Israel’s war on Gaza updates: Deadly attack on al-Mawasi denounced

To see Israel’s response to the killing of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, an American-Turkish activist, at a protest in the occupied West Bank, go here.

For a first-person account of Israel’s deadly bombing of the al-Mawasi’s “safe” zone in Gaza, click here.

And follow along with all our coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza here.

This live page will be closing soon. Here is a quick review of the latest news:

• A UN convoy carrying workers for polio vaccination in Gaza was held at gunpoint at an Israeli military checkpoint with shots fired and vehicles rammed by a bulldozer.
• The Israeli Supreme Court will hear a petition filed on behalf of a member of the Knesset, Ahmad Tibi, to allow lawmakers to visit Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
• The UN Human Rights Office called for an independent investigation into Israel’s killing of a Turkish-American activist in the occupied West Bank.
• Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court are looking into the reported death of Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif and will withdraw its case against him if confirmed.
• The Israeli military released a video of a Gaza tunnel where it says six abductees were recently killed.

The Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, took his place on Tuesday at a table marked “State of Palestine” between Sri Lanka and Sudan.

In May, an overwhelming majority of the General Assembly asserted that Palestine deserved full membership, a move that has been blocked by the United States.

“This is not merely a procedural matter. This is a historic moment for us,” said Egyptian Ambassador Osama Mahmoud Abdelkhalek Mahmoud.

During the resolution’s adoption, Israel denounced the move.

“Any decision and or action that improves the status of the Palestinians, either in the UN General Assembly or bilaterally, is currently a reward … for terrorism in general and the Hamas terrorists in particular,” said Jonathan Miller, Israel’s deputy ambassador to the UN.

“Following the sirens regarding a hostile aircraft infiltration that sounded in the area of the Upper Galilee between 18:35-18:46, several suspicious aerial targets were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory,” said the Israeli military.

Some of the targets were intercepted and no injuries were reported, it added.

Sirens also sounded in the area of Ayelet Hashahar earlier but the military determined it was a false alarm.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces conducted a strike on what they said was a Hezbollah weapons manufacturing facility in the area of Jouaiyya in southern Lebanon. The military also claimed to strike a Hezbollah command centre and targets in Nabaiteh, al-Mansouri and Kfar Kila, all in southern Lebanon.

Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged tit-for-tat attacks since Israel’s war on Gaza began last October. Hezbollah has said it will halt its attacks once there is a ceasefire in Gaza.

The Wafa news agency is reporting several Israeli military actions in the occupied West Bank this evening.

Its correspondents said that Israeli forces have bulldozed Nablus Street near the Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem and that the army continues to destroy infrastructure elsewhere in the camp, specifically near the Martyr Saif Abu Labda roundabout at the entrance to the camp, and the streets of the al-Ayada neighbourhood.

Israeli forces also blew up a warehouse, without causing any reported injuries or deaths, in Aktaba, a suburb east of Tulkarem.

Israeli has also begun raids on Anabta, Kafr al-Labad and Qaffin in the north. Clashes have broken out and the sound of heavy gunfire can be heard.

Elsewhere, Wafa reported that Israeli forces stormed the town of Silwan, close to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem.

Despite the largest antigovernment protests yet in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refuses to accept the Gaza ceasefire deal that includes the release of captives.

What could force his hand? Or force him out of office?

Canada has suspended some 30 permits for arms shipments to Israel, including a US company’s Canadian subsidiary’s deal with the US government – a rare move.

“Our policy is clear: We will not have any form of arms or parts of arms be sent to Gaza. Period,” Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said.

“How they’re being sent and where they’re being sent is irrelevant,” she continued, alluding to ammunition that was meant to have been produced by a Canadian division of US defence contractor General Dynamics for Israel’s army.

Canada drew the ire of Israeli leaders when it initially announced it would halt new arms shipments to Israel as of January 8.

Pro-Palestinian protests across Canada – at universities, political events and even the Toronto International Film Festival last week – have continued to put pressure on the government to go further.

President Joe Biden says Israel’s killing of a US-Turkish activist during a protest in the occupied West Bank last week appears to be an accident.

“Apparently, it was an accident – it ricocheted off the ground and she got hit by accident,” Biden told reporters, hours after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the killing of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, was “unprovoked and unjustified”.

Blinken condemned the fatal shooting, saying the US would make clear to its ally that such actions are “not acceptable”.

“No one – no one – should be shot and killed for attending a protest. Israeli security forces need to make some fundamental changes in the way they operate in the West Bank.”

A UN convoy carrying workers for polio vaccination in Gaza was held at gunpoint at an Israeli military checkpoint with shots fired and vehicles rammed by a bulldozer.

Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, called Monday’s incident “the latest example of the unacceptable dangers and impediment that humanitarian personnel in Gaza are experiencing” by Israeli forces.

“The situation escalated very quickly with soldiers pointing their weapons directly towards our personnel in the convoy, the UN vehicles were encircled by Israeli forces, and shots were fired,” Dujarric said.

“One bulldozer dropped debris on the first vehicle while Israeli soldiers threatened staff, making it impossible for them to safely exit the vehicles.”

Israel has killed at least 19 people in an attack on a tent encampment within the so-called humanitarian, or “safe”, zone in al-Mawasi, Gaza.

About 65 more are wounded and an unknown number remain under the rubble, health officials said.

The encampment, designated a humanitarian safe zone by Israel in December, was struck by at least three missiles in the early hours of Tuesday, displaced people and medics told news agencies.

The attack ignited a blaze that engulfed at least 20 tents.

The camp at al-Mawasi, near Khan Younis and Deir el-Balah, is one of the most overcrowded areas in a landscape devastated by 11 months of relentless Israeli bombardment.

Read the rest of our explainer here.

Turkey has called on Arab and Muslim states to work together to try to end Israel’s devastating war.

Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan is the first to attend the gathering of Arab states since President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attended in 2011. Turkey later fell out with many member countries.

“We cannot accept that Palestinian lives, Arab lives and Muslim lives matter less than others,” Fidan said. “Our ranks must be watertight.”

More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza – mostly women and children – since Israel’s war began in October. The war has caused vast destruction and displaced about 90 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.

I’m Tala Herzallah, 22, from northern Gaza.

I’m currently displaced and staying in al-Mawasi. This is what I saw on September 10, the day of the explosion:

We were all asleep. Then, suddenly, everything was turned upside down – the colour of the sky changed.

The explosion hit about 200 metres (220 yards) away.

The scene was like one of my nightmares, but it was real life.

The sound, … the huge damage the bombs caused, made us realise that these were meant for the largest buildings and not for tents made of the weakest materials in the world.

I saw two colours – red and grey. Everything turned grey [from the dust] and there were red flames everywhere.

The sky was filled with screams, crying and the sound of ambulances.

I avoided looking at the injured. I try to treat my mind like a recorder and I’m trying not to record anything bad.

The night before, I was looking at the sky. It was full of stars. It was very romantic. I never imagined I would open my eyes to the complete opposite.

Now, we’re literally surrounded by death.

Read the rest here.

The Council of American Islamic Relations denounced US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for double standards after the killing of American citizen Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, by Israeli forces.

“President Biden and Vice President Harris’ failure to call the family of an American citizen murdered by an Israeli sniper is deeply disturbing and disappointing, especially given that both of them quickly contacted the family of an Israeli-American killed by Hamas,” said CAIR’s Deputy Executive Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell.

“It is long past time for the Biden administration to start treating all American families as equally worthy of respect and all human beings, including the people of Gaza and the West Bank, as equally worthy of life.”

Late on Monday, the Israeli military bombed a displacement camp in southern Gaza’s al-Mawasi, which Israel had designated a “safe zone”.

The victims were Palestinians who had fled Israeli bombardments and ground operations.

Health officials have recovered 19 bodies, but many more are buried under rubble.

Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary reports:

Former general and leader of Israel’s National Unity party Benny Gantz said he met with families of Israeli captives still held in Gaza, alongside President of the World Jewish Congress Lauder Ronald and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani in Paris.

“We discussed the urgent humanitarian need to advance a hostage deal, and ways in which regional stability can be promoted,” Gantz said in a post on X.

“It is important to note that in the meeting, neither negotiation details nor the negotiation’s management were discussed. Only the official, state-authorized teams are permitted to do so,” he added.

A video released by the Israeli government earlier today, which claims it shows a tunnel in which the bodies of six Israeli captives were discovered, has caused a stir among Israeli officials. They have vowed to have the captives returned.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) condemned the Israeli military’s assault on one of its crews earlier today in Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank.

It said Israeli forces fired live rounds at a volunteer paramedic as he provided first aid to an injured person in Tulkarem refugee camp.

Israeli forces also arrested two other paramedics from inside the Tulkarem emergency medical services centre after raiding it. They were later released.

“Since the start of the war on the Gaza Strip, the PRCS has documented more than 750 violations against its medical missions, patients, and injured individuals in the PRCS’s ambulances in the West Bank.”

🚨The Palestine Red Crescent Society condemns the Israeli occupation's assaults on its crews today in #Tulkarm, where Israeli forces targeted one of the PRCS's volunteer EMTs with live bullets while he was providing first aid to an injured person in Tulkarm camp.
⭕The Israeli… pic.twitter.com/geizaG2yUy

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) September 10, 2024

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, has given an update on today’s progress in the UN’s efforts to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of Gaza’s children against polio.

“Against all odds & despite the serious incident last night our UNRWA teams in Northern Gaza vaccinated 77,000 children against polio. We are inching closer towards the target of vaccinating every child under the age of 10”, he wrote on X.

The “serious incident” he referred to is yesterday’s detention of a UN convoy for hours by Israeli troops in northern Gaza. The convoy contained UN staff members involved in carrying out the vaccination dive.

“While this is good progress, civilians across Gaza continue to be killed on a daily basis including overnight in al-Mawassi which the Israeli authorities refer to as a ‘safe zone'”, Lazzarini added.

Last night, Israel bombed al-Mawasi, to the west of Khan Younis in southern, Gaza, killing at least 19 people. The bombs hit tents housing displaced Palestinians.

“The State of Qatar condemns in the strongest terms the brutal massacre committed by the Israeli occupation in al-Mawasi Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip, which led to the deaths of dozens of martyrs and injuries,” Qatar’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs stresses that the continuation of the occupation’s heinous crimes against defenceless civilians, its blatant defiance of international laws and norms, and its seeking of military escalation instead of a political path are an inevitable result of the silence of the international community and the absence of accountability and punishment.”

Qatar reiterated its call for a ceasefire and its “firm position on the justice of the Palestinian cause”.