Eight Palestinians were killed and several others were injured when the Israeli army shelled the Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, local media reported. (Updated at 12:27 p.m.)
IDF strikes civilian targets in Gaza
The Palestinian official Wafa news agency reported on Tuesday that the Israeli army shelled the Al-Alami neighbourhood in Jabalia, the largest refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, killing at least eight Palestinians and wounding others.
Overnight, Israeli airstrikes also reportedly hit five homes in Gaza City, killing and injuring people. Health authorities have not yet commented on the airstrikes.
Israel, which has defied a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, has come under international condemnation for its ongoing brutal offensive on Gaza since the October 7 Hamas attack. Since then, more than 37,700 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and nearly 86,400 others have been injured, according to local health authorities.
More than eight months into Israel’s offensive, vast swathes of Gaza lie in ruins under a brutal blockade of food, clean water and medicine.
Israel has been accused of genocide by the UN International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling orders it to immediately halt operations in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians were sheltering from the war before it was seized on May 6.
Israelis demand an end to war
Meanwhile, hundreds of Israelis protested outside the defence ministry building in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, demanding an end to the war and the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip.
The demonstrators, among them hostages’ families, marched from Habima Square to Begin Road, where the ministry is located, the Israeli media reported.
They blocked Begin Road in a southerly direction. The demonstrators held placards with slogans such as “Stop the war,” “Agree immediately,” and “Return all prisoners.”
The demonstration organisers criticised in a statement the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for being preoccupied with legislation such as the conscription law while 120 hostages are held in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli government, they said, is “preoccupied with everything except the captives.”
Addressing Netanyahu, they added:
Faced with a man who insists on continuing the war and returning some captives, we ask: end the war and bring everyone home.
Netanyahu caused a political storm and anger among the hostages’ families on Sunday night when he told Channel 14 that he was ready for a “partial” deal to return some hostages held in Gaza.
On Monday, he retracted his statement and told Israel’s Knesset, or parliament, that “we will not end the war until we return all the hostages,” adding that Israel was “committed to the Israeli proposal (for a ceasefire) that was welcomed by US President Joe Biden. Our position has not changed.”
In total, Israel says Hamas took 253 hostages on 7 October 2023. According to the latest figures, including those who were freed in a deal last autumn, 129 hostages remain. At least 34 of the IDF considers dead.
Foreign ministries call on their citizens to leave the conflict zone
German and Dutch authorities are asking their citizens to leave Lebanon immediately.
The German Foreign Ministry said:
Germans in Lebanon are urgently asked to leave the country. The situation on the border between Israel and Lebanon is very tense.
The Dutch government has done the same. They ask their compatriots to avoid travelling to the country and to leave while there is still an opportunity. Politicians fear that the risk of escalation could lead to the suspension of air traffic in Beirut.
A day earlier, Ottawa issued a similar call. Citizens were asked to seek consular assistance at the Canadian Embassy in Lebanon.
Lebanon escalation
More than 20 people were injured in an overnight Israeli strike on southern Lebanon.
The attack hit a residential building in the centre of the town of Nabatieh. Seven people were injured in the strike and 14 were injured as a result of “panic, stress and suffocation”, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported. None of the injuries were described as serious.
Nabatieh is far from the border with Israel and has been hit infrequently since exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli military began in October in response to Israel’s war on Gaza.
Israel did not immediately say who its military’s strikes were targeting. In February, an Israeli attack on Nabatieh killed ten civilians.
