Updates: Israel kills 45 in latest attacks on civilian shelters in Gaza

To read more about how Israel is systematically destroying the Gaza Strip while blocking all aid from entering, read this.

Find out more about Israeli former National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s claim that US Republican Party legislators support bombing “food and aid depots” in Gaza here.

And you can find lots more of our coverage on Israel’s war on Gaza here.

Let’s take a look at the latest updates:

• At least 20 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military strikes so far today, medical sources told Al Jazeera. They include three children killed in a strike on a tent shelter near Nuseirat in central Gaza.
• Israel again claimed that it was targeting Hamas when it attacked a busy market area in northern Gaza’s Jabalia town, killing at least three people.
• The US military dropped dozens of bombs on areas across Yemen, continuing its daily attacks that have killed more than 200 people since mid-March.
• In al-Yamoun in the occupied West Bank, Palestinians mourned a 12-year-old boy who was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers on Wednesday.
• Israeli settlers shot five Palestinians and set fire to farmland and buildings in the village of Bardala in the West Bank’s northern Jordan Valley region.
• A pro-Palestinian student group was stripped of its official recognition by Yale University after it was accused of involvement in protests against a visit by Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

As the Israeli military continues to bomb the besieged Gaza Strip to devastating effect, Israel’s foreign minister said once again that his country is merely defending itself.

“We know, and the whole world knows (even if it does not draw necessary conclusions), that many around us today seek our elimination,” Gideon Saar told foreign diplomats in Tel Aviv at a Holocaust remembrance ceremony.

“It is not that they are only dreaming of it. They are planning it. They are taking action to execute it,” he claimed.

According to the latest figures from the Ministry of Health in Gaza, at least 51,305 Palestinians have been confirmed killed and 117,096 wounded in Israel’s war on the Strip since it began 18 months ago.

In the early hours of this morning, the Israeli military carried out more deadly attacks, killing people inside their homes, the areas where they are sheltering or inside tents.

The attack on this father, mother and their four children in the Sheikh Radwan district – in the northwestern part of Gaza City – has left everyone in shock.

Witnesses, neighbours and those who are close to the family, as well as surviving family members and civil defence crews, had to collect the flesh of the children – their limbs that were blown into the streets and neighbouring residential buildings.

The parents and their four children were killed in the attacks.

Former England national football team captain Gary Lineker took on the BBC’s Amol Rajan over the British public broadcaster’s coverage of Israel’s war on genocide.

In a video clip widely shared on social media, Lineker takes issue with the BBC’s coverage and notes “the mass murder of thousands of children is probably something that we should have a little opinion on”.

The head of the powerful Histadrut, Israel’s largest trade union, has threatened to call a third major nationwide strike over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government’s disregard for the country’s supreme court.

In an interview with Maariv newspaper published this morning, Arnon Bar-David said “democracy is still in danger and is under daily attack”, and that “my red line is disobedience to High Court rulings”.

“If that happens, we will go to anarchy. If necessary, I will not hesitate to declare a strike.”

Histadrut, under Bar-David’s leadership, has called two huge general strikes since Netanyahu’s current far-right government took office.

The first was in reaction to the March 2023 firing of Yoav Gallant as defence minister after a fight over Netanyahu’s judicial overhauls, and the second came in September 2024, when the Israeli military recovered the bodies of six Israeli captives held in Gaza.

The funeral has taken place for Palestinian journalist Saeed Abu Hassanein, who was killed last night in an Israeli air strike on the city of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.

As we reported earlier, the Al-Aqsa Radio journalist was killed along with his wife and daughter after their tent was bombed.

Just in the past 15 minutes, another attack on Jabalia town, a particularly busy area, a marketplace.

What we are hearing initially is that it’s a police station in Jabalia that was hit at rush hour – right now – in the early morning when people leave their tents and try to get their hands on whatever they are able to buy from this market area.

Three people are already reported killed and transferred to the Indonesian Hospital.

According to witnesses, the attack was huge. It was carried out by fighter jets with at least two bombs dropped on the area.

We are keeping an eye on the latest developments and waiting for more verified figures from the attack.

Dozens more Israeli settlers have once again stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem, under the protection of Israeli police.

The settlers carried out provocative tours in the courtyards and performed Talmudic rituals, according to Palestinian sources in the occupied territory.

The third holiest site for Muslims is not open for prayers to Jewish people under the mosque’s long-established status quo, which has been increasingly challenged by Israeli settlers and officials in recent years.

We reported a little earlier that Israeli forces are demolishing a Palestinian home in Zaatar village, east of Bethlehem.

Israeli military operations are reported to be ongoing elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, including:

• A Palestinian was arrested in Husan town, west of Bethlehem.
• Israeli forces arrested a second Palestinian at the iron gates installed at the entrance to Khirbet Qalqas, south of Hebron city.
• A raid has also taken place on the town of Qusra, south of Nablus.
• Several houses were searched during a military raid on the Qalandiya refugee camp, north of Jerusalem.
• Troops have also descended on Turmus Aya town, north of Ramallah, and a checkpoint has been set up on the road leading to Hizma village, located to the north of occupied East Jerusalem.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has published an itinerary for public hearings it will hold in The Hague next week to discuss Israel’s legal obligations around allowing UN, NGO and neutral state activity in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

The UN General Assembly has asked the ICJ to provide a legal opinion on Israel’s right to limit or bar UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) operations, as well as Israel’s weeks-long ban on humanitarian aid entering Gaza.

Some 45 countries and international organisations have submitted written statements before the hearings, which will start on April 28.

Israeli representatives are not expected to attend, but Israel’s Foreign Ministry has said it will submit a written statement to the court.

The Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank is being fenced off by Israeli troops, disconnecting it from the city.

It’s been more than three months since the Israeli military’s assault on the camp began, killing dozens of people and displacing most of the area’s residents.

Al Jazeera’s Rylee Carlson reports:

We have been reporting on Ben-Gvir’s controversial visit to the city of New Haven to speak at the Shabtai Society, a Jewish society for Yale University students which is not officially affiliated with the college.

Footage has now emerged of the far-right Israeli National Security Minister shooting a victory sign to a large crowd of protesters, who are jeering him as he enters a building at Yale University before the talk.

In other footage, recorded after the talk, Ben-Gvir can again be seen holding up a V-sign towards the angry crowd as an aide waves an Israeli flag behind him.

The Times of Israel reports that Ben-Gvir’s team claimed protesters threw water bottles at them.

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) and the Palestinian rights group Al Mezan said they have rejected the Israeli military’s investigation into the killing of 15 Palestinian rescue workers in Gaza in March.

“The Israeli military’s self-exonerating report appears designed to whitewash atrocities and shield perpetrators, not to deliver justice,” MAP and Al Mezan said in a joint statement.

The medical charity and rights group said the Israeli report was a “gross distortion of reality” that was designed to cover up and deflect responsibility for the slaying of the 15 emergency workers, in what has been described as a possible war crime.

Both organisations also pointed out that the only survivor of the attack – Palestine Red Crescent Society medic Assad al-Nasasrah – is still held in Israeli custody, and is one of some 300 healthcare workers abducted from Gaza by Israeli troops since October 2023.

MAP and Al Mezan said “genuine international accountability” is necessary for the killing of the 15 emergency workers.

Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank have sealed off the three main entrances to the city of Jenin with iron gates.

A vehicle carrying gates was filmed approaching Jenin as Israeli troops set off tear gas and sound bombs inside the city.

The gates are the latest among more than 170 others installed around towns in the West Bank since October 2023.

Listen to the full report:

Let’s bring you up to speed on the latest developments:

• A series of overnight Israeli attacks killed at least 13 people across Gaza, including three children in a strike on a tent near Nuseirat in the central Strip.
• At least six Palestinians, including a woman and four children, were also killed in an Israeli attack on a home in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood.
• Palestinian mourners held a funeral for a 12-year-old boy shot and killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank town of al-Yamoun on Wednesday.
• Israeli settlers shot five Palestinians, as well as set farmland and buildings on fire, in the village of Bardala in the northern Jordan Valley.
• The US military carried out more attacks on Yemen, dropping more than a dozen bombs on Houthi-controlled areas of the country in recent hours.
• Yale University stripped a pro-Palestinian campus group of its official recognition, after accusing it of setting up an unauthorised encampment to protest against a talk by far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Israeli human rights group Yesh Din has shared photos and a video clip of Israeli settlers attacking and burning Palestinian homes and agricultural trees in the village of Sinjil, located in the northeast of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

Yesh Din, which works on rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territory, said settlers have attacked the village twice – so far – this week.

Israeli forces also assisted an earlier attack by firing tear gas canisters at locals trying to put out the fires started by the settlers, the rights group said, adding that one resident of the village was killed.

“The military enables this and prevents emergency services from accessing the area,” Yesh Din said, adding the violence corresponds with the establishment of a new settler “farm outpost” near the Palestinian village.