At least 3 Palestinians killed in Israeli raid in occupied West Bank: Gaza war, day 211

Israeli artillery shelling has targeted the area of Ain al-Zarqa on the outskirts of Alma al-Shaab and Tayr Harfa (Sour district), local residents report.

Here's an update on the security situation along the Lebanese-Israeli border:

* Hezbollah said it targeted espionage equipment at the Israeli Rahib site, facing the southern Lebanese border town of Aita al-Shaab (Bint Jbeil district), at 2:10 p.m.

* Hezbollah also claimed its fighters targeted an Israeli radar site in the disputed Shebaa Farms in Lebanon with rockets at 3:30 p.m.

Protests are expected across Israel this evening in support of a deal to release hostages and against the government, Haaretz reported. The main demonstration will be at Kaplan Junction in Tel Aviv, with a gathering by the Hostages Forum at Hostages Square. The hostages' families will also protest outside the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, with additional demonstrations in Caesarea, Haifa, Jerusalem, and other locations, according to Haaretz.

Israeli media outlets are reporting that government minister Benny Gantz is saying Israel has received no formal response from Hamas regarding its cease-fire proposal and has advised unnamed "diplomatic sources" and "decision-makers" being quoted in Israeli media on the proposal to “act with restraint.”

“I advise the ‘diplomatic sources’ and all other decision-makers to wait for official updates, act with restraint and not become hysterical for political reasons,” said Gantz in a statement carried by several news outlets.

If Hamas issues an official response, Israel’s war cabinet will meet to discuss the deal, Gantz added, according to reports.

The Israeli army killed at least three Palestinians in an overnight raid on a village near Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank, according to Palestinian officials and a Reuters journalist at the scene.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said one of the Palestinians had died on the way to the hospital after the raid in Deir al-Ghoussoun, while a Reuters journalist at the scene saw Israeli soldiers leaving the village with two other bodies. The Israeli army said it was carrying out "anti-terrorist activities in the area." ➡️ Click here for more.

Several dozen leaders from Muslim countries have begun meeting in Banjul, Gambia, for the 15th summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), where a resolution on Gaza is expected to close tomorrow, reports AFP.

"This Islamic Summit is taking place against a backdrop of serious and unprecedented developments in the Palestinian cause, in particular the persistence of crimes and brutal Israeli military aggression," said the organization's secretary-general, Hissein Brahim Taha, at the opening ceremony. The previous day, he had called on OIC member countries to "intensify efforts and solidarity in support of the Palestinian cause," adding that a "resolution on Palestine" was due to be adopted at the close of the summit on Sunday.

Here's an update on the security situation in southern Lebanon:

* Israel targeted the town of Aita al-Shaab in the Bint Jbeil district with two shells, local residents reported.

* Israeli shelling targeted the town of Kfar Kila in Marjayoun district, local residents reported.

* The Hebbarieh forest, in the Hasbaya district, was targeted by Israeli shelling, according to local residents.

A top Israeli official says Israel will send a delegation to Cairo for talks on a Gaza truce only if it sees a "positive movement" on a framework for a hostage deal, AFP reports, citing an official who spoke to the news agency on condition of anonymity.

"What we are looking at is an agreement over a framework for a possible hostage deal," the official reportedly said. ➡️ More details here.

Image: Smoke rises over Tayr Harfa, south Lebanon, on May 4, 2024, after an Israeli bombardment. (Credit: AFP)

Senior Hamas leader in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, said that during three months of negotiations to end Israel’s war on Gaza, there have been “some forward steps,” Al Jazeera reports.

“I think the mediators, our brothers in Egypt and Qatar, they are doing a good job. This is why we are still hoping to achieve the main goal, a complete ceasefire and withdrawal from Gaza,” the news channel quotes Hamdan as saying. 

“We have to talk about the real position of the United States because that is the main issue which will affect the position of the Israelis, and mainly Netanyahu,” Hamdan told Al Jazeera. “If the United States administration has said clearly to Netanyahu, enough is enough … I assure you that will happen.”

Armed groups in Gaza, including one with presumed Hamas links, last month robbed the Bank of Palestine of some $70 million, the French daily Le Monde reports, according to AFP.

The funds were taken from the vaults of several branches of the bank, it said, citing a Bank of Palestine document sent to "certain international partners" detailing the robberies. ➡️ Click here for more.

Here’s an update on the security situation in southern Lebanon:

* An Israeli drone targeted a car in Bint Jbeil with a missile but missed it, local residents said. No injuries have been reported so far.

* Israeli warplanes carried out an airstrike on the town of Tayr Harfa (Sour district), targeting a house, a security source said. No injuries have been reported so far.

Students at Trinity College Dublin protesting Israel's war in Gaza have built an encampment forcing the university to restrict campus access and close the Book of Kells exhibition, one of Ireland's top tourist attractions, Reuters reports.

The camp was set up late yesterday after Trinity College's students' union said it had been fined 214,000 euros ($230,000) by the university for financial losses incurred due to protests in recent months not exclusively regarding the war in Gaza. ➡️ More details here.

Gaza casualty toll update: At least 34,654 Palestinians have been killed and 77,908 wounded in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, the Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement today, Reuters reports.

Ghassan Abu Sitta, the rector of the University of Glasgow and a renowned plastic surgeon who spent weeks in Gaza following the start of the war in October, says he is being denied entry to France, where he is scheduled to make a speech at the Senate.

Abu Sitta wrote on X: “I am at Charles De Gaule airport. They are preventing me from entering France. I am supposed to speak at the French Senate today. They say the Germans put a 1 year ban on my entry to Europe.”

“Fortress Europe silencing the witnesses to the genocide while Israel kills them in prison,” the Palestinian-British doctor added.

Abu Sitta was also denied entry into Germany in April after the country banned a pro-Palestinian event in its capital.

US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar marked World Press Freedom day, celebrated yesterday, by taking to X to hail the “brave” journalists in Gaza, “who have paid the highest price, their lives, to share the stories of Palestinians with the world.”

Omar also called on people to remember “the record number of journalists killed in Gaza” by the Israeli military in a post on social media.

Palestinian journalists covering Gaza were yesterday named as laureates of the 2024 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, following the recommendation of an international jury of media professionals.

⚡ A Hamas delegation has arrived in Egypt for the latest round of talks on a proposed truce and hostage release in Gaza, AFP reports citing Egyptian state-linked media Al-Qahera News.

This morning in south Lebanon:

* Israel shelled the outskirts of Jabal al-Blatt, on the outskirts of Marwahin, Sour district, and the outskirts of the town of Ramieh (Bint Jbeil district) with four shells.

* Israeli artillery shelling targeted the outskirts of the towns of Naqoura and Alma al-Shaab (both located in the Sour district), according to local residents.

Turning to Israel-Lebanon border, here’s an update on the security situation overnight:

* A single shell targeted the town of Alma al-Shaab (Sour district) last night after 9:30 p.m., local residents reported.

* At 1:45 a.m., Hezbollah announced that it targeted Israeli soldiers at the Israeli "Bayad Blida" site, opposite the Lebanese town of Blida in the district of Marjayoun in southern Lebanon, with artillery shells at 12:50 a.m.

On Friday night, hospital sources told AFP of Israeli strikes in Rafah, but also in the nearby town of Khan Younis, which lies largely in ruins after an Israeli ground operation and intense fighting with Hamas.

According to The Wall Street Journal, citing Egyptian sources, Israel will give the truce talks another week, failing which its army will launch the offensive on Rafah it has been promising for weeks.

The offer includes a pause in the Israeli offensive and the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the release of hostages abducted during the unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, which sparked the war.

However, Hamas insists on a definitive cease-fire, which Israel refuses. Israel has plans for a ground offensive against Hamas in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, where over a million Palestinians are crowded, most of them displaced by the violence.

The mediators — Egypt, Qatar and the United States — have been waiting for almost a week for Hamas to respond to a new truce offer submitted at the end of April. When the proposal was repsented, the Hamas delegation announced that it was leaving Cairo, the venue for the latest talks, to travel to Qatar to study the truce offer, while promising to return to Egypt with its response.

Hamas, which has been in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007, is nevertheless "determined" to obtain "a total halt to the aggression" by Israel, "the withdrawal" of Israeli forces and "a serious arrangement for the exchange" of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners. A senior official in the movement confirmed to AFP that the delegation would arrive in Cairo this morning and would be led by Khalil al-Hayya, the movement's political wing's No. 2 in the Gaza Strip.

And according to the Axios website, CIA chief William Burns arrived in the Egyptian capital last night, a sign that the time for key decisions has arrived after months of negotiations.

In a statement issued late last night, Hamas said it was in a "positive frame of mind."

"In light of recent contacts with the mediating brothers in Egypt and Qatar, the Hamas delegation will travel to Cairo on Saturday to complete the talks," the statement read.

Later today, a Hamas delegation is due to travel to Cairo to "continue talks" to "reach an agreement" on a truce with Israel in the Gaza Strip, AFP reports.

"The reality right now is that the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a cease-fire is Hamas," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last night. Blinken had already described Israel's proposed truce as "extraordinarily generous."

Hello!

This is the 211th day of the war in the Gaza Strip. It is also the 210th day since the opening of a front in southern Lebanon between Hezbollah and the Israeli army.

We'll be here with live updates on events in the region throughout the day.