20:00 Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels discussed "expanding confrontations and encircling" Israel in a meeting in Lebanon with Hamas and other Palestinian factions, a Houthi official told AFP on Saturday.
Houthi attacks on Red Sea ships since the start of the Israel-Hamas war have disrupted global trade, actions the rebels say are in solidarity with the Palestinians.
Representatives from Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine met last week with the Houthis in Beirut, the official said on condition of anonymity.
Palestinian sources on Friday told AFP that the meeting had taken place, with one of the saying the representatives discussed "mechanisms to coordinate their actions of resistance" for the "next stage" of the war in Gaza, now in its sixth month.
Another Palestinian source, also requesting anonymity to share details of the meeting, told AFP that those present discussed the "complementary role of Ansar Allah (the Houthis) alongside Palestinian factions, especially in the event of an Israeli offensive on Rafah".
Most of the Gaza Strip's 2.4 million people have sought refuge in Rafah, on the coastal territory's southern border with Egypt, the last major urban area spared an Israeli ground offensive.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Friday he had approved the military's plan for a ground operation in the city, without providing a timeline.
18:00 The head of the World Health Organisation on Saturday appealed to Israel "in the name of humanity" not to launch an assault on Rafah, where most of Gaza's population is sheltering.
"I'm gravely concerned about reports of an Israeli plan to proceed with a ground assault on Rafah," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
"Further escalation of violence in this densely populated area would lead to many more deaths and suffering," he added.
"In the name of humanity, we appeal to Israel not to proceed and instead to work towards peace."
An evacuation planned by the Israeli occupation army ahead of launching its assault was not a practical solution, he argued.
"The 1.2 million people in Rafah do not have anywhere safe to move to.
"There are no fully functional, safe health facilities that they can reach elsewhere in Gaza," he said. "Many people are too fragile, hungry and sick to be moved again...
"This humanitarian catastrophe must not be allowed to worsen."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved the military's "plans for action in Rafah", according to a statement Friday, which gave no details or a timeline.
The United Nations and the United States have also repeatedly warned against such a military operation.
15:00 Stalled talks aimed at securing a ceasefire in the Israeli war on Gaza are expected to restart in earnest in Qatar as soon as Sunday, according to Egyptian officials.
The talks would mark the first time both Israeli officials and Hamas leaders joined the indirect negotiations since the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
International mediators had hoped to secure a six-week truce before Ramadan started earlier this week but Hamas refused any deal that wouldn’t lead to a permanent cease-fire in Gaza, a demand Israel rejected.
In recent days, however, both sides have made moves to get the talks, which never fully broke off, back on track.
Hamas gave mediators a new proposal for a three-stage plan that would end the fighting, according to two Egyptian officials, one involved in the talks and a second briefed on them.
The officials spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to reveal the contents of the sensitive discussions.
The first stage would be a six-week ceasefire that would include the release of 35 captives — women, those who are ill, and the elderly — being held by militants in Gaza in exchange for 350 Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel.
Hamas would also release at least five female soldiers in exchange for 50 prisoners, including some serving long sentences on terror charges, for each soldier.
Israeli forces would withdraw from two main roads in Gaza, let displaced Palestinians return to north Gaza, which has been devastated by the fighting, and allow the free flow of aid to the area, the officials said.
Nearly one in three children under two years old in the isolated north are suffering acute malnutrition, the UN children’s agency UNICEF reported Friday.
In the second phase, the two sides would declare a permanent ceasefire and Hamas would free the remaining Israeli soldiers held captive in exchange for more prisoners, the officials said.
In the third phase, Hamas would hand over the bodies it’s holding in exchange for Israel lifting the blockade of Gaza and allowing reconstruction to start, the officials said.
14:00 A US charity said Saturday its team in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip had finished unloading the first maritime aid shipment to reach the besieged territory.
"All cargo was offloaded and is being readied for distribution in Gaza," World Central Kitchen said in a statement, noting that the aid was "almost 200 tonnes of food."
The group is preparing a second boat of 240 tonnes of food to set sail from Cyprus, the starting point of a new maritime aid route across the eastern Mediterranean.
The humanitarian effort is intended to mitigate food shortages that have prompted UN famine warnings in Gaza from the United Nations and aid workers.
"That shipment includes pallets of canned goods and bulk products including beans, carrots, canned tuna, chickpeas, canned corn, parboiled rice, flour, oil and salt," World Central Kitchen said.
It added that the second shipment would also include a forklift and a crane to assist with deliveries.
The humanitarian group said it had "no information to release on when our second boat and the crew ship will be able to embark."
13:00 The health ministry in Gaza said Saturday that at least 31,553 people have been killed in the territory during more than five months of the Israeli war on Gaza.
The latest toll includes at least 63 deaths in the previous 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 73,546 people have been wounded since the war began on 7 October.
12:00 In the shadow of the Israeli war raging in Gaza, record numbers of Palestinian detainees are filling Israeli prisons, where they face "systemic abuse" and torture, rights advocates warn, calling for international action.
Members of several Israeli NGOs travelled to Geneva this week to raise concerns before the United Nations about a major "crisis" inside the country's prisons.
"We are extremely, extremely concerned," said Tal Steiner, the executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI).
"What we're looking at is a crisis," she told AFP.
She said nine people had allegedly died behind bars since October 7, according to Israeli sources.
And "there are almost 10,000 Palestinians in Israeli custody right now, ... a 200-percent increase from any normal year".
While the UN and others have long raised concerns about conditions for Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons, Steiner said the situation had worsened dramatically since war erupted in Gaza.
Israel's offensive inside Gaza has since killed more than 31,000 people, mainly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
"During the military onslaught on Gaza, there's been a crisis within Israeli detention facilities and prisons that have been really left ignored," said Miriam Azem of the Adalah Legal Centre. The centre is dedicated to protecting the rights of Israel's Palestinian citizens.
Her organisation had managed to document "19 clear cases" of torture within the Israeli prison system just since October 7, including sexual violence, she told AFP.
"We're seeing really widespread and systemic use of many, many tools in order to inflict torture and ill-treatment on Palestinians."
This crisis, she said, "requires the immediate intervention of the international community".
Steiner agreed, warning that this was "an ongoing crisis.
"People are (suffering) in detention right now - an urgent intervention is very much needed."
The Israeli Prison Service told AFP: "All prisoners are detained according to the law."
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11:00 A first aid ship plying a new maritime corridor from Cyprus began unloading its cargo of desperately needed food in Gaza.
AFP footage showed the Open Arms, which set sail from Cyprus on Tuesday, towing a barge that the Spanish charity of the same name says is loaded with 200 tons of food for Gazans threatened with famine after more than five months of war.
World Central Kitchen, the US charity working with Open Arms, said it was readying another boat with supplies of beans, canned meat, flour, rice, and dates in the Cypriot port of Larnaca but stressed the need for more road access to bring aid into Gaza.
"Our ambition is having a highway of aid going into Gaza," the group's Juan Camilo Jimenez said in a video posted on social media platform X.
The Israeli military said it had deployed troops to "secure the area" around the jetty while the aid cargo was unloaded. The "vessel underwent a comprehensive security inspection," it said.
10:00 A spokesman for the health ministry in Gaza said early on Saturday that 123 people had been killed across Gaza in the past 24 hours, including 36 people in a strike on a house sheltering displaced people in central Nuseirat.
Witnesses reported air strikes and fighting in the southern Gaza Strip's main city Khan Younis as well as areas of the north where humanitarian conditions have been particularly dire.
As Muslim worshippers marked the first Friday of the fasting month of Ramadan, thousands attended prayers in the revered Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, amid a heavy security presence and restrictions on entry.
"It's the first year I see so many forces (police), and their eyes. Two years ago, I could argue with them, but now... they're giving us no chance," said Amjad Ghalib, a 44-year-old carpenter.
In southern Gaza's Rafah, the last major population centre yet to be subjected to a ground assault, AFPTV footage showed worshippers praying by the rubble of a destroyed mosque.
Palestinians perform the first Friday noon prayer of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan in front of the ruins of Al-Farouq Mosque on March 15, 2024, destroyed in Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. AFP
In negotiations aimed at securing a new truce and hostage deal, Hamas has put forward a new proposal for a six-week ceasefire and the exchange of several dozen Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, an official from the militant group told AFP.
Hamas would want this to lead to "a complete (Israeli) withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and a permanent ceasefire", the official said.
The proposal would involve the release of some 42 captives, who would be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners at a ratio of between 20 and 50 prisoners per captive, the official said, down from a previous proposal of roughly 100 to one.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday he had approved the military's plan for an operation in Rafah, where most of the Gaza Strip's population has sought refuge, without providing details or a timeline.
The White House, which has said an assault on Rafah would be a "red line" without credible civilian protection plans, said it had not seen the plan approved by Netanyahu.
"We certainly would welcome the opportunity to see it," National Security Council (NSC) spokesman John Kirby said, adding that the United States could not support any plan without "credible" proposals to shelter more than one million Gazans.
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