Israel’s war on Gaza updates: US confirms humanitarian aid airdrops

This live page is now closed. Follow along with our ongoing coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza here.

To read about the controversial airdrop of food by the US, read here.

To find out about the mediated framework agreement, read here.

And you can always find our latest news about the conflict here.

We will be closing the live blog soon. Here’s a recap of the day’s main events:

• The US military confirmed its first airdrop of limited aid to the Gaza Strip with Jordanian help, despite criticism of its effectiveness.
• More mediated talks between Hamas and Israel are expected in Cairo, where a framework agreement for a six-week truce and exchange of prisoners is on the table, as Israel continues to pound the southern and central parts of Gaza.
• Thousands protested in Tel Aviv and other places in Israel to demand a speedy return of captives in Gaza and early elections.
• The death toll in the Israeli attack on Palestinian aid seekers in Gaza City has reached 118, with more people in critical condition.
• Rubymar, the UK-owned ship Yemen’s Houthis hit with missiles, has now sunk.

The dead included three children, the news agency reported, after Israeli air attacks hit a home in eastern Rafah.

Dozens were reported to have been injured in the attack.

The settler attack began on Saturday evening on the village near Ramallah, Sayil Kanaan, the head of the village council told Al Jazeera.

Kanaan estimated that 150 settlers attacked Barqa.

He said that locals noticed masked settlers hiding in trees near a home under construction.

The settlers began to throw stones, damaging a car as well as the windows of several homes.

“The residents were in fear and then some were forced to go and defend their homes,” said Kanaan. “They threw stones at the settlers and the settlers injured at least five people in the head after throwing stones at them.”

In less than 150 days, Israeli forces have killed more than 30,000 Palestinians across Gaza and the occupied West Bank. These are just some of the people killed across both occupied territories every day of the siege.

Most victims listed here were killed by Israel’s attacks in Gaza. Others died from starvation after Israel blocked aid deliveries in Gaza. Some victims highlighted lived in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces and settlers have killed more than 400 Palestinians – including more than 100 children – since October 7.

Watch AJ+’s video below:

Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, a senior member of the Yemeni group’s political council, was addressing UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on the UK-owned Rubymar cargo vessel that sunk in the Red Sea earlier today.

“You and your government bear responsibility” and are also “responsible” for genocide in Gaza, he said on X.

Al-Houthi said the group could “salvage” the vessel, which was on the water for days after being hit with Houthi antiship missiles, if Sunak sent “a letter of guarantee, signed by George Galloway, that the relief trucks agreed upon at that time would enter Gaza”.

In a fractious week for UK politics, Galloway won the Rochdale by-election after a campaign centred on supporting Gaza, rattling the Labour Party and starting a war of words among top politicians.

Sadiq Khan, London’s mayor, weighed in on Saturday by criticising Sunak and calling out “a concerted and growing attempt by some to degrade and humiliate minorities for political and electoral gain”.

Israel continues to insist that it has no responsibility concerning the desperate lack of humanitarian aid going to Palestinians despite the UN and many others showing evidence to the contrary.

The idea that Israel is blocking aid is “simply a lie”, said Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy on X. “There is no limit to the amount of food, water, medicine, or shelter equipment that can enter via Israel. There is EXCESS CAPACITY at Israel’s crossings for more to enter.”

This comes after Washington resorted to airdropping a limited amount of food into the Gaza Strip since aid could not enter Gaza via Israeli-controlled border crossings and after the killings in the aid convoy in which 118 people have died so far.

Israeli protesters have also repeatedly gathered at border crossings with Gaza to prevent aid from being taken into the enclave.

Commenting after the death of 10 children in Gaza from malnutrition, UNICEF head Catherine Russell wrote in a social media post that one in six children in Gaza under the age of two are acutely malnourished.

“For children in Gaza, every minute counts in safely accessing nutrition, water, medical care & protection from bullets & bombs,” Russell wrote. “This requires a humanitarian ceasefire NOW.”

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has promised “revenge” for the assassination of its senior navy soldier in Syria in an Israeli air strike.

The force said in a short statement that it “reserves the right for revenge on the agents and perpetrators of this crime” and that the funeral for Colonel Reza Zarei will be held on Sunday in Bandar Abbas in southern Iran.

The statement identified the 40-year-old Zarei as having 20 years of experience in the IRGC Navy and as a “military advisor” in Syria who was killed on Friday.

The two other people killed in the air strike were members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Iranian media reported.

Israel has been intensifying its attempted assassinations of Iranian and Lebanese forces in Syria and Lebanon in the past few weeks.

The Quds Brigades armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) says Arab and Muslim countries should take up arms against Israel in a defiant statement carried by its spokesperson Abu Hamza.

“Is it not time for you to mobilise your weapons, following in the footsteps of the free people of Yemen, Lebanon, and Iraq?” he said to countries that “possess armies, planes, and artillery” but have not intervened to stop the war on Gaza.

Abu Hamza also called on Arab and Muslim nations to make the first day of Ramadan – which is in about a week – a day of international support for Gaza.

“Just as you turn to God in prayer and fasting, turn to the land of Israel with weapons,” he told Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

US President Joe Biden says in a post on X that the amount of aid going into the besieged Gaza Strip is insufficient after the US military dropped limited aid packages earlier today with the help of the Jordanian air force.

“The amount of aid flowing to Gaza is not nearly enough and we will continue to pull out every stop we can to get more aid in,” he said.

The spokesman for the Israeli army, Daniel Hagari, told a news conference that Israeli soldiers did not intentionally open fire on hungry Palestinians in the aid convoy massacre that left at least 118 dead and more in critical condition.

“This was a humanitarian operation we conducted, and the claim that we intentionally struck the convoy and intentionally harmed people is baseless,” he was quoted as saying by Times of Israel.

“We are investigating this incident, we have all the footage we need to complete an exhaustive investigation and find out the truth of the facts of this incident, and we will present the findings,” Hagari said.

The army had previously released edited drone footage of the incident and confirmed its soldiers fired on Palestinians, but claimed most were killed in a stampede – despite overwhelming eyewitness reports of Israel shooting at the crowd, and a UN team reporting that many of those injured had gunshot wounds.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization, was reacting to the news earlier today that an Israeli attack on displaced Palestinians living in tents in Rafah had killed 11 people.

Ghebreyesus said the incident was “outrageous and unspeakable”, and added that two heath workers were among the dead.

“We urge [Israel] to cease fire,” he added.

The Israeli army confirms three more soldiers are killed in Gaza, bringing the official death toll of its ground offensive to 245.

It confirmed that three 19-year-old sergeants, Dolev Malka, Afik Tery and Inon Yitzhak, were killed, and 14 other soldiers were wounded, six of them seriously.

They entered a building in Khan Younis in southern Gaza that was rigged with two explosive devices, which detonated.

The Israeli military claimed its soldiers killed several Hamas operatives in the area.

This appears to be the same incident that Hamas also reported several hours ago, saying its fighters detonated explosives after Israeli troops entered a building in a neighbourhood in northern Khan Younis.