Bombs devastate central and eastern Shujayea
It’s getting more difficult to keep up with the pace of the attacks in Shujayea.
The Israeli jets are carrying out more and more deadly attacks across the central and eastern parts of the district, destroying more homes and attacking people trapped inside these residential buildings or what is left of their homes since they returned from enforced displacement sites in the south and centre of Gaza.
The army not only dropped multiple bombs, but these were also “earthquake bombs” that shook the very foundation of nearby buildings, destroying the majority of them. Entire residential buildings have been turned into ruin.
A large number of casualties arrived at al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, but they are struggling because there is not sufficient medical care available due to shortages of supplies and doctors.
Civil defence crews have officially ceased their operation in the area because it was getting too risky for them to stay at the site, as drones hovered above them.
They had to stop their operation, and evacuate immediately, leaving many people under the rubble at risk of losing their life.
Deadly Israeli attack targets Tuffa neighbourhood
At least one Palestinian has been killed in an Israeli attack on a group of civilians in Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City.
‘Not much time left’ to save Palestinians
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on Palestine, warned that Israel will continue its violence against Palestinians unless action is taken, saying there is “not much time left” to save the Palestinian people.
Albanese told the Anadolu news agency that Israel has never respected the ceasefire since it began in January. Albanese said that Israel has no intention of halting its actions for several reasons, saying that “Netanyahu will be the target of justice when he stops the war against the Palestinians.”
“You may have noticed that Netanyahu was going to appear in court the day after he ordered a new attack against the people of Gaza. So, the question is: Was there a connection? Maybe,” she added.
UN forced to shut down most humanitarian work in Gaza
Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for the UN’s Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Gaza, has this update for Al Jazeera as the Israeli military blockade of all aid to the enclave nears 40 days:
Killing of Palestinian medics ‘must mark a turning point’: ICRC
The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross’s sub-delegation in Gaza says the organisation is “pained and angered” by the recent killing of Palestinian medics in Gaza.
“Their killing is a stark reminder of how dangerous Gaza is for civilians, and for humanitarian workers who risk everything to save lives,” Adrian Zimmermann said in a statement shared on social media.
The statement did not mention Israel directly.
Last month, Israeli forces killed 15 medical and humanitarian aid workers in Rafah as they were travelling in a convoy of ambulances to assist people wounded in an earlier attack.
The Israeli army prevented search teams from accessing the area for several days. The bodies of 14 of the workers were later discovered in a mass grave, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said.
The killing of first responders is a stark reminder of how dangerous Gaza is for civilians, and for humanitarian workers who risk everything to save lives.
This incident must mark a turning point. pic.twitter.com/r4dbEUrr5T
— ICRC in Israel & OT (@ICRC_ilot) April 9, 2025
‘The international community has miserably failed Palestinians’: Public policy professor
Tamer Qarmout, an associate professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, says Israel has become more emboldened to complete its “ethnic cleansing project” against Palestinians.
Qarmout told Al Jazeera that this is because Israel senses “an indifference” from the world.
“The world has become used now to these images and scenes: burned kids, burned journalists, people dying under the rubble, genocide in Gaza, displacement in the West Bank. It got normalised,” he explained.
“With this indifference and lack of action, of course this settler-colonial project will increase its speed. Sadly, that’s where we are now. The international community has miserably failed Palestinians.”
Macron says France could recognise Palestinian state by June
France’s President Macron said the country will move towards recognising the State of Palestine.
“We’re fighting for Gaza, the return of peace and security, humanitarian [aid] and a political solution. We must move towards recognition – and so in the coming months, we will,” Macron said during an interview with France 5 programme, C a vous.
He said recognition of Palestine could also help ensure the recognition of Israel’s “right to exist” and regional security.
An official announcement of “reciprocal recognition” could be made in June, when France co-chairs an international conference on Palestine with Saudi Arabia in New York, Macron said.
Israel hits back at France for recognising Palestinian state
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has expressed the country’s strong opposition in reaction to Macron’s suggestion that France could recognise a sovereign Palestinian state by June.
“A unilateral recognition of a fictional Palestinian state, by any country, in the reality that we all know, will be a prize for terror and a boost for Hamas,” he wrote on X. “These kind of actions will not bring peace, security and stability in our region closer – but the opposite: they only push them further away.”
Close to 150 member states of the UN recognise Palestinian statehood, but major Western powers and allies like US, UK, France, Germany and Japan have not.
Correction: Western colonial powers
Netanyahu government trying to ‘dismantle’ Israel
Israel’s opposition leader Yair Lapid says that a day has passed and not a single member of government has spoken against the “riot” at the High Court yesterday, which led to hecklers being thrown out of the court.
Members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition did not talk about the threats, attempts to sabotage the rule of law, and about utter disrespect, he wrote in a post on X, in reference to the session where the court ruled the PM cannot, for now, fire the head of the Shin Bet internal security agency.
“There was not a single condemnation, not a single criticism, not even a word,” Lapid said. “Why? Because they planned it. Because they are anarchists. Because this government wants to dismantle the country.”
Israel pushes on with strategy to keep neighbours weak in Lebanon and Syria
Israel’s continuing attacks intend to keep its neighbours unstable, weak and fragmented, analysts say, and are contributing to the derailing of governing projects in Lebanon and Syria.
Conversations with experts, analysts and diplomats reveal a belief that Israel wants to keep the two states weak and fractured, maintaining itself as the strongest regional power.
“The Israelis believe that having weaker neighbours, as in states that aren’t really able to function, is beneficial for them because, in that context, they’re the strongest actor,” writer and researcher Elia Ayoub told Al Jazeera.
Israeli aircraft crashes in Lebanese territory
The Israeli military says the aircraft crashed earlier today due to a technical malfunction.
Israeli forces continue to target areas across Lebanon, particularly its southern regions, despite a ceasefire deal with Hezbollah. Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reports that an Israeli drone targeted the vicinity of a public school in the town of Ramyah earlier in the evening, but there was no immediate confirmation on potential casualties.
Israeli warplanes also conducted several mock raids over Nabatieh, Iqlim al-Tuffah and Jezzine in the south, while a drone flew continuously over Tyre and its surroundings at a low altitude.
A number of Lebanese homeowners in the town of Yater located in Tyre reportedly received threatening phone calls from the Israeli army that they will be bombed if they do not flee their houses.
At least 3 killed after more US air strikes hit Yemen
The Ministry of Health in Sanaa says at least three civilians were killed after US warplanes attacked the Sabeen district of the Yemeni capital. Several more strikes have also been reported by Houthi-run media in other areas of Sanaa, including the Bani Hushaysh district in the east.
US fighter jets also bombed Kamaran island located in the port city of Hodeidah in western Yemen.
Mike Huckabee confirmed as US ambassador to Israel
The US Senate has confirmed Huckabee as the country’s next envoy to Israel.
A devout evangelical Christian and former governor of Arkansas, Huckabee is a staunch supporter of Israel and of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
In 2017, he told CNN that “there is no such thing as the West Bank”. “It’s Judea and Samaria,” Huckabee said, referring to the territory’s biblical name, which is used by Israeli settlers. “There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighbourhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”
Huckabee’s nomination was denounced by US rights groups that said his “extreme anti-Palestinian views are profoundly troubling and should disqualify him” from the ambassadorship.
Israeli Air Force commanders threaten reservists over Gaza fighting letter
Senior commanders in the Israeli Air Force have been reportedly calling and meeting with reserve officers and soldiers to threaten them with dismissal if they do not withdraw their signatures from a letter calling for an end to the fighting in Gaza.
The talks were conducted by commanders with the rank of brigadier general in the army on orders of Air Force chief Tomer Bar, according to the Haaretz news outlet.
It said about 970 air crew, including senior reservist officers and pilots, signed the letter. Only 25 of them have so far asked to take back their signatures, and at least eight more have asked to have their names added to the letter due to the latest threats.
The full text of the letter has not been published, but Israeli media has reported that the letter states the war in Gaza is continuing based on political gain, not to safeguard Israel.
Main events on April 9th
Occupied West Bank’s Balata refugee camp under ‘siege’ from Israeli forces
The Israeli military has announced that it has begun a large military offensive against Nablus, specifically, the Balata refugee camp.
This is in the context of a very large, unprecedented military assault that Israel has waged against refugee camps, starting with the northern occupied West Bank. In Jenin and Tulkarem, three refugee camps were methodically destroyed and emptied of their residents.
At the moment, in Balata, the emergency services of the Palestinian Red Crescent have told Al Jazeera that the refugee camp is under siege. They are trying, struggling to coordinate the evacuation of sick children. Several people have been injured, among them were two journalists who were attempting to record and document the ongoing raid.
There are several arrests among young men, including, according to the Israeli army, two members of the Lion’s Den – a group of armed men that is not associated with any specific Palestinian faction.
This military campaign, which is unprecedented according to the UN, has already displaced 40,000 Palestinians in Jenin and Tulkarem.
Residents of Balata are fearing they will suffer the same fate.
Gaza Civil Defence says lack of equipment hampering Shujayea search and rescue
Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza, said emergency crews are “doing their best” amid a lack of specialised tools needed to rescue trapped survivors after Israel’s destruction of a residential block in Gaza City’s Shujayea area.
“Dozens of people are still trapped under the rubble. We can’t reach them because we lack the necessary tools. They were destroyed by the Israeli forces,” Basal said.
“Israel doesn’t want to allow equipment arrive into Gaza. Our suffering will continue as long as this equipment is not allowed to come in,” he said.
At least 80 people are still missing and believed to be trapped under the debris of the block of residential homes in the Shujayea neighbourhood that was attacked by Israeli forces yesterday, killing at least 35 people, including children.
More than 55 people are being treated in hospital for injuries.
Rescue teams try to free a man trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings following an Israeli attack on residential areas in the Shujayea neighbourhood of Gaza City on Wednesday
North, south Gaza under predawn artillery attack by Israeli forces: Reports
Local Palestinian media report that Israeli forces have begun intense and continuous artillery shelling in northern areas of Rafah in southern Gaza. Heavy Israeli artillery fire has also started in areas to the west of the city of Beit Lahiya in the north of the Palestinian territory.
How Israeli bombing of Gaza today differs from before – Marwan Bishara
Al Jazeera’s senior analyst Marwan Bishara has said Israel’s latest bombing campaign in Gaza City’s Shujayea neighbourhood, which has killed dozens of Palestinians, is part of a broader strategy of “industrial-scale killing” aimed at ethnically cleansing Gaza.
Bishara argues that, unlike earlier phases of the war, current attacks are emotionless, calculated, and without military targets. Global public opinion, particularly in the US, is shifting against Israel, but governments remain inactive.
Gaza hospital director should be ‘revered’ not detained by Israeli military: UN envoy
Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on Palestine, has drawn attention to the fate of the former director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, who was detained without charge by Israeli forces in December.
As the Kamal Adwan Hospital was destroyed in Israel attacks late last year, Hussam Abu Safia remained at his post and with patients until he was taken to Israel’s notorious Sde Teiman military detention camp in Israel’s Negev Desert.
Not charged with any crime, the doctor was later transferred to Ofer Prison, located near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
“This Doctor should have been safe by now, under protected status, and [revered] by international leaders as an icon of Ethics,” Albanese wrote on social media.
“Instead he is still a hostage of Israel, which has abducted him without ever charging him,” she said.
Abu Safia’s lawyers told Al Jazeera in February that their client was been tortured and treated brutally in Israeli military prison.
This Doctor should have been safe by now, under protected status, and reveered by international leaders as an icon of Ethics. Instead he is still a hostage of Israel, which has abducted him without ever charging him. https://t.co/qdftyHcwOS
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) April 9, 2025
Israeli medics demand prosecution of soldiers over killings of Red Crescent staff in Gaza
Israel’s Haaretz news outlet reports that about 360 Israeli medical professionals, half of them doctors, have signed a letter demanding an investigation and prosecution of Israeli troops involved in the killing of 15 Palestinian emergency workers in Gaza.
“Killing rescue and medical personnel is a blatant violation of international law,” the letter states, according to the Haaretz report.
There has been international outcry and calls at the United Nations for a full and independent probe into what the Palestine Red Crescent Society said was the deliberate and targeted killing by Israeli forces of eight of its staff as well as six Palestinian Civil Defence workers. A ninth paramedic was taken prisoner.
The Israeli forces, who opened fire on the PRCS’s clearly marked ambulances and emergency vehicles, buried the evidence of their crimes – along with the bodies of the slain paramedics – in shallow pits.
Gaza Health Ministry issues plea for medicine
The Health Ministry says stocks of essential medicines in Gaza hospitals and medical centres have reached “dangerous and unprecedented levels”.
Israel has blockaded the Strip for more than a month, cutting off the besieged enclave from food, fuel and medicine among other vital supplies.
Here are some data points shared by the ministry:
Israeli army releases dozens of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza
The Israeli army has released some 80 Palestinian detainees from the Gaza Strip, local sources told Anadolu Agency. The detainees were set free at the Israeli-controlled Kissufim crossing in eastern Khan Younis in southern Gaza, the sources added.
A medical source said at least 10 of the freed prisoners were in poor health condition and were hospitalised at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir el-Balah.
‘All we endured was pain and torture’: Palestinian describes torture in Israeli prison
As reported earlier, Israel has released dozens of Palestinians from Gaza. Al Jazeera has spoken to one released prisoner, Fayez Ayoub, who says he was detained by the Israeli army on November 6.
“Every day, starting at 5am, they would wake us up, and from 7am until 11pm, we were forced to stand without sitting or moving,” Ayoub told Al Jazeera.
“Sometimes, they made us kneel for two or three hours straight. Anyone who moved was beaten. After that, they made us stand with our arms raised above our heads. If your arms dropped, they would beat you.
“The forms of abuse were endless.
“Every week, they would assault us and beat us with metal rods. Our chests and backbones are broken. Our knees too. The situation was unbearable – complete humiliation. There was no sitting, no sleeping, no food – nothing.
“All we endured was pain and torture. Sometimes, we would fall asleep at midnight, only to be woken up at 1am and sprayed with gas and powder. Look at our clothes. We’ve been completely degraded.”
Marah Ayoub, the daughter of Fayez, said she hadn’t seen her father since the start of the war: “I’m very happy that my father has been released, but I didn’t expect to see him like this. He wasn’t like that. He’s changed a lot. This isn’t the father I know,” Ayoub told Al Jazeera.
Israeli army frees prisoner Ahmad Manasra after 10 years
After 10 years of incarceration, the Israeli army has released prisoner Ahmad Manasra from Nafha Prison in the southern Israeli desert.
According to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, Manasra was subjected to various forms of physical and psychological torture since his arrest at the age of 13.
The Jerusalem prisoner committees said the Israeli army released Manasra far from the prison while his family awaited his release at the prison gate. A Bedouin resident in the Beersheba area recognised the 23-year-old, contacted his family and informed them of Manasra’s release, a source told Al Jazeera.
Manasra was initially sentenced to 12 years in prison, later reduced to nine years, for being with his cousin Hassan Manasra, who allegedly stabbed two Israeli settlers near the illegal settlement of Pisgat Ze’ev in occupied East Jerusalem in 2015.
Hassan, who was 15 at the time, was shot dead by an Israeli civilian while Ahmad was severely beaten by an Israeli mob and run over by an Israeli driver, suffering fractures to his skull and internal bleeding.
A video showing Ahmad Manasra bleeding on the ground and gasping for help while Israeli bystanders shouted and swore at the boy, telling him to “die”, garnered widespread attention and outrage. Another video of Manasra undergoing harsh Israeli interrogation after the incident caused further anger.
Despite not having participated in the attack – which the courts acknowledged – Manasra was charged with attempted murder.
UN envoy says Manasra’s release ‘end of most painful chapter’
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territory, says the release of Palestinian prisoner Ahmad Manasra provides “immense relief” but is not a success.
“Ahmed [sic] has endured years of torture, and his family has suffered with him,” Albanese wrote on X. As we reported earlier, Manasra was subjected to various forms of physical and psychological torture since his arrest at the age of 13.
“I truly hope Ahmed and his family will be able to find the time and space to heal the deep wounds of the tragic past decade,” Albanese said.
🔊Ahmed Manasra has been released. An immense relief, but not a success — just the end of the most painful chapter in a collective tragedy. Ahmed has endured years of torture, and his family has suffered with him. Nearly three years ago, I wrote: "To Ahmed we say, we have failed… https://t.co/FS6kLUZGHc
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) April 10, 2025
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