Over 175 killed as Israeli bombing of Gaza resumes

The self-immolation occured outside Israel’s consulate in Atlanta, Georgia, in what was likely “an extreme act of political protest,” Reuters quotes the city’s police chief as saying.

A Palestinian flag was recovered at the scene, according to authorities, who did not provide any details about the individual. They are reportedly in critical condition.

More than 1,300 doctors and medical workers across the US have signed the letter, spearheaded by humanitarian group MedGlobal.

It includes 10 calls to action for the Biden administration and top members of Congress, including to push for unhindered humanitarian aid access to Gaza and the protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals.

In a statement, MedGlobal also urged a permanent ceasefire.

“In the medical community, when one of us is hurting, all of us are hurting. The doctors working in Gaza have given a tremendous amount–and taken on real risk–saving as many lives as they could in the face of crippling grief and danger,” said Dr Zaher Sahloul, the group’s president.

“I’m proud that so many of my fellow physicians have rallied to their side. Policymakers should take this as a clear sign that a permanent truce isn’t about politics – it’s about human rights.”

Lynn Hastings, who has been the UN’s deputy special coordinator for the Middle East peace process and the humanitarian coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory for three years, has been the target of attacks by Israel on social media after criticising the withholding of vital supplies into Gaza.

The UN secretary general’s spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, confirmed to Al Jazeera that Hastings would now be replaced because of Israel’s refusal to renew her visa.

“We need to make sure that there’s agreement and everybody is okay with the people that we send,” Dujarric said.

However, the spokesperson said Israel’s attacks against Hastings were “unacceptable”.

The Israeli foreign ministry accused Hastings of not being impartial or objective in a social media post at the end of October.

A spokesperson for the ministry said that the UN has been “biased” against Israel: “That’s why Israel decided to check on – one by one – the visas that are issued to representatives of the UN.”

The report by Axios journalist Barak Ravid cites three unnamed Israeli officials who say efforts to extend the Gaza truce had failed because Hamas “refused to free 10 Israeli women and instead offered to begin discussing the release of elderly men”.

“The Israeli officials said Israel made it clear to the mediators that it knows Hamas still has several women in its custody and that it would not discuss future deals before all the women were released,” the report said.

We’ve previously reported that the breakdown in negotiations occurred as a result of disagreements over the list of captives to be released from Gaza. Israel had wanted military personnel released, and this was something Hamas did not accept.

Meanwhile, the Israeli officials told Axios that “Israel will exert military pressure on Hamas to release the hostages.” More than 175 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in renewed Israeli bombings since the truce expired this morning.

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from southern Gaza, says that over the past hour, the Gaza Strip has been under “relentless Israeli bombardment”.

The attacks have been intensifying in the districts of Rafah and Khan Younis in the south, he said.

“We heard a series of explosions in the eastern areas of Khan Younis city”, where illumination flares lit up the sky, Abu Azzoum said.

Ambulances are “rushing to evacuate the injured”, he added.

Meanwhile, in Rafah, a house was “flattened” and a number of Palestinians have reportedly been injured, Abu Azzoum said.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s armed wing says it has launched a barrage of rockets towards cities in Israel, hitting Tel Aviv, Ashdod and Ashkelon.

In a statement on Telegram, the group said the launches were “in response to the massacres committed by the enemy” against Palestinians in Gaza.

It said its rockets are striking “military sites and bases as well as settlements”.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army said sirens are sounding in central and southern Israel.

Tala Nasir, a human rights lawyer at Addameer, a Palestinian prisoner support group, says conditions inside Israeli prisons have sharply deteriorated since October 7.

Echoing the accounts of many Palestinian prisoners released as part of the now-expired Gaza truce over the past week, Nasir said at least six Palestinian prisoners have been killed while in detention.

“We still don’t know the circumstances of their deaths,” Nasir told Al Jazeera. “But the testimonies of released prisoners affirmed that they were brutally beaten.”

She added that prisoners have been denied medical care, electricity cuts are frequent, family visits have been banned, lawyer visits are restricted, and there is a lack of food and water provided to them.

“It’s actually catastrophic inside Israeli prisons right now, and it’s all increased and escalated after the 7th of October.”

Negotiations are still under way. The Qatari, Egyptian and US officials are in constant talks, and they have direct lines with both Hamas officials and Israeli officials.

But the more time passes, the more hope fades because the momentum is being lost.

The sticking point that led to the collapse of the ceasefire talks was the disagreement over the list of the captives. Usually in negotiations that are regional or international, the parties involved in the negotiations start with the easiest point and gradually go to the most difficult one.

So the easiest one in the first stage was the release of women and children. Both parties have agreed on that, and we’ve seen over the course of seven days it was successfully continuing.

But then, yesterday, when the turn was for the elderly civilians to be released, Israelis came up with a list and they directly wanted the military personnel to be released and that was a turning point for the talks. Hamas didn’t accept that.

They said for the release of military personnel, there must be different terms, so the price tag is different.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the US has provided Israel with 100 BLU-09 bombs, weighing about 907kg (2,000lb) each.

The delivery of these bombs was part of a “surge of arms” supplied to Israel during its war on Gaza, which includes about 15,000 bombs and 57,000 artillery shells, the newspaper reported.

The report was published as Blinken urged Israel to protect civilians during its Gaza bombing campaign.

Qatar has thrown its “weight into negotiations”, according to a Reuters report about the role the Gulf state has played in bringing about the one-week truce between Israel and Hamas that ended on Friday morning.

Doha played host to the visiting head of Mossad as well as Hamas officials based in the city, but Qatar’s role was not limited to shepherding messages between the two sides.

“If we decided to be like postmen and deliver letters only, I doubt that we would have finished this agreement,” one anonymous Qatari official involved in the negotiations said.

The more muscular approach to negotiations led to some success in closing the gap between Israel and Hamas’s demands, “notably when negotiators tackled the sensitive issue of hostages ahead of the first truce announcement”, a US official said.

Tahseen Ahmad, one of the three Palestinian students shot last weekend in the US, says he and his friends Hisham Awartani and Kinnan Abdalhamid were targeted by a gunman who “didn’t see us as human beings”.

“All he saw was our keffiyehs and violently attacked us without a word,” Ahmad said in a statement shared by the Institute for Middle East Understanding.

“No Palestinian should have to provide their humanity to the world – we are human beings who deserve to live with our full rights and dignity.”

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby tells reporters that the US is working to restore the humanitarian pause in Gaza.

He said Washington wants to see more captives released and more humanitarian aid get into the strip.

We will bring you more updates on Kirby’s comments when we can.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says Israeli forces have informed “all organisations and entities” operating at the crossing that the entry of trucks is “prohibited, starting from today” and until further notice.

“This decision exacerbates the suffering of citizens and increases the challenges facing humanitarian and relief organisations in alleviating the hardships of citizens and displaced persons due to the ongoing aggression,” the PRCS said in a post on X.

Gideon Levy tells Al Jazeera that Netanyahu’s government has “no future”.

“But it must [finish] the war,” he said. “After the war, there are polls now that show that 70 percent of the Israelis are in favour of making Benjamin Netanyahu resign.”

“Once the war is over, whenever it will be, I don’t see much [of a] future for Netanyahu,” he added.

When asked if concerns about the end of his long political career may factor into Netanyahu’s decision-making when it comes to the war, Levy said he was unsure.

“There are those who claim that he will now try to continue with the war as long as possible in order to save himself from the political end of his career,” Levy said. “I give him more credit than this. I think that he’s not only concerned with himself.”

Israel has informed several Arab states that it wants to carve out a buffer zone in Gaza near its border, to prevent future attacks as part of proposals for the enclave after the war ends, Egyptian and regional sources say, according to a Reuters news agency exclusive.

The report cited three regional sources as saying that Israel related its plans to Egypt, Jordan and the UAE. Saudi Arabia has also been “notified”, the report said.

Egyptian security sources told Reuters that Arab states opposed the idea when Israel floated it.

Al Jazeera senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said this was “anticipated already” by the US and its European allies.

It was “clear to everyone that Israel was going to manoeuvre its way into trying to create some kind of a security zone,” Bishara said.

“If Israel must create a security zone, then it should create it within its own territory … rather than do it in the most densely populated area in the world.”

A second barrage of rockets from the Gaza Strip has been sent towards central Israel, this time just a little bit south of Tel Aviv.

These areas were repeatedly targeted by the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, during this war.

On day 56 since the truce expired, we’re continuously seeing rocket fire directed towards places like Tel Aviv and central Israel.

The Israelis said the Iron Dome missile defence system has intercepted those missiles, but in the morning, we saw damage to several vehicles and one home in a southern area after the Iron Dome failed to intercept one of those rockets.

When sirens go off in Israel, the farther people are from the Gaza Strip, the more time they have to enter a shelter.

As advised by Israeli authorities, in Tel Aviv, people have about a minute to a minute and a half to take cover, but closer to the Gaza Strip, people have about 15 to 30 seconds.

The Iron Dome system does have a high success rate, but authorities advise people to shelter because the problem comes after interception when shrapnel falls and can cause injuries and death.

The ministry says in a statement that 178 Palestinians have been killed and 589 injured since morning.

Most of the dead and wounded are women and children, it said.

In meeting with Britain’s Cameron, Qatar PM reiterates willingness to resume mediation efforts

Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) is calling on the Israeli army to revoke evacuation orders it gave residents of Gaza earlier in the day.

“Civilians are being ordered to move south, but nowhere in Gaza is safe due to the indiscriminate bombing and continued fighting,” the organisation wrote on its X account. “We need a sustained ceasefire now.”

The Israeli army has dropped leaflets on the southern city of Khan Younis, instructing Palestinians there to flee farther south to Rafah.

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