That's it for today's live coverage of the war on Gaza and its repercussions in the region — notably in southern Lebanon — and around the world, as seen on campuses across the US. Thanks for joining us. We'll be back tomorrow morning. Goodnight!
Students from University College London (UCL) in the UK have launched their own encampment on campus in support of Gaza and are calling for the institution to divest from Israeli companies.
Well-known Palestinian poet, writer, and academic Refaat Alareer was an alumnus of UCL. He was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his home in Gaza that some claim was a deliberate targeting.
Euro-Med Monitor released a statement in December saying that the apartment he was in with his family was "surgically bombed out of the entire building where it's located," according to corroborated eyewitness and family accounts.
A Palestinian man pulls a cart on a road lined with buildings destroyed by Israeli bombs in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on May 2, 2024. (Credit: AFP)
A second demolition order was issued for the fence built by the father of the seven-year-old Bedouin girl who was seriously injured by missile shrapnel during Iran’s retaliatory attack on Israel in April, Haaretz reports.
Around two weeks before Amina al-Hassouni was injured, the Israeli Lands Authority issued a demolition order for the fence her father built to house camels that he keeps for his livelihood, in al-Furah, near Arad.
"The inspectors told me that if I don't destroy the fence myself, they'll destroy the whole house – even though if I do destroy the fence, the camels will run away,” he told Haaretz.
While he was visiting his daughter — who has a severe head injury and was only recently able to breathe independently again — at Soroka Medical Center today, a second demolition order was issued against the fence.
While a senior police officer told the father the demolition order would be canceled, the land enforcement authority says that the order still stood and would be enforced against the family.
Israel announced that it will be appointing Brigadier General Shlomi Binder as the new chief of the army’s Military Intelligence Directorate, and Brigadier General Avi Bluth as head of the Central Commands, Haaretz reports.
The new appointments follow the resignations of former military intelligence chief Major General Aharon Haliva on April 22 and of former Central Command chief Major General Yehuda Fox, who recently announced he was ending a 36-year-long military career.
Binder previously served more than two and a half years as commander of the 91st Division at the Lebanese-Israeli border. In a Haaretz interview, he said he sees Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as “rational, but not necessarily with our rationality.”
Bluth is currently commander of the West Bank Division. In February last year, Haaretz reported that he had distributed books to his officers promoting illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied West Bank.
A senior Palestinian doctor died in an Israeli prison after more than four months of detention, two Palestinian prisoner associations announced, holding Israel accountable for his death.
According to a Reuters report, the associations said in a joint statement that Adnan al-Bursh, head of orthopedics at al Shifa Hospital, Gaza's largest medical facility, had been detained by Israeli forces while temporarily working at al-Awada Hospital in northern Gaza.
They called his death an "assassination" and said his body remained in Israeli custody.
An Israeli military spokesperson said that the prison service had declared Bursh dead on April 19, saying that he had been detained for national security reasons in Ofer prison. The spokesperson did not comment on the cause of death.
Medical groups, including the World Health Organization, have repeatedly called for a halt to attacks on Gaza healthcare workers, with more than 200 killed so far in the Gaza conflict, according to an estimate from Insecurity Insight, a research group that collects and analyses data on attacks on aid workers around the world.
A Palestinian man fixes tin sheets used for temporary sheltering on a road lined with buildings destroyed by Israeli bombs in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on May 2, 2024. (Credit: AFP)
An update from southern Lebanon:
The Israeli airstrike on Aita al-Shaab, in Bint Jbeil district, targeted a house but did not result in any casualties, according to our correspondent in the South, citing residents of the town.
Israeli artillery also fired on the area around Labbouneh, south of Naqoura, in Sour district, according to residents there contacted by our correspondent.
Columbia faculty have called for a vote of no confidence on Columbia University President Minouche Shafik, condemning the school leadership’s decision to call in police without consulting its own senate, The Financial Times and The Guardian report.
The Columbia University Chapter of the American Association of University Professors said recent decisions had “irrevocably undermined our trust” in the administration and were “the culmination of shocking failures of decision-making and judgment over the past seven months.”
“These offenses culminated in the horrific police attack on our students that is now shamefully on view for the whole world to see,” the association wrote, adding that students, faculty, and staff remain locked out of campus.
“A vote of no confidence is the only way to begin rebuilding our shattered community and re-establishing the University’s core values of free speech, the right to peaceful assembly, and shared governance.”
🔴 Turkey has stopped all exports and imports to and from Israel as of today, Bloomberg News reported, citing two Turkish officials familiar with the matter.
On Oct. 7, Noor Alyacoubi, a translator and a mother of a six-month-old baby, woke up to the sound of heavy explosions. She turned on the television to find war had come to her doorstep in Gaza
As the months stretched on and her baby turned a year old, that war became a bloodbath. More than 34,000 people have been killed in Israeli strikes, over half of them women and children.
“During the past months, I have endured the worst days of my whole life; away from my family and my job. I witnessed terror and horror and experienced famine and starvation,” Alyacoubi tells L’Orient Today by phone from her home in the northern Gaza Strip.
Amid it all, Ayacoubi and others are now watching from afar as a widespread student protest movement in solidarity with Palestinians is growing in the United States and worldwide. She says it’s a glimmer of hope.
👉 Read the full story: "Beneath bombs, Gazans watch global student protests with glimmer of hope"
Students compelled to continue their education amid the war between Hezbollah and Israel in southern Lebanon will receive free internet services "to facilitate distance learning," the media office of caretaker Telecommunications Minister Johnny Corm announced in a statement issued today.
Since Oct. 8, students have faced immense challenges to their education amid Israel's daily bombing, shelling, and shooting of villages, roads, and agricultural land in southern Lebanon. Many continue to attend school despite the threats of Israeli attacks, while others resort to online learning. A recent statement by UNICEF warned of "the profound long-term impact the violence is taking on children's safety, health and access to education."
⚡ The US Treasury is sanctioning five people accused of helping a Lebanese stockbroker circumvent the sanctions already imposed against him. Hassan Moukalled, his two sons, and his company CTex had been sanctioned by OFAC in January, 2023.
"The United States remains committed to deterring and disrupting terrorist financing and identifying its enablers," said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller. "Today’s action is another reminder that there are consequences for enablers of terrorist groups who facilitate sanctions evasion through businesses posing as legitimate investments."
A May 2023 report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research found, following a review of 32 studies assessing the impact of economic sanctions on living standards, that sanctions do more harm than good. The report, “The Human Consequences of Economic Sanctions,” by economist Francisco Rodríguez, concluded that sanctions harm people in target countries by contributing to increases in mortality, poverty, and inequality, and to declines in per capita income and human rights.
The Israeli National Security Agency (NISA) increased the threat level for travel to Sweden from level two (random threat) to level three (moderate threat) on Thursday, ahead of the Eurovision Song Contest held in Malmo, Israeli media report.
The Israeli Security Council’s travel advisory warning cites "a well-founded concern that terrorist elements will exploit the protests and the anti-Israel mood to carry out attacks against Israelis attending Eurovision.”
According to Times of Israel, Israel’s Eurovision contestant, Eden Golan, was advised by Shin Bet not to leave her hotel room except for performances and official events.
Violence, physical and verbal, against Jews around the world has been on the rise since Israel began its relentless bombing campaign of Gaza.
Police arrest two protesters as they clear a pro-Palestinian encampment on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in Los Angeles, California, early on May 2, 2024. (Credit: Etienne Laurent/AFP)
Update from southern Lebanon:
Hezbollah has issued two statements. In the first, the party announced that at 3 p.m., it targeted the Israeli site of "Zibdine," in the disputed Shebaa Farms, using artillery fire. In the second, it claimed an attack, also at 3 p.m. against the Israeli "Samaka" site in the Kfar Shuba hills, "causing direct injuries."
Israeli warplanes raided the southern Lebanese village of Aita al-Shaab, residents told our correspondent in the region.
The Los Angeles Police have raided the encampment set up at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) campus by students protesting Israel’s war on Gaza and their institution’s affiliation with Israeli companies.
Riot police moved in before dawn on Thursday, firing rubber bullets and sound cannons into the crowd of students, and pushing them to the ground, as seen in videos shared across various media platforms. According to the New York Times, more than 100 protestors were arrested from the campus.
The encampment has been effectively cleared, The Guardian reports, although some smaller groups of protestors remained on campus.
The Palestinian Embassy in Egypt is seeking temporary residency permits for tens of thousands of people who have arrived from Gaza during the war, Reuters reports. The embassy is hoping the permits would ease conditions for Palestinians until the conflict is over.
Diab al-Louh, the Palestinian ambassador in Cairo, said as many as 100,000 Palestinians from Gaza had crossed into Egypt, where they lack the papers to enroll their children in schools, open businesses or bank accounts, travel, or access health insurance — though some have found ways to make a living.
Louh stressed that residency permits would only be for legal and humanitarian purposes, adding that those who arrived since the war began on Oct. 7 had no plans to settle in Egypt.
"We are talking about a category [of people] in an exceptional situation. We asked the state to give them temporary residencies that can be renewed until the crisis in Gaza is over," Louh told Reuters in an interview. Egypt's State Information Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Iran has announced sanctions against several American and British individuals and entities for their support of Israel in its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
In a statement issued by its Foreign Ministry, the Islamic Republic, Israel's sworn enemy, said the sanctions were aimed at seven Americans, including General Bryan Fenton, head of the Special Operations Command, and Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, former head of US naval forces in the Middle East.
The French government has called on university presidents to "maintain order" in the face of campus protests in support of Gaza, using "the fullest extent of the powers" at their disposal.
Several rallies and blockades have been taking place in France since last week at sites belonging to the prestigious Parisian school Sciences Po and at universities, in some cases leading to the intervention of the forces of law and order, echoing a mobilization underway on several campuses in the United States.
An update on the situation in southern Lebanon:
- Israeli artillery shelling targeted Tallet al-Hamamis, south of Khiam, according to eyewitnesses.
- Israeli jets struck the town of Markaba, targeting a house under construction. Ambulances headed to the scene and transferred two injured people to a hospital, according to eyewitnesses.
- The sound of a flying Israeli military jets broke the sound barrier twice, consecutively, in Saida and other areas in the south
In southern Lebanon last night, there were two Israeli airstrikes, around midnight, on the outskirts of Shebaa, in the Hasbaya district.
Prior to this, in the evening, Israel had repeatedly bombed Aita al-Shaab (Bint Jbeil), targeting a store and a house on the main road, as well as the neighborhood of Abou Laban, without causing any casualties.
Meanwhile, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has once again warned of risks to "hygiene and sanitation" in the Palestinian enclave.
"As summer approaches, we are increasingly concerned about hygiene and sanitation in Gaza," the agency wrote on X. Its message was accompanied by a video showing a truck stamped "UN," overturned against the wall of a building that was, according to UNRWA, its "sanitation center in the Bureij camp," in the center of the enclave.
"Waste is piling up, increasing the spread of disease, but the necessary infrastructure has been destroyed," lamented UNRWA.
On the diplomatic front, Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced the severing of diplomatic ties with Israel, calling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government "genocidal" in its conduct of the war in Gaza.
Israel immediately accused Petro of "rewarding" Hamas, which welcomed the Colombian leader's announcement as a "victory."
During the night, a senior Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, told AFP that the movement's position on the truce proposal was "negative" for the time being, but that discussions were still ongoing. "The situation is sensitive," added Zaher Jabareen, a member of the Hamas negotiating team, suggesting that a final decision had not yet been taken.
The mediating countries – Qatar, the United States and Egypt – are awaiting Hamas's response to their latest proposal for a 40-day truce and the exchange of hostages for Palestinians held by Israel.
Hamas will respond "in a very short time," assured AFP on Wednesday one of its political leaders, Souheil al-Hindi, while stressing that the movement was still demanding a permanent cease-fire and Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Hamas is open "to all initiatives to end the war ... but subject to very clear conditions that cannot be waived," he said.
Antony Blinken, who visited Israel on his seventh mission to the Middle East since the start of the war on Oct. 7, said yesterday that he was determined to reach an agreement "now" on a truce associated with the release of hostages held in Palestinian territory. "There is a very good proposal on the table right now. Hamas has to say yes," said Blinken. "If Hamas really claims to care about the Palestinians and wants to see immediate relief for their suffering, it should accept the agreement," he added.
During the night, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, stressing "the need for any potential military operation at Rafah to include a credible plan to evacuate Palestinian civilians from the area and maintain a flow of humanitarian aid," according to the Pentagon.
The United States is also building a floating port opposite the Gaza coast, which will soon be used to unload aid shipments arriving by boat from Cyprus, and on which work is more than halfway completed, according to the Pentagon, quoted by AFP.
While Gaza fears widespread famine, with international aid, strictly controlled by Israel, arriving in dribs and drabs mainly from Egypt via the Rafah crossing, Israel yesterday opened the Erez crossing, giving access to the north of the Gaza Strip, for the first time since the start of the war. According to the Israeli army, 30 truckloads of food and medical supplies from Jordan entered the territory via Erez yesterday.
Be sure to read the Morning Brief so that you are caught up with what has been happening.
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