Doha, Qatar: Israeli forces have launched air raids in the vicinity of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, leaving a number of killed and wounded.
Gaza’s Government Media Office says the Israeli forces have launched “an unprecedented brutal attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp”, leaving dozens of people killed and wounded in the streets.
Meanwhile, the United Nations is adding Israel to its ‘blacklist’ of countries that have committed abuses against children in armed conflict.
Around 15,000 Palestinian children have been killed in the past eight months during the continuous Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip.
António Guterres sends the list to the Security Council and the council can then decide whether to take action.
Watch this page for more live updates:
[2:10pm Doha Time] Health ministry in Gaza says war death toll at 36,801
The health ministry in Gaza said Saturday that at least 36,801 people have been killed in the territory in the eight months of Israel onslaught.
The toll includes at least 70 deaths over the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 83,680 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began in October.
A wounded man lies on a gurney in the shade, out side the Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir el-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip on June 7, 2024. (Photo by Bashar Taleb / AFP)
[2pm Doha Time] Israeli military says 4 captives rescued from Nuseirat
Al Jazeera quoted the Israeli military saying that it rescued four captives this morning during an operation in Nuseirat.
A joint statement on Telegram by the army, police and the securities agency, said that Noa Argamani (25), Almog Meir Jan (21), Andrey Kozlov (27), and Shlomi Ziv (40), were found in “two separate locations in the heart of Nuseirat”.
It added that these four were taken to Gaza during the Nova music festival on October 7.
“They are in good medical condition and have been transferred to the ‘Sheba’ Tel-HaShomer Medical Center for further medical examinations,” the army said.
[1:45pm Doha Time] Israeli forces launch ‘unprecedented brutal attack’ on Nuseirat
Gaza’s Government Media Office says the Israeli forces have launched “an unprecedented brutal attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp”, leaving dozens of people killed and wounded in the streets.
“[It] continues its aggression against all areas of the Central Governorate [Deir el-Balah], and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital is in a catastrophic situation,” it said.
Israeli forces launched “a barbaric and brutal aggression” in the camp, directly targeting civilians, the office said, adding that ambulances and civil defence cannot reach the area due to the intensity of the bombing.
The office warned that Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital is the only hospital in Deir el-Balah currently working on only one electric generator; if the sole generator stops, “a real disaster” will ensue.
“This hospital provides health services to a million people and displaced persons, and it cannot accommodate this large number of martyrs and injuries,” it said.
It called on the international community, the UN and all international organisations “to intervene immediately and urgently save the hospital and save the health situation in the Central Governorate”.
“We hold the [Israeli] occupation and the American administration fully responsible for this catastrophic crime in which the blood of dozens of innocent civilians was shed,” it said.
“We call on the international community and all international organisations to stop this brutal aggression continued by the ‘Israeli’ occupation, and we demand that they stop the genocidal war immediately and urgently.”
[1:20pm Doha Time] Bodies, wounded patients still arriving at Deir el-Balah hospital: Health Ministry
Giving an update on the situation in Deir el-Balah, Gaza’s Health Ministry says:
Large numbers of dead bodies and wounded patients are still arriving at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, the majority of whom are children and women.
Dozens of wounded people are lying on the ground and medical teams are trying to save them with the basic medical equipment they have available.
The hospital faces a severe shortage of medicines, medical consumables and fuel, in addition to the stoppage of the main electric generator.
[1pm Doha Time] Civil defence teams recovering bodies in Deir el-Balah
Mohammed el-Mougher, head of the supplies department at the Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza, says Israeli forces have advanced towards eastern Deir el-Balah, forcing Palestinians to flee.
“The hospital received tens of martyrs and wounded people following the Israeli attacks. The ambulance and civil defence teams are still recovering martyrs and injured people from under the rubble,” el-Mougher told Al Jazeera.
“The capacities are very weak and there are only three fire engines in the central governorate. We are facing a lot of challenges and we can’t reach every place.”
He added that Israeli forces had evacuated the al-Qastal neighbourhood without warning and without “declaring it a red zone”.
[12:45pm Doha Time] Deadly Israeli air raids in Deir el-Balah
Israeli forces have launched air raids in the vicinity of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, leaving a number of killed and wounded.
Israeli air strikes and artillery shelling also targeted areas east of the Maghazi camp in central Gaza and homes west of the city of Rafah in southern Gaza.
The attacks have also affected communication networks in the area.
Journalist Hind Khoudary shares this update from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza:
“There are explosions happening every minute. Ambulances are transferring the wounded to the hospital where we are trapped. It’s a chaos inside the hospital. There are children among the wounded.
“We can hear artillery shelling. No one knows what’s happening outside but we know that over a million people have evacuated Rafah for central Gaza and there are hundreds of thousands on the streets, terrified and horrified. They don’t know where to go.”
[11:15am Doha Time] Lack of clean water forces Gazans towards ‘dirty sea water’: UN
The UN is warning that displaced families are being forced to use “dirty sea water” for their daily needs due to a lack of clean water access as Israeli forces destroy essential infrastructure and keep Gaza’s borders closed to vital humanitarian relief.
The UNRWA agency for Palestinian refugees, said access to clean water is critical for the health and “survival of hundreds of thousands across the Gaza Strip”.
“Increasing heat & lack of hygiene are making an already dire situation far worse,” the UNRWA said on social media, alongside video of children collecting water from the sea on Gaza’s coastline.
10:30am Doha Time] Gaza’s Health Ministry demands provision of power generators
Gaza’s Ministry of Health has called on the international community and relief organisations to provide power generators for Gaza’s hospitals.
“Stopping the generators means death for the sick and injured and the complete end of the health service in the Gaza Strip,” it said.
[9am Doha Time] Judge orders University of California academic workers to temporarily halt strike
A state judge has ordered thousands of academic workers at the University of California (UC) to temporarily cease their strike over a crackdown on student-led pro-Palestine protests, ruling that the walkout was causing “damage to students’ education”.
United Auto Workers Local 4811, which represents 48,000 graduate students working as teaching assistants, researchers, tutors, and other academic employees at UC, started its strike on May 20 in Santa Cruz.
The union alleged that the free speech rights of its members were violated during police and university crackdowns on pro-Palestine protests on several UC campuses last month.
But Orange County Superior Court Judge Randall J Sherman issued an emergency restraining order against the academic workers, after UC lawyers argued that the weeks-long strike was causing “irreparable harm” to students ahead of their final exams.
[8:30am Doha Time] UNRWA calls for foreign journalists to be given access to Gaza Strip
Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, said it is time that international reporters be given access to the Gaza Strip “to support the heroic work” of Palestinian journalists.
Foreign journalists need access to the war-torn Palestinian territory “so that independent, factual and courageous reporting continues”, Lazzarini said.
The UNRWA chief made the call in a post on social media in which he said it was time for “independent investigations + accountability” in Gaza as “no one is being held accountable”.
Examples of impunity amid Israel’s war on Gaza included “UN staff killed at unprecedented levels”, he said.
And “UN premises damaged, destroyed, targeted or used for military purposes almost on a daily basis” and “humanitarian convoys attacked, looted or denied access”, he added.
As disinformation against UNRWA also continues to “rage”, it “puts the lives of my colleagues in Gaza and elsewhere at risk”, Lazzarini added.
[7am Doha Time] Palestinian boy, 8, named on Israeli list of Hamas fighters killed in attack on UN school: Report
One of the names listed by Israel as an alleged Palestinian fighter killed in an attack on a UN school in the Nuseirat refugee camp on Thursday was an eight-year-old boy, according to the hospital records.
The Associated Press (AP) news agency identified the slain boy as Shaheen Mahmoud Ibrahim Abu Sharif.
Two other boys – aged 10 and 14 – on the hospital’s list of being among the 33 displaced people killed in the Israeli air strike also had names “that suggested they were sons of a man Israel identified as a slain militant”, AP reports.
The father was not listed among the dead at Al-Aqsa Hospital, the AP said.
[6am Doha Time] Unemployment rate nearly 80% in Gaza: UN
The war in Gaza has seen the unemployment rate in the besieged Palestinian territory surge to nearly 80 percent, the United Nations said Friday.
The UN’s labour agency said the Israel onslaught had “caused loss of jobs and livelihoods on a massive scale”, while gross domestic product has also plunged.
“The unemployment rate in the Gaza Strip has reached a staggering 79.1 percent”, the International Labour Organization said, citing a new brief by the ILO and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
In the West Bank, unemployment has reached 32 percent, the ILO added.
The average unemployment rate across the West Bank and Gaza combined stood at 50.8 percent, it said.
However, these figures “do not account for those who have left the labour force altogether as job prospects proved unattainable”, it said.
“The actual number of those who have lost their jobs is therefore even higher than what the unemployment figures suggest.”
