Israel-Palestine live: Thousands in state of panic as Israel continues to strike hospitals

For a fourth week in a row, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of London to call for an end to Israel's bombardment of Gaza. 

"[We're calling for a ceasefire," Catherine, a protester from the English town of Stevenage, told Middle East Eye in London's Trafalgar Square.

"We're calling out the UK government's involvement in this and making them realise they need to take accountability for what's going on."

She said that the videos of civilians being killed and wounded by Israeli strikes in Gaza were horrifying.

"It's heartbreaking," she said. "I'm seeing videos of families split apart. The reaction of mothers when they've lost their children... all happening in real time".

Catherine said that the large protest showed that people had come together in the UK to fight against "colonialism and genocide". 

Earlier today, a sit-in was staged at London’s Oxford Circus, stopping traffic in one of the busiest roads in the capital. Protesters also gathered outside the BBC offices in central London.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators from all corners of the United States came to Freedom Plaza in Washington DC on Saturday afternoon to demonstrate in support of Palestine and to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Dubbed the National March on Washington, it brought together hundreds of organisations from around the country, who organised buses, flights, and trains to get protesters into the US capital.

The march was organised by the Palestinian Youth Movement, the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, National Students for Justice in Palestine, and several other groups.

"We’re here to tell the world that what's going on in Israel in no way represents Jewish people,” Moshe, an Orthodox Jewish man who travelled from New York to attend the protest, told Middle East Eye.

The crowd continues to grow into the afternoon with hundreds seen walking in every few minutes.

Prominent speakers taking part in the march include Palestinian activist Mohammed el-Kurd and Muslim American scholar Imam Omar Suleiman. 

Six days after she gave birth to her first baby, Salma Radi was forced to evacuate her home in northern Gaza to flee Israel's relentless bombing and seek refuge in the central Gaza Strip, where she and her husband are now staying in a small apartment with 43 other people.

Displaced, scared, and in bad health, Radi is struggling to take care of the baby, Omar, she had following two IVF attempts.

"I was still bleeding badly after having given birth when we had to evacuate our home, leaving everything behind. I carried my son and one bag and ran with my husband in the dark for around one hour until we found a taxi," Radi, 28, told Middle East Eye.

Before dawn, at 4am, that day, the couple had received a recorded phone message from the Israeli military, ordering them to evacuate ahead of imminent bombing on Gaza City.

"We started running around the house not knowing what to do. We took our official papers and money and left everything else behind - the piles of canned food we had bought at the beginning of the war, our clothes, the beautiful bedroom and the things we had bought for Omar over the past year," Radi said.

Click the link below to read Middle East Eye reporter Maha Hussaini's latest story from the Gaza Strip, as anguished parents struggle to meet their children's needs while their own bodies weaken. 

Read more: The brutal reality of daily life for Gaza's residents

Israeli protesters have gathered outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's official residence in Jerusalem, calling on him to resign. 

"Bibi is a murderer," chanted some of the protesters, as they waved Israeli flags. 

Several of the demonstrators broke through barriers that had been erected near the prime minister's home, and scuffled with Israeli police.

In her latest column for Middle East Eye, Palestinian researcher Razan Shawamreh argues that China's "neutrality" on the conflict is undermining the Palestinian position. 

She writes: "This 'neutrality' in condemnation has serious consequences for Palestinians. Instead of offering support, it effectively undermines their position by suggesting an equivalence between the aggressive actions by Palestinian fighters and the disproportionate response by the Israeli army. 

"In this context, China must remember Dante's eloquent warning that 'the darkest places of hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis'. 

"China has consistently deviated from international norms on the conflict's pivotal issues, including through its support of the "Jewishness" of the state of Israel; its investments in Israeli settlements and reinforcement of economic security for settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem; and its promotion of Arab normalisation with Israel, despite the adverse impacts on the Palestinian population."

You can read the full column below. 

Opinion: Is China's 'neutrality' helpful or harmful?

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh met Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a visit to Tehran in recent days, a Hamas official told broadcaster al-Mayadeen on Saturday.

Speaking in Beirut, senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan gave no further details about the visit to the Iranian capital.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi has said that Israel is committing "war crimes" and that it should not be above international law.

Safadi made the comments during a news conference in Amman alongside Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

He added that Blinken had a leading role to play in efforts to end the Israel-Palestine war. 

Meanwhile, Shoukry said that Israel's actions in Gaza could not be justified as "self-defence", and demanded an immediate and unconditional ceasefire.

The Egyptian foreign minister added that it was premature to discuss the long-term future of Gaza at this time.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has rejected calls for a ceasefire during a meeting with his Arab counterparts in Amman. 

He said that a truce would leave Hamas in a position to regroup and carry out similar attacks to the one on 7 October, which killed around 1,400 Israelis. 

Blinken said that the US believed humanitarian pauses can be a "critical mechanism for protecting civilians", as well as for getting aid into Gaza and foreign nationals out of the enclave.

The comments were made at a news conference alongside the Jordanian and Egyptian foreign ministers, who have both repeatedly called for an immediate ceasefire. 

According to Blinken, Washington and Arab states believe that a status-quo in which Hamas controls the Gaza Strip could not continue. 

He added that the US was deeply concerned about "extremist violence against Palestinians in the West Bank", which he said had worsened since 7 October. 

Beirut Abu Shamala was born on 4 August 2020 in Gaza, hundreds of kilometres away from the Lebanese capital where, that same day, an explosion tore through the city.

The baby's parents decided to name her Beirut in honour of the city, its people and the 200 residents who were killed by the blast at the capital's port.

In a cruel twist of fate, Beirut herself would be killed three years later in an explosion, when an Israeli missile struck her home in Khan Younis, a city in the southern Gaza Strip which had been designated as "safe" by Israel. 

The news of Beirut's death and her story quickly spread around the Arab world, especially in Lebanon. 

Read more: Beirut, a child named after a devastated city, killed in Israeli strike

Israeli settlers mounted an Israeli flag on the minaret of a mosque in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, in the latest example of increased attacks since the war started on 7 October. 

The mosque is in the al-Fawwar refugee camp, close to Hebron. 

According to local media reports, settlers also removed photos and posters that had been left in remembrance of those killed in Israeli attacks. 
 

Brazil's ruling Workers Party criticised the Israeli government on Friday for not allowing 34 Brazilians to leave Gaza, saying Israel is playing favourites when it comes to deciding who should be allowed to evacuate the besieged enclave.

According to Reuters, in the three days since the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt opened to allow nationals of other countries to leave Gaza, Brazilians waiting to leave were not on the list approved by Israel, despite diplomatic efforts to include them.

"For the third time, the Israeli government denied the departure of Brazilian citizens threatened by the massacre against the civilian population in the Gaza strip," Workers Party president Gleisi Hoffmann said in a social media post.

She said the Israeli government has not provided any explanation for what she said was discrimination. 

Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in London’s Trafalgar Square to call for a ceasefire and an end to Israel’s bombing of Gaza. 

A sea of Palestinian flags could be seen from a distance, as people chanted for a free Palestine. 

MEE's producer, Mohammad Saleh, who was present at the protest said that people were shouting "Rishi Sunak shame on you."

He also said that a moment of silence was observed to mourn the lives of those lost in Israel's bombing of Gaza. 

Earlier today, a sit-in was staged at London’s Oxford Circus which stopped traffic in one of the busiest roads in the capital. 

Protesters also gathered outside the BBC offices in central London.

Over 25,000 tonnes of explosives have been dropped on Gaza by Israel since the start of the war on 7 October, Gaza’s media office announced on Saturday.

Hundreds of pro-Palestine protesters staged a sit-in to call for a ceasfire on Saturday.

The sit-in was staged in central London's Oxford Street, one of the busiest locations in the capital. 

Qatar's foreign ministry said on Saturday that the continued bombardment of the Gaza Strip complicated its efforts to mediate the release of hostages held by Hamas.

Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani made the comment in a meeting with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, the ministry said in a statement.