Israel war on Gaza updates: Israelis hit with roadside bomb, mortar fire

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Read more about a growing rift between the Israeli army and Prime Minister Netanyahu over the goals of the country’s war on Gaza here.

Watch our discussion on who will enforce accusations of war crimes against Israel made by a UN commission of inquiry here.

And for all of our coverage of Israel’s war in Gaza, click here.

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Here is a recap of today’s events:

• Al Jazeera’s correspondents are reporting that Israeli warplanes have launched strikes on the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood in Gaza City.
• Broadcaster Al-Aqsa TV announced via Telegram that one of its journalists, Salim al-Sharafa, was targeted in an Israeli bombing in the Gaza Strip a short while ago.
• Hamas fighters continue to put up fierce resistance in southern Rafah and northern Gaza City with a powerful roadside bomb destroying a Merkava tank and a mortar barrage hammering an Israeli command-and-control centre.
• A group of United Nations experts has warned arms and ammunition manufacturers against taking part in the transfer of weapons to Israel, saying it could make them complicit in human rights abuses and violations of international law.
• The number of Palestinian prisoners killed in Israeli-run prisons since October 7 has risen to 54, the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs in Gaza says.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society has announced that one of its “administrative teams” has arrived in Gaza City to help “reactivate its various services”.

“The main tasks of the team will be to prepare for the reopening of Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City, especially in light of the collapse of the medical system, and to activate relief services to alleviate the effects of the aggression faced by our people in the Gaza Strip,” it said in a post on X.

Hamas says it is planning a legal response against the International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor’s request for arrest warrants against its top leaders.

Calling the war crimes accusations against three of its top leaders – Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and Mohammed Deif – “baseless”, Hamas said it would argue Palestinians have “the right, indeed the duty, to resist occupation by all means available, including armed resistance”.

The ICC’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan said in May the three Hamas leaders bore responsibility for the attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed at least 1,139 people with 250 captives taken to Gaza.

The same day, Khan announced he is seeking arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

In its statement, Hamas said the prosecutor “erred in considering that the state of conflict began on October 7”, asserting it began in 1948 with Israel’s establishment.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) urged the US government to probe “growing reports of the systematic torture of Palestinian detainees by Israeli forces”.

It cited allegations by Mohammed Saber Arab, a correspondent for Al Araby TV. He was detained at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City in March by Israeli troops. Detainees are blindfolded and handcuffed 24 hours a day and subjected to continuous torture, physical and sexual abuse and humiliation, said Arab.

“Because the Biden administration is complicit in the far-right Israeli government’s genocide, forced starvation and ethnic cleansing, it is also complicit in the torture of Palestinian detainees,” said Nihad Awad, CAIR’s national executive director, in a statement.

“A nation that receives billions of American taxpayer dollars cannot engage in torture or any other of the war crimes Israeli forces commit on a daily basis.”

A new poll of Israeli public opinion conducted by the Pew Research Center shows that 47 percent of Israelis do not trust that the government will do what is appropriate for Israel, while 53 percent expressed the opposite opinion.

“Israeli Jews are about three times as likely as Israeli Arabs to say they trust the national government [61 percent vs 23 percent]. Indeed, nearly four-in-ten Israeli Arabs [37 percent] say they do not trust it at all”, the study adds, breaking the results down by ethnicity.

The study also shows that Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is the most popular politician in Israel with 61 percent approval, followed by Minister Benny Gantz with 51 percent.

Yet again, Israel stands accused of committing war crimes against Palestinians, this time by a UN-backed commission of inquiry.

Its report on Israel’s actions says the country committed acts including forced starvation, murder or willful killing, collective punishment, and intentional attacks on civilians.

The Palestinian armed groups also received a share of the blame. But who will enforce accountability?

The temporary US pier aimed at boosting aid shipments to Gaza is again operational and deliveries of humanitarian assistance have resumed, the Pentagon says.

“I can confirm that US Central Command personnel reanchored and re-established the temporary pier to the Gaza beach yesterday,” Pentagon spokesman Major-General Pat Ryder told journalists.

The pier was moved to an Israeli port last week to protect it from anticipated high seas – the second time bad weather shut it down since it was first installed last month.

Aid groups have argued the US dock isn’t an adequate substitute for delivering humanitarian assistance via land routes, which Israeli has heavily restricted.

Broadcaster Al-Aqsa TV announced via Telegram that one of its journalists, Salim al-Sharafa, was targeted in an Israeli bombing in the Gaza Strip a short while ago.

According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, al-Sharafa’s death raises the tally of media workers killed in Gaza since October 7 to at least 152.

Gadi Eisenkot, former chief of staff of the Israeli army and war cabinet member, says the main aim of the war on Gaza is the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, not its elimination.

“The goal is not to eliminate Hamas but to dismantle its military and governmental capabilities,” he told Israeli media. “Hamas is an idea that we will fight for many more years. We cannot promise that victory is just a step away or within arm’s reach.”

The comments from the ex-military chief come amid a widening rift between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, former Israeli officials, and the military on the conduct and endgame of the war.

Earlier, Israel’s army spokesman Daniel Hagari questioned Netanyahu’s stated goal of destroying Hamas in Gaza for the war to end.

“This business of destroying Hamas, making Hamas disappear – it’s simply throwing sand in the eyes of the public,” he said. “Hamas is an idea, Hamas is a party. It’s rooted in the hearts of the people – whoever thinks we can eliminate Hamas is wrong.”

A report from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has found a pattern of “indiscriminate and disproportionate” Israeli strikes harming civilians in Gaza.

Watch the video below:

Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi has discussed the ongoing war in Gaza with the EU’s top diplomat.

“Al-Safadi stressed, during a phone call with the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the EU Josep Borrell, that the war crimes documented by numerous international reports proved that Israel had become a pariah state, that used starvation as a weapon, and killed civilians indiscriminately, and the United Nations included them in the list,” Jordan’s Foreign Ministry said in a post on X.

This “blacklist” is for countries “that have committed grave violations against children, but the international reaction to these crimes still falls short of the deterrence required to curb the extremism of the Israeli government and stop the massacres it is committing”.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society says on X that its crews transferred the humanitarian aid from the occupied West Bank to the Gaza Strip, and that it will be distributed to “displaced and affected families in central and southern Gaza”.

“PRCS volunteers will distribute the meat over three consecutive days to thousands of families, in coordination with local community bodies and committees, to alleviate the suffering of the citizens in Gaza”, the announcement adds.

The delivery of humanitarian aid has been strained ever since Israel seized and closed the Rafah border crossing with Egypt at the beginning of May.

The US secretary of state will also discuss the situation along Israel’s border with Lebanon in a meeting.

Attending will be Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer and National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi. US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan will also take part in the discussions later in the day in Washington, DC.