Updates: Gaza under Israel fire as ‘desperate’ Palestinians seek supplies

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To learn about how Israel’s destruction of Gaza fertility clinics has erased parenthood dreams in the enclave, watch our report here.

Read up on how Israeli plans for Rafah have been labelled a continuation of genocide, here.

Get more insight as to why Oxfam refuses to provide Israel with the details of its Palestinian staff in Gaza in our story here.

We will close this page shortly but before we do, here’s a recap of the day’s major developments:

• PM Netanyahu says the ceasefire terms will not move forward unless Hamas fully disarms.
• The crucial Rafah border between Gaza and Egypt is expected to open in the “coming days”, according to Israeli media reports.
• Israeli plans for a Rafah “camp” in Gaza has been slammed as a continuation of genocide.
• The Foreign Press Association expressed disappointment after Israel’s Supreme Court again postponed ruling on a petition seeking free and independent media access to war-battered Gaza.
• Qusay Maher Ismail Halaika, 28, a Palestinian man who was shot by Israeli forces close to a checkpoint near Bethlehem, has died of his wounds.
• Israeli forces have carried out attacks on several locations in the occupied West Bank, arresting dozens of people, many of whom were assaulted.
• Armed Israeli settlers also set fire to three Palestinian villages in Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank. The UN says more than 1,800 settler attacks were documented in 2025, surpassing previous records.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has strongly denounced “state-backed settler violence” in the occupied West Bank, which it says is driving “forced displacement” in the territory.

“The law is clear here: Israel must end its unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory, halt settlement expansion and evacuate all settlers,” said Ajith Sunghay, the head of the office in Palestine.

“Forcible transfer of Palestinians within the occupied West Bank is a war crime and may amount to a crime against humanity.

“Accountability must be ensured for past and ongoing violations of Palestinians’ rights under international law.”

State-backed settler violence has become a key driver of forced displacement, chipping away at Palestinian presence in strategic locations.
Between 23 and 25 January, at least 10 serious settler attacks were recorded across the West Bank, resulting in property damage, injuries,…

— UN Human Rights Palestine (@OHCHR_Palestine) January 28, 2026

Armed Israeli settlers have set fire to three Palestinian villages in Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank.

The settlers then blocked ambulances and medics from helping those injured, with Palestinian families left watching their homes burn down.

According to the UN, more than 1,800 settler attacks – about five per day – were documented in 2025, resulting in casualties or property damage in about 280 communities across the West Bank, and beating the previous year’s record of settler attacks by more than 350.

Watch our report below:

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Palestinians in southern Khan Younis city are questioning whether their lives will improve as the Hamas-Israel ceasefire moves towards a second phase.

Many remain eager for Israel to open the key Rafah crossing, Gaza’s lifeline to the outside world.

“The crossing is supposed to open now after the last soldier’s body was found,” said Ali Abu al-Eish, a former resident of Rafah. “Why is it still closed? We have many sick people here.”

Gaza’s Health Ministry says about 20,000 sick and wounded Palestinians require urgent medical evacuation abroad for life-saving treatment.

Ayda Abu Dheisha also asked why there was a holdup in reopening Rafah. “We want to return to our land and our homes,” she said.

Abu al-Eish and Abu Dheisha are among an estimated one million Gaza residents displaced from Rafah, which remains an occupied Israeli military zone despite the truce agreement signed last October.

While diplomatic circles welcome the recovery of the last captive’s remains in Gaza and the imminent partial reopening of the enclave’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt, a quieter, darker reality is taking shape on the ground.

According to comments by retired Israeli General Amir Avivi, who still advises the military, Israel has cleared land in Rafah, an area in southern Gaza that it had already flattened in more than two years of its genocidal war, to construct an enormous facility to entrench its military control and presence in Gaza for the long term.

Read the rest here.

In an address to the Knesset, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has shielded Israel from accountability, pinning Gaza’s humanitarian catastrophe entirely on Hamas while ignoring the killing of more than 71,000 Palestinians in Israel’s ongoing genocide.

Rama opened his speech by expressing goodwill towards Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu, and highlighting Albania’s longstanding solidarity with the Jewish people. He spoke of Albania’s historical support for Jews, saying the country and its people stood “as few others did for the Jewish people” and deserved recognition from Israel.

Drawing a parallel with Albania’s past, Rama said international criticism often misidentifies the source of Gaza’s suffering, arguing that many observers “mistook the finger for what it was pointing at” and failed to see that “the jailer of Gaza is Hamas, no one else but Hamas”.

Oxfam says it will not disclose the personal details of its Palestinian staff to Israel, citing its army’s deadly attacks in Gaza that have killed hundreds of aid workers.

As part of a crackdown on NGOs providing life-saving aid to Palestinians, Israel last year demanded that some of the charities working in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem hand over detailed information about their Palestinian and international staff, operations and funding.

On January 1, Israel withdrew the licences of 37 aid groups, including the Norwegian Refugee Council, International Rescue Committee and Oxfam, saying they failed to adhere to the new “security and transparency standards”.

But Oxfam has said it will not share data about its Palestinian employees.

Read the rest here.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has spoken at the funeral of Israeli captive Ran Gvili, the last to be recovered from Gaza.

“We are determined to complete our missions: to disarm Hamas and demilitarise Gaza, and we will succeed,” said the Israeli PM. “Let our enemies know that anyone who raises a hand against Israel will pay an exorbitant price.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog spoke at the funeral of Ran Gvili, the last Israeli captive to be returned from Gaza.

The retrieval of Gvili’s body marks “a momentous moment” for all of Israel that can allow the nation to start to heal, Herzog was quoted as saying by The Times of Israel.

Addressing Gvili’s family, Herzog said: “An entire nation looks upon you today … and knows through your path and through Ran’s path we must rise from this terrible pain.”

In Gaza, meanwhile, 10,000 Palestinian bodies are believed to lie buried beneath the rubble of vast war destruction, unable to be retrieved, leaving families without answers and proper burial rites.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blamed the previous US administration of President Joe Biden for causing the deaths of Israeli soldiers in Gaza after Washington paused a weapons shipment during the war.

Israel paid “very heavy prices” regarding the killing of its troops, and one reason for that was “at a certain stage we didn’t have enough ammunition”, Netanyahu told a press conference on Tuesday.

“Heroes fell” because they didn’t have the firepower they needed, and “part of that absent ammunition was because of the embargo”, he said, referring to a brief suspension of “one [US] shipment of high payload munitions” in 2024.

Biden made the decision to pause the shipment after Netanyahu ignored international warnings not to invade southern Rafah.

Amos Hochstein, a former Biden aide, denounced the comments, saying Israel’s only response to the United States for its support during Israel’s war on Gaza should be “thank you”.

Let me be clear to “journalists” commenting. After more than $20 Billion military support, largest in #Israel history, 2 aircraft carriers rushed to the region, deterring a massive regional war, defeating Iran missile/drone attack x2, defending israel at most vulnerable moments,… https://t.co/XEbPgdEXKs

— amos hochstein (@amoshochstein) January 27, 2026

Israel says it solely identified the remains of captive Ran Gvili this week. Both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, however, said they provided Israel – through mediators – with information to locate the body.

Al-Quds Brigades, Islamic Jihad’s military wing, said it shared coordinates with Israel through Arab mediators. Hamas said it also provided information.

Two unnamed US officials credited Egypt, Qatar and Turkiye with helping to get Hamas to release Gvili’s body, The Associated Press reported.

Residents living near the cemetery where Gvili’s body was discovered said Palestinian remains exhumed during the search were left exposed without reburial.

“Our dead are in the open,” said Mohamed Matter, whose relatives are buried in the cemetery. He and others said they attempted to reach the area but were turned away by Israeli forces.

Two people were killed in an Israeli drone strike while attempting to reach the cemetery, and were taken to al-Shifa Hospital, where they were pronounced dead, according to hospital officials.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said on Tuesday that Israeli forces exhumed “hundreds of graves” calling it a pattern of showing disrespect to the dead.

Israel’s Knesset is expected to give a preliminary vote on this year’s draft state budget today or tomorrow morning following a debate in the chamber.

Lawmakers must pass the budget by the end of March, or the country will head to snap elections before the scheduled October vote.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he hoped people “act sensibly” to avoid early elections.

“We are in a very sensitive situation, and I think the last thing we need right now is elections,” he told a news conference. “We’ll have elections later on this year, but I think it’s a mistake to have them now, and I hope that people understand that and act ⁠sensibly.”

Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs Network in Gaza, says many families are still suffering because they haven’t recovered the remains of their loved ones, even as Israel retrieved the body of its last captive from the territory.

He noted there are an estimated 10,000 bodies still buried under the rubble in Gaza, where rescuers lack adequate equipment and access to dig them out.

“Almost every day we are collecting bones from different areas … and we cannot identify them while their mothers are waiting,” Shawa told Al Jazeera from Gaza City.

“It’s a very critical moment that we are passing through,” he added. “Times are painful … until we manage to get these bodies back and bury them.”