Live: 54 Palestinians killed, 831 wounded in 24 hours

Hamas's armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, said on Thursday that it hit an Israeli Merkava tank with a Yassin 105 shell in Gaza City, Al Jazeera reported. 

The attack happened in the neighborhood of Zeitoun, which Israel has been carpet bombing for the last few days. 

It also claimed to have injured and killed Israeli soldiers in separate attacks in the city. 

Israel’s national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir told a Palestinian political pensioner that he would "wipe" out Palestinians.

In a visit that was captured on social media, Ben-Gvir told 66-year-old Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, who has been detained by Israel since 2002, that: "You won’t win. Whoever messes with the nation of Israel, whoever murders our children and women – we will wipe them out. You should know this, [this happened] throughout history.”

Barghouti has spent years in solitary confinement, and relatives expressed concern that Israel would kill him in custody. Last year, Israeli prison authorites seriously physically assualted him while he was in solitary confinement. 

Relatives told Al Jazeera Arabic that Barghouti had deteriorated since the last time they had seen him, noting there was a “shocking” change in his features which they put down to “exhaustion and hunger”.

Barghouti is dubbed the 'Palestinian Nelson Mandela,' and remains extrememly popular among Palestinians.

US President Donald Trump told reporters at the Oval Office on Thursday he would "like" to see international journalists report from the ground in Gaza, Reuters reported. 

"I'd like to see that happen," he said. "Sure, I would be very fine with journalists going. And it's a very dangerous position to be in, as you know, if you're a journalist, but I would like to see it."

International reporters have not been allowed into Gaza without Israeli military escort since the start of Israel's war on Gaza in October 2023.

US President Trump was sent a video message by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum on Thursday, telling him that Israel's expansion plans in the enclave threaten the remaining captives in Gaza. 

Both freed Israeli captives and the widow of a deceased captive recorded messages in the video. 

Former captive Iair Horn said Trump could change the course of the conflict for the better.

“You have the power to make history, to be the president of peace, the one who ended the war, ended the suffering, and brought every hostage home, including my little brother.”

Meanwhile, former captive Sasha Troufanov warned Trump that the expanded military operation would put them all in danger. 

“President Trump, the decision to expand the military operation puts each and every one of them in very great danger. Every bullet, every strike could be the one that ends their life.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outlined his five conditions for ending Israel's war on Gaza on Thursday. 

These include Hamas being disarmed, all captives to be returned; demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip; Israel controlling security in the Gaza Strip, including the security perimeter; and an alternative to Hamas or the Palestinian Authority governing the enclave.

He said the conditions would lead to the safety and security of Israel. 

At least 35 Palestinians were killed in Gaza on Thursday, Al Jazeera reported, citing local hospital sources. 

More than a third - at least 13 people - were killed  seeking aid.

Most major international non-profit organisations have been unable to deliver a single truck of lifesaving supplies since 2 March, despite claims by Israeli authorities that there is no limit on humanitarian aid entering Gaza, a joint press release from more than 100 NGOs said on Thursday.

Israeli authorities are said to have rejected requests from dozens of NGOs to bring in lifesaving goods, citing that these organisations are “not authorized to deliver aid", instead of clearing the increasing backlog of goods. 

The statement said that more than 60 requests were denied under this justification in July alone, and the obstruction has left millions of dollars’ worth of food, medicine, water, and shelter items stranded in warehouses across Jordan and Egypt, while Palestinians are being starved.

“Anera has over $7 million worth of lifesaving supplies ready to enter Gaza - including 744 tons of rice, enough for six million meals, blocked in Ashdod just kilometers away,” said Sean Carroll, president and CEO of Anera.

Many of the NGOs that are now told they are not “authorized” to deliver aid have worked in Gaza for decades, are trusted by communities, and are experienced in delivering aid safely.

Their exclusion has left hospitals without basic supplies, children, people with disabilities, and older people dying from hunger and preventable illnesses, and aid workers themselves going to work hungry.

The US's annual report on Israeli human rights abuses comes in at only nine pages, 94 pages shorter than the report on the same topic last year, The Intercept reported on Wednesday. 

Josh Paul, the former director of congressional and public affairs at the State Department bureau who resigned in 2023 over US military assistance to Israel in the war on Gaza, told The Intercept, “Its coverage of Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza appears to have been written by someone who has been blindfolded, earmuffed, had a sock stuffed in their mouth, and then censored.”

The report was one of 200 human rights reports that the State Department released on Tuesday.

Paul said the report could be summarised "in just a few more words than it appears to be written in: few truths, many half truths, and nothing like the truth”.

The congressionally mandated human rights reports normally guide US policy decisions on diplomacy.

The report on Israel does not mention the ongoing genocide case against Israel at the International Criminal Court.

Raw sewage is impeding the ability of staff at Khan Younis medical complex to treat patients, causing a public health crisis, Al Jazeera reported on Thursday.

Israeli attacks have caused severe damage to sewage lines, resulting in waste flowing directly into the hospital and its surrounding complex, management at the hospital said. 

The hospital’s administrative director, Iyad Barhoum, said the Israeli military is stopping technical crews from repairing sewage lines.

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) on Wednesday called on the Delaware attorney general (AG) to investigate the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) - which is registered in the state - and seek to revoke its charter.

In a detailed letter to AG Kathy Jennings last week, the organisation said Jennings has an obligation to sue to revoke GHF’s corporate charter on grounds that the charity is complicit in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

To date, Jennings has neither responded to the CCR nor publicly addressed the claims raised against the Delaware-registered entity.

The CCR letter follows similar demands by local activists, including Delawareans for Palestinian Human Rights (DelPHR), which on 5 August delivered a letter to Jennings signed by hundreds of Delawareans demanding she use her power to dissolve GHF.

Israel has sidelined the United Nations’ internationally recognised aid delivery system in favour of the militarised, US- and Israel-backed GHF, an inexperienced and largely opaque entity registered as a charitable nonprofit in Delaware. Since GHF started operating in late May, Israeli soldiers and American contractors have killed over 1,800 Palestinians seeking aid at its four distribution sites.

Israel offered Anas al-Sharif safe passage out of Gaza four days before he was killed if he stopped reporting, but he refused, his brother revealed in an interview.

Mohamed al-Sharif told journalist Ahmed Jalal in a video interview published on Wednesday that Anas was offered safe passage to leave with his wife, children and even the remainder of his family.

Mohamed said it was the "latest" offer Anas had received. 

His brother said Anas told him that "I will never abandon my people while they are living in this situation.

"Either I live to witness the end of the war, or be martyred. Other than that, I have no option or decision. Whatever God has destined will happen".

Anas chose to stay in Gaza City even though he knew Israel was planning a full-scale invasion, with imminent plans to take over Gaza City.

In one of his final posts on X, Anas said: "To whom it may concern, the occupation is now openly threatening a full-scale invasion of Gaza. For 22 months, the city has been bleeding under relentless bombardment from land, sea, and air. Tens of thousands have been killed, and hundreds of thousands wounded. If this madness does not end, Gaza will be reduced to ruins, its people’s voices silenced, their faces erased - and history will remember you as silent witnesses to a genocide you chose not to stop. Please share this message and tag everyone who has the power to help end this massacre. Silence is complicity".

Hamas has released a statement declaring 15 August a nationwide "day of rage" in response to the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements, along with intensifying plans to annex the occupied West Bank. 

The statement calls for an escalation of protests and "all forms of resistance" across all cities and other populated areas within the occupied West Bank, such as villages and refugee camps.

It comes amid the ongoing war and starvation in Gaza, along with recent plans to construct 3,400 new illegal Israeli settlement units. Hamas says that the annexation attempts will be quelled by "the people's will and continued resistance". The statement further calls on Palestinian factions and civil society groups to defend and support those living in areas threatened by settlement, land confiscation and annexation.

A cross-party group of MPs have sent a letter to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer urging him to "immediately expel" Israel's ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely.

The letter, sent to Starmer on Thursday, describes Israel's actions in Gaza as genocidal. Lead signatory Adnan Hussain, an independent MP, said the letter requested that the government "act urgently in the face of genocide in Gaza".

It has been signed by every member of the parliamentary Independent Alliance, as well as some Green Party and Scottish National Party MPs.

The letter is also signed by Labour MP Abtisam Mohamed, who sits on parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, which scrutinises foreign policy.

Those behind the letter say that since Britain is a signatory to the Genocide Convention, it "has a clear and binding legal obligation to prevent genocide wherever it occurs".

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A UK-based rights group has filed a legal complaint in Armenia against a businessman with reported links to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over allegations of war crimes connected to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

The Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK (AOHR) said in a statement that it submitted a complaint to Armenia's Prosecutor General calling for an urgent investigation into David Papazian, an Armenian national who reportedly chairs the board of the GHF.

In a series of letters seen by Middle East Eye, the AOHR said that there is "credible evidence and documentation" that Papazian "may have been involved in, or facilitated, actions that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip".

The US and Israeli-backed GHF has been widely condemned over its militarised food distribution mechanism in the besieged Gaza Strip, with charities such as Doctors Without Borders (MSF) accusing it of institutionalising "starvation and dehumanisation".

At least 1,800 Palestinians have been killed and more than 13,500 wounded while collecting food or queuing for assistance at GHF sites or en route to its centres. 

Read more: UAE-linked Armenian businessman faces war crimes allegations over GHF role

Iraq has joined a growing list of Arab countries condemning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's comments voicing support for a "Greater Israel" in an i24NEWS interview on Tuesday.

The Iraqi foreign ministry said the comments revealed Israel's "expansionist ambitions" and were "a clear provocation to the sovereignty of countries".

Other countries to condemn the statement include Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Kuwait, Qatar and Egypt. Saudi Arabia expressed on Wednesday "its total rejection of the ideas and plans for colonisation and expansion adopted by the Israeli occupation authorities", and Egypt called the comments a "rejection of the option of peace in the region".

On Tuesday, in an interview with journalist Sharon Gal, Netanyahu said he felt "very" connected to the prospect of a "Greater Israel".