Israel’s war on Gaza updates: Many killed as Israel launches ground attacks

Thank you for joining us for real-time updates on everything related to Israel’s war on Gaza.

To read more about Israeli forces intensifying attacks across Gaza, you can see our story here.

For more news, analysis and opinion on the conflict, click here.

We will be closing this live page soon. Here’s a recap of the latest events:

• Heavy combat results in casualties on both sides as Palestinian fighters battle invading Israeli forces in northern and southern Gaza.
• Israeli fighter jets bomb the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, killing dozens of Palestinians including children.
• According to the UN, about 550,000 Palestinians have been displaced in recent days by escalating Israeli military operations in both the south and north.
• Women and children make up at least 56 percent of the tens of thousands of people killed in the Gaza war, the United Nations says.
• Media reports say a senior Hezbollah commander is killed in an Israeli drone strike on a car in southern Lebanon’s Tyre area.

Even before the war on Gaza, many Palestinians spoke of an ongoing Nakba in which Israel gradually forces them out of Gaza, the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Yara Asi, a Palestinian assistant professor at the University of Central Florida, and others fear if another genuine Nakba occurs, it will be in the form of a gradual departure from Gaza.

“It won’t be called forcible displacement in some cases. It will be called emigration, it will be called something else,” Asi said.

“But in essence, it is people who wish to stay, who have done everything in their power to stay for generations in impossible conditions, finally reaching a point where life is just not liveable.”

Mustafa al-Gazzar, 81, recalls his family’s months-long flight from their village in what is now central Israel to the southern city of Rafah when he was 5 years old. At one point, they were bombed from the air. At another, they dug holes under a tree to sleep in for warmth.

Al-Gazzar, now a great-grandfather, was forced to flee again over the weekend, this time to a tent in Muwasi, a barren coastal area where some 450,000 Palestinians live in a squalid camp. He says the conditions are worse than in 1948, when the UN agency for Palestinian refugees was able to regularly provide food and other essentials.

“My hope in 1948 was to return, but my hope today is to survive,” he said. “I live in such fear,” he added, breaking into tears. “I cannot provide for my children and grandchildren.”

The Stream looks into how the war on Gaza has been reshaping global perceptions, particularly among youth in the West, and what potential long-term reforms that might bring.

Watch the episode below:

Antonio Guterres says the escalation of military activity in Rafah by Israeli forces is “worsening an already dire situation”.

“At the same time, Hamas goes on firing rockets indiscriminately. Civilians must be respected and protected at all times,” he posted on X.

The escalation of military activity in and around Rafah by the IDF is further impeding humanitarian access & worsening an already dire situation.

At the same time, Hamas goes on firing rockets indiscriminately.

Civilians must be respected & protected at all times. pic.twitter.com/3HtaBOWjfP

— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) May 14, 2024

Earlier, we reported Lebanese state media saying an Israeli strike on a car in the country’s south killed two people.

A Hezbollah field commander was among the dead in the strike on a vehicle in southern Lebanon’s Tyre area, news reports said.

More than 400 people have been killed in Lebanon in seven months of cross-border violence. Israel says 14 soldiers and 10 civilians have been killed on its side of the border. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides.

A group of Harvard students say they’ll peacefully end a pro-Palestinian protest encampment after the university agreed to discuss its dealings with Israel.

The Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine coalition, which has called on the school to divest from companies with ties to Israel, announced in an Instagram post it would dismantle the three-week-old encampment, but promised to “re-group and carry out this protracted struggle through other means”.

“We are under no illusions. We do not believe these meetings are divestment wins. These side deals are intended to pacify us away from full disclosure and divestment. Rest assured, they will not.”

The encampment at one of the country’s most prestigious universities divided the campus community, with some wealthy alumni condemning it as anti-Semitic while others signed letters supporting the protesters.

Footage shared online shows Israeli forces storming Sinjil, located north of Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.

The videos, verified by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking unit Sanad, shows military vehicles entering the town.

Israeli incursions in the occupied West Bank have intensified since the war on Gaza started on October 7. More than 8,700 Palestinians have been arrested over the past seven months.

Asked when the structure will be installed, Pentagon spokesman Major-General Pat Ryder told reporters “in the coming days, I think you can expect to see it operational”.

With a cost of at least $320m, the pier is aimed at boosting humanitarian access to Gaza, which has been ravaged by seven months of war and aid restrictions by Israel. But poor sea conditions have made it unsafe to anchor the pier off the Gaza coast.

Ryder added there were US Navy destroyers in the region that could provide security assistance for the aid operation.

The effort has been criticised by aid groups who say it will be ineffective, and instead the US should press Israel to allow unfettered transfer of supplies into Gaza – where famine has taken hold – through land crossings.

The surgeon who recently helped patients in Gaza – through the help of lawyers – managed to have Germany’s Schengen-wide travel ban overturned.

According to the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians: “After returning from working in Gaza hospitals, and as a witness to war crimes, Professor Ghassan faced hostile press and eventually a travel ban by German authorities.

“He was deprived of his freedom of expression and freedom to travel when he was refused entry to France, Netherlands and Germany as he tried to spread the word about the war crimes he witnessed.”

With the ban overturned, Dr Abu Sitta should be able to travel freely around the Schengen area once again, the centre said in a statement.

The travel ban put on me for the Shengin area countries has been lifted.

— Ghassan Abu Sitta (@GhassanAbuSitt1) May 14, 2024

Israeli forces raided the Shu’fat camp, the Wafa news agency reports.

According to sources who spoke to Wafa, Israeli forces fired gas and sound bombs.

Violence has surged in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since Hamas’s October 7 attack triggered the war in Gaza. Nearly 500 Palestinians have been killed there, mostly during confrontations with Israeli forces and settlers.

Al Jazeera journalist Aziz al-Kahlout is among hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fleeing Rafah during Israel’s lastest military offensive.

He narrates his harrowing journey from Rafah to Deir el-Balah.

Watch the video below:

In scenes that resemble the 1948 exodus, Palestinians in Gaza have fled Israeli attacks on foot, carrying their belongings and young children as they seek safety in other areas.

Naila al-Baroudi, a Palestinian woman displaced from Gaza City in the north of the territory, said: “Here we are today, forced to flee again.”

“We hope this nightmare ends, the war stops and we return to our city. We will not accept displacement from Palestine in any form,” she said.

As a symbol of her hope to return, she is holding on to the key to her house despite it being reduced to rubble by the Israeli army, keeping to a long-held tradition by many Palestinian families uprooted 76 years ago.

Um Zaki al-Baytar, 69, said: “If the Israelis think of displacing us to Sinai by sending tanks and forcing us to do so, we will not accept it, and the scene of displacement outside Palestine will not be repeated.

“Arab countries in 1948 assured our people in Jaffa [in historic Palestine] and other places that their return would be in a matter of days. But 76 years have passed since the displacement, and we have not yet returned.”

The United Nations says it informed Israeli authorities of the movements of a vehicle carrying UN staff that was hit in southern Gaza, killing an Indian army colonel.

One UN security services member, Colonel Waibhav Kale, was killed and another wounded in the attack on Monday, marking the first death of a UN international employee in the Palestinian territory since the war began more than seven months ago.

“We are deeply saddened by the loss of Colonel Waibhav Kale, working for the UN Department of Safety and Security [DSS] in Gaza,” UN spokesperson Rolando Gomez told a media briefing.

“The UN informs Israeli authorities of the movement of all of our convoys. That has been the case in any theatre of operation. This is a standard operating procedure. This was the case yesterday morning so we have informed them. And it was a clearly marked UN vehicle.”

When asked about the attack, the Israeli military said it had “not been made aware of the route of the vehicle”.

“The incident is under review,” it added.

Josep Borrell says he’s “outraged” by the “repeated” attacks conducted by “Israeli extremists” on aid convoys destined for Gaza, including those coming from Jordan.

“Hundreds of thousands of civilians are starving,” he said in a post on X.

I’m outraged by the repeated & still unchecked attacks perpetrated by Israeli extremists on aid convoys on their way to Gaza, including from Jordan. Hundreds of thousands of civilians are starving.

IL authorities must stop these operations & hold those responsible accountable.

— Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) May 14, 2024

Lebanon’s state-run news agency has said that an Israeli drone strike on a car in the country’s south has killed two people.

Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with the Israeli military across Lebanon’s southern border in parallel with the Gaza war.

The armed group has said it is launching rockets at Israel both to support its ally Hamas, and to deter Israel from launching an attack on Lebanon.

The US State Department says the 50 aid trucks that entered the besieged coastal enclave on Sunday are “not nearly enough” and it believes more can be done to help US citizens leave the Strip.

“We’ve seen 50 trucks enter Gaza on May 12. This is not nearly enough,” department spokesman Vedant Patel said of humanitarian aid flows.

Israel seized and shuttered the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip on May 7, cutting off a vital entry point for humanitarian aid. It has since blamed Egypt for the continued closure of the crossing, a charge that the Egyptian foreign minister denied.

Israel’s army says rockets fired from Lebanon have killed a civilian and wounded five soldiers on the Israeli side of the border.

“On the northern border, a civilian was killed today from an antitank missile that hit Adamit,” a kibbutz on the border with Lebanon, army spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a televised briefing.

The army said in a statement that “several antitank missile launches were identified from Lebanon” and one soldier was moderately wounded and four others received minor injuries.

According to local media reports, the person killed was a man who had been visiting the village.

Israel and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily fire since October 9.