assassination

We reported earlier today that The Wall Steet Journal has cited an unnamed Hezbollah official as saying that the Lebanese armed group’s senior military commander Fuad Shukr received a phone call to go to the seventh floor of his residential building in Beirut before he was assassinated on July 31 in an Israeli air attack.

The group said in a statement on Telegram that the report was “fabricated”, claiming the story was “full of lies”. It said, “None of the three newspaper correspondents who put their names on the aforementioned article have ever met any Hezbollah officials at all.”

“Therefore, the false story from its foundation and the source attributed to it are nothing more than the imagination of its writers,” Hezbollah added. The article aimed to spread Israeli propaganda “in the service of the Zionist project”, it said.

WSJ has been caught in lies before, wouldn't surprise me. US media keeps falling for Israeli propaganda or willfully spreads it.

Hezbollah claims attack on Israeli army site in northern Israel

On Telegram, the Lebanese group says its fighters struck the al-Marj outpost with rockets. The group added the attack, which hit the military site directly, was carried out at 8:15am (05:15 GMT).

Israeli raid injures UNIFIL peacekeeper in Lebanon’s ad-Dhahira: Report

Israeli warplanes have carried out air attacks in southern Lebanon’s ad-Dhahira and Tayr Harfa towns, according to Lebanese media.

The raid in ad-Dhahira injured one of the Ghanaian soldiers stationed in the area as part of the UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL, the Lebanon 24 broadcaster reported.

UNIFIL says 3 members injured in blast in south Lebanon

We are receiving updates on the reports of an explosion near members of a UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.

The UNIFIL has confirmed the incident, saying three peacekeepers on patrol were “lightly injured” when a blast occurred near their clearly marked UN vehicle in the village of Yarin in southern Lebanon.

“All peacekeepers in the patrol returned safely to their base,” UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti said, giving no further details on the nature of the incident. “We are looking into the incident. We are strongly reminding all parties and actors of their responsibility to avoid harm to peacekeepers and civilians,” he added.

Lebanese media previously reported that a member of the UNIFIL force was injured after an Israeli attack in the Tyre district in southern Lebanon.

_{A general view of a base of the United Nations peacekeeping forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) at the Lebanese-Israeli border}

Katz promises action against those opposing Israel

Israel’s foreign minister says his government will continue to maintain the “status and national honour” of Israel after Norway closed down its diplomatic office for the Palestinian Authority.

The office in the occupied West Bank was shut down following the Israeli decision to revoke the accreditation of the Norwegian diplomats working there.

Katz wrote on X that Israel did so “due to Norway’s recognition of a Palestinian-Hamas state after the October 7 massacre, and its support for the issuing of arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli officials”.

Settlers intimidate Palestinians, set fire to lands in Jordan Valley

Israeli settlers continue to harass and intimidate Palestinians amid rising attacks in the occupied West Bank’s Jordan Valley.

Settlers began fencing off a dirt road that leads to the homes of local residents in Nab Ghazal in the northern Jordan Valley area in an effort to force them out, the Wafa news agency quotes a local official as saying.

Israeli settlers also set fire to mountainous lands in Khirbet Yarza east of Tubas in the West Bank, with local Palestinians fearing the fire would reach their homes.

In Umm al-Jimal where several similar settler intimidation incidents have taken place recently under protection from Israeli military forces, 14 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from their homes in the past few days.

Blinken to arrive in Israel today to discuss ceasefire deal

Blinken will meet Netanyahu and the so-called “working group” on Monday.

They’ll be discussing issues concerning the deal, including the list of names of Israeli captives being held in Gaza, the list of names of Palestinian prisoners for whom they will be traded and a schedule for those releases to take place hopefully.

But his largest challenge will undoubtedly be convincing the top levels of the Israeli government, and Netanyahu in particular, to be more flexible about their demands regarding this deal.

Reports in the Israeli press today suggest some discord among Israeli leaders. They’ve said Netanyahu must be flexible to make a deal possible now to secure the release of those Israeli captives, and that is likely to be Blinken’s biggest challenge.

There’s a great deal of negativity from several experts and people here in the region with regard to the success of this idea. They say what the US and Israel are doing is creating a sense of cautious optimism while they are shifting the goalposts and shifting the blame on Hamas for not agreeing to a deal. They say this is insincere and that they’re not certain that a deal will go forward.

Hamas knows Israel comes to talks in bad faith

Hassan Barari, professor of international relations at Qatar University, says Hamas has learned from its past dealings with Israel that they change positions every time a deal is close.

“When a deal is within range, the Israelis would do something different, like committing atrocities or assassinating leaders,” he said.

“They learned from the brief history that Israelis go to negotiations in bad faith and they have intention to undermine the talks.”

Barari said Israel tries to shift the blame to Hamas in these situations. The analyst, however, added that he believes this time a deal is close due to the US administration’s pressure on Israel.

“Netanyahu is facing a tough time now as even his negotiating team is talking about a deal that is possible,” he said.