IsraelPalestine

Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani has said that there must be a “collective response” to Israel’s attack on the Qatari capital Doha, as Arab leaders rushed to the tiny Gulf nation to express solidarity.

“There is a response that will happen from the region. This response is currently under consultation and discussion with other partners in the region,” he told US media outlet CNN on Wednesday, adding that “the entire Gulf region is at risk”.

“We are hoping for something meaningful that deters Israel from continuing this bullying,” Sheikh Mohammed added, accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of leading the region into “chaos”.

“We understand some sort of regional meeting will be held here in Qatar. We know that the countries have pulled together their own legal team. They are looking at all legal avenues to have Netanyahu tried for breaking international law,” Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford said.

“So yeah, the pressure is definitely mounting on Israel, not only from Qatar, but obviously on a regional and a wider international level. And that’s what I think he’s obviously trying to do in giving these very forceful statements to the US network, CNN.”

The Israeli military targeted Hamas leaders in Doha on Tuesday as they were meeting to discuss the latest Gaza ceasefire proposal put forth by US President Donald Trump. At least seven people were killed in the attack, but Hamas said its leadership survived the assassination bid. Qatar says two of its security officers were killed in the attack that has drawn global condemnation.

On Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron condemned Israel’s attack in a phone call with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. “These strikes are unacceptable. I condemn them. I reaffirmed France’s commitment to the sovereignty and security of Qatar,” he posted on X.

The attack was part of a wider wave of Israeli strikes extending beyond its immediate borders, and marked the sixth country attacked in just 72 hours and the seventh since the start of this year. On Wednesday, Israel killed 35 people in an attack on Yemen.

The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said on Wednesday that Israel’s strike on Qatar is a warning to oil-rich Gulf countries that they would not be spared in the future if armed groups in the region are defeated.

“We are on the side of Qatar that was subjected to an aggression and we also stand with the Palestinian resistance,” Naim Kassem said. He added that the Israeli strike is part of its attempts to create a “Greater Israel” in large parts of the Middle East.

The “Greater Israel” concept supported by ultranationalist Israelis is understood to refer to an expansionist vision that lays claim to the occupied West Bank, Gaza, parts of Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Jordan.

Israel has been accused of committing genocide in Gaza by numerous rights groups, but that has not stopped it from its brutal campaign of bombardment. On Wednesday, Israeli attacks across Gaza killed at least 72 people, taking the total number of Palestinians killed since October 2023 to more than 64,656. Israel has intensified its assault to capture Gaza City – home to more than one million Palestinians.

Sheikh Mohammed, the Qatari prime minister, also said that the Israeli strike was aimed at undermining “any chance of peace” in Gaza.

“Everything about the meeting is very well known to the Israelis and the Americans. It’s not something that we are hiding,” he said of the presence of Hamas officials in Qatar.

“I think that what [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu did yesterday – he just killed any hope for those [Israeli] hostages,” Sheikh Mohammed said about the 20 captives believed to be still alive in Gaza.

Netanyahu appears unfazed

However, Netanyahu appears unfazed by the criticism from global leaders, including the UN secretary-general.

On Wednesday, the Israeli prime minister threatened further attacks on Qatar. “I say to Qatar and all nations who harbour terrorists, you either expel them or you bring them to justice. Because if you don’t, we will,” Netanyahu said.

Qatar has condemned Netanyahu’s “reckless” comments regarding Qatar’s hosting of the Hamas office. “Netanyahu is fully aware that the hosting of the Hamas office took place within the framework of Qatar’s mediation efforts requested by the United States and Israel,” the foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

It also called out “the shameful attempt therein to justify the cowardly attack that targeted Qatari territory, as well as the explicit threats of future violations of state sovereignty”.

Netanyahu’s threats came despite the US President Donald Trump on Tuesday saying no further attacks would happen on Qatari soil.

The attack on Tuesday was the first such attack by Israel on Qatar, which has been a key mediator in ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas and hosts the region’s largest United States military base, Al Udeid airbase, which hosts US troops.

The Qatari prime minister, who is also the foreign minister of the Gulf nation, has dubbed Israel’s targeting of Hamas leaders in Doha on Tuesday “state terrorism”.

“I have no words to express how enraged we are from such an action … we are betrayed,” he said in the interview with the cable network.

Netanyahu “needs to be brought to justice. He’s the one who’s wanted at the International Criminal Court. He broke every international law,” Sheikh Mohammed said, referring to the arrest warrant against the Israeli prime minister for war crimes.

Arab states express solidarity with Qatar

Meanwhile, Gulf leaders have visited Doha to rally around Qatar, with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan calling the Israeli action “criminal” and a threat to regional stability.

In a meeting on Wednesday with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in Doha, Sheikh Al Nahyan reaffirmed his country’s “resolute solidarity with Qatar and its steadfast support for all measures taken to safeguard its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the safety of its people”, according to the UAE state media outlet WAM.

“He [Sheikh Al Nahyan] stressed that the criminal attack constituted a violation of Qatar’s sovereignty and of all international laws and norms, warning that such actions threaten the region’s security, stability, and prospects for peace,” WAM added.

The crown princes of Kuwait and Jordan also travelled to Doha on Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MBS, will arrive in Doha on Thursday.

“We will stand with the State of Qatar in all measures it takes, without limits, and we will harness all our capabilities for that,” Prince Mohammed said in an address to the Shura Council on Wednesday.

“We reject and condemn the attacks of the Israeli occupation in the region, the latest of which was the brutal aggression against the State of Qatar,” the crown prince added.

“This requires Arab, Islamic, and international action to confront this aggression and to take international measures to stop the occupation authority and deter it from its criminal practices aimed at destabilising the region’s security and stability.”

In a brief interview with reporters on Tuesday, US President Donald Trump said he was “not thrilled” about Israel’s strike.

“This was a decision made by [Israeli] Prime Minister Netanyahu, it was not a decision made by me,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Still, it remains unclear whether the Trump administration had been caught off guard, whether the US had indicated even tacit approval for such a strike, or if the attack could represent a rupture in Washington’s “ironclad” support for Israel.

Independent Middle East Analyst Adam Shapiro said if the US was not made aware of the attack, it was not “something new”.

“I think this is just simply the way Israel continually acts as the tail wagging the US dog, doing what it wishes, when it wishes, and getting what it wants, according to a double standard,” he told Al Jazeera.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Israeli military targeted Hamas leaders in Doha, drawing near universal condemnation and, according to analysts, crossing all previous red lines.

The attack reportedly targeted Khalil al-Hayya, the group’s exiled Gaza leader and main negotiator, who has risen up the ranks after Israel assassinated Yahya Sinwar in Gaza and Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last year. Qatar has hosted Hamas’s political office since 2012 at the request of the United States, according to Qatari officials.

The attack came as Doha, which hosts the US’s largest military base in the region, hosted ongoing ceasefire talks to try and end Israel’s war on Gaza, which has now killed more than 64,600 people and wounded more than 163,000 since October 2023.

Immediately after Israel’s attack, a wave of conflicting information and speculation emerged, particularly over whether or not the US had been informed of the attack.

How was the attack planned, who knew about it, and why did it happen now?

What do we know?

Israel admitted to the attack almost immediately.

“Israel initiated it, Israel conducted it, and Israel takes full responsibility,” a statement by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

Israeli media claimed the operation included the use of 15 Israeli fighter jets that dropped 10 bombs. It also included the use of drones.

The attack targeted Hamas leadership, who were meeting to discuss US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire proposal, but they survived. However, six others, including a Qatari security officer, were killed.

Qatar’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani called the assault “state terrorism”, promising to respond to the strikes, which he said “must not be overlooked”.

How long had it been planned for?

Israeli media claims the operation, which was labelled “Summit of Fire”, took “months of preparation”.

Israeli officials also told CNN that the decision to attack Doha was taken a while ago, while planning took place over two to three months, accelerating in recent weeks.

During the actual attack, Netanyahu was stationed in the Shin Bet domestic intelligence headquarters.

Until now, Qatar has been the base for negotiations between Hamas and Israel. Due to that fact and the presence of a US military base in Doha, many believed it to be off limits to Israeli attacks.

But that veil of safety seems to have been part of Israel’s plan, defence analyst Hamze Attar said.

“Israel [has been] incubating that Doha is a safe zone for Hamas leadership to gather,” Attar, who is based in Luxembourg, told Al Jazeera. “This is not an operation that happens in a day or two. This is something you create for many years in order to create a safe haven for someone so they keep going there and [eventually] eliminate them in a way they do not expect.”

Whose airspace did Israel use to travel to Qatar?

It’s not entirely clear.

When Israel attacked Iran earlier in the year, its planes used Syrian and Iraqi airspace, since neither country has the capacity to shoot down Israeli planes.

Jordan, which does have air defence systems, claimed Israel did not use its airspace for the attack.

Why did Israel attack now?

While the operation had been planned for months, Netanyahu said it was a response to a shooting in occupied East Jerusalem that killed six people on Monday.

But some analysts doubt Netanyahu’s explanation.

Right before the attack, Trump was ramping up his calls for a ceasefire. Netanyahu, however, may not be interested in a deal.

“I think the bottom line here is that Israel clearly is not interested in any kind of ceasefire or negotiations for a ceasefire, that the reports about Trump’s proposal negotiating with Hamas, whatever this revised new offer was, was all a ruse and theatre and clearly a coordinated Israel-US attack in Doha,” Mairav Zonszein, the International Crisis Group’s senior analyst on Israel, told Al Jazeera.

Other patterns have also emerged that cast doubt on Netanyahu’s explanation.

For months, Israel’s premier has also launched military attacks that coincide with demands that he appear in court. Netanyahu is currently on trial over corruption charges.

And on Wednesday, Netanyahu returned to court to testify in his corruption trial. Footage showed Netanyahu entering the courtroom in Tel Aviv as proceedings in the trial resumed for the first time in more than a month.

The attack also came amid Israeli demands that Palestinians leave Gaza City in the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands are taking refuge from Israel’s war on Gaza. Many Palestinians have been displaced multiple times and can no longer afford to evacuate, which could lead to many more civilian casualties amid already growing international pressure over what scholars and human rights groups are calling Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, where famine has been declared.

Did the US know about the attack?

The White House, including Trump himself, said the US government was informed about the attack, but did not give many details.

“The Trump administration was notified by the United States military that Israel was attacking Hamas, which, very unfortunately, was located in a section of Doha, the capital of Qatar,” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

Leavitt said that Trump told US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff to “inform the Qataris of an impending attack”.

With the US Al Udeid airbase in Qatar, analysts said it would be difficult for Israel to pull off such an attack without being detected by the Americans.

Still, despite the advanced knowledge, the US expressed discontent over Israel’s actions.

Trump said he was “not thrilled” by the attack when interviewed by reporters.

“This was a decision made by [Israeli] Prime Minister Netanyahu, it was not a decision made by me,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

This sentiment was bolstered by Leavitt, who told reporters during a press conference: “Unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a sovereign nation and close ally of the United States that is working very hard and bravely taking risks with us to broker peace, does not advance Israel or America’s goals. However, eliminating Hamas, who have profited off the misery of those living in Gaza, is a worthy goal.”

Was Qatar informed?

Qatari officials said that by the time they were informed of the preplanned attack, explosions were already ringing out across Doha.

Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani said the call from the US came 10 minutes after the attack had already begun.

Furthermore, Majed al-Ansari, a spokesperson for Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said claims that the government had been “pre-informed of the attack are completely false”.

“The call that was received from an American official came during the sound of the explosions that resulted from the Israeli attack in Doha,” al-Ansari wrote in a statement on X.

Israel’s attack that killed six in Doha draws criticism from across the world as Israeli troops continue to bombard Gaza.

Israel’s military described its attack on a residential complex in central Doha, Qatar, as a “precise” attack.

In an official statement on Tuesday, the Palestinian movement Hamas said the attack killed five of its members, and a Qatari officer, but did not eliminate its negotiating delegation or any of its senior leadership.

Here is what we know about the victims, and the senior leaders who were targeted – but who appear to have survived the attack:

Who is Khalil al-Hayya?

Reports say the strike targeted senior Hamas figures, including Khalil al-Hayya, the group’s exiled Gaza leader and main negotiator.

Al-Hayya rose in importance after the killings of top Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Yahya Sinwar in Gaza, and military commander Mohammed Deif last year. Sinwar, who had taken charge in Gaza after Haniyeh’s death, was killed later in 2024.

With those losses, al-Hayya is now one of five leaders steering Hamas’s leadership council.

The leadership council refers to the temporary, five-member ruling committee that was formed in late 2024 to govern the group during the war.

Born in the Gaza Strip in 1960, al-Hayya has been part of Hamas since it was set up in 1987, but he became especially important on the diplomatic front, based mainly in Qatar, which became the main hub for mediation with other countries, including Israel, Egypt, and the United States.

Operating outside Gaza allowed him to travel and coordinate between neighbouring countries without the constraints of the Israeli blockade on Gaza. Al-Hayya has also led Hamas’s delegations in mediated talks with Israel to try to secure a Gaza ceasefire deal.

Al-Hayya’s own family have suffered as a result of Israeli attacks: During the 2014 war, an Israeli strike destroyed the house of his eldest son, Osama, killing him, his wife, and three of their children, and during Tuesday’s attack, his son, Humam, was also killed.

But he stressed that the loss of any lives is tragic. “The blood of the leadership of the movement is like the blood of any Palestinian child,” he told Al Jazeera.

Who else is believed to be targeted and who was killed during the attack?

Zaher Jabarin is believed to also have been a target of Israel’s attack. He currently serves as the movement’s chief financial administrator.

Earlier in 1993, Israel arrested Jabarin and sentenced him to life imprisonment. He spent almost two decades in prison before being released in 2011 as part of a prisoner exchange.

Following his release, Jabarin rose quickly through Hamas ranks. He became head of the group’s financial bureau, managing and overseeing an extensive investment and funding network. He currently also heads Hamas in the occupied West Bank, and he is one of the five members of the leadership council.

The leaders assassinated during Israel’s attack in Qatar also include:

• Jihad Labad – director of al-Hayya’s office
• Humam al-Hayya – al-Hayya’s son
• Abdullah Abdul Wahid – bodyguard
• Moamen Hassouna – bodyguard
• Ahmed al-Mamluk – bodyguard

The sixth person killed, according to Qatar, was Corporal Bader Saad Mohammed al-Humaidi al-Dosari, a member of the Internal Security Force (Lekhwiya).

Who are the current leaders of Hamas?

With many of Hamas’s leadership killed since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023, the group formed a five-man leadership council – which includes al-Hayya and Jabarin – and also has a senior military figure in Gaza itself.

Izz al-Din al-Haddad

Al-Haddad became the most senior Hamas military leader in the Gaza Strip after Sinwar’s death. Israel considers him one of the masterminds behind October 7 and has placed him on its most-wanted list. He is not a member of the five-man leadership council.

Khaled Meshaal

Khaled Meshaal, 68, has been a senior political leader of Hamas, a Palestinian resistance movement, since the 1990s. He became known when Israeli agents attempted to inject a slow-acting lethal chemical into his ear on a public street in Jordan, but the operation was botched, and the men were soon arrested. He is now based in Qatar, serving on the leadership council.

“It is true that in reality, there will be an entity or a state called Israel on the rest of Palestinian land,” Meshaal has said. “But I won’t deal with it in terms of recognising or admitting it.”

Mohammad Darwish

He is also based in Qatar, and is the nominal head of Hamas’s leadership council. According to reports, in early 2025, he met Turkiye’s President Erdogan and publicly endorsed the idea of a technocratic or national unity government for post-war Gaza.

Nizar Awadallah

Awadallah is a long-time Hamas leader. He is seen as one of Hamas’s original members and has held several important positions, including in its armed wing. Since the October 7 attacks, he has not spoken publicly or appeared in the media.

As the world’s attention was focused on Israel’s attack on Hamas leaders in Doha, Israeli forces continued their unrelenting bombardment of Gaza, killing more than 50 people on Tuesday.

Among the dead are nine Palestinians, who had gathered in the enclave’s south seeking aid. Israel pressed on with its offensive in Gaza City after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened Palestinians to flee to the south for their lives.

The Wafa news agency reported that a drone strike on a makeshift tent sheltering displaced families at Gaza’s port killed two civilians and injured others. Warplanes also hit several residential buildings, including four homes in the al-Mukhabarat area and the Zidan building northwest of Gaza City, it reported.

Another house was reportedly bombed in the Talbani neighbourhood of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, while two young men were killed in an attack on civilians in the az-Zarqa area of Tuffah, northeast of Gaza City.

Al Jazeera’s Sanad fact-checking agency confirmed footage showing an Israeli strike on the Ibn Taymiyyah mosque in Deir el-Balah. The video captured a flash of light before the mosque’s minaret was enveloped in smoke. Despite the blast, the minaret appeared to remain standing.

Israel issued new evacuation threats on Monday, releasing maps warning Palestinians to leave a highlighted building and nearby tents on Jamal Abdel Nasser Street in Gaza City or face death. It told residents to move to the so-called “humanitarian area” in al-Mawasi, a barren stretch of coast in southern Gaza.

But al-Mawasi itself has been repeatedly bombed, despite Israel insisting it is a safe zone. At the start of the year, about 115,000 people lived there. Today, aid agencies estimate that more than 800,000 people – nearly a third of Gaza’s population – are crammed into overcrowded makeshift camps.

Philippe Lazzarini, the chief of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, described al-Mawasi as a vast camp “concentrating hungry Palestinians in despair”.

“There is no safe place in Gaza, let alone a humanitarian zone. Warnings of famine have fallen on deaf ears,” he said.

The Palestinian Civil Defence warned that “Gaza City is burning, and humanity is being annihilated”.

The rescue agency said that in just 72 hours, five high-rise towers containing more than 200 apartments were destroyed, leaving thousands of people homeless.

More than 350 tents sheltering displaced families were also flattened, it added, forcing nearly 7,600 people to sleep in the open, “struggling against death, hunger, and unbearable heat”.

More than 64,000 Palestinians have been killed, some 20,000 of them children, in the Israeli offensive, which has been dubbed a genocide by numerous scholars and activists. The International Criminal Court has also issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for alleged war crimes.

‘The crime of forced displacement’

The Government Media Office in Gaza said that more than 1.3 million people remain in Gaza City and surrounding areas, despite Israeli attempts to push them south. It described the evacuation orders as an effort to carry out “the crime of forced displacement in violation of all international laws”.

More than 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced multiple times in 23 months of genocidal war, and an Israeli curb on aid entry, including food items, has led to starvation deaths. Last month, a UN agency declared famine in Gaza, affecting half a million people.

On Tuesday morning, Palestinians in central Gaza staged a protest against the latest evacuation orders.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said that demonstrators carried banners reading, “We will not leave”, and “Not going out”.

“The primary goal of the [Israeli] occupation is displacement,” said Bajees al-Khalidi, a displaced Palestinian at the protest. “But there’s no place left, not in the south, nor the north. We’ve become completely trapped.”

Violence also flared in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces killed two teenagers in the Jenin refugee camp, according to the Wafa news agency.

Mourners on Tuesday buried 14-year-old Islam Noah, who was shot while attempting to enter the besieged refugee camp. A funeral was also held for another 14-year-old, Muhammad Alawneh. Two others were wounded in the same incident.

Israel targets Hamas leaders

Israel sent missiles at Doha as Hamas leaders were meeting in the Qatari capital for talks on the latest ceasefire proposal from the United States to end the war in Gaza. Hamas said five people were killed, while Qatar said a security official was also among the dead. Hamas said its leadership survived the assassination attempt.

Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani condemned Israel’s “reckless criminal attack” in a phone call with US President Donald Trump. Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani called the attack “state terrorism”.

The Qatari prime minister said Doha would continue to work to end Israel’s war on Gaza, but raised doubts about the viability of the most recent talks. “When it comes to the current talks, I don’t think there is something valid right now after we’ve seen such an attack,” he said.

Qatar has sent a letter to the UN Security Council, condemning what it calls a cowardly Israeli assault on residential buildings in Doha.

The Doha attack has drawn global condemnation, with the UN chief calling it a “flagrant violation” of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Qatar.

The White House claimed that the US had warned Qatar of the impending strike, but Doha rejected that account, insisting the warning came only after the bombing had begun.

Trump later said he felt “very badly about the location of the attack” and that he had assured Qatar that it would not happen again.

“This was a decision made by Prime Minister Netanyahu, it was not a decision made by me,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a Sovereign Nation and close Ally of the United States, that is working very hard and bravely taking risks with us to broker Peace, does not advance Israel or America’s goals.”

Israel had no intention of covering up its involvement in Tuesday’s attack on Doha – within minutes of the explosions being heard in the Qatari capital, Israeli officials were claiming responsibility in the media.

And not long after, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly took responsibility for the attack on several Hamas leaders.

“Israel initiated it, Israel conducted it, and Israel takes full responsibility,” the statement said.

The attack marks yet another escalation by Israel – the latest in a series that has included launching a war against Iran, occupying more land in Syria, killing the leadership of the Lebanese group Hezbollah, and the killing of more than 64,500 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since its war there began.

But this attack marks a new frontier in what Israel believes it can get away with: a direct attack on a United States ally – Qatar hosts the largest US military base in the region – that has been leading negotiations to secure a ceasefire deal and release Israeli captives from Gaza.

“We’ve seen that Israel fires in crowded and residential areas and in capitals across the Middle East as it pleases,” Mairav Zonszein, the International Crisis Group’s Senior Israel Analyst, told Al Jazeera. “And it continues to do so, and will continue to do so, [if no one] takes serious action to stop it.”

The attack took many by surprise because it went beyond what Palestinian defence analyst Hamze Attar called, “traditional Mossad [Israeli intelligence] work”, such as assassinations through car bombs, poison, or gun or sniper attacks.

“I don’t think … the Qataris expected that Israel would bomb Doha,” he said.

Cinzia Bianco, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that Israel’s previous attacks around the world meant “the Qataris knew that they were not completely off limits, but obviously no one anticipated a direct attack, and just the defiance and unhinged recklessness of it surprised, I would say, everyone”.

Israel has so far received little pushback for its actions from the US – both under current President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden. In the first comments from the White House on the attack, a statement from Trump said that while the US had been informed of the attack, Israel had carried out the attack unilaterally. The statement added that the attack did not advance Israeli or American goals, but that hitting Hamas was a “worthy goal”.

“I don’t think, analytically speaking, that Israel would carry out any such attack without an American green light,” said Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara. “If America indeed did not give a green light, we should be hearing a condemnation coming any minute … The Trump administration needs to condemn this behaviour by its client, Israel, while [ceasefire] negotiations are going on.”

End of ceasefire negotiations?

Those ceasefire negotiations are discussing a deal that Trump has pushed for himself, but with the caveat that the US president has taken to issuing his own threats towards Hamas and Gaza should a deal not be reached.

That has implied that the Palestinian group has been the main barrier to a deal – but, in reality, Hamas has agreed to past ceasefire proposals, only to find Israel rejects deals it has previously agreed to, or changes the parameters of the negotiations.

The Trump administration previously pushed for a deal that would include the partial release of Israeli captives and a temporary pause in the fighting during which negotiations for a permanent end to the war would continue.

But Israel rejected that after initially supporting it, and the current deal being proposed calls for Hamas to release all captives, but only gets a temporary pause in the fighting in return.

Coupled with Israel’s ongoing military operation in Gaza City, where it has demanded all Palestinians leave, and its insistence that Hamas be destroyed, it looks likely that Israel plans to continue its war, whatever the outcome of the negotiations.

“I think the bottom line here is that Israel clearly is not interested in any kind of ceasefire, or negotiations for a ceasefire, [and] that the reports about Trump’s proposal of negotiating with Hamas, whatever this revised new offer was, was all a ruse and theatre,” said Zonszein.

“And of course, there’s no expectation that taking out [Hamas’s] political leadership in Doha is going to be some kind of strategic game changer in Israel’s war on Gaza,” she added.

Other analysts agreed with that perspective.

“Israel has taken its contempt for negotiations, and for international law and respect for [the] sovereignty of states to a new level of transparency,” said Daniel Levy, president of the US/Middle East Project and a former Israeli negotiator in the 1990s and early 2000s. “We should have long since been past the point where there was any doubt from any fair-minded person as to whether Israel is negotiating in good faith.”

Qatar reaction

Qatar has long had a role as a regional and international mediator, keeping good relations with both the United States and Iran, for example.

While it does not have relations with Israel, Qatar has hosted Israeli negotiators for ceasefire talks since the start of the war in October 2023, and has previously coordinated with Israel over providing aid to Gaza before the war.

“Qatar is one of the countries that is trying the hardest to calm the situation in Gaza and bring both parties out of the current war … but Israel has not recognised these efforts,” said Abdullah al-Imadi, a writer and journalist based in Doha.

But Qatar has begun to be dragged into the regional violence, with an attack from Iran on the US base at Al Udeid in June – which Iran emphasised was not directed at Qatar – and now the Israeli attack in Doha.

Al-Imadi believes that Qatar will attempt to “draw more international attention to the Israeli regime’s violations of all international laws and conventions” at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in a few days.

Qatar will seek “to mobilise international public opinion to pressure Israel to submit and respect the sovereignty of states”, said al-Imadi.

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a Middle East fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, said that he expected officials from Qatar and the wider Gulf Cooperation Council would be “reaching out to their US counterparts to assess reports that the administration greenlit this attack”.

“If accurate, [that] strikes at the very heart of the US-Gulf states security and defence partnership in ways that Iran’s strike on Qatar in June did not,” said Ulrichsen.

Analysts added that regional states needed to come together to push back against Israel.

“Hosting US bases and US military forces was an effective form of deterrence, [but that has] now evaporated,” Bianco said. “The GCC response may be a realisation that the US security guarantees are no longer as valuable as they have been thought to be for so long.”

“No one is actually safe, and nothing is really off the table,” Bianco said. “So of course, it has implications also for Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and so on and so forth.”

“Every state in the region should have an interest in ending this impunity because the Israeli Air Force and its bombs are coming to your neighbourhood if you don’t come together to put a stop to this,” said Levy.

“The question should be asked and the choice placed in front of the US: Do you want relations with the rest of the region? Or do you want to indulge Israeli criminality?”

Israeli forces bomb more high-rise buildings in Gaza City as Netanyahu warns that this is the opening of the main operation to seize it.

In recent months, the small East African coastal region of Somaliland has been making international headlines after several high-profile Republicans in the United States endorsed a bill to recognise it as an independent state.

The question of Somaliland’s independence from Somalia has long divided the region. While the territory declared its sovereignty in the 1990s, it is not recognised by Mogadishu or any other world government.

Recently, Republicans in the US House of Representatives, including Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Representative Pat Harrigan of North Carolina, and other key conservative heavyweights, have backed the push for recognition.

“All territorial claims by the Federal Republic of Somalia over the area known as Somaliland are invalid and without merit,” said the text of the bill introduced in June, calling for the US to recognise Somaliland “as a separate, independent country”.

At around the same time, media reports surfaced that said Israel had reached out to Somaliland as a possible location to resettle Palestinians it plans to expel from Gaza.

Human rights advocates from Somaliland have voiced concern that the forced resettlement of Palestinians could “render Somaliland complicit in the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza”, with worries that countries who previously sympathised with Somaliland may potentially “withdrawing their support”.

During a news conference at the White House in early August, US President Donald Trump addressed the issue. “We’re looking into that right now,” he said in response to a question about whether he supported recognition of Somaliland if it were to accept Palestinians. “Good question, actually, and another complex one, but we’re working on that right now,” he added, without giving a clear answer.

Less than a week later, Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas penned a letter to Trump calling for Somaliland’s recognition. One of the key justifications stated in the letter by Cruz, who has received nearly $2m in funding from multiple pro-Israel lobby groups, including the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), was that Somaliland “sought to strengthen ties with Israel, and voiced support for the Abraham Accords.” The accords are a set of agreements normalising diplomatic ties between Israel and several Arab states.

In response to Cruz’s letter, Somalia’s ambassador to the US released a statement warning that any infringement of Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity would empower armed groups and “destabilise the entire Horn of Africa region”.

Al Jazeera reached out to the ministers of foreign affairs and information of Somaliland for comment on the plan to forcibly relocate Palestinians and whether they were engaging in talks with the Israelis about this, but did not receive a response.

Somaliland has not commented on the forced relocation of Palestinians, but officials have openly stated that it welcomed US consideration for its recognition, with the spokesperson for the region’s presidency thanking US Senator Cruz for his advocacy and stating that “recognition of this established fact [Somaliland] is not a question of if, but when”.

Recognition plus armed groups: A recipe for disaster?

In Somaliland, a region with traditionally strong support for the Palestinian cause, many people are hopeful about one half of the plan and concerned about the other.

Those who spoke to Al Jazeera shared concerns about the ramifications and possible dangers that could arise from potential Israeli plans to force Palestinians to relocate to Somaliland.

Ahmed Dahir Saban, a 37-year-old high school teacher from the town of Hariirad in Awdal, a province in the far northwest bordering Djibouti, said Palestinians would always be accepted with open arms in Somaliland, but that any attempts to forcibly relocate them from Palestine would never be accepted. He cautioned the authorities in Somaliland about the deal.

“The people of Palestine cannot be forced from their blessed homeland. What the Americans and Israelis are doing is ethnic cleansing, and we in Somaliland want no part of it,” he said.

Ahmed said, aside from the move being morally wrong and inhumane, he believes it would “risk violence from [armed] groups” and have serious ramifications for the region.

“Al-Shabab and Daesh [ISIL/ISIS] could carry out attacks throughout Somaliland if the authorities went through with accepting forcibly relocated Palestinians. Even here in Awdal, we wouldn’t be safe from the violence.”

Ahmed fears that if Somaliland accepts expelled Palestinians, the armed groups will exploit public anger against such a move to expand their sphere of influence and possible territorial control in the region.

Armed groups like al-Shabab maintain a presence in the Sanaag province, which is partially administered by the Somaliland government.

Analysts who spoke to Al Jazeera share similar concerns.

Jethro Norman, a senior researcher with the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), believes the US and Israel’s meddling in Somaliland under the pretext of relocating Palestinians would create significant opportunities for armed groups.

“Al-Shabab and IS-Somalia [ISIL Somalia] have consistently framed their struggle in terms of resisting foreign interference and protecting Somali sovereignty, but they’ve also spent years perfecting narratives about Western-backed dispossession and ‘Crusader-Zionist’ intrigue,” he remarked.

When Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023, al-Shabab held protests in areas they govern in support of Palestine. Large crowds also came out in support of the Palestinian cause in rebel-controlled territory in Somalia.

“A Palestinian relocation programme, especially one perceived as externally imposed and aligned with Israeli wishes, would provide these [armed] groups with an unbelievably potent propaganda tool, allowing them to position themselves as defenders of both Somali unity and Palestinian dignity against what they could characterise as a cynical Western-Israeli scheme,” Norman told Al Jazeera.

Peace at what cost?

Somaliland declared independence from Somalia in 1991 after the country descended into civil war. In the years since, the administration in the capital, Hargeisa, has been able to create a de facto state within Somalia’s borders. Schools, security and stability emerged, but Somaliland has yet to secure international recognition.

However, some of the decades-long gains have come at a cost to many who call Somaliland home.

Dissent and freedom of expression have come under fire in Somaliland. This has affected the press, civilians and marginalised communities alike, with media outlets raided and journalists arrested.

Members of the public are routinely arrested for having the Somali flag in an attempt to silence unionist voices, which make up a significant portion of the Somaliland populace.

More recently, entire communities have fallen victim to scorched-earth policies implemented by Hargeisa. Nowhere is this more visible than in the city of Las Anod in Sool province. For years, local clans complained of marginalisation by the centre, which led to a public uprising. Security forces responded by killing civilian protesters in December 2022. Somaliland authorities then laid siege to the city for nine months; hundreds of people were killed in the violence, almost 2,000 were injured, and 200,000 were displaced.

Somaliland eventually lost control of Las Anod and the vast majority of its eastern region – about one-third of the territory it claims – to pro-unionist communities who have recently formed the semiautonomous Northeast regional state.

As a result of the siege, rights groups such as Amnesty International released a damaging report in 2023 accusing Somaliland of indiscriminately shelling homes, schools, mosques, densely populated civilian neighbourhoods, and even hospitals in Las Anod, which is a war crime under international law.

The Somaliland administration became the only local actor in Somalia to be accused of war crimes since al-Shabab, which was accused of committing war crimes by Human Rights Watch in 2013.

But now talk of possible Israeli plans to forcibly relocate Palestinians has heightened fears of further violence in Somaliland.

“You can hear the whispers of something,” said Mohamed Awil Meygag in the city of Hargeisa. The 69-year-old witnessed how conflict devastated the region in the 1980s and fears another uncertain path for Somaliland.

Mohamed adamantly supports the recognition of Somaliland as an independent state, but is wary of reports about forcibly relocating Palestinians from Gaza. He also feels the authorities in Hargeisa have not been sufficiently transparent.

“When Americans talk about recognising Somaliland, they [Somaliland’s government] always welcome it, and it’s right, but when it’s about Palestinians being brought here by force and the role of Israel, you don’t get the same kind of response. They’re quiet,” he said.

“Relocating Palestinians forcefully here, no matter what is given in return, even if it’s recognition, is not worth it. We [Somaliland] will have the blood of fellow Muslims on our hands, and no Muslim should support such a thing,” Mohamed added.

“They [the US and Israel] don’t have good intentions and we cannot risk jeopardising our country.”

For analysts, the possible forced relocation plan is also just one part of broader international interests at play in the region.

“This so-called ‘relocation plan’ is part of a wider architecture of power that extends far beyond the interests of US and Somaliland officials,” noted Samar al-Bulushi, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, who said that more foreign alliances in the region could help fuel political instability.

Al Jazeera reached out to the US Department of State for comment. In response, they directed us to the government of Israel. Al Jazeera contacted the Israeli embassy in the US for comment on the plans to relocate Palestinians to Somaliland, but they did not respond to our queries.

Uncharted waters

Amid reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is in contact with at least four countries to explore the forced transfer of Palestinians, Israel’s Channel 12 reported recently that “progress has been made” in talks with Somaliland over the issue.

On September 2, US Representatives Chris Smith and John Moolenaar also wrote a letter to Secretary of State Marc Rubio, urging the removal of Somaliland from its travel advisory on Somalia, citing Hargeisa as a strategic partner in containing China, actively engaging and supporting US interests, as well as “growing ties with Israel through its solid support for the Abraham Accords”.

“The pro-Israel networks sit in the same Washington ecosystem as Red Sea security hawks and China sceptics, and you can see some sponsors explicitly pairing Somaliland recognition with closer Israeli ties and anti-China rhetoric. Ted Cruz’s August letter urging recognition is a clear example of that framing,” said analyst Norman.

However, if the Trump administration were to recognise Somaliland, it would lead to catastrophic ripple effects in Somalia and beyond its borders, he feels.

“It would risk turning a smoulder into open flame,” the DIIS researcher said.

For al-Bulushi, the deal that is reportedly on the table says more about the region’s lack of global power than its growing influence.

“The very act of entering into such a compact with the US and Israel speaks to the lingering power asymmetries between African leaders and global powers,” she said. “[It] symbolises a lack of independence on the part of Somaliland leaders – ironically at the very moment when they are seeking recognition as a sovereign state.”

Israel has destroyed another high-rise in Gaza City, bringing the number of buildings razed during its campaign to seize the largest urban centre in the Gaza Strip to at least 50, according to the Palestinian Civil Defence.

The attack on Al-Ruya Tower on Sunday came as Israeli forces killed at least 65 people across the Gaza Strip, including 49 in the northern part of the besieged enclave.

The Israeli military said it struck Al-Ruya Tower on Sunday after issuing an evacuation threat, forcing residents and displaced families sheltering in makeshift tents in the neighbourhood to flee.

The head of the Palestinian NGOs Network, Amjad Shawa, who was near the site of the attack, told Al Jazeera that the situation “is scary”, with panic spreading among the people.

“Today, hundreds of families lost their shelters. Israel [is] aiming to force Palestinians to the southern areas using these explosions, but everyone knows that there is no safe place in the south or any humanitarian zone,” Shawa said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that the military was “eliminating terrorist infrastructure and nefarious terrorist high-rises”, a talking point that Israel often repeats as it obliterates civilian infrastructure in Gaza.

The attack on Al-Ruya – a five-storey building with 24 apartments, as well as department stores, a clinic and a gym – follows an earlier one on the Al Jazeera Club in central Gaza City, where tents housing displaced families were also hit.

It comes after Israel targeted the 15-storey Soussi Tower on Saturday and the 12-storey Mushtaha Tower on Friday. Several Palestinians sheltering in tent encampments around those towers were wounded.

One family that had their shelter destroyed when the Soussi Tower was reduced to rubble said, “We have nothing left for us.”

“We quickly left the building without bringing anything with us. The Israelis attacked the building half an hour later,” the Palestinian man said. “Now, we are trying to stay away from the eyes of the other people by trying to sew some fabrics and sheets,” he said, referring to his family’s attempt to put up a new shelter.

Israeli escalation in Gaza City

Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan for the military occupation of Gaza City in August, a move Netanyahu suggested had already led to the displacement of 100,000 Palestinians.

As Israel pushes to displace residents of Gaza City to the south of the enclave, Palestinians have been saying that nowhere is safe in the territory.

Gaza’s Ministry of Interior issued a statement on Sunday warning Palestinians in Gaza City not to trust Israel’s claim that it had set up a humanitarian zone in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis.

“We call on citizens in Gaza City to beware of the occupation’s deceitful claims about the existence of a humanitarian safe zone in the south of the Strip,” it said in a statement.

The Israeli military had designated al-Mawasi a “humanitarian zone” early on in its campaign against Gaza. Since then, it has been bombed repeatedly.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported that “every five to 10 minutes, you can hear the sounds of explosions from all directions in Gaza City”, including heavy bombing in the Sabra and Zeitoun neighbourhoods.

“Israeli forces are using remotely controlled explosive robots, and detonating them in residential streets, destroying neighbourhoods,” he said. In Sheikh Radwan, Mahmoud added, homes, public facilities, schools and a mosque had been hit.

Rescuers reported that at least eight Palestinians, including children, were killed when Israeli forces bombed the al-Farabi school-turned-shelter, west of Gaza City.

Sohaib Foda, who was sleeping on a mattress in Gaza City’s al-Farabi School when the attack took place, said the attack left her and a young relative wounded.

“I heard a thud, and a block fell on my face. My cousin’s daughter, who was sleeping here, got injured and fell beside me. Another block then fell on her head,” Foda said.

“Everyone was screaming. I was scared. When I touched my face, it was covered in blood, and I realised I had been injured.”

Mohammed Ayed, who witnessed the attack, said the school was hit by two rockets. He said teams were still working in the rubble to rescue missing people or recover their remains.

“We have recovered two hands so far,” he said. “As you can see, these are children’s hands.”

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 64,368 Palestinians and wounded 162,776 since October 2023, according to Gaza’s health authorities. Thousands more remain buried under the rubble as famine continues to spread across the enclave.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, meanwhile, said at least five people, including three children, have starved to death in Gaza over the past day.

These figures bring the total number of malnutrition deaths in Gaza to 387, including 138 children, since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza. Since the global hunger monitor, IPC, confirmed the famine in northern Gaza on August 22, at least 109 hunger-related deaths have been recorded, 23 of them children, the ministry added.

Academics, United Nations experts and leading rights groups have described the horrific Israeli atrocities in Gaza as a genocide.

Later on Sunday, United States President Donald Trump suggested that he put forward a new proposal to end the war in Gaza, calling it a “final warning” for Hamas.

The Palestinian group acknowledged receiving “ideas” from the US, saying that it welcomes any efforts to reach a lasting ceasefire.

US president claims Israel accepted his terms to end the war in Gaza and issues ‘last warning’ for Hamas.

Washington, DC – United States President Donald Trump has suggested that he put forward a new proposal to end the war in Gaza, saying that Israel has accepted his terms as it pushes on with its brutal assault on the Palestinian territory.

In a social media post on Sunday, Trump warned Hamas to accept his conditions, saying that he informed the group about the “consequences” of turning down the offer.

Throughout the 23-month war, US officials have repeatedly claimed that Israel has accepted ceasefire efforts – all while Israeli leaders vow publicly to intensify their offensive, which leading rights groups and scholars have described as a genocide.

“Everyone wants the Hostages HOME. Everyone wants this War to end!” Trump wrote in a social media post.

“The Israelis have accepted my Terms. It is time for Hamas to accept as well. I have warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting. This is my last warning, there will not be another one! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

It remains unclear what Trump’s terms entail.

But Trump has previously issued similar verbal warnings to Hamas and predicted that the war would end soon. On August 25, the US president said he thinks the war would come to a “conclusive ending” within three weeks.

Later on Sunday, Hamas confirmed receiving “ideas” from the US for ending the war.

“Hamas welcomes any initiative that helps in the efforts to stop the aggression against our people,” the group said.

“We affirm our immediate readiness to sit at the negotiation table to discuss the release of all prisoners in exchange for a clear declaration to end the war, the full withdrawal from Gaza, and the formation of a committee to manage Gaza from Palestinian independents, who will immediately begin their work.”

Hamas has been calling for a ceasefire deal that would see a prisoner exchange to release Israeli captives in Gaza and a lasting end to the Israeli offensive.

The Palestinian group also said last month that it accepted a proposal presented by the mediators for a 60-day truce.

Trump’s statement comes as Israel steps up its campaign to capture Gaza City against the pleas of rights groups and Western officials.

The US president has been a staunch supporter of Israel. Last week, his administration imposed sanctions on Palestinian rights groups for cooperating with the International Criminal Court’s investigation into Israeli abuses.

Trump also previously called for removing all Palestinians from Gaza and turning the enclave into a US-owned “Riviera of the Middle East” – a plan that rights advocates decried as an ethnic cleansing push.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has embraced Trump’s mass displacement proposal, presenting the push to ethnically cleanse Gaza as an effort to allow Palestinians to voluntarily leave the territory.

But legal scholars say that people have no real choice when they are under the threat of constant Israeli bombardment.

The Israeli campaign has killed more than 64,000 Palestinians and levelled most of the territory to the ground.

Holocaust Museum LA says the post was misinterpreted as a ‘political statement’ and promises to ‘do better’.

A Holocaust museum in Los Angeles is facing backlash after deleting an Instagram post that suggested the phrase “never again” should apply to all people – not just Jews.

The post, shared with Holocaust Museum LA’s 24,200 Instagram followers, read: “Never again can’t only mean never again for Jews.” The slogan “never again”, long associated with Holocaust remembrance, is also invoked more broadly as a pledge to prevent future genocides.

The Instagram message was initially praised online and interpreted by some as an acknowledgment of Palestinian suffering amid Israel’s war on Gaza, which numerous United Nations experts, scholars and rights groups have described as a genocide.

It was later deleted and replaced with a statement on Saturday saying the post had been misinterpreted.

“We recently posted an item on social media that was part of a pre-planned campaign intended to promote inclusivity and community that was easily open to misinterpretation by some to be a political statement reflecting the ongoing situation in the Middle East. That was not our intent,” it said.

Holocaust Museum LA also promised to “do better” and to “ensure that posts in the future are more thoughtfully designed and thoroughly vetted”.

The museum, which is currently closed for construction until June 2026, quickly faced criticism online after journalist Ryan Grim of Drop Site News reposted a screenshot of the deleted message, writing: “Speechless. No words for this.”

Yasmine Taeb, a human rights lawyer and progressive strategist, called the museum’s move “absolutely disgusting”, saying that the museum is “cowering under pressure” from pro-Israel voices.

“Countless genocide scholars and human rights organisations have confirmed what Israel is doing in Gaza is textbook definition of genocide,” Taeb told Al Jazeera.

“It’s appalling that a museum established for the purpose of educating the public about genocide and the Holocaust not only refuses to acknowledge the reality of Israel’s actions in Gaza, but [is] removing a social media post that merely stated that ‘never again’ is not intended for just Jews, in order for it to not be interpreted as a response to the genocide in Gaza.”

The original now-deleted post did not mention Gaza, but it faced a barrage of pro-Israel comments expressing disapproval, including some that called on donors to stop funding the institution.

By deleting the post and issuing the subsequent statement, the museum sparked accusations of backtracking on a universal anti-genocide principle.

“We live in a world where the Holocaust Museum has to aploogise and retract for simply appearing to sympathise with Palestinians,” Palestinian American activist and comedian Amer Zahr told Al Jazeera.

“If that does not illustrate the historic dehumanisation that Arab Americans have had to live with, I don’t know what does.”

Assal Rad, a researcher with the Arab Center Washington DC, called the controversy “unbelievable”.

“Palestinians are so dehumanized that they’re excluded from ‘never again,’ apparently their genocide is the exception,” Rad wrote on X.

Political commentator Hasan Piker also slammed the museum’s decision. “A real shame that even a tepid general anti-genocide statement was met with unimaginable resistance from Israel supporters,” he wrote in a social media post.

The Holocaust Museum LA did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

Israeli media report two people are hospitalised after a drone strikes Ramon Airport in the south of the country.

The Israeli military says it is investigating the crash of a drone  launched from Yemen that has struck the arrivals hall at Ramon Airport near the Red Sea city of Eilat.

Airspace above the airport was closed, the Israel Airports Authority had said earlier on Sunday, without providing an immediate reason for the closure.

The Israeli military said the incident was under review, without providing details on the impact. It did not specify whether the drone had fallen after being intercepted or if it had been a direct hit.

Earlier, the Israeli military said the air force had intercepted three drones launched from Yemen. It said two were “intercepted prior to crossing into Israeli territory” but did not elaborate on the status of the third.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz, citing the Israeli rescue services, reported that two people were lightly wounded in the drone strike. A 63-year-old man was injured by shrapnel, and a 52-year-old woman was injured after she fell. It said emergency workers evacuated them to a hospital in Eilat while others who suffered panic attacks received medical care at the scene.

Israeli Army Radio reported that a preliminary investigation into the damage at the airport indicated the drone had not been spotted by the air force’s detection systems at all.

The airport, located near the resort city of Eilat on the border with Jordan and Egypt, mostly handles domestic flights.

The Houthis in Yemen have been launching missiles and drones thousands of kilometres north towards Israel in what the group says are acts of solidarity with the Palestinians under relentless Israeli fire. It has also been attacking vessels in the Red Sea since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023.

There has been no immediate comment from the Houthis on the drone strike on Ramon Airport.

Israel has bombed Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, including the vital Hodeidah port. Its latest barrage killed senior Houthi officials a week and a half ago, including its prime minister and other cabinet officials. Large numbers of civilians have also been killed in Israeli strikes.

In May, a Houthi missile hit near Israel’s main airport, Ben Gurion International Airport outside Tel Aviv, injuring four people lightly and causing many airlines to cancel their flights to Israel for months. Israel later struck and destroyed the main airport in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa.

The Israeli army has bombed another high-rise in Gaza City after telling Palestinian residents to evacuate or face being killed amid its ongoing siege and imposed mass starvation in the enclave.

The Israeli military designated more high-rise towers as targets in a map released on Saturday. Shortly after releasing the map, it bombed the 15-storey Soussi Tower, which is located opposite a building belonging to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood.

“These attacks are causing panic amongst the people, especially considering the time they are given to evacuate. Half an hour or an hour is not enough time for people to escape from these buildings,” Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said, reporting from Gaza City.

The Israeli military said in a statement, without offering evidence, that the buildings struck were used by Hamas to gather intelligence to monitor the locations of the Israeli army. It also said armed Palestinian groups planted “numerous explosive devices” and dug a tunnel in the area.

Gaza’s Government Media Office rejected the claims and called them “part of a systematic policy of deception used by the occupation to justify the targeting of civilians and infrastructure” and forcibly displace Palestinians from their homes. It said 90 percent of Gaza’s infrastructure has been destroyed by Israel.

The targeted buildings were near the 12-storey Mushtaha Tower, which on Friday was similarly bombed and razed to the ground, as Israel moves to seize Gaza City despite international criticism.

At least 68 Palestinians were killed and 362 wounded across the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military over the past day, the enclave’s Ministry of Health said on Saturday afternoon.

The toll includes 23 aid seekers killed and 143 wounded by Israeli forces. At least six more Palestinians also died of Israeli-induced starvation, bringing the total number of starvation deaths during nearly two years of war to 382, including 135 children.

At least 64,368 Palestinians have been killed and 162,367 wounded by Israel since the start of the war in the aftermath of the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Israel declares new ‘humanitarian zone’, bombs the area

Sources at Nasser Hospital, located in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, told Al Jazeera that at least two Palestinians were killed and many wounded in an Israeli air strike on a tent housing displaced people in the al-Mawasi area.

While this area was designated as a “humanitarian” or “safe” zone by the Israeli army early in the war, it has been repeatedly bombed, leading to the deaths of hundreds of displaced civilians.

Hours before the latest bombings, the Israeli army had announced the establishment of another similar zone in al-Mawasi, which runs along Gaza’s Mediterranean coast. It claimed the area will have infrastructure such as field hospitals, water lines, desalination facilities and food supplies.

Reporting from central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said Palestinians do not trust the so-called humanitarian area as tents in similar zones have been attacked by Israel many times before and nowhere is safe.

But people in Gaza City have few options: If they stay, they risk being killed, and if they leave, they face dangers on the road and may have to spend considerable money to move their belongings south.

Those who have returned to their homes in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood, where Israeli forces withdrew recently after weeks of ground assaults, have found everything they owned destroyed.

“What we have built in 50 years was flattened in five days,” resident Aqeel Kishko told Al Jazeera. “Nothing remains standing – buildings, roads and infrastructure. We are walking not only on ruins but also on dead bodies of our loved ones.”

Nohaa Tafish said it would be impossible for Gaza’s largest urban centre to be revived.

“What would people return to? There is nothing to return to,” she said.

Ahmed Rihem also had his home in Gaza City reduced to rubble. “It is as if the entire Zeitoun neighbourhood was hit with a nuclear bomb,” he said.

It was my childhood dream to study medicine. I wanted to be a doctor to help people. I never imagined that I would study medicine not in a university, but in a hospital; not from textbooks, but from raw experience.

After I finished my BA in English last year, I decided to enrol in the medical faculty of al-Azhar University. I started my studies at the end of June. With all universities in Gaza destroyed, we, medical students, are forced to watch lectures on our mobile phones and read medical books under the light of our mobile phones’ flashlights.

Part of our training is to receive lectures from older medical students, who the genocidal war has forced into practice prematurely.

My first such lecture was by a fifth-year medical student called Dr Khaled at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah.

Al-Aqsa looks nothing like a normal hospital. There are no spacious white rooms or privacy for the patients. The corridor is the room, patients lie on beds or the floor, and their groans echo throughout the building.

Due to the overcrowding, we have to take our lectures in a caravan in the hospital yard.

“I’ll teach you what I learned not from lectures,” Dr Khaled began, “but from days when medicine was [something] you had to invent.”

He started with basics: check breathing, open the airway, and perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). But soon, the lesson shifted into something no normal syllabus would have: how to save a life with nothing.

Dr Khaled told us about a recent case: a young man pulled from beneath the rubble – legs shattered, head bleeding. The standard protocol is to immobilise the neck with a stabiliser before moving the patient.

But there was no stabiliser. No splint. No nothing.

So Dr Khaled did what no medical textbook would teach: he sat on the ground, cradled the man’s head between his knees, and held it perfectly still for 20 minutes until equipment arrived.

“That day,” he said, “I wasn’t a student. I was the brace. I was the tool.”

While the supervising doctor was preparing the operating room, Dr Khaled did not move, even when his muscles began aching, because that was all he could do to prevent further injury.

This story was not the only one we heard from Dr Khaled about improvised medical solutions.

There was one which was particularly painful to hear.

A woman in her early thirties was brought into the hospital with a deep pelvic injury. Her flesh was torn. She needed urgent surgery. But first, the wound had to be sterilised.

There was no Betadine. No alcohol. No clean tools. Only chlorine.

Yes, chlorine. The same chemical that burns the skin and stings the eyes.

She was unconscious. There was no alternative. They poured the chlorine in.

Dr Khaled told us this story with a voice that trembled with guilt.

“We used chlorine,” he said, not looking at us. “Not because we didn’t know better. But because there was nothing else.”

We were shocked by what we heard, but perhaps not surprised. Many of us had heard stories of desperate measures doctors in Gaza had had to take. Many of us had seen the gut-wrenching video of Dr Hani Bseiso operating on his niece on a dining table.

Last year, Dr Hani, an orthopaedic surgeon from al-Shifa Medical Complex, found himself in an impossible situation when his 17-year-old niece, Ahed, was injured in an Israeli air strike. They were trapped in their apartment building in Gaza City, unable to move, as the Israeli army had besieged the area.

Ahed’s leg was mangled beyond repair and she was bleeding. Dr Hani did not have much choice.

There was no anaesthesia. No surgical instruments. Only a kitchen knife, a pot with a little water, and a plastic bag.

Ahed lay on the dining table, her face pale and eyes half-closed, while her uncle – his own eyes brimming with tears – prepared to amputate her leg. The moment was captured on video.

“Look,” he cried, voice breaking, “I am amputating her leg without anaesthesia! Where is the mercy? Where is humanity?”

He worked quickly, hands trembling but precise, his surgical training colliding with the raw horror of the moment.

This scene has been repeated countless times across Gaza, as even young children have had to go through amputations without anaesthesia. And we, as medical students, are learning that this could be our reality; that we, too, may have to operate on a relative or a child while watching and hearing their unbearable pain.

But perhaps the hardest lesson we are learning is when not to treat – when the wounds are beyond saving and resources must be spent on those who still have a chance of survival. In other countries, this is a theoretical ethical discussion. Here, it is a decision we need to learn how to make because we may soon have to make it ourselves.

Dr Khaled told us: “In medical school, they teach you to save everyone. In Gaza, you learn you can’t – and you have to live with that.”

This is what it means to be a doctor in Gaza today: to carry the inhuman weight of knowing you cannot save everyone and to keep going; to develop a superhuman level of emotional endurance to absorb loss after loss without breaking and without losing one’s own humanity.

These people continue to treat and teach, even when they are exhausted, even when they are starving.

One day, midway through a trauma lecture, our instructor, Dr Ahmad, stopped mid-sentence, leaned on the table, and sat down. He whispered, “I just need a minute. My sugar’s low.”

We all knew he hadn’t eaten since the previous day. The war is not only depleting medicine – it is consuming the very bodies and minds of those who try to heal others. And we, the students, are learning in real time that medicine here is not just about knowledge and skills. It is about surviving long enough to use them.

Being a doctor in Gaza means reinventing medicine every day with what is available to you, treating without tools, resuscitating without equipment, and bandaging with your own body.

It is not just a crisis of resources. It is a moral test.

And in that test, the wounds run deep – through flesh, through dignity, through hope itself.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank amid a sharp escalation of violence, following the country’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s call this week to take over most of the territory.

The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the dead man as Ahmed Shehadeh, 57, saying he was killed on Friday by “occupation bullets” near the al-Murabba’a checkpoint south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian news agency Wafa cited Amid Ahmed, director of the Red Crescent’s Emergency and Ambulance Centre in Nablus, as saying Israeli soldiers prevented his crew from reaching the site of the shooting.

The Israeli military claimed in a statement that a man had “hurled a suspicious object” at soldiers operating near the checkpoint, after which they “eliminated” him.

Further south, troops carried out multiple raids in Bethlehem, with soldiers entering the Khalayel al-Louz area southeast of the city and setting up a military checkpoint, according to Wafa.

The news agency also reported raids on the villages of Artas and al-Ubayyat, where soldiers tore down posters of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces.

In parallel, Israeli settlers wielding knives and sticks stormed the village of Khallet al-Dabaa in the Masafer Yatta area south of Hebron, injuring 20 people, including a three-month-old infant.

Palestinian activist Osama al-Makhmara told the Anadolu news agency that the injuries ranged from bruises and fractures to stab wounds, claiming that nine people were taken to hospital for treatment.

Four months ago, Israeli authorities demolished 25 homes, agricultural structures and water wells in the village, citing “unlicensed construction”.

Israel’s drive to expand illegal settlements in the West Bank was given renewed impetus by far-right finance minister and settler leader Smotrich, who said on Wednesday that Israel should annex roughly 82 percent of the West Bank.

Smotrich said he wanted “maximum territory and minimum [Palestinian] population” to be brought under Israeli sovereignty, “to remove, once and for all, a Palestinian state from the agenda”.

More than 700,000 settlers, or 10 percent of Israel’s population, live in 150 illegal settlements and 128 outposts spread across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Xavier Abu Eid, former communications director for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), told Al Jazeera that Israeli flags and settlements were now visible across the 30-40km (18-25 miles) between Ramallah and Nablus.

“Clearly, the maps that were presented by Smotrich are being designed on the ground by settlers and the Israeli army,” he said.

‘Too little, too late’

Smotrich launched his maximalist campaign as France, Britain, Belgium, Australia and Canada pledged to formally recognise a Palestinian state during the United Nations General Assembly in New York later this month.

The diplomatic push comes as Israel mounts its full-scale offensive on Gaza City as part of takeover plans for the entire enclave, while accelerating its West Bank annexation plans in the background.

On Friday, Finland’s Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen announced on X that her country would join the growing international drive for a two-state solution, which is being spearheaded by France and Saudi Arabia. She called it “the most significant international effort in years to create the conditions for a two-state solution”.

The previous day, Arab League foreign ministers meeting in Cairo adopted a resolution saying that peaceful coexistence in the Middle East cannot be achieved while Israel “issues implicit threats to occupy or annex further Arab lands”.

The League said any lasting settlement must be based on a two-state solution and the 2022 Arab Peace Initiative, which offers a full normalisation of relations in return for a complete Israeli withdrawal from the territories it occupied in 1967.

But the PLO’s Abu Eid told Al Jazeera that time was running out. “Many people feel that there is no longer a two-state solution to speak about, and perhaps this late international response recognising the state of Palestine is once again seen as too little, too late,” he said.

Mass arrests

As Israel grabs more Palestinian territory in the West Bank, its forces have ramped up their campaign of mass arrests, detaining at least 70 people across dozens of villages over the past week.

Wafa reported arrests in the town of Haris, near Salfit, where village council head Omar Samara, deputy head of the village council Tayseer Kulaib, and a “large number of villagers” were detained.

Troops also arrested a man in Qalqilya city as they raided family homes.

Israeli prison conditions for Palestinians have long been described by rights groups as harsh and degrading, with reports of medical neglect and abuse.

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Media Office issued a statement on Bilal Barghouti, a 39-year-old from Beit Rima serving a life sentence in Israel’s Gilboa prison, describing the conditions in which he was being kept as “slow murder and systematic torture”.

Former detainees have said Barghouti, who suffers from a range of chronic illnesses, has lost a lot of weight, has been barred from visits, and subjected to beatings, insults and scalding with hot water.

The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said on Friday that Israeli forces had made more than 19,000 arrests – including at least 585 women and 1,550 children – across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since the war on Gaza started.

It said the figure does not include arrests in Gaza itself, where the number is believed to be in the thousands, according to its statement carried by news agency Wafa.

The society also reported 77 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody, including 46 from Gaza. The bodies of 74 of those who died remain withheld by Israel, alongside at least 85 other prisoners whose remains are being kept from their families.

Egypt says forced Palestinian displacement a ‘red line’ as Qatar calls it a ‘extension’ of Israel’s policy of violating Palestinian rights.

Egypt and Qatar have expressed strong condemnation over remarks by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the displacement of Palestinians, including through the Rafah crossing.

In a statement on Friday, the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the comments as part of “ongoing attempts to prolong escalation in the region and perpetuate instability while avoiding accountability for Israeli violations in Gaza”.

In an interview with the Israeli Telegram channel Abu Ali Express, Netanyahu claimed there were “different plans for how to rebuild Gaza” and alleged that “half of the population wants to leave Gaza”, claiming it was “not a mass expulsion”.

“I can open Rafah for them, but it will be closed immediately by Egypt,” he said.

Egypt’s Foreign Ministry reiterated its “categorical rejection of forcibly or coercively displacing Palestinians from their land”.

“[Egypt] stresses that these practices represent a blatant violation of international humanitarian law and amount to war crimes that cannot be tolerated,” the ministry added.

The statement affirmed that Egypt will never be complicit in such practices nor act as a conduit for Palestinian displacement, describing this as a “red line” that cannot be crossed.

‘Collective punishment will not succeed’

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry also fiercely criticised Netanyahu’s remarks, calling them an “extension of the occupation’s approach to violating the rights of the brotherly Palestinian people”.

“The policy of collective punishment practised by the occupation against the Palestinians … will not succeed in forcing the Palestinian people to leave their land or in confiscating their legitimate rights,” it said in a statement.

It stressed the need for the international community to “unite with determination to confront the extremist and provocative policies of the Israeli occupation, in order to prevent the continuation of the cycle of violence in the region and its spread to the world”.

The war of words comes as Egypt and Qatar continue to lead mediation efforts between Hamas and Israel, seeking to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into the coastal enclave.

Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut, reporting from Amman, said Netanyahu’s comments were “incredibly controversial” since it’s the Israeli government which has outlined that “it wants the Palestinians out of Gaza”.

“The condemnation from both Qatar and Egypt is essentially telling Israel this is all a part of its larger plan, that Israel is the one that waged war on the Gaza Strip, that the continuation of crimes against the Palestinian people and the total closure of the Rafah border crossing is the reason why they’re imprisoned in Gaza, not because of anything else,” she said.

“It is Israel that single-handedly created this policy.”

Al-Haq, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) and Al-Mezan targeted for engaging with ICC, state department says.

The United States has added three prominent Palestinian rights groups, Al-Haq, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) and Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights to its sanctions list.

The groups were added to the Department of the Treasury’s “Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List” on Thursday.

In a subsequent statement, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the rights groups were targeted for having “directly engaged in efforts by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Israeli nationals, without Israel’s consent”.

The Trump administration had previously sanctioned the ICC in response to its investigation and subsequent arrest warrants issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes committed in Gaza.

All three groups had provided evidence on Israeli abuses in the case.

“The United States will continue to respond with significant and tangible consequences to protect our troops, our sovereignty, and our allies from the ICC’s disregard for sovereignty, and to punish entities that are complicit in its overreach,” Rubio said.

We condemn in the strongest terms the draconian sanctions imposed by The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on our organisations: @alhaq_org , @AlMezanCenter & @pchrgaza/1

— Al-Haq الحق (@alhaq_org) September 4, 2025

The Ramallah-based Al-Haq has been a leading organisation both in the occupied Palestinian territory and internationally seeking accountability for Israeli abuses, while leading litigation in several countries.

The Gaza City-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and the Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights have been leading independent organisation that have documented Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza.

In a statement shared by all three organisations, they condemned “in the strongest terms the draconian sanctions” imposed by the Trump administration.

“These measures in times of live genocide against our People, is a coward[ly], immoral, illegal and undemocratic act,” the statement said.

“Only states with complete disregard to international law and our shared humanity can take such heinous measures against human rights orgs working to end a genocide,” the statement said.

The U.S. just sanctioned three of the most prominent Palestinian human rights groups: @alhaq_org, @pchrgaza, and @AlMezanCenter.

Shameful but not surprising.

This administration bends over backwards to put Israel First every time. pic.twitter.com/ocXBYJllki

— Mohsen Farshneshani (@mFarshneshani) September 4, 2025

In a post on the social media platform X, Mohsen Farshneshani, a sanctions lawyer and advisor at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), described the organisations as “three of the most prominent Palestinian human rights groups”.

“Shameful but not surprising,” Farshneshani wrote. “This administration bends over backwards to put Israel First every time.”

The US previously sanctioned the Ramallah-based Addameer, a human rights organisation focused on Palestinian prisoners and detainees, in June.

At the time, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which both work closely with the group, said the sanctions “would make day-to-day operations harder and harder, including for their employees, assisted communities and service suppliers. This will also negatively affect their engagement with their partner organizations, locally and internationally, including US-based groups”.

“The US is using its sanctions regime to do the bidding of the Israeli government, which has long systematically sought to muzzle human rights reporting and advocacy,” it added.

In July, the Trump administration also sanctioned the Palestinian Authority (PA), which administers the occupied West Bank, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which represents Palestinians internationally.

At the same time, the Trump administration has revoked sanctions imposed under former US President Joe Biden on Israelis from illegal settlements and organisations accused of violence.

The Israeli military has continued its intense assault on northern Gaza City with a series of deadly overnight attacks.

UK police were recorded arresting a Palestine Action supporter for allegedly taking part in a Zoom meeting to plan a protest against the government’s designation of the group as a “terrorist” organisation.

If being forcibly displaced from their destroyed homes and neighbourhoods wasn’t bad enough, Palestinians in Gaza are facing crippling financial costs of complying with Israel’s displacement orders. Al Jazeera’s Moath Al-Kahlout breaks it down.