Gaza Unrest
Live Reporting
Pro-Palestinian protesters occupy building at Columbia University
Pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University were occupying a building on the New York City campus on Tuesday as officials limited access to students who live there and essential employees.
The protesters who were occupying Hamilton Hall displayed banners from a window reading "Intifada," the Arabic word for an uprising, CNN reported, citing a video.
The school said in an early morning notice that effective immediately access to the Morningside campus has been limited to students residing in residential buildings on campus and employees providing essential services.
Rafah invasion could hinge on ceasefire talks this week, says Lazzarini
“There is an extraordinary deep anxiety in Gaza” right now, as people fear a possible invasion of Rafah, says Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Al Jazeera reports.
The prospects of such an invasion “will all depend on whether a ceasefire deal will be reached this week”, the UNRWA chief said during a briefing in Geneva.
“People have not yet been asked to evacuate from Rafah,” he added. “But there is a sense that if there is not a ceasefire deal this week, it could happen at any time.”
Israel police say Turk shot dead after stabbing officer in Jerusalem
A Turkish national stabbed and moderately wounded an Israeli police officer in annexed east Jerusalem before being shot dead, police said, AFP reports.
Police said that a “terrorist armed with a knife arrived in the Old City of Jerusalem, on the Herod’s Gate Ascent street, charged at a border police officer and stabbed him with a knife”.
It said another officer at the scene “neutralised the terrorist” and the attacker was later pronounced dead.
Israeli parliament member says police beat her at rally
Naama Lazimi, a member of Israel’s Knesset representing the left-wing Labour Party, says she was accosted and beaten by police at a rally in Tel Aviv calling on for an immediate captive release deal.
In a post on X, Lazimi said police “lost all restraint” while trying to break up the protest Monday night, beating her as she tried to help a protester who had been arrested.
“The violence on the part of the cops was unrestrained; we all felt it was much much different from previous protests,” Lazimi told Israel’s Kan radio.
“To think that the police force, the body that is supposed to protect me, is something I should be afraid of, that protesters should be afraid of, is a reality that cannot be,” she added.
Thousands of Israelis, including the relatives of some captives still held in Gaza, have been staging regular protests in Israel calling on the government to secure the release of Israeli captives or a Gaza ceasefire.
Israel still refuses to pull out troops from Gaza: Hamas
Hamas continues to review the latest Israeli ceasefire proposal but a senior official from the group noted it continues to ignore demands for a permanent end to the war.
Israel has reportedly offered a sustained 40-day ceasefire and the release of potentially thousands of Palestinian prisoners, in return for the freedom of about 130 Israeli captives, according to UK Foreign Minister David Cameron.
“It’s clear from the Israeli paper that they are still insisting on two major issue: they don’t want a complete ceasefire and they are not talking – in a serious way – about the withdrawal from Gaza. In fact, they are still talking about their presence, which means they will continue to occupy Gaza,” Hamas’s Osama Hamdan told Al Jazeera.
“We have serious questions for the mediators. If there are positive answers, I think we can move forward.”
Students, teachers hit with tear gas at Hebron school: Report
Israeli forces stormed a secondary school in Hebron in the occupied West Bank and fired tear gas at the institution, reports the Wafa news agency.
The tear gas hit dozens of students and teachers at the Tariq bin Zayad school with many needing medical treatment from inhaling the gas.
The incident comes as Israeli forces carry out a round of familiar raids in and around Hebron in the occupied West Bank. Earlier, we reported Israeli forces ransacked homes in Hebron and killed a Palestinian man 22km (14 miles) from the city.
Disease spreads as 10,000 bodies decompose in blown-up buildings
More than 10,000 missing Palestinians are buried under the debris of hundreds of destroyed buildings in Gaza.
The territory’s civil defence agency made the statement on X as the death toll from the war rose to 34,535.
“The continued accumulation of thousands of bodies under the rubble has begun to cause the spread of disease and epidemics, especially with the onset of summer and the rise in temperatures, which accelerates the process of decomposition,” it said in a statement.
47 killed, 61 wounded in Gaza over the last day
Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip have killed 47 people and injured 61 over the last 24 hours, said Gaza’s health ministry.
The latest strikes brings the total number of casualties since October 7 to 34,535 people killed and 77,704 wounded, with 8,000 victims still believed to be missing.
Among the dead are more than 14,500 children and 9,500 women.
Journalism professors call on New York Times to review October 7 report
Fifty-nine journalism professors from top US universities have called on The New York Times to address questions about a report that described a “pattern of gender-based violence” in the October 7 attacks on Israel.
The professors said they felt the need to issue a letter to the newspaper after coming across “compelling reports” challenging the integrity of the story.
“The Times’ editorial leadership appears to have largely dismissed these reports and remains silent on important and troubling questions raised about its reporting and editorial processes,” they wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained and posted online by The Washington Post.
“We believe this inaction is not only harming The Times itself, it also actively endangers journalists, including American reporters working in conflict zones as well as Palestinian journalists (of which, the Committee to Protect Journalists estimates, around 100 have been killed in this conflict so far),” the professors said.
A spokeswoman for the Times said the paper has “reviewed the work that was done on this piece of journalism and [we] are satisfied that it met our editorial standards”, the Post reported.
US response to Israeli troop violations ‘a lot of empty words’
Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory, has questioned the US State Department’s response to “gross violations” of human rights committed by Israeli army units in the occupied West Bank.
Earlier, spokesman Vedant Patel said four Israeli units have “remediated these violations”. Repeatedly asked to specify what the violations were, he didn’t respond.
“I wish I knew what that word [remediated] actually meant in this context because they also said they’d continue providing weapons to those units, which pretty much speaks for itself,” Loewenstein told Al Jazeera.
Israeli forces guilty of abuses against Palestinians are rarely held to account, he noted.
“Even when American citizens are killed, American journalists, and others, America seems to do very little at best. There’s been an explosion of settler and Israeli soldier violence in the occupied West Bank towards Palestinians, so it feels like a lot of empty words,” said Loewenstein.
Israel claims to destroy more military sites, kill fighters in central Gaza
Israeli fighter jets destroyed military infrastructure throughout central Gaza over the last day, according to the Israeli army’s latest war update.
The targets included a rocket-launch site, weapons depot, and “operational tunnel shafts”, it said.
In addition, the Israeli air raids killed numerous fighters in the area who either fired at or “advanced towards” Israeli troops in central Gaza, a statement said.
The Israeli military’s latest air attacks on Gaza also killed civilians, including three women sheltering in a Rafah apartment on Monday.
‘Stopping a crime is not generous’: Hamas
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is on his way to Jordan and then Israel with discussions on the war on Gaza front and centre.
Blinken on Monday said the latest Israeli ceasefire proposal is an “extraordinarily generous” offer and Hamas should accept it “quickly”.
But a Hamas official said there’s nothing “generous” about halting attacks that have killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, mostly children and women.
“The attack itself is a crime so when you stop a crime you can’t claim that it’s a generous action from the Israeli side,” Hamas’s Osama Hamdan told Al Jazeera.
Pro-Palestinian student protesters at Columbia University have defied a deadline, which has left them with an ultimatum to either leave the campus encampment or face suspension.
Hamas negotiators, who have repeatedly called for a permanent ceasefire and the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, have left Cairo after a day of talks with mediators.
US, Britain urge Hamas to accept Israeli truce proposal
RIYADH (Reuters) - US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday (Apr 29) urged Hamas to swiftly accept an Israeli proposal for a truce in the Gaza war and the release of Israeli hostages held by the Palestinian militant group.
Hamas negotiators were expected to meet Qatari and Egyptian mediators in Cairo on Monday to deliver a response to the phased truce proposal which Israel presented at the weekend.
