Updates: Gaza people ‘deserve a much better future’, says Trump

To catch up on Israeli air strikes on two Gaza hospitals in southern Khan Younis, read this.

To learn how campaigners are taking the UK government to court over the export of F-35 jet components to Israel, see our story here.

You can follow our coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza here.

This live page will close soon. Here’s a recap of the day’s developments:

• About 28 Palestinians were killed and many more wounded after Israeli warplanes dropped a large number of bombs on Gaza’s European Hospital.
• The Israeli army killed at least four people and wounded others in an attack on the Jabalia refugee camp after issuing a forced evacuation order in response to three rockets launched from Gaza.
• With his envoy Steve Witkoff meeting captive families in Israel, US President Donald Trump told leaders gathered in Saudi Arabia that he is working on ending the war in Gaza as soon as possible.
• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu renewed his promise that the war will not stop even if Israel agrees to a deal to bring back some of the captives still held in Gaza.
• The Houthis in Yemen launched a ballistic missile at Israel, with the Israeli army saying it intercepted the projectile while a second fell short.

UN officials and European nations are increasingly demanding that Israel end its two-month total blockade of food aid to Gaza after dire warnings of imminent starvation and famine in the Strip.

When asked whether the US supports aid quickly entering Gaza, a spokesperson for the State Department repeated Israeli rhetoric that Hamas “bears responsibility” for the humanitarian conditions in Gaza.

It’s a claim that aid officials have continuously disputed.

“I will reiterate that we are supportive of creative solutions to get aid in there, but also in a way that the aid is not falling into the hands of Hamas, that it actually reaches the people that need it,” deputy State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott told reporters.

Israeli forces have stormed the town of Ramin, east of Tulkarem, in the occupied West Bank.

Local sources told the Wafa news agency that Israeli soldiers patrolled the streets, raided several shops and detained and interrogated several young men before leaving.

Another incursion was reported in Yabad, southwest of Jenin, earlier in the evening, with a drone flying over during clashes with residents. Israeli troops reportedly beat a young man in the town, which has been repeatedly targeted in recent weeks.

Translation: A scene from the occupation forces’ storming of the Cinema Roundabout in the centre of Jenin.

The family of the Israeli-American soldier released by Hamas has urged Israel’s leader to make it a top priority to free the remaining 58 captives still held in Gaza.

Edan Alexander’s parents called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to listen to “the vast majority of the Israeli public”, asking him to prioritise the return of the remaining abductees.

They thanked Trump and his envoys for “their tireless efforts on Edan’s behalf”.

Alexander’s father, Adi, said Edan would soon be back home in the United States, “watching his little brother play basketball [and] reuniting with his friends in New Jersey”.

The soldier was freed after direct talks between US officials and Hamas – without the involvement of Israel.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier discussed the desperate situation in Gaza with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his two-day visit to Israel.

Steinmeier said before the conversation that they would talk about the conduct of the war and its consequences.

“I very much hope that we will receive explanations, including explanations of what is intended in the medium and long term [in Gaza],” the German president said.

Steinmeier appealed to Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Berlin earlier this week to lift the blockade preventing crucial humanitarian aid from reaching desperate people in Gaza and adhere to international law.

“Israel’s enemies do not abide by the rules, but we must,” Steinmeier said in a speech at a state banquet in the German capital on Monday.

The German president also rejected the demand from the human rights organisation Amnesty International not to meet Netanyahu.

“I find that the demand is very simplistic,” he said. “It would also be the easiest thing for politicians to avoid difficult conversations. That has never been my stance. And it is especially not my stance in relation to Israel.”

Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) has reported in the past several hours that an Israeli missile was fired towards a vehicle in southern Lebanon’s Chaqra area.

The missile did not explode, and the driver escaped unharmed. The Israeli military has not commented on this incident, but it confirmed earlier that it targeted two alleged Hezbollah operatives in separate southern Lebanon attacks.

NNA also reported that unexploded ordnance left by the Israeli military killed one person and wounded another in a southern Lebanon road linking two small towns.

The Israeli military has released aerial footage of the European Hospital after its intense air strikes, purporting to show Hamas tunnels.

The joint mission with Shin Bet “destroyed” an alleged command-and-control centre hidden beneath the ground, it said.

At least 16 Palestinians have been killed and 70 others wounded as a result of the attacks, but the numbers could rise because of the severity of the explosions and rescuers being targeted by Israeli forces.

Norway’s Minister of International Development Asmund Aukrust made the call after a global hunger monitor reported the entire population of Gaza is facing famine as a result of Israel blocking all food and humanitarian aid from entering.

“Using starvation as a method of warfare is prohibited under international law,” Aukrust said in a post on X, adding that the United Nations and other international aid agencies must be allowed to do their job in line with humanitarian principles.

The report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) initiative also found that about 93 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million is experiencing acute food shortages.

Antoine Renard, the UN World Food Programme’s (WFP) director for Gaza, says one-quarter of Gaza’s population is at risk of famine.

That’s despite the fact that the food needed to feed the territory’s population is sitting in warehouses in Israel, Egypt and Jordan – most of it not even 40km (25 miles) away.

Renard said that WFP warehouses in Gaza are empty, and the agency has gone from providing meals for 1 million people at the end of April to producing only 250,000 meals daily.

“Soon, we’re going to speak about the fact that people don’t even have access to a meal,” Renard warned. “Is that where we need to go to actually raise the alarm? It’s now that we need to act.”

The warnings come after food security experts said on Monday that Gaza will likely fall into famine if Israel doesn’t lift its blockade and stop its military campaign. Nearly half a million Palestinians are facing possible starvation.

Gaza’s Civil Defence agency says at least 28 people were killed after Israeli air strikes pounded the European Hospital in Khan Younis.

“It was an utterly catastrophic scene,” said Amro Tabash, a local photojournalist.

“Everyone inside the hospital – patients and wounded alike – was running in fear, some on crutches, others screaming for their children, while others were being dragged on beds,” he added.

The Israeli military said it hit a Hamas “command-and-control centre” – a common response when it attacks civilian areas.

The Israeli military has again claimed that a journalist it killed in a targeted attack in Gaza was a “key terrorist” working for Hamas.

It said in a statement that Hassan Eslaih, the director of the Alam24 News Agency and a freelancer who contributed to international news organisations, “was operating under the guise of a journalist and owner of a media company”.

The army claimed, without providing any evidence, that Eslaih, who was killed while receiving treatment at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, was “a terrorist in the Khan Younis Brigade” of Hamas.

It released an image taken and posted by Eslaih during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks inside Israel, which showed Palestinians burning an Israeli tank.

The Israeli army has killed a record 215 journalists in the besieged enclave since the start of the war, which has also killed at least 52,908 Palestinians.

French President Emmanuel Macron says Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy in Gaza – where half a million Palestinians face starvation – is reprehensible and Europeans should consider increasing sanctions.

“What he’s doing is shameful,” Macron said during an interview on TF1 television.

Israel has sealed off the Gaza Strip since early March, when it resumed its devastating military campaign against Hamas. Thousands of aid trucks remain at the Egyptian border waiting in vain to get in because of Israel’s total blockade.

Earlier, we reported on the top humanitarian official at the United Nations blasting Israel for “deliberately and unashamedly” imposing inhumane conditions on Palestinians, including the risk of famine – one of the strongest condemnations by a high-ranking UN official during the war in Gaza.

Tom Fletcher, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, briefed the UN Security Council, warning it must “act now” to “prevent genocide“.

“I ask you to reflect, for a moment, on what actions we will tell future generations we each took to stop the 21st-century atrocity to which we bear daily witness in Gaza,” said Fletcher.

“It is a question we will hear – sometimes incredulous, sometimes furious, but always there – for the rest of our lives.”

In response to Fletcher’s remarks, the Israeli mission to the UN said, “Israel will not accept a humanitarian mechanism that props up the Hamas terror organisation that butchered our people in their homes and communities.”

Israel is threatening to further destroy the Gaza Strip unless progress is made in its ceasefire talks with Hamas.

Meanwhile, Israel has refused to allow any food to enter Gaza – home to more than two million Palestinians – for more than two months. And despite Israeli objections, Trump may soon be able to reach a deal with Iran on its nuclear programme.

But other issues are at stake, says University of Maryland professor Shibley Telhami.

A Houthi military spokesman has confirmed the Yemeni group has launched a ballistic missile at Ben Gurion International Airport outside Tel Aviv.

Yahya Saree said during a televised announcement that the launch emphasises “the continuation of the ban on navigation” at the airport, referencing the group’s warning to international airlines to stay away.

He didn’t comment on a second missile the Israeli military said the Houthis fired but fell before reaching Israel. The first missile was intercepted but triggered air raid sirens and panic at the airport.

The Houthis reached an agreement with the Trump administration this month to stop their attacks on ships in the Red Sea in exchange for the US halting its daily bombing campaign of Yemen.

But the Houthis have continued to launch missiles at Israel in support of the Palestinians in Gaza.

The commander-in-chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says the force is prepared to launch hundreds of ballistic missiles at Israel if the country is attacked.

“You cannot tolerate one missile that has impacted a nonsignificant point,” Hossein Salami said during a speech in Mashhad, Iran, in an apparent reference to the Houthi ballistic missile launched from Yemen that hit a road inside the perimeter of Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport last week.

“If we fire 600 missiles over your heads at once, what will you do with the rest of them even if you shoot down 100 missiles?” Salami said.

Netanyahu has promised to retaliate heavily against Iran for the Houthi attack because it accuses Tehran of arming and directing the Yemeni group.