Israel’s war on Gaza updates: At least 61 Palestinians killed in attacks

Thank you for joining us for updates on everything related to Israel’s war on Palestine.

To read our news story on Israeli soldiers besieging the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, go here.

You can read our report on the first children receiving polio vaccines in Gaza, here.

And you can find all of our latest coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza, here.

We’ll be closing this live page soon. Here’s a recap of today’s main news:

• Israeli strikes killed at least 61 people in the Gaza Strip with the death toll expected to rise, Palestinian health authorities say.
• Israeli air raids near the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in northern Gaza City killed at least three Palestinians and wounded dozens of others, Gaza’s Civil Defence agency says.
• Polio vaccines were administered at Nasser Hospital ahead of the official campaign that kicks off on Sunday aiming to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children.
• The bodies of 27 people killed in Israeli attacks were taken to Nasser Hospital in southern Khan Younis.
• In the occupied West Bank, the ongoing Israeli siege of Jenin left Palestinian residents without essential supplies including food, water, electricity and internet access.

Israel’s military says troops found bodies in Gaza but didn’t provide further details.

“The [army] located several bodies during the fighting in the Gaza Strip. At this stage, the forces are still operating in the area and carrying out a process to extract and identify the bodies, which will last several hours. We ask to avoid spreading rumours,” said military spokesman Daniel Hagari in a post on X.

A Gaza resident has died “of systematic torture” in an Israeli prison, bringing the total number of Palestinian detainees killed in custody since October to 24, rights groups say.

The Palestinian Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners Club announced in a statement the “martyrdom of prisoner Nasr Zeyara, 65, from Gaza, in Ramla prison on August 16”.

“Zeyara is one of the many prisoners from Gaza who have died due to systematic torture, and the occupation continues to conceal the identities of the majority of them and to withhold their bodies,” the statement said.

He was arrested on December 29 last year, along with his son Jihad Zeyara, who is currently in Negev prison, it added, citing his family.

The groups noted “prisoners who were visited in Ramla prison confirmed that martyr Zeyara was transferred to Ramla prison a week before his death and was suffering from a complicated health condition, including burns on the lower part of his body”.

Oroba al-Shalabi said Israeli gunfire pelted her windows while she was holding a baby.

“We began screaming that we had small children, but they [Israeli soldiers] didn’t respond at first. The more we screamed, the more they shot at the house, shattering the TV and the windows around us,” she said.

The family cowered in their kitchen until soldiers entered, separating women and children from the men and searching everyone’s phones before letting her flee.

The medical charity MSF in a statement said it was alarmed by the scale and intensity of Israel’s incursion while noting that Israeli forces “obstructed access to health facilities and blocked – and even targeted – ambulances”.

Several children received polio vaccines a day before a large-scale campaign to inoculate kids against the virus and a planned pause in fighting in the besieged territory.

Watch our video report below:

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic report two Palestinians were killed and others injured after Israel’s military attacked a house in the al-Tawbah area of the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.

Earlier, an Israeli air strike hit the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in northern Gaza City, killing at least three people and wounding dozens.

Dozens of people were reported killed in Israeli raids today, including 27 Palestinians who were taken to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.

The UN Human Rights Office demanded an immediate halt to Israeli military raids in the Jenin refugee camp.

In a statement, the office criticised Israel’s use of weapons and military tactics in the densely populated area, home to about 11,000 Palestinians.

The ongoing incursion in the Jenin camp and “adjacent parts of the city has led apparently to unlawful killings, insecurity for Palestinian residents, and enormous destruction of the camp”, it said.

Thousands of protesters took the streets in Israel demanding the government reach an agreement to release the captives held in Gaza. Police officers and demonstrators clashed in Tel Aviv.

At a meeting at the headquarters of the Israeli army, relatives accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of abandoning the captives.

“Netanyahu and his partners in the cabinet have decided to torpedo the ceasefire agreement for the Philadelphi Corridor, thereby knowingly condemning the hostages to death,” said a statement read out by a family member.

A Palestinian man has been wounded in the village of Marda in Salfit, in the occupied West Bank, after an attack by Israeli forces, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

Israel has killed at least 22 Palestinians since it launched a major incursion in the towns and refugee camps of Jenin, Nablus, Tubas and Tulkarem overnight on Wednesday.

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad say at least 14 of the dead were members of their armed wings.

In Jenin, clashes are continuing and the streets are mostly empty except for Israeli armoured vehicles, including one that blocked access to the government hospital.

Combing through the rubble after an attack on a hospital complex in northern Gaza City, a civil defence agency worker condemned the latest medical facility attack by Israel’s army.

“This constitutes yet another war crime, added to the many crimes committed by the military in the Gaza Strip,” the unidentified man said in a video.

“The Israeli warplanes targeted and destroyed the building end-to-end at the al-Alhi Arab Hospital. It remains the only medical facility catering to patients and the wounded in Gaza City since al-Shifa Hospital was flattened by the army.”

He added, “This demands serious action from the international community to prevent further recurrence of these crimes.”

The director of Jenin Hospital, Wisam Bakr, spoke to Al Jazeera about the ongoing situation at the besieged health facility.

Here are his translated comments:

• The occupation forces are deployed around the hospital and we are facing a difficult situation because of the Israeli attack. Ambulances in Jenin are being obstructed and searched by the Israelis.
• Many of the wounded are unable to reach Jenin Hospital because of the military presence around the facility.
• Very few people are able to reach the hospital because of the siege by the occupation forces. The big challenge for us is the power outage at the hospital. We fear that the generators will stop.

Yemen’s Houthis expressed “great concern” over Israeli military raids in the occupied West Bank, which have killed at least 22 people since Wednesday.

“Yemen and its armed forces will continue to support the Palestinian people and achieve victory for Gaza and the West Bank as long as the aggression and siege continue,” the group said, according to Houthi-affiliated media Al-Masirah.

The Houthis have attacked Israel-linked vessels in an effort they say aims to pressure the Israeli government to end the devastating war in Gaza.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said in a post on X that Israel’s attempts to defame the agency for Palestinian refugees both harms its reputation and puts the lives of its staff at risk.

“These deliberate efforts to spread misinformation should stop + be investigated,” Lazzarini wrote on Saturday, calling for more regulations for companies, including social media platforms, to combat disinformation and hate speech.

“The spread of misinformation & disinformation continues to be used as a weapon in the war in Gaza.”

Read the full story here.

Israeli forces targeted the Tuffah area, east of Gaza City, the civil defence agency says.

It’s unclear if there are any casualties in the latest attack. Earlier, Israel bombed the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in the city, killing at least three Palestinians and wounding dozens of others.

It was the most recent attack on healthcare facilities by Israel’s army, which has continually targeted hospitals, schools, and other places sheltering terrified and displaced civilians.

The UN is set to start vaccinating some 640,000 children in Gaza against polio, but there are concerns about the safety of families during the process.

“The danger is there every second for our children as the war continues and the strikes are everywhere,” said Adly Abu Taha, a displaced Palestinian from the southern city of Rafah. He got his son vaccinated on Saturday ahead of the drive.

“There was a risk to bring my child to Nasser Hospital where the campaign started and to move from one place to another. But thank God, I arrived and wasn’t late and haven’t left until my son got the vaccine, which I hope will be safe and prevent his infection of any disease.”

But Palestinian health officials are sceptical of the campaign’s success given the horrific conditions in Gaza caused by Israel’s war.

“We call for a real ceasefire for this campaign to succeed,” said Dr Yousef Abu al-Rish, deputy minister of health in Gaza.

“Without this all the arrangements that have been made cannot qualify this campaign for success. Regardless our teams will go everywhere. Wherever there is a Palestinian who needs this vaccination, our teams will reach them despite the risks.”

Israeli forces are conducting their largest assault in decades in the occupied West Bank, killing and injuring dozens of Palestinians.

The escalation is coupled with increasing settler violence. So what are the consequences?