Updates: Israel kills 65 in Gaza, Qatari PM meets top US officials

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To learn more about the scale of devastation in Gaza, take a look at our interactive story here.

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This live page is about to close, so here is a recap of the latest developments:

• Israel has freed 13 Palestinians from Gaza after holding them for months under what medical and rights groups described as harsh and degrading conditions.
• The UN General Assembly has overwhelmingly endorsed a resolution calling for a two-state solution, with 142 votes in favour and 10 against.
• Gaza’s Government Media Office says more than 1.3 million Palestinians, including 350,000 children, remain in Gaza City and the north, despite Israel’s relentless bombardment and forced evacuation orders.
• President Trump will be having dinner tonight with US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani.
• At least 65 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza since dawn today, including 48 in Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip, medical sources have told Al Jazeera.
• Hamas has announced that its Gaza leader Khalil al-Hayya led funeral prayers for his son Humam and others killed in Tuesday’s Israeli air strikes in Doha.
• Top US diplomat Marco Rubio is scheduled to fly to Israel on Saturday.

Former Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi has said that more than 200,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza, more than 10 percent of the enclave’s population, according to a report by The Guardian.

“This isn’t a gentle war. We took the gloves off from the first minute,” Halevi said.

He added that “not once” did military legal advice restrict his operational decisions during 17 months as chief of staff.

His remarks align with casualty figures from Gaza’s Health Ministry, which Israel has dismissed as unreliable but which international agencies have deemed credible.

Experts say Halevi’s comments confirm that Israeli military lawyers acted as “rubber stamps” rather than imposing legal constraints on attacks that have caused mass civilian casualties and displacement.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani has met US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance at the White House.

Israel’s war in Gaza and Israel’s attack on Hamas leaders in Doha were among the discussion items.

Qatar hosts the largest US military base in the Middle East, and has long been a US ally.

Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett reports live from the White House.

Spain has summoned Israel’s acting ambassador in Madrid in response to comments made by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office that accused the European nation’s leader of threatening Israel.

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares called in Dana Erlich, Israel’s charge d’affaires in Spain and the highest-ranking diplomat in the country, “to categorically reject the false and slanderous statements from the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office”, an official at Spain’s Foreign Ministry has said.

It is the latest development in an ongoing diplomatic tit-for-tat between the two countries that ensued after Spain’s prime minister announced measures to pressure Israel to end the Gaza war.

These included an embargo on weapons, ammunition and military equipment sold to or from Israel and blocking Israel-bound fuel deliveries from passing through Spanish ports.

In a post on Thursday on social platform X, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez had made a “blatant genocidal threat”, in reference to comments made by the Spanish leader when he announced the steps the Spanish government was taking.

“Spain, as you know, doesn’t have nuclear bombs, nor aircraft carriers or large oil reserves. We alone can’t stop the Israeli offensive,” Sanchez said in a televised address on Monday.

Israel has freed 13 Palestinians from Gaza after holding them for months under what medical and rights groups described as harsh and degrading conditions.

The detainees were released at the Kissufim crossing in central Gaza and taken by the ICRC to al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, where doctors said they were malnourished and showed injuries consistent with abuse.

Rights groups, including the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, say thousands of Palestinians from Gaza have been detained since Israel’s war on the enclave began nearly two years ago, with many subjected to forced disappearances, incommunicado detention and severe mistreatment.

Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan has said Israel’s attempt to assassinate the group’s delegation in Doha was a “direct hit at [US President Donald] Trump’s proposal” for a ceasefire deal.

Hamdan said the September 9 attack revealed “who is really obstructing the agreement”, adding that Hamas is now waiting for the outcome of Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani’s talks in Washington to revive negotiations.

President Trump will be having dinner tonight with US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani.

Two Israeli sources have told The Washington Post that Israel’s Mossad agency opposed a plan to kill Hamas leaders in Doha with agents on the ground, prompting Netanyahu to opt for an air attack instead.

Israel’s external intelligence agency opposed killing the Palestinian officials in Qatar to avoid straining ties with a country that was mediating a ceasefire in Gaza and the return of the remaining captives there, the sources said.

Security officials widely agreed that all Hamas leaders should eventually be killed, according to the report, but some argued that the timing was wrong, especially since Hamas was discussing a US proposal for a truce.

“We can get them in one, two, or four years from now, and the Mossad knows how to do it,” one source was quoted as saying. “Why do it now?”

Heavy Israeli air raids have continued to pound residential buildings in western Gaza City, targeting areas sheltering thousands of displaced people who had fled from the city’s east and north, Wafa news agency reports.

Citing its reporters on the ground, Wafa said Israeli strikes hit Abu Assi School in Shati refugee camp, the al-Waha and Muhanna apartment towers in Nassr neighbourhood, the Ayesh building, and several other family homes.

Air raids also struck a residential home near al-Karama towers, completely flattening it, while another raid destroyed the prayer area of a mosque in the west of Gaza City.

Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa on Friday said that his country is engaged in negotiations with Israel over a security agreement aimed at reviving the 1974 accord or adopting a similar framework.

In a televised interview with Syrian channel Alikhbariya, he said Syria “is holding negotiations on a security agreement with Israel to return to the 1974 [disengagement] agreement or a similar arrangement,” said the president.

Turning to Israel’s policies, the Syrian president said that Tel Aviv “had a plan to divide Syria and drag us into a battleground with Iranians,” adding that Israel was “surprised by the [former President Bashar al-Assad] regime’s ouster”.

Hussein al-Sheikh, vice president of the State of Palestine and deputy chair of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), has welcomed the United Nations General Assembly’s endorsement of a declaration outlining steps towards a two-state solution.

In a statement carried by the Palestinian news agency Wafa, al-Sheikh said the vote reflects international will in support of Palestinian rights and marks an important step toward ending the occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

He added that growing international recognition of Palestine strengthens the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and the two-state solution, which he said is key to regional and global stability.

The first meeting that took place between Qatari officials, as well as US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has wrapped up.

But another meeting is still to be held in New York. That will involve Donald Trump and the special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, along with the Qatari prime minister.

They’re going to continue the conversations regarding Israel’s attack on Doha earlier this week and the negotiations to end Israel’s war on Gaza … how to move this forward now and what the next steps are.

But the other important piece in all of this is the security cooperation between the United States and Qatar – a very valuable relationship, of strategic value to the US.

There was a security agreement signed when the US president visited Qatar in May – that … has been a focus of these meetings as well.

Family members of Israelis held in Gaza met US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, saying that “only a negotiated agreement” can ensure the safe return of all 48 remaining captives, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement.

According to the statement, Rubio reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to securing their release, saying the captives remain “at the heart of US efforts in the Middle East” and any future political solution.

He pledged to bring the families’ demands with him on his upcoming trip to Israel and said the US will also meet Qatari officials to discuss this week’s events and push for progress on a deal.

Saudi Arabia has welcomed the United Nations General Assembly’s endorsement of a declaration outlining steps towards a two-state solution.

The Saudi Foreign Ministry said the resolution, adopted by a large majority of 142 states, reflects a global consensus on the need to move forward toward peace and secure Palestinians’ right to establish an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Doctors without Borders (MSF) says eight children aged five to 16 were medically evacuated from Gaza to its reconstructive surgery hospital in Jordan on September 10, in coordination with the Jordanian Ministry of Health.

Half of the children were malnourished,  three with severe acute malnutrition, meaning they cannot undergo surgery until they regain strength.

“They face not only complex injuries but also a long and difficult road to recovery,” said Izuddin Rawashdeh, a doctor overseeing the cases.

MSF said this is only the second time it has received Gaza patients in such a critical nutritional condition and called it “a grim testament” to the impact of the siege.

Only 40 patients have been evacuated from Gaza to the hospital since October 2023, while the World Health Organization says more than 15,800 people are still waiting for urgent medical transfers.

MSF urged Israel to lift the siege, allow life-saving aid in, and facilitate medical evacuations with guarantees for voluntary return.

Former US army Green Beret Anthony Aguilar, the retired lieutenant colonel who blew the whistle on the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in July, has told AJ+ that GHF has been part of the “Gaza Riviera” plan all along.

“There is no mystery as to why the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is only in the south, and they’ve staked their claim in the most valuable real estate in all of Gaza,” he told Dena Takruri.

In the few weeks Aguilar worked for GHF as a contractor, his supervisor told him not to question the Israeli army.

“He said, the [Israeli military] are our client. We work for them,” Aguilar said.

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Olga Cherevko, spokesperson for the UN’s aid coordination office (OCHA) in Gaza, says the situation in Gaza is becoming increasingly “desperate by the day”.

Speaking from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Cherevko told Al Jazeera that tens of thousands of people are now being forcibly displaced to the south of the enclave as Israeli forces step up attacks in northern areas, including Gaza City.

“Many are arriving and are not able to find any space,” she said, adding that many were forced to return to the north.

“The conditions here were already extremely overcrowded,” Cherevko said. “If you look at the sea, the tents go all the way to the waterline, and every time the tide rises, [the water] swallows more tents.”

Basic services are also absent, with hospitals overwhelmed and operating at up to 300 percent capacity.

While there has been some improvement in the amount of aid entering, conditions on the ground remain dire with UN agencies unable to deliver aid safely and adequately, Cherevko said.