Bodies of three more hostages recovered from northern Gaza by Israeli military
The bodies of three more hostages have been recovered from the northern Gaza Strip overnight, the IDF has said.
Orión Hernández Radoux, 30, Hanan Yablonka, 42, and Michel Nisenbaum, 59, were kidnapped from the Mefalsim area and, according to the Israeli military in comments reported by the Times of Israel and the Jerusalem Post, were killed on 7 October. Until recently, there had been no information as to their status and they were believed to be alive.
The Times of Israel says Hernández Radoux, a Mexican-French national, was the boyfriend of Shani Louk, one of the four hostages whose bodies were found in Jabaliya last week. Hernández Radoux and Yablonka were at the Supernova music festival.
The IDF says the bodies of the three hostages were recovered in a joint operation carried out by the military and Shin Bet.
Key events
Israeli forces intensify attacks in Jabalia and Rafah
Israeli forces intensified their strikes on Gaza with heavy fighting reported in Jabalia in the north and tanks pushing further into Rafah in the south.
Medics said at least five Palestinians were killed when houses were hit in Jabalia and more were believed to be trapped under rubble, but that the area could not be reached due to the intensity of the bombardment, according to a report by Reuters.
In the southern city of Rafah residents reported explosions and smoke rising in the distance as tanks advanced further into the eastern district of Jneina.
Simultaneous Israeli assaults on the northern and southern edges of Gaza this month have caused a new exodus of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fleeing their homes, and have cut off the main access routes for aid, raising the risk of famine.
Residents in Jabalia said tanks had destroyed the local market and bulldozers continued to raze shops and property. Hamas’s armed wing said its fighters had engaged three tanks there.
Tanks also advanced close to the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital, where medics said Israeli fire had caused the suspension of operations at the last functioning medical facility in northern Gaza Strip.
The Brazilian president Lula has said he learned of the death of the Brazilian-Israeli hostage Michel Nisenbaum with “immense sadness” and pledged his solidarity with his family.
He said Brazil will continue to “fight” and “remain engaged in efforts to have all hostages released” and called for a ceasefire and for peace in Israel and Gaza.
The bodies of Nisenbaum, Orión Hernández Radoux and Hanan Yablonka were recovered by Israeli forces last night and all had been missing since the 7 October attack by Hamas.
Soube, com imensa tristeza, da morte de Michel Nisembaum, brasileiro mantido refém pelo Hamas. Conheci sua irmã e filha, e sei do amor imenso que sua família tinha por ele. Minha solidariedade aos familiares e amigos de Michel. O Brasil continuará lutando, e seguiremos engajados…
— Lula (@LulaOficial) May 24, 2024
Some of the food supplies waiting to enter Gaza from Egypt have started rotting with the Rafah border crossing still closed to aid deliveries, Reuters reports.
Rafah was a main entry point for humanitarian relief as well as some commercial supplies before Israel stepped up its military offensive on the Gaza side of the border on 6 May and took control of the crossing from the Palestinian side. No trucks have passed through the crossing since then.
Egyptian officials say humanitarian operations are at risk from military activity and that Israel needs to hand the crossing back to Palestinians before it starts operating again. Israel and the United States have called on Egypt, which is also worried about the risk of Palestinians being displaced from Gaza, to allow the border to reopen.
One truck driver, Mahmoud Hussein, said his goods had been loaded on his vehicle for a month, gradually spoiling in the sun. Some of the foodstuffs are being discarded, others sold of cheap.
“Apples, bananas, chicken and cheese, a lot of things have gone rotten, some stuff has been returned and is being sold for a quarter of its price,” he said. “I’m sorry to say that the onions we’re carrying will at best be eaten by animals because of the worms in them.”
The amount of aid waiting in Egypt’s northern Sinai is now considerable, said Khaled Zayed, head of the Egyptian Red Crescent in the area.
If you are just joining the blog now, here is a short explainer and background on what to expect today from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling, via Agence France-Presse (AFP):
The ICJ, whose orders are legally binding but lack direct enforcement mechanisms, stopped short of ordering a ceasefire in an interim ruling in January but instructed Israel to do everything possible to prevent genocidal acts.
South Africa, which filed the case later formally supported by Israel-Hamas mediator Egypt, argued the ongoing Israeli operation in Rafah should compel the UN court to issue fresh emergency orders.
The case, which Israel says should be dismissed, could add to mounting international pressure for a truce and hostage release more than seven months into the war.
Meanwhile, arrest warrants related to the war are pending at the international criminal court (ICC), and three European countries said they would formally recognise a Palestinian state on Tuesday.
The ICJ is expected to deliver its order on Friday at 3pm CEST (2pm BST).
Israeli forces carried out strikes on Gaza and battled militants on the ground on Friday, as the UN’s top court was due to rule on a plea to halt the military offensive, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Witnesses and AFP correspondents reported overnight air and naval strikes on Gaza City and gunfire to its south.
At least five people were killed when a family home in the city’s al-Daraj neighbourhood was hit, Gaza’s civil defence agency and an emergency doctor at al-Ahli hospital said.
According to AFP, Israeli military reported targeted raids in Jabalia and ongoing activity in central Gaza, and said “troops eliminated dozens of terrorists” in the north.
A Palestinian security source told AFP there were clashes between Israeli forces and militants in the town of Jabalia and its refugee camp, with another source at Kamal Adwan hospital saying it was “out of service, and has 14 medical staff trapped inside”.
Along with al-Awda, Kamal Adwan is one the last two functioning hospitals north of Gaza City, both of which are besieged, according to the World Health Organization.
Other facilities across Gaza are suffering severe shortages of medical supplies and fuel to power generators, according to UN and Palestinian officials.
In a statement on Friday, the Israeli army said its “troops are continuing operations against terror targets” in Rafah, where they had “destroyed weapon storage facilities” and tunnel shafts.
A local Palestinian source told AFP that military vehicles were advancing from eastern Rafah towards the city centre.
US intelligence chief Bill Burns is expected to hold talks in Paris with representatives of Israel in a bid to relaunch talks aimed at finding a truce in Gaza, a western source close to the issue said on Friday, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The visit of the CIA chief to the French capital, expected on Friday or Saturday, comes after Israel gave the green light to the resumption of negotiations for the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza in exchange for a ceasefire.
Previous talks in Cairo and Doha attended by Qatar and Egypt as mediators for Hamas broke up earlier this month with both Israel and Hamas reportedly unhappy with the conditions of the other side.
According to AFP, it was not immediately clear if representatives of Qatar or Egypt would be present at the Paris talks.
The New York Times said Burns would meet his Israeli counterpart David Barnea, the head of Israel’s the Mossad spy agency.
The US-based Axios news website quoted a source as saying Burns would also meet Qatari prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani as well as Barnea.
Axios said Israeli negotiators developed in recent days a “new proposal” to renew the hostage talks which includes “some compromises” in Israel’s position compared to the last round of negotiations in Cairo.
Al Jazeera have reported that the governments of 27 members of the Media Freedom Coalition, a partnership of countries working to defend media freedom where it is under threat, have published a statement criticising the shutdown of Al Jazeera’s operations in Israel.
According to Al Jazeera, the statement was signed by Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kosovo, Lithuania, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, South Korea, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the UK and the US.
The statement said:
A free and diverse media landscape is crucial for democracies to function, especially in times of conflict, as people rely on independent information from multiple, reliable sources to stay informed and make their decisions.
It is essential that all journalists be given unhindered access to cover events and developments as they unfold, so that they have the possibility to report and inform transparently and factually.”
At the start of April Israeli legislators approved a bill paving the way for a ban on Al Jazeera and other international news outlets perceived as posing a threat to security.
“Al Jazeera will no longer be broadcast from Israel,” Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote in a post on X after the law was approved. “I intend to act immediately in accordance with the new law to stop the channel’s activity.”
In response, the Qatar-based broadcaster condemned Netanyahu’s remarks, calling them “a dangerous and ridiculous lie” and saying they were the prime minister’s justification “for the ongoing assault” on the media network and press freedom. In a statement, the network vowed to persist in its reporting with “boldness and professionalism”.
Whistleblowers allege widespread abuses at Israeli detention camp
Lorenzo Tondo and Quique Kierszenbaum in Jerusalem have written about sources describing Palestinian inmates being beaten, kept shackled to hospital beds or made to stand for hours:
Prisoners held at an Israeli detention camp in the Negev desert are being subjected to widespread physical and mental abuses, with at least one reported case of a man having his limb amputated as a result of injuries sustained from constant handcuffing, according to two whistleblowers who worked at the site.
The sources described harrowing treatment of detainees at the Israeli Sde Teiman camp, which holds Palestinians from Gaza and suspected Hamas militants, including inmates regularly being kept shackled to hospital beds, blindfolded and forced to wear nappies.
According to the two sources, the facility, located approximately 18 miles from the Gaza border, consists of two distinct sections: an enclosure where up to 200 Palestinian detainees from Gaza are confined under severe physical restrictions inside cages, and a field hospital where dozens of patients with war injuries are handcuffed to their beds and often deprived of pain relief.
One whistleblower, who has worked in the facility as a prison guard, said detainees were forced to stand up for hours, or to sit on their knees. The source, who spoke out at risk of reprisals, said several detainees were beaten with truncheons and not able to move their heads or to speak at the facility.
You can read the full report here:
Power outages have forced the shutdown of the generators at Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital in Deri el-Balah in the Gaza Strip. A hospital spokesperson, Khalil al-Deqran, told Al Jazeera that doctors are unable to use many of its facilities and are treating patients manually.
“This will lead to the death of so many sick and wounded people”, said al-Deqran, who said that some of the patients are being treated on the floor.
A statement from the hospital reported by the Quds News Network said: “We appeal to the international community and all international and UN organisations to supply 50,000 litres of fuel to the hospital within the coming hours to prevent a health catastrophe affecting hundreds of patients and injured individuals. Any delay in supplying the fuel would effectively be a death sentence for these patients and injured individuals.”
No sign of attack on Iran president’s helicopter before fatal crash, armed forces say
Moving briefly away from Gaza and Israel developments, Iran’s military says the helicopter carrying late President Ebrahim Raisi caught fire soon after it crashed into a mountain and there was no sign it was attacked, according to a report from the Associated Press.
The statement from the general staff of the armed forces in charge of investigating the crash was read on state television late Thursday. The statement did not lay blame for the crash but said more details would come after further investigation.
The crash on Sunday killed Raisi, the foreign minister and six other people. The general staff’s statement said communications with the helicopter contained nothing suspicious, there was no sign of anything shot at it, and its flight path did not change before the crash. Raisi was buried on Thursday.
Benjamin Netanyahu has sent condolences to the families of Orión Hernández Radoux, Hanan Yablonka, and Michel Nisenbaum after the IDF said it had recovered bodies of the hostages from Gaza.
“We have a national and moral duty to do everything we can to return our hostages — the living and the deceased — and that is what we are doing,” he said. “I congratulate the IDF and security forces who acted with great courage in the heart of enemy territory to return them to their families and for burial in Israel.”
The president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, said his “heart goes out” to the families of the hostages. “It is our duty as a country to return all of them — the living and those we must bring to burial in Israel,” he says. “May the memories of Hanan, Orión and Michel be a blessing.”
EU staff sign letter expressing concerns over its handling of Gaza crisis
Ashifa Kassam
More than 200 staff members of EU institutions and agencies have signed a letter expressing “growing concern” over the union’s response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, arguing that it runs contrary to its core values and aim of promoting peace.
The letter, signed by 211 people in their personal capacity as citizens and addressed to the EU’s top three officials, begins by condemning the 7 October attacks “in the strongest terms”.
Citing the January ruling by the international court of justice that suggested a credible risk to Palestinians under the genocide convention, the letter warns that the EU’s “continued apathy to the plight of Palestinians” risks normalising a world order where the sheer use of force, rather than a rule-based system, determines state security, territorial integrity and political independence.
“It was precisely to avert such a grim world order that our grandparents, witnesses of the horrors of World War II, created Europe,” the letter reads. “To stand idly by in the face of such an erosion of the international rule of law would mean failing the European project as envisaged by them. This cannot happen in our name.”
The letter, shared exclusively with the Guardian, was written by a small group of staffers, said Zeno Benetti, one of the organisers.
“We couldn’t believe that our leaders who were so vocal about human rights and who described Europe as the beacon of human rights were suddenly so silent about the crisis unfolding in Gaza,” he said. “It’s like suddenly we were asked to turn a blind eye on our values and on the values that we were allegedly working for. And for us, this was not acceptable.”
Bodies of three more hostages recovered from northern Gaza by Israeli military
The bodies of three more hostages have been recovered from the northern Gaza Strip overnight, the IDF has said.
Orión Hernández Radoux, 30, Hanan Yablonka, 42, and Michel Nisenbaum, 59, were kidnapped from the Mefalsim area and, according to the Israeli military in comments reported by the Times of Israel and the Jerusalem Post, were killed on 7 October. Until recently, there had been no information as to their status and they were believed to be alive.
The Times of Israel says Hernández Radoux, a Mexican-French national, was the boyfriend of Shani Louk, one of the four hostages whose bodies were found in Jabaliya last week. Hernández Radoux and Yablonka were at the Supernova music festival.
The IDF says the bodies of the three hostages were recovered in a joint operation carried out by the military and Shin Bet.
The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has said that recognising a Palestinian state was not a gift to Hamas.
Ireland, Norway and Spain said on Wednesday they would recognise a Palestinian state on 28 May, to help secure a halt to Israel’s Gaza offensive after the Hamas attack on 7 October and revive peace talks that stalled a decade ago.
“Recognising the Palestinian state is not a gift to Hamas, quite the contrary,” Borrell said in comments reported by Reuters. “The Palestinian authority is not Hamas, on the contrary they are deeply confronted.”
He added the EU already talked, financed and met the Palestinian authority. “Every time someone makes the decision to support a Palestinian state, the reaction of Israel is to transform it in an antisemitic attack,” he added
Sam Jones
Israel’s foreign minister has reacted furiously after Yolanda Díaz, Spain’s labour minister and one of the country’s deputy prime ministers, welcomed her government’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state and used the controversial slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.
In a post on X, Israel Katz described Díaz’s choice of words as “antisemitic” and said it would result in Israel preventing the Spanish consulate in Jerusalem from providing services to Palestinians from the West Bank. He also suggested Díaz study her own country’s history – especially the seven centuries of Islamic rule between 711 and 1492, a period that saw varying degrees of coexistence between the Iberian peninsula’s Muslim, Christian and Jewish populations.
“In response to Spain’s recognition of a Palestinian state and the antisemitic call by Spain’s deputy prime minister to not just recognise a Palestinian state but to ‘liberate Palestine from the river to the sea,’ I have decided to sever the connection between Spain’s representation in Israel and the Palestinians, and to prohibit the Spanish consulate in Jerusalem from providing services to Palestinians from the West Bank,” wrote Israel.
“If this ignorant, hate-filled individual wants to understand what radical Islam truly seeks, she should study the 700 years of Islamic rule in Al-Andalus—today’s Spain.”
The European Jewish Association, which represents Jewish communities across the continent, has called on Josep Borrell to condemn Diaz
“The Spanish Vice-President, Yolanda Diaz, is openly calling for the genocide of the world’s only Jewish State, Israel,” it said in a statement. “This cannot and must not stand. We immediately call on Josep Borrell to condemn this. EU Member States have obligations under the treaties not to call for the annihilation of third countries.
“We immediately call for Prime Minister Sanchez to distance the Spanish government from these genocidal remarks. The Vice-President’s from the river to the sea call carries with it echoes of the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Jews from Spain in 1492, not to mention the thousands burned alive in auto-da-fe’s. Her statement is also an endorsement of Hamas’ ideology. She must resign.”
The US-built pier in Gaza is beginning to get deliver more aid to Palestinians however conditions are challenging, US officials said Thursday.
Crowds overran some of the first trucks coming in via the pier and one man in the crowd was shot dead in unexplained circumstances, leading to a two-day suspension of aid distribution, the Associated Press reports.
The US military worked with the UN and Israeli officials to select safer alternate routes for trucks coming from the pier, US Vice Admiral Brad Cooper said. As a result, the pier on Wednesday accounted for 27 of the 70 total trucks of aid that the UN was able to round up from all land and sea crossings into Gaza for distribution to civilians, the United States said.
That’s a fraction of the 150 truckloads of food, emergency nutrition treatment and other supplies that US officials aim to bring in when the sea route is working at maximum capacity.
Peter Beaumont
The international court of justice is expected to issue a new ruling on Israel’s conduct of its war in Gaza at 3pm CET (1400 BST) on Friday, as the US expressed concern over Israel’s growing diplomatic isolation among countries that have traditionally supported it.
Amid speculation that the ICJ could order a halt to Israel’s offensive, a second top global court – the international criminal court – identified the three judges who will hear a request for arrest warrants against Hamas leaders, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and its defence minister, Yoav Gallant.
Last week South Africa asked the ICJ, which is located in The Hague and also known as the world court, to order a halt to Israel’s offensive in Gaza, and in Rafah in particular, saying this was necessary to ensure the survival of the Palestinian people.
ICJ decisions have in the past been ignored, as the top UN legal body has no way to enforce its decisions, but they carry international weight. A ruling against Israel could add to its political isolation after a series of setbacks this week.
Israel suggested it would defy any order to stop fighting.
“No power on Earth will stop Israel from protecting its citizens and going after Hamas in Gaza,” a spokesperson, Avi Hyman, told reporters on Thursday.
The latest legal moves come as Israeli media reported that Israel Defense Forces had concluded that troops had “breached regulations” when they killed a UN staff member and wounded a second one last week in Gaza when a marked UN vehicle was shelled and hit with a drone-dropped grenade.
Israel has faced mounting problems on the international stage in recent days. On Wednesday, after Ireland, Norway and Spain said they would recognise Palestinian statehood, the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, expressed concern over Israel’s isolation.
Opening summary
It’s just past 10am in Gaza and Tel Aviv, welcome to the continuation of our live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war.
Judges at the UN’s top court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), are due to rule on South Africa’s request to order Israel to halt its Rafah offensive and withdraw from Gaza, part of a wider case accusing Israel of genocide.
South Africa’s lawyers asked the court last week to impose emergency measures, and said Israel’s attacks on the southern Gaza city “must be stopped” to ensure the survival of the Palestinian people.
Pretoria has urged the International Court of Justice to order an “immediate” stop to Israel’s campaign and facilitate access of humanitarian aid.
Israel has repeatedly dismissed the accusations of genocide as baseless. It has argued in court that the operations in Gaza are self-defence and targeted at Hamas militants who attacked Israel on 7 October.
Rulings by the ICJ, also known as the world court, are final and binding, but have been ignored in the past. The court has no enforcement powers.
The ICJ’s ruling follows a landmark request by the international criminal court’s (ICC) lead prosecutor to seek arrest warrants for top Israeli and Hamas leaders.
More on that in a moment but first, here’s a summary of the latest developments:
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Prisoners held at an Israeli detention camp in the Negev desert are being subjected to widespread physical and mental abuses, with at least one reported case of a man having his limb amputated as a result of injuries sustained from constant handcuffing, according to two whistleblowers who worked at the site. Responding to the claims, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement: “Among the detainees held at the Sde Teiman facility are skilled military operatives at a very high level of danger. Detainees are handcuffed according to their level of risk and their state of health.”
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All EU donors have now resumed their support to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa), said Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, on Thursday. In a social media post, Borrell described Unrwa as “an indispensable lifeline in Gaza and the region”.
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The Hostages Families Forum in Israel has released graphic footage of female Israeli soldiers captured by Hamas from a military base during the 7 October attacks. The three-minute video showed the women, all IDF personnel, sitting on the ground, some bruised and bloodied, with their hands tied after their capture from the Nahal Oz base in southern Israel.
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Republican US House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Thursday that the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, would soon address a joint meeting of Congress. Delivering a keynote speech at the Israeli embassy’s annual Independence Day reception, Johnson, the top congressional Republican and a critic of the Democratic president’s Israel policy, said it would be “a strong show of support for the Israeli government in their time of greatest need,” Reuters reports.
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The CIA director, Williams Burns, will shortly travel to Europe for a meeting with the Mossad director, David Barnea, to try to revive talks on the hostages in Gaza, Axios said on Thursday, citing US and Israeli officials.
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At least 35,800 Palestinians have been killed and 80,011 injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Thursday. The Hamas-run health ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.
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Israeli forces killed at least 60 Palestinians in aerial and ground bombardments across the Gaza Strip on Thursday and battled in close combat with Hamas-led militants in areas of the southern city of Rafah, health officials and Hamas media said. Israeli tanks advanced in Rafah’s south-east, edged towards the city’s western district of Yibna and continued to operate in three eastern suburbs, residents said, according to Reuters.
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The World Bank says the fiscal situation of the Palestinian Authority, which runs the West Bank, has worsened in the last three months, “significantly raising the risk of a fiscal collapse,” Reuters reports. “The rapidly widening gap between the amount of revenues coming in, and the amount needed to finance essential public expenditure, is driving a fiscal crisis,” it said.
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A two-day Israeli raid on the occupied West Bank city of Jenin killed at least 12 Palestinians, health authorities and an Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondent reported. The Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah said Israeli forces had killed 12 people including four children, and injured 25 during the fighting which began on Tuesday morning.
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Both Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian militant group Hamas condemned the raid. Israel’s army said on Wednesday troops had “exchanged fire with armed men and killed a number of terrorists, including two terrorists who threw explosives at the forces”.
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Surgeon Usaeed Jabareen, from Jenin’s Khalil Suleiman government hospital, was among those killed on Tuesday said the official Palestinian news agency Wafa and medical charity Doctors Without Borders. An AFP correspondent on Thursday saw five bodies at the hospital morgue, including Jabareen’s.
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US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned of the risk of a “humanitarian crisis” if Israel cuts off a crucial financing channel to Palestinian banks. Ahead of a meeting of G7 finance ministers in Stresa in northern Italy, she told reporters: “I’m particularly concerned by Israel’s threats to take action that would lead to Palestinian banks being cut off from their Israeli correspondent banks.”
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A United Nations expert called on Israel on Thursday to investigate multiple allegations of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of Palestinian detainees in the wake of the 7 October attack by Hamas. The UN special rapporteur on torture, Alice Jill Edwards, said in a statement she had received reports of some detainees being deprived of sleep, threatened with physical and sexual violence, insulted and exposed to humiliating acts, including “being photographed and filmed in degrading poses”. There was no immediate reaction from the Israeli government or military.
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Lebanese schoolchildren on a minibus had a narrow escape on Thursday when a drone strike killed a Hezbollah fighter in the car ahead, blowing out the windscreen of their vehicle and injuring three pupils. The source close to Hezbollah told AFP that Israel was behind the strike, which killed a Hezbollah member who was named as Mohammad Ali Nasser Farran.
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Later on Thursday, Hezbollah said it had launched dozens of rockets at a base in northern Israel. It said its katyusha barrage was “in response to the assassination carried out by the enemy in Kafardjal, and the injuring and terrorising of children”.
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A merchant ship off the coast of Yemen reported a missile hitting the water nearby, the UK’s sea trade monitoring agency reported on Thursday, adding that the vessel and all crew were safe and proceeding to the next port of call.
