Israel

Israeli forces have carried out air strikes on the areas of Mahmoudiyeh and Jarmak, in southern Lebanon. The strikes are the latest in near-daily Israeli violations of the US-brokered ceasefire involving Israel and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah that began in November.

Israel’s military has carried out another deadly attack in northern Gaza despite claiming to resume the fragile ceasefire, which was already teetering from a wave of deadly bombardment it waged the night before.

Israel’s latest aerial attack on Wednesday evening occurred in Gaza’s Beit Lahiya area, killing at least two people, according to al-Shifa Hospital. Israel claimed it had targeted a site storing weapons that posed “an immediate threat” to its troops.

The attack adds further uncertainty to Gaza’s fragile ceasefire, which was shaken by the fiercest episode of Israeli bombardment on Tuesday night since it entered into force on October 10.

Following the reported killing of an Israeli soldier in southern Gaza’s Rafah on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered “powerful” retaliatory strikes on Gaza. The resulting attacks killed 104 people, mostly women and children, said Gaza’s Health Ministry. Israel claimed its strikes targeted senior Hamas fighters, killing dozens, and then said it would start observing the ceasefire again mid-Wednesday.

United States President Donald Trump insisted the ceasefire “is not in jeopardy” despite the latest attacks.

Regional mediator Qatar expressed frustration over the violence, but said mediators are still looking towards the next phase of the truce, including the disarmament of Hamas.

‘Calm turned into despair’

In Gaza, the renewed attacks have retraumatised a population desperate to see an end to the two-year war, said Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Gaza City, Hani Mahmoud.

“A brief hope for calm turned into despair,” said Mahmoud. “For a lot of people, it’s a stark reminder of the opening weeks of the genocide in terms of the intensity and the scale of destruction that was caused by the massive bombs on Gaza City.”

Khadija al-Husni, a displaced mother living with her children at a school in Gaza’s Shati refugee camp, said the latest attacks came just as people had “started to breathe again, trying to rebuild our lives”.

“It’s a crime,” she said. “Either there is a truce or a war – it can’t be both. The children couldn’t sleep; they thought the war was over.”

Don’t let peace ‘slip from our grasp’, says UN

On Wednesday, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the UN chief strongly condemned “the killings due to Israeli air strikes of civilians in Gaza” the day before, “including many children”.

UN rights chief Volker Turk also said the report of so many dead was appalling and urged all sides not to let peace “slip from our grasp”, echoing calls from the United Kingdom, Germany and the European Union for the parties to recommit to the ceasefire.

Hamas, for its part, denied its fighters had any “connection to the shooting incident in Rafah” that killed an Israeli soldier and reaffirmed its commitment to the ceasefire.

However, it said it would postpone transferring the remains of a deceased captive due to Israel’s latest truce violations, further fuelling Israeli claims that the group is stalling the captive handover process. Hamas warned any “escalation” from Israel would “hinder the search, excavation and recovery of the bodies”.

Israel, meanwhile, officially barred Red Cross representatives from visiting Palestinian prisoners, claiming such visits could pose a security threat.

Hamas said the ban, which was already effectively in place during the war in Gaza, violates the rights of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and “adds to a series of systematic and criminal violations they are subjected to”, including killing, torture and starvation.

The Elders, a group of respected former world leaders, called on Wednesday for the release of one of those Palestinian prisoners – Marwan Barghouti. The Palestinian leader continues to be held by Israel despite Hamas including him in its list of prisoners for release as part of the ceasefire deal.

Israel has refused to release Barghouti, who is often referred to as the Palestinian Nelson Mandela.

Barghouti is serving several life sentences for what Israel says is involvement in attacks against civilians – a claim he denies.

“Marwan Barghouti has been a long-term advocate for a two-state solution by peaceful means, and is consistently the most popular Palestinian leader in opinion polls,” The Elders said in a statement, calling on US President Donald Trump to ensure the release of Barghouti.

“We condemn the ill-treatment, including torture, of Marwan Barghouti and other Palestinian prisoners, many of whom are arbitrarily detained,” The Elders added. “Israeli authorities must abide by their responsibilities under international law to protect prisoners’ human rights.”

Palestinians in Gaza have experienced the deadliest 24 hours since the start of the United States-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect almost three weeks ago.

Israel killed more than 100 people, including 46 children, in attacks late on Tuesday and on Wednesday. Medical sources told Al Jazeera the strikes hit all over Gaza.

This adds to dozens of previous ceasefire violations with a rocky outlook ahead. Let’s take a look at where things stand:

What’s the latest?

The Israeli military said by noon on Wednesday that it was returning to the ceasefire in line with instructions from the political leadership but remained ready to attack again if necessary.

It said it hit more than 30 targets in the besieged enclave, claiming that the targets were “terrorists in command positions within terror organisations”.

But as more residential buildings were flattened by the Israeli bombs, at least 18 members of the same family in central Gaza, including children, parents and grandparents, were among the victims.

Civil Defence teams once again had to use small tools and their hands to dig in the rubble of bombed areas to search for survivors and the dead. Several tents belonging to displaced Palestinian families were also targeted.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, at least 68,643 people have been killed and 170,655 wounded since the start of Israel’s genocidal war in October 2023.

What was Israel’s justification?

On Tuesday, Israel announced that the body of a captive transferred from Gaza by Hamas through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) did not match one of the 13 to be handed over as part of the ceasefire.

Israeli forensic analysts determined that the remains belonged to Ofir Tzarfati, who was taken to Gaza during the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and whose partial remains were recovered in November of the same year.

Israeli officials reacted furiously, especially far-right ministers in the coalition government who are against stopping the war on Gaza and want Hamas “destroyed”. An organisation run by the families of the captives also expressed outrage and demanded action.

A short time later, the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, said it would hand over the remains of an Israeli captive at 8pm (18:00 GMT), but it held off after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered “powerful strikes” on Gaza.

Heavy gunfire and explosions were also heard in the southern city of Rafah. Israel alleged this was an attack by Hamas fighters, something Hamas rejected.

Israel also accused the Palestinian group of “staging” the recovery of a captive’s remains after showing footage purportedly of Hamas fighters burying a body before calling in the ICRC.

The ICRC said its personnel “were not aware that a deceased person had been placed there prior to their arrival”.

What’s in the ceasefire?

As part of the agreement, which entered into force on October 10, Hamas handed over all remaining 20 living captives held in Gaza within several days.

The group has also handed over the remains of 15 deceased Israeli captives as part of the deal with 13 others remaining unrecovered or undelivered.

Israel has allowed some humanitarian aid into Gaza, but supplies have been well below the 600 trucks a day specified in the ceasefire, a level that is required to help the famine-stricken population.

Israel has also prevented tents and mobile homes from entering the enclave but has let some heavy machinery enter to search for the remains of its captives.

After all the remains are handed over, a second phase of the ceasefire could potentially enter into force, allowing the deployment of an international stabilisation force and the reconstruction of Gaza.

Israeli officials have repeatedly stressed that they will not allow the formation of a sovereign Palestinian state and have been advancing with a plan to illegally annex the occupied West Bank despite international criticism.

What is Hamas saying?

Hamas has accused Israel of fabricating “false pretexts” to renew aggression in Gaza.

Before the attacks over the past day, Hamas  said Israel had carried out at least 125 violations.

Since October 10, the Health Ministry in Gaza said, at least 211 Palestinians have been killed and 597 wounded in Israeli attacks while 482 bodies have been recovered.

Hamas has also accused Israel of obstructing efforts to recover the bodies of the captives while using the same bodies as an excuse to claim noncompliance.

It pointed out that Israel has prevented enough heavy machinery from entering Gaza to recover the remains and has prevented search teams from accessing key areas.

The Qassam Brigades said its fighters have recovered the bodies of two more deceased captives, Amiram Cooper and Sahar Baruch, during search operations conducted on Tuesday.

Hamas and other Palestinian factions have said they are prepared to hand over administration of Gaza to a technocratic Palestinian body while maintaining that armed resistance is a result of decades-long occupation and apartheid by Israel.

What does this mean for Gaza’s civilians?

Since the start of the war, civilians have been the main casualties of Israel’s war on Gaza.

They have been disproportionately targeted, as they were in the latest overnight attacks, and have also seen Gaza’s infrastructure and means of living destroyed by bombs and invading Israeli forces.

Because nowhere in Gaza is fully safe, Palestinians underwent another day of panic that the Israeli attacks could be extended.

Israeli warplanes and reconnaissance aircraft continued to hover over the enclave.

What happens now?

The US has repeatedly expressed support for Israel despite its ceasefire violations, emphasising Israel’s right to defend itself.

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the ceasefire “is not in jeopardy” despite the strikes.

Mediator Qatar has previously condemned violations of the agreement and accused Israel of undermining its implementation. But along with Egypt, it has worked to ensure the deal stays alive.

Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on Palestine, has taken aim at states complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, calling for a new multilateralism that will prevent it from happening again in future.

Albanese presented her new report – “Gaza Genocide: a collective crime” – to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, addressing delegates remotely from the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation in Cape Town, South Africa.

Israel had, she said, left Gaza “strangled, starved, shattered”. Her report, which examines the role of 63 states in Israel’s actions in both Gaza and the West Bank, calls out the multilateral system for “decades of moral and political failure” in a colonial world order sustained by a global system of complicity”.

“Through unlawful actions and deliberate omissions, too many states have harmed, founded and shielded Israel’s militarised apartheid, allowing its settler colonial enterprise to metastasise into genocide, the ultimate crime against the indigenous people of Palestine,” she said.

Genocide had been enabled, she said, through diplomatic protection in international “fora meant to preserve peace”, military ties ranging from weapons sales to joint trainings that “fed the genocidal machinery”, the unchallenged weaponisation of aid, and trade with entities like the European Union, which had sanctioned Russia over Ukraine yet continued doing business with Israel.

The 24-page report analyses how the “live-streamed atrocity” was facilitated by third states, zooming in on how the United States provided “diplomatic cover” for Israel, using its veto power at the UN Security Council seven times and controlling ceasefire negotiations. Other Western nations had collaborated, it said, with abstentions, delays and watered-down draft resolutions, reinforcing “a simplistic rhetoric of ‘balance’”.

Many states had, it said, continued supplying Israel with arms, “even as the evidence of genocide … mounted”. The report noted the hypocrisy of the US Congress passing a $26.4bn package for Israeli defence, just as Israel threatened the Rafah invasion – supposedly a “red line” for the administration of former US President Joe Biden.

The report also points a finger of blame at Germany, the second-largest arms exporter to Israel during the genocide, with supplies ranging from “frigates to torpedoes”, and the United Kingdom, which has allegedly flown more than 600 surveillance missions over Gaza since war broke out in October 2023.

While acknowledging the “complexity of regional geopolitics”, the report also highlighted the complicity of Arab and Muslim states through US-brokered normalisation deals with Israel.

It points out that mediator Egypt maintained “significant security and economic relations with Israel, including energy cooperation and the closing of the Rafah crossing” during the war.

Albanese said the UNGA should have confronted the “dangerous precedent” of sanctions imposed on her earlier this year by the United States over her criticism of Israel’s actions in Palestine, which had prevented her from travelling to New York in person.

“These measures constitute an assault on the UN itself, its independence, its integrity, its very soul. If left unchallenged, these sanctions will drive yet another nail into the coffin of the multilateral system,” she said.

The Gaza genocide “exposed an unprecedented chasm between peoples and their governments, betraying the trust on which global peace and security rest”, said the report.

Speaking at the UNGA, the special rapporteur called for a new form of multilateralism, “not a facade, but a living framework of rights and dignity, not for the few … but for the many”.

Action taken in the past against South Africa, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Portugal and other rogue states had, she said, shown that “international law can be enforced to secure justice and self-determination”.

Israel is holding captive 95 Palestinian healthcare workers in its prisons. They include doctors, nurses and paramedics detained without charge. Healthcare Workers Watch recorded 80 medical workers taken from Gaza and 15 from the occupied West Bank.

It was one of the most dramatic protests in Los Angeles by activists who opposed Israel’s war in Gaza: a shutdown of the southbound lanes of the 110 Freeway as it passes through downtown.

In a chaotic scene captured by news helicopters, protesters sat down on the freeway in December 2013, halting traffic just south of the four-level interchange. On live television, enraged motorists responded by getting into physical altercations with demonstrators.

Los Angeles City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto’s office later charged many of the protesters with unlawful assembly, failure to disperse, failure to comply with a lawful order and obstruction of a street, sidewalk or other public corridor — all misdemeanors.

On Monday, after a lengthy legal battle, a judge agreed to put 29 protesters into a 12-month diversion program, which requires that each performs 20 hours of community service.

If they complete that service and obey the law, the charges will be dismissed in October 2026, said Colleen Flynn, the protesters’ attorney.

In court Monday, Flynn praised her clients for taking a stand, motivated by a moral duty to “bring attention to the loss of life and humanitarian crisis going on in Gaza.”

“These are people who were, out of conscience, making a decision to engage in an act of civil disobedience,” she told the judge.

Two others charged in connection with the protest were granted judicial diversion earlier this year and have already completed their community service. The charges against them have been dismissed, Flynn said.

Flynn initially asked for the 29 protesters to each receive eight hours of community service. City prosecutors successfully pushed for 20 hours, saying the political reason for the protest had no bearing on the case. Deputy City Atty. Brad Rothenberg told the judge that the freeway closure lasted about four hours.

“That affected thousands of people who come to the second largest city in the United States to work,” he said.

The hearing brought a quiet end to a furious legal battle.

Flynn spent several months pushing for the case to be dismissed, arguing that Feldstein Soto’s decision to charge the protesters was rooted in “impermissible bias” — religious or ethnic prejudice against Palestinians and their supporters.

At multiple hearings, Flynn said her clients experienced disparate treatment compared to other protesters who also disrupted traffic but were highlighting different political issues, such as higher wages for hotel workers. Flynn also pointed to social media posts by Feldstein Soto on Oct. 7, 2023, the day Hamas-led militants invaded Israel, murdering more than 1,200 people and kidnapping about 250 others.

“Every nation and every moral person must support Israel in defending her people,” Feldstein Soto wrote on her @ElectHydee page.

Last month, a judge denied Flynn’s request to dismiss the case. At that hearing, prosecutors said the protesters were charged because they shut down a freeway, creating a particular threat to public safety.

Prosecutors argued that a motorcycle traveling between traffic lanes at a high rate of speed easily could have plowed into freeway protesters who were sitting cross-legged on the pavement.

Prosecutors also defended Feldstein Soto’s social media posts, saying they were written on the day of the invasion, before Israel had launched its counterattack. At that point, Feldstein Soto was expressing outrage over a horrific day of violence, the prosecutors said.

Since then, Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 68,000 Palestinians, a majority of whom were women and children, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza.

Israeli drone attack close to the southern city of Khan Younis kills at least 2 people despite ceasefire.

UN spokesman says incident involved a drone dropping a grenade near a patrol, and a tank opening fire on peacekeepers.

The United Nations and France have condemned an Israeli attack that hit UN peacekeeping troops in southern Lebanon.

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Monday that the previous day’s attack on UNIFIL troops, which he said involved an Israeli drone dropping a grenade in the vicinity of a patrol, as well as a tank opening fire on peacekeepers near the border town of Kfar Kila, was “very, very dangerous”.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) works with the Lebanese army to enforce a ceasefire struck last year between Israel and the Lebanese armed groupd Hezbollah. Israel has violated the truce on a near-daily basis.

France’s Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs also condemned “the Israeli fire that targeted a UNIFIL detachment” and noted that the incidents followed similar attacks on October 1, 2 and 11.

Dujarric said: “It’s not the first time that we feel we’ve been targeted in different ways by the [Israeli army, including] pointing lasers or warning shots. He said his colleagues at UNIFIL were in touch with the Israeli military to “protest vehemently” against the attacks.

On Sunday, UNIFIL reported an Israeli drone flying over its patrol in an “aggressive manner”, saying its peacekeepers “applied necessary defensive countermeasures to neutralise the drone”. No injuries or damage were reported.

Israel still occupies five positions in southern Lebanon and has been launching near-daily attacks in defiance of the ceasefire. At least two brothers were killed in a strike on the village of al-Bayyad in the Tyre district on Monday.

The Lebanese official news agency ANI said that the two were killed in an attack on a sawmill in al-Bayyad.

Three people were killed on Sunday in raids on southern and eastern Lebanon.

The military says that it is targeting members of Hezbollah and its infrastructure, but Lebanese leaders have accused it of attempting to obstruct reconstruction by striking machinery like diggers and bulldozers.

The Israeli army said that its Sunday attacks targeted an arms dealer working for Hezbollah and another man who was “aiding the group’s attempts to rebuild its capacity for military action”.

Hezbollah, severely weakened by Israel’s attacks, has said it is ready to defend itself. “The possibility of war exists but is uncertain; it depends on their calculations,” said Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem in reference to Israel.

The United States government has been pressuring Lebanon to have the group surrender its arms to the country’s army.

US Middle East envoy Morgan Ortagus arrived late on Monday in Beirut, where she is scheduled to meet Lebanese leaders.

Palestinians returning to their homes in Gaza are facing danger from unexploded ordnance, with at least 53 people killed and hundreds injured by explosives.

British political commentator and journalist Sami Hamdi has been detained by federal authorities in the United States in what a US Muslim civil rights group has called an “abduction”.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) condemned Hamdi’s detention at San Francisco airport on Sunday as “a blatant affront to free speech”, attributing his arrest to his criticism of Israel’s war on Gaza.

Hamdi, a frequent critic of US and Israeli policy, had addressed a CAIR gala in Sacramento on Saturday evening and was due to speak at another CAIR event in Florida the next day before his detention by the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

CAIR said he was stopped at the airport following a coordinated “far-right, Israel First campaign”.

“Our nation must stop abducting critics of the Israeli government at the behest of unhinged Israel First bigots,” it said in a statement. “This is an Israel First policy, not an America First policy, and it must end.”

In a statement seen by Al Jazeera, friends of Hamdi called his arrest “a deeply troubling precedent for freedom of expression and the safety of British citizens abroad”.

The statement called for the United Kingdom Foreign Office to “demand urgent clarification from the US authorities regarding the grounds for Mr Hamdi’s detention”.

Al Jazeera was told that he remains in US custody and has not been deported.

“The detention of a British citizen for expressing political opinions sets a dangerous precedent that no democracy should tolerate,” the statement added.

Hamdi’s father, Mohamed El-Hachmi Hamdi, said in a post on X that his son “has no affiliation” with any political or religious group.

“His stance on Palestine is not aligned with any faction there, but rather with the people’s right to security, peace, freedom and dignity. He is, quite simply, one of the young dreamers of this generation, yearning for a world with more compassion, justice, and solidarity,” he added.

Earlier this morning, ICE agents abducted British Muslim journalist and political commentator Sami Hamdi at San Francisco Airport, apparently in response to his vocal criticism of the Israeli government during his ongoing speaking tour.

We can confirm that Mr. Hamdi has not been… https://t.co/dfcVGvz6UX

— CAIR National (@CAIRNational) October 26, 2025

‘Proud Islamophobe’

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin confirmed Hamdi’s detention on Sunday, claiming without evidence that he posed a national security threat. “This individual’s visa was revoked, and he is in ICE custody pending removal,” she wrote on X.

Hamdi has been outspoken in accusing US politicians of actively enabling Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and has been widely quoted, challenging Western governments directly over arms transfers and diplomatic cover for Israeli war crimes.

His detention comes amid a wider pattern of US authorities blocking entry to Palestinian and pro-Palestine voices.

In June, two Palestinian men, Awdah Hathaleen and his cousin, Eid Hathaleen, were denied entry at the same airport and deported to Qatar. Weeks later, Awdah was reportedly killed by an Israeli settler in the occupied West Bank.

Far-right activist and ally of US President Donald Trump, Laura Loomer, who has publicly described herself as a “proud Islamophobe” and “white advocate”, immediately celebrated online for playing a part in Hamdi’s detention.

“You’re lucky his only fate is being arrested and deported,” she wrote, falsely branding him “a supporter of HAMAS and the Muslim Brotherhood”.

Loomer has previously pushed conspiracy theories, including the claim that the September 11 attacks in the US were an inside job.

Loomer and others credited the escalation against Hamdi to the RAIR Foundation, a pro-Israel pressure network whose stated mission is to oppose “Islamic supremacy”. RAIR recently accused Hamdi of trying to “expand a foreign political network hostile to American interests” and urged authorities to expel him from the country.

On Sunday, Shaun Maguire, a partner at the tech investment firm Sequoia and a vocal defender of Israel, alleged without evidence that Hamdi had tried to get him fired through an AI-generated email campaign, claiming: “There are jihadists in America whose full time job is to silence us.”

Hamdi’s supporters and civil rights advocates say the opposite is true, and that this detention is yet another case of political retaliation against critics of Israel, enforced at the border level before a single public word is uttered.

CAIR says it intends to fight the deportation order, warning that the US is sending a chilling message to Muslim and Palestinian speakers across the country.

Israeli restrictions on the entry of heavy machinery are crippling Gaza City’s efforts to clear debris and rebuild critical infrastructure, the city’s mayor says, as tens of thousands of tonnes of unexploded Israeli bombs threaten lives across the Gaza Strip.

In a Sunday news conference, Mayor Yahya al-Sarraj said Gaza City requires at least 250 heavy vehicles and 1,000 tonnes of cement to maintain water networks and construct wells.

Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from az-Zawayda in Gaza, said only six trucks had entered the territory.

At least 9,000 Palestinians remain buried under the rubble. But the new equipment is being prioritised for recovering the remains of Israeli captives, rather than assisting Palestinians in locating their loved ones still trapped beneath rubble.

“Palestinians say they know there won’t be any developments in the ceasefire until the bodies of all the Israeli captives are returned,” Khoudary said.

Footage circulating on social media showed Red Cross vehicles arriving after meetings with Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, to guide them to the location of an Israeli captive in southern Rafah.

An Israeli government spokesperson said that to search for captives’ remains, the Red Cross and Egyptian teams have been permitted beyond the ceasefire’s “yellow line”, which allows Israel to retain control over 58 percent of the besieged enclave.

Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Amman, said Israel spent two weeks insisting that Hamas knew the locations of all the captives’ bodies.

“Two weeks into that, Israel has now allowed Egyptian teams and heavy machinery to enter the Gaza Strip to assist in the mammoth task of removing debris, of trying to get to the tunnels or underneath the homes or structures that the captives were held in and killed in,” she said.

Odeh added that Hamas had been unable to access a tunnel for two weeks due to the damage caused by Israeli bombing. “That change of policy is coming without explanation from Israel,” she said, noting that the Red Cross and Hamas have also been allowed to help locate potential burial sites under the rubble.

Netanyahu: ‘We control Gaza’

Meanwhile, on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to reassert political authority at home, saying that Israel controls which foreign forces may operate in Gaza.

“We control our own security, and we have made clear to international forces that Israel will decide which forces are unacceptable to us – and that is how we act and will continue to act,” he said. “This is, of course, accepted by the United States, as its most senior representatives expressed in recent days.”

Odeh explained that Netanyahu’s statements are intended to reassure the far-right base in Israel, which thinks he’s no longer calling the shots.

Those currently overseeing the ceasefire do not appear to be Israeli soldiers or army leadership, she explained, with Washington “requesting that Israel notify it ahead of time of any attack that Israel might be planning to conduct inside Gaza”.

Odeh noted that Israel’s insistence on controlling which foreign actors operate in Gaza – combined with the limited access for reconstruction – underscores a broader strategy to maintain political support at home.

Unexploded bombs a threat

Reconstruction in Gaza faces further obstacles from unexploded ordnance. Nicholas Torbet, Middle East director at HALO Trust in the United Kingdom, said Gaza is “essentially one giant city” where every part has been struck by explosives.

“Some munitions are designed to linger, but what we’re concerned about in Gaza is ordnance that is expected to explode upon impact but hasn’t,” he told Al Jazeera.

Torbet said clearing explosives is slowing the reconstruction process. His teams plan to work directly within communities to safely remove bombs rather than marking off large areas indefinitely. “The best way to dispose of a bomb is to use a small amount of explosives to blow it up,” he explained.

Torbet added that the necessary equipment is relatively simple and can be transported in small vehicles or by hand, and progress is beginning to take place.

The scale of explosives dropped by Israel has left Gaza littered with deadly remnants.

Mahmoud Basal, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defence, told Al Jazeera that Israel dropped at least 200,000 tonnes of explosives on the territory, with roughly 70,000 tonnes failing to detonate.

Children have been particularly affected, often mistaking bombs for toys. Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim al-Khalili reported the case of seven-year-old Yahya Shorbasi and his sister Nabila, who were playing outside when they found what appeared to be a toy.

“They found a regular children’s toy – just an ordinary one. The girl was holding it. Then the boy took it and started tapping it with a coin. Suddenly, we heard the sound of an explosion. It went off in their hands,” their mother Latifa Shorbasi told Al Jazeera.

Yahya’s right arm had to be amputated, while Nabila remains in intensive care.

Dr Harriet, an emergency doctor at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, described the situation as “a public health catastrophe waiting to unfold”. She said children are being injured by items that look harmless – toys, cans, or debris – but are actually live explosives.

United Nations Mine Action Service head Luke David Irving said 328 people have already been killed or injured by unexploded ordnance since October 2023.

Tens of thousands of tonnes of bombs, including landmines, mortar rounds, and large bombs capable of flattening concrete buildings, remain buried across Gaza. Basal said clearing the explosives could take years and require millions of dollars.

For Palestinians, the situation is a race against time. Al Jazeera’s Khoudary said civilians are pressing for faster progress: “They want reconstruction, they want freedom of movement, and they want to see and feel that the ceasefire is going to make it.”

United States President Donald Trump has said that an international stabilisation force will operate in Gaza soon.

But not long after, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel can veto which countries take part.

So what are the challenges in forming and maintaining such a force?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Tamer Qarmout – Associate professor of public policy at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies

Tahani Mustafa – Visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations

Mehmet Celik – Editorial co-ordinator at the Daily Sabah newspaper

NEW YORK — Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor, pledged Friday to further embrace his Muslim identity in response to growing attacks by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his surrogates that he characterized as “racist and baseless.”

Encircled by faith leaders outside a Bronx mosque, Mamdani spoke in emotional terms about the “indignities” long faced by the city’s Muslim population, choking back tears as he described his aunt’s decision not to ride the subway after the Sept. 11 attacks because she didn’t feel safe being seen in a religious head covering.

He recounted how, when he first entered politics, an uncle gently suggested he keep his faith to himself.

“These are lessons that so many Muslim New Yorkers have been taught,” Mamdani said. “And over these last few days, these lessons have become the closing messages of Andrew Cuomo, Curtis Sliwa and Eric Adams.”

At a news conference later Friday, Cuomo accused Mamdani of “playing the victim” for political purposes and denied that Islamophobia existed on a wide scale in New York.

Throughout the race, Mamdani, a democratic socialist, has been criticized by Cuomo and others over his criticism of Israel’s government, which he had accused of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

But the tone of those attacks have amped up in recent days, drawing allegations from some Democrats that Cuomo’s campaign is leaning into Islamophobia in the final stretch of the campaign.

Appearing on a conservative radio station Thursday, Cuomo appeared to laugh along at host Sid Rosenberg’s suggestion that Mamdani would “be cheering” another 9/11 attack. “That’s another problem,” Cuomo replied.

A Cuomo social media account posted, then removed, a video depicting Mamdani eating rice with his hands and describing his supporters as criminals. A campaign spokesperson said the video was posted in error.

At an event endorsing the former governor, Mayor Eric Adams invoked the possibility of terrorist attacks in New York City, seeming to suggest — without explanation — they would be more likely under a Mamdani administration.

“New York can’t be Europe. I don’t know what is wrong with people,” Adams said, standing alongside Cuomo. “You see what’s playing out in other countries because of Islamic extremism.”

At a debate earlier this week, Sliwa, the Republican nominee, falsely smeared Mamdani as a supporter of “global jihad.”

Asked about Rosenberg’s comments, Cuomo said he “didn’t take the remarks seriously at the time.”

“Of course I think it’s an offensive comment. But it did not come out of my mouth,” he added.

Messages left with Adams’ and Sliwa’s campaign were not immediately returned.

In his speech Friday, Mamdani said he was aiming his remarks not at political opponents but at his fellow Muslim New Yorkers.

“The dream of every Muslim is simply to be treated the same as any other New Yorker,” he said. “And yet for too long we have been told to ask for less than that, and to be satisfied with whatever little we receive.”

“No more,” he said.

To that end, Mamdani said he would further embrace his Muslim identity, a decision he said he consciously avoided at the start of his campaign.

“I thought that if I behaved well enough, or bit my tongue enough in the face of racist, baseless attacks, all while returning back to my central message, it would allow me to be more than just my faith,” Mamdani said. “I was wrong. No amount of redirection is ever enough.”

He continued: “I will not change who I am, how I eat, for the faith that I’m proud to call my own. But there is one thing that I will change. I will no longer look for myself in the shadows. I will find myself in the light.”

Mamdani, who won the primary in stunning fashion, has faced skepticism from some in the Democratic establishment, particularly over his criticism of Israel. On Friday, Mamdani earned the endorsement of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).

Cuomo told reporters that Mamdani’s criticism of Israel had made Jewish people afraid to leave their homes.

He also rejected Mamdani’s claim that Muslim New Yorkers have been made to feel uncomfortable in their own city.

“Don’t tell me New Yorkers are Islamophobic. They’re not,” Cuomo said.

“What he is doing is the oldest, dirtiest political trick in the book: divide people,” Cuomo said.

Offenhartz writes for the Associated Press.

The Israeli parliament has voted to annex the occupied West Bank – a move unlikely to become law but described as an “insult” by United States Vice President JD Vance.

President Donald Trump insists annexation won’t happen, but Israeli settler violence is escalating.

So are US-Israeli relations in upheaval?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Alon Pinkas – Former Israeli ambassador and Consul General in New York

Mark Pfeifle – Republican strategist and president of Off the Record Strategies

Gideon Levy – Columnist at Haaretz newspaper and author of “The Punishment of Gaza”

Footage shows Israeli protesters blocking aid trucks at the Kerem Shalom crossing. They say Hamas broke ceasefire terms. WHO warns deliveries remain only a “fraction of what’s needed” and estimates $7 billion to rebuild Gaza’s shattered health system.

NEW YORK — A few weeks before his stunning loss to Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic mayoral primary, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo put forth a political calculus long accepted as fact in New York: “Being a Democrat,” he said, “it’s synonymous that you support Israel.”

Mamdani, who would be the city’s first Muslim mayor, could be on the cusp of shattering that convention.

An unstinting supporter of Palestinian rights, the 34-year-old democratic socialist has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, backed the movement to boycott the country’s goods and pledged to have Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrested if he sets foot in New York.

In a city with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, where mayors have long been expected to make the long pilgrimage to the Jewish state, Mamdani identifies proudly as an “anti-Zionist.”

While he says he supports Israel’s right to exist, he describes any state or social hierarchy that favors Jews over others as incompatible with his belief in universal human rights.

City officials, Mamdani often points out, have no say in American foreign policy. And he has consistently and emphatically rejected claims that his criticism of Israel amounts to antisemitism, promising to work closely with those whom he doesn’t agree with if elected.

But as Cuomo and others have framed the race as a referendum on Israel, political observers say a Mamdani victory could reverberate far beyond New York, offering permission for Democrats to speak out on an issue long seen as a third rail of politics.

“This race is a proxy for where the party goes from here in terms of support for Israel — and that’s causing a lot of consternation,” said Basil Smikle, a former chief executive of the state’s Democratic Party. “We’re treading in territory that we’ve not really dealt with before.”

The ‘most important’ issue in the race

From the beginning, Cuomo has staked much of his political comeback on painting himself as a defender of Jewish security, both in New York and the Middle East.

Shortly before launching his campaign, he announced that he had joined Netanyahu’s legal defense team to defend the prime minister against war crimes charges brought by the International Criminal Court. He cast antisemitism as the “most important” issue facing the city and himself as a “hyper aggressive supporter of Israel.”

Mamdani’s own views, he said, presented an “existential” threat to New Yorkers.

Other candidates quickly rushed to burnish their own pro-Israel credentials, including Mayor Eric Adams, who announced he would run on an “EndAntisemitism” ballot line.

As they competed for support among Brooklyn’s prominent rabbis and other Jewish voters, each equated protests for Palestinian rights with support for terrorism and backed a contentious definition of antisemitism that includes certain criticism of Israel.

Days before dropping out last month, Adams shared a smiling photo with Netanyahu.

The strategy appeared willfully ignorant of polls showing growing public disapproval in the U.S. of Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza, according to Alyssa Cass, a longtime Democratic strategist.

She said a handful of deep-pocketed campaign donors and some city news outlets “created an impression that you could not ever question Israel, and that impression was completely divorced from reality.”

“The unique dynamics in New York were masking a broader, larger migration in public opinion that had been brewing for some time,” Cass added. “They didn’t realize that the ground beneath them had shifted.”

Shifting political winds

Still, with less than two weeks to go before the election, Cuomo has only leaned into the issue, claiming at Wednesday’s debate that Mamdani had “stoked the flames of hatred against the Jewish people.”

The broadsides have won support from the Anti-Defamation League and pro-Israel donors, like the hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman. But there is little indication that the strategy is working among ordinary New Yorkers.

In a Quinnipiac University poll conducted in early October, 41% of likely voters in New York City said Mamdani’s views on Israel aligned closest with their own, compared to 26% for Cuomo.

A Fox News poll conducted in mid-October found that 50% of registered voters in New York said they identified more with the Palestinians in the Middle East conflict, compared to 44% who identified more with the Israelis.

Those numbers have alarmed some Jewish leaders, who have laid at least some of the blame at Mamdani’s feet. In an open letter circulated this week, 650 rabbis warned that his candidacy has contributed to “rising anti-Zionism and its political normalization.”

Amy Spitalnick, the chief executive of the Jewish Council on Public Affairs, cautioned against drawing a direct link between Mamdani’s popularity and his pro-Palestinian stance.

She noted that most Jewish voters remain strong supporters of Israel, lamenting the fact that neither Mamdani nor Cuomo had articulated “the liberal nuanced perspective that most New York Jews hold.”

“Mamdani’s views on Israel matter, but it’s not the issue on which the majority of New Yorkers are voting,” she added. “If he wins, it’s because he ran a compelling campaign on making this city more affordable.”

Weaponization and authenticity

In debates and interviews, where Mamdani often faces a barrage of questions about his views on the Israel-Hamas war, he is quick to shift the focus to his platform, which includes freezing the rent for regulated apartments, making buses free and lowering the cost of child care.

“I have denounced Hamas again and again,” an exasperated Mamdani said during a debate last week. “It will never be enough for Andrew Cuomo.”

At Wednesday’s debate, Mamdani again spoke of his proposal to increase funding for hate crime prevention and his recent outreach to Jewish voters about their fears of antisemitism.

“They deserve a leader who takes it seriously, who roots it out of these five boroughs, not one who weaponizes it as a means by which to score political points on a debate stage,” he added.

But despite months of vitriolic backlash, Mamdani has stood firm on his core criticism of Israel. In his statement marking the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, he condemned both Hamas’ “horrific war crimes” and Israel’s occupation, apartheid and “genocidal war” in Gaza.

Whether or not those views are shared by the broader electorate, the consistency of the message has served as “proxy for authenticity” in the minds of voters, according to Peter Feld, a progressive political consultant.

And it has offered a sharp contrast with not only Cuomo, but other pro-Israel Democrats in New York, including Sen. Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Both have spent weeks rebuffing questions about whether they will endorse Mamdani, indicating they were still meeting and speaking with the Democratic nominee.

“The allies divided up Europe in fewer meetings,” scoffed Cass. “At this point, they’re ignoring the majoritarian view of their voters, and there’s no way around that.”

In recent weeks, Feld said he had spoken to several potential candidates weighing primary challenges to other pro-Israel Democratic incumbents.

“Mamdani changed how candidates and donors think about what is politically possible,” Feld said. “We’ve seen that siding with Palestine over Israel doesn’t make you radioactive. It shows voters that you’ll stick to your principles.”

Offenhartz writes for the Associated Press.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated the importance of the fragile Gaza ceasefire agreement while meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in West Jerusalem Thursday.

The body of a Thai farm worker killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack was returned home to Thailand. Sonthaya Oakkharasri’s body had been held in the Gaza Strip. Thai officials say 45 nationals have died in the conflict — the highest foreign toll among Israel’s foreign workers.

JERUSALEM — Vice President JD Vance criticized on Thursday a vote in Israel’s parliament the previous day about the annexation of the occupied West Bank, saying it amounted to an “insult” and went against the Trump administration policies.

Hard-liners in the Israeli parliament had narrowly passed a symbolic preliminary vote in support of annexing the West Bank — an apparent attempt to embarrass Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while Vance was still in the country.

The bill, which required only a simple majority of lawmakers present in the house on Wednesday, passed with a 25-24 vote. But it was unlikely to pass multiple rounds of voting to become law or win a majority in the 120-seat parliament. Netanyahu, who is opposed to it, also has tools to delay or defeat it.

On the tarmac of Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport before departing Israel, Vance said that if the Knesset’s vote was a “political stunt, then it is a very stupid political stunt.”

“I personally take some insult to it,” Vance said. “The policy of the Trump administration is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel.”

Netanyahu is struggling to stave off early elections as cracks between factions in the right-wing parties, some of whom were upset over the ceasefire and the security sacrifices it required of Israel, grow more apparent.

While many members of Netanyahu’s coalition, including the Likud, support annexation, they have backed off those calls since U.S. President Trump said last month that he opposes such a move. The United Arab Emirates, a key U.S. and Israeli ally in the push to peace in Gaza, has said any annexation by Israel would be a “red line.”

The Palestinians seek the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, for a future independent state. Israeli annexation of the West Bank would all but bury hopes for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians — the outcome supported by most of the world.

Gaza’s reconstruction and Palestinians’ return

Vance also unveiled new details about U.S. plans for Gaza, saying he expected reconstruction to begin soon in some “Hamas-free” areas of the territory but warning that rebuilding territory after a devastating two-year war could take years.

“The hope is to rebuild Rafah over the next two to three years and theoretically you could have half a million people live (there),” he said.

The war caused widespread destruction across the coastal Palestinian enclave. The United Nations in July estimated that the war generated some 61 million tons of debris in Gaza. The World Bank, the U.N. and the European Union estimated earlier this year that it would cost about $53 billion to rebuild.

The Israel-Hamas war has killed at least 68,280 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. The ministry maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. Israel has disputed them without providing its own toll.

Intense U.S. push toward peace

Earlier this week, Vance announced the opening of a civilian military coordination center in southern Israel where some 200 U.S. troops are working alongside the Israeli military and delegations from other countries planning the stabilization and reconstruction of Gaza.

The U.S. is seeking support from other allies, especially Gulf Arab nations, to create an international stabilization force to be deployed to Gaza and train a Palestinian force.

“We’d like to see Palestinian police forces in Gaza that are not Hamas and that are going to do a good job, but those still have to be trained and equipped,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said ahead of his trip to Israel.

Rubio, who is to meet with Netanyahu later on Thursday, also criticized Israeli far-right lawmakers’ effort to push for the annexation of the West Bank.

Israeli media referred to the nonstop parade of American officials visiting to ensure Israel holds up its side of the fragile ceasefire as “Bibi-sitting.” The term, utilizing Netanyahu’s nickname of Bibi, refers to an old campaign ad when Netanyahu positioned himself as the “Bibi-sitter” whom voters could trust with their kids.

In Gaza, a dire need for medical care

In the first medical evacuation since the ceasefire began on Oct. 10, the head of the World Health Organization said Thursday the group has evacuated 41 critical patients and 145 companions out of the Gaza Strip.

In a statement posted to X, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on nations to show solidarity and help some 15,000 patients who are still waiting for approval to receive medical care outside Gaza.

His calls were echoed by an official with the U.N. Population Fund who on Wednesday described the “sheer devastation” that he witnessed on his most recent travel to Gaza, saying that there is no such thing as a “normal birth in Gaza now.”

Andrew Saberton, an executive director at UNFPA, told reporters how difficult the agency’s work has become due to the lack of functioning or even standing health care facilities.

“The sheer extent of the devastation looked like the set of a dystopian film. Unfortunately, it is not fiction,” he said.

Court hearing on journalists’ access to Gaza

Separately on Thursday, Israel’s Supreme Court held a hearing into whether to open the Gaza Strip to the international media and gave the state 30 days to present a new position in light of the new situation under the ceasefire.

Israel has blocked reporters from entering Gaza since the war erupted with the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct 7, 2023.

The Foreign Press Association, which represents dozens of international news organizations including The Associated Press, had asked the court to order the government to open the border.

In a statement after Thursday’s decision, the FPA expressed its “disappointment” and called the Israeli government’s position to deny journalists access “unacceptable.”

The court rejected a request from the FPA early in the war, due to objections by the government on security grounds. The group filed a second request for access in September 2024. The government has repeatedly delayed the case.

Palestinian journalists have covered the two-year war for international media. But like all Palestinians, they have been subject to tough restrictions on movement and shortages of food, repeatedly displaced and operated under great danger. Some 200 Palestinian journalists have been killed by Israeli fire, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“It is time for Israel to lift the closure and let us do our work alongside our Palestinian colleagues,” said Tania Kraemer, chairperson of the FPA.

Brito and Lee write for the Associated Press. Lee reported from Washington. AP writers Josef Federman in Jerusalem, Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut and Farnoush Amiri in New York contributed to this report.