Updates: Israel targets heads, chests of Gaza aid seekers in mass shooting

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Watch our video about how Israel’s war has stranded Gaza pilgrims on the Hajj pilgrimage, here.

Learn about an ex-Biden administration official’s admission of Israeli war crimes here.

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

We’ll be closing this live page soon. Here’s a recap of the day’s major developments:

• Israeli troops continued to open fire at aid seekers in Gaza, killing at least 27 Palestinians, according to health officials.
• Hamas called for international investigations and legal action after former US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller admitted that Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza.
• The Israeli military launched strikes in southern Syria after a rocket attack against the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that was claimed by a new group called the Mohammed Deif Brigades.
• Yemen’s Houthi group fired a missile that activated sirens across central Israel before the Israeli military said it intercepted it.
• The Health Ministry in Gaza warned that patients at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis “face certain death” after Israel issued displacement orders for the area.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says Gaza is seeing an increase in child labour, early marriage and family separation amid the war.

“This is all driven by hunger, displacement and economic turmoil,” OCHA said in a statement. “Children are increasingly exposed to violence and exploitation during chaotic distributions of basic supplies – including in crowds, when people take flour directly from trucks. Children with disabilities are often those who are worst affected.”

The UN agency cited the closure of a shelter for women in Khan Younis that provided psychosocial care and services for survivors of gender-based violence after it was placed under an Israeli displacement order.

Antonio Costa has said he had a “good and substantial call” with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and renewed calls for ending the Israeli siege on Gaza.

“The situation in Gaza remains catastrophic. We urge Israel to fully lift its blockade on humanitarian aid and to stop its military operations,” Costa wrote in a social media post.

“I commend Egypt and Qatar’s tireless efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement based on the US proposal. An immediate return to the ceasefire is essential, leading to the release of all hostages and a permanent end to hostilities.”

The Syrian Foreign Ministry has condemned Israeli attacks in southern Syria, which it said caused “significant” material and human losses, stressing that a rocket launch that Israel says was made on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights has not been confirmed.

“We affirm that Syria does not and will not represent a threat to any side in the region, and that the top priority in southern Syria is to enable the state to wrest its authority and to end armed presence outside the official institutions,” the ministry said in a statement.

Israel said that two rockets were fired towards the Golan Heights and fell into open areas. The attack was claimed by a newly formed group, dubbed the Mohammed Deif Brigades.

The Israeli military said it fired artillery rounds at areas in southern Syria in response to the rockets.

Israel has been bombing Syrian military bases and state institutions for months in an unprovoked campaign that started after the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry called on the international community to “shoulder its responsibilities and end these aggressions”.

Israel Katz says Israel considers Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa “directly responsible for every threat and firing at the state of Israel”.

According to Haaretz, Katz also said that Israel’s “full response” to the two rockets fired at the Golan Heights “will come as soon as possible”.

Although al-Sharaa – a former rebel leader – has stressed that Syria is not seeking confrontation with Israel, Israeli officials have repeatedly rebuked him over the past few months.

US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce defended the GHF’s chaotic and deadly aid distribution, dismissing continued questioning from journalists after what she calls three months of “being harangued” over starvation in Gaza.

Watch her confront reporters over their questioning of the US role in Israel’s war below:

Houthi Defence Minister Mohamed Nasser al-Atifi says the Yemeni group is “ready for further escalation” against Israel in support of the Palestinians.

“We have the initiative and power deterrence to fire missiles and drones around the clock and target the depth of the enemy,” al-Atifi was quoted as saying by Al Masirah TV.

Shortly after his comments, the Israeli military said it intercepted a missile from Yemen, which had activated sirens across the centre of the country.

The Houthis have been launching attacks against Israel in a campaign that they say aims to pressure an end to the war on Gaza.

Israel has targeted Yemen with several rounds of air strikes, including strikes that targeted the international airport in the capital, Sanaa.

Al Jazeera is reporting from Jordan because it has been banned from Israel and the occupied West Bank.

The first one was a missile launched by the Houthis in Yemen. The Israeli military says that it was successfully intercepted, but this projectile caused sirens to go off in 139 different locations across Israel. The sirens were heard from the north to the south and even in occupied East Jerusalem.

Videos on social media show the projectile and the interception in the sky as far as Beit Hanina in Jerusalem.

Now, as for the other attack, two rockets, the Israeli military says, were launched from Syrian territory, the first such attack in over a year since May 2024, and they say it’s the first since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

The military says they’re now responding with artillery fire and that both of those rockets fell in open areas without any injuries, but now they’re investigating who exactly launched those rockets. The Israeli military says it will continue to strike wherever it sees threats.