Israel war on Gaza updates: Israeli ‘snipers shooting anyone who moves’

Al Jazeera correspondent Patty Culhane has said that Harris spent more time speaking about the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza than Biden has, even as she sought to bolster her credentials as a pro-Israel figure.

“She spent more time talking about Palestinians in this than I think we’ve heard from most US officials,” Culhane said.

“Obviously, she’s trying to strike a balancing act, because she knows how much Joe Biden’s unequivocal support for Israel has hurt him with the groups that he would have needed to win re-election, with progressives, with young people, with people of colour,” she added.

This live page will close soon. Here are today’s top updates:

• A new wave of air strikes by Israeli fighter jets has targeted the central areas of Gaza, including Khan Younis and Gaza City. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said ambulances evacuating the injured were directly targeted.
• Netanyahu has held meetings with US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington. National Security spokesperson John Kirby said they are closer than they have ever been to securing a deal in Gaza.
• Sharing a video of Netanyahu stating that Iran threatened to have him assassinated, Republican nominee Donald Trump said that if such an event were to occur, he would like to see Iran erased “off the face of the Earth”.
• Houthi media has warned that a response to the deadly Israeli air raids near Yemen’s Hodeidah is coming and that attacks on Israel in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza will continue.

Here are more comments from Vice President Kamala Harris after her meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Thursday:

“What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent,” Harris said.

“However, too often, the conversation [about Israel’s war on Gaza] is binary when the reality is anything but. So I asked my fellow Americans to help encourage efforts to acknowledge the complexity, the nuance, and the history of the region,” Harris said.

Netanyahu has shared a photo shaking hands with right-wing billionaire Elon Musk, during a meeting the two had following the prime minister’s speech before Congress.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met yesterday, after his address to the US Congress, with [Elon Musk],” the post reads. “The two discussed opportunities and challenges in AI, as well as its influence on the economy and society, and opportunities for technological cooperation with Israel.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met yesterday, after his address to the US Congress, with @elonmusk.

The two discussed opportunities and challenges in AI, as well as its influence on the economy and society, and opportunities for technological cooperation with Israel. pic.twitter.com/aU7vfM8yqo

— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) July 25, 2024

US Vice President Kamala Harris is meeting the Israeli prime minister on the White House grounds for a private meeting after the likely Democratic presidential candidate failed to attend Netanyahu’s speech at Congress on Wednesday.

“We have a lot to talk about,” Harris said as she welcomed the Israeli leader, echoing the words pronounced earlier by President Biden.

Two men have been injured after the Israeli military stormed the occupied West Bank city of Qalqilya, the Palestinian Wafa news agency has reported.

According to local witnesses, the military entered the city from its eastern entrance and pursued a vehicle, firing live rounds.

Two young men from the town of Azzun were injured in the abdomen and back and were taken to the hospital, Wafa reported.

As we reported earlier, the families of American-Israeli captives held in Gaza met with US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after the pair met behind closed doors.

The families have released a statement after their meeting, saying that they “made it clear to the two leaders that a deal should be made to return all the abductees and end the suffering of the residents of Gaza”.

“When the abductees return the killing will stop.”

The statement adds that at the close of the meeting, the group of families felt “more optimistic than we have at any point since the previous hostage release agreement in November”.

An investigation led by a consortium of journalists and supported by Amnesty International’s Security Lab has found documents that show Israel actively trying to shield the NSO Group, the private Israeli company behind the Pegasus spyware, from accountability.

“Israel has a duty to ensure Israeli companies do not cause or contribute to human rights violations anywhere in the world,” Amnesty’s Donncha Ó Cearbhaill, head of the Security Lab, said in a statement.

“These documents suggest that not only are they failing to do this but are actively trying to shield NSO Group from accountability for its role in severe human rights violations.”

The hacking tool Pegasus has been used by governments around the world to spy on dissidents, journalists, lawyers and activists via their mobile phones.

Protesters have gathered near the White House as Israel’s prime minister meets with US President Joe Biden.

Some held up a giant effigy of Netanyahu with blood on his hands, while others poured fake blood onto the streets in front of the White House.

Al Jazeera’s Shihab Rattansi reports:

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said that Israel must continue to collaborate with Palestinian banks amid threats from far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to cut off access to essential financial services in the occupied West Bank.

“I am glad that Israel has allowed its banks to continue cooperating with Palestinian banks, but I remain convinced that a one-year extension of the waiver to facilitate this cooperation is needed,” US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said during a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Rio de Janeiro.

Smotrich first threatened to block key transactions in the occupied West Bank in May, after several European countries said they would recognise Palestinian statehood.

Following a meeting behind closed doors, Biden and Netanyahu have met the families of American captives in Gaza.

The Israeli prime minister has been under pressure to achieve a deal with Hamas that includes the release of all captives held in the besieged Strip.

Among those attending the meeting was the family of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, whose video released by Hamas ignited new protests against the Israeli government in April.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden met at the White House with the families of the American hostages: The Siegel family, the Alexander family, the Dekel-Chen family, the Naftali family, the Neutra family, the Goldberg-Polin family and the Chen family. pic.twitter.com/r9j8zbbGYk

— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) July 25, 2024

Michael Milshtein, a former Israeli military intelligence officer who leads Palestinian studies at Tel Aviv-based Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, told the Reuters news agency that Israel would need more boots on the ground across more areas of Gaza to achieve its aim of eliminating Hamas.

“We are very far from the goal of destroying Hamas’s government and military capacities. We are really not close to that,” Milshtein said.

He noted, however, that a purely military victory would in any case ignore the group’s social, political and economic influence. “We’re continuing to treat an enemy who is multi-dimensional in its behaviour as a military threat only.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has set the destruction of Hamas as the chief aim of Israel’s war on Gaza and has said that he will not agree to any ceasefire or captive exchange deal that does not allow Israel to pursue this goal.

Israel’s strikes on Gaza City are ongoing, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has said, as its teams attempt to evacuate the wounded and take them to hospital.

The organisation posted a video showing their efforts to rescue injured Palestinians, including women.

🔴The Israeli occupation continues to target civilians in #Gaza City, and our teams continue to work on evacuating the wounded. In this video, PRCS teams transported several injured individuals, including women.
📷Filmed by volunteer: Yousef Khader pic.twitter.com/jQxtPVrOXH

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) July 25, 2024

The US army’s Central Command (CENTCOM) says in its daily update on X that, in the past 24 hours, US armed forces successfully one drone launcher in a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen.

“It was determined this launcher presented an imminent threat to US, coalition forces, and merchant vessels in the region,” CENTCOM said.

The UN envoy for Yemen said Tuesday that recent developments in the Red Sea, Israel and inside the country “show the real danger of a devastating region-wide escalation” of the Gaza war.

The Houthis have launched missiles and drones at Israel and disrupted global trade through the Red Sea in response to Israel’s assault on Gaza.

In response to a recent drone attack on Tel Aviv, Israel last weekend bombed the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, injuring dozens and causing massive damage to the port’s infrastructure.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has slammed Israel’s advance of laws labelling UNRWA as a ‘terrorist’ organisation, amid a push to discredit the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

“Outlawing UNRWA – and labelling it as terrorist, which it is not – amounts to targeting regional stability and human dignity of all those benefiting from the UN agency work,” Borrell said on X.

“We join many partners in urging the Israeli Government to halt this nonsense.”

The United Arab Emirates has stressed the need for a “temporary international mission” that can begin addressing the enormous humanitarian fallout of the war in Gaza after the fighting comes to an end.

“Consolidating peace and security and ending the humanitarian suffering should begin by the deployment of a temporary international mission in Gaza with a formal invitation from the Palestinian government,” UAE Minister of State for International Cooperation Reem Al Hashimy told the official WAM news agency.

She added that the mission must put the Gaza Strip on a pathway to eventual reunification with the occupied West Bank under the rule of the Palestinian Authority.

Pro-Palestine protesters in Berlin staged a mini-Gaza scene, acting as victims of an Israeli attack to highlight the suffering Palestinians face in the war.

Watch our video to see their protest: