The Israeli army bombed the Gaza Strip on Thursday, July 4, where fighting is raging in Shujaiya in the north and Rafah in the south, after an evacuation order in this region that has pushed tens of thousands of Palestinians into a new exodus. On the border with Lebanon, exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, the powerful Islamist movement allied with Palestinian Hamas, are raising fears of an extension of the war. The IDF has reported rocket alerts and air incursions throughout northern Israel, as far as the occupied Golan Heights.
Key information to remember
⇒ Lebanese Hezbollah says it attacked Israel with drones and over 200 rockets
⇒ Hamas says it sent mediators “ideas” to stop the war in Gaza
⇒ Tens of thousands of Palestinians flee southern Gaza
Lebanese Hezbollah claims to have attacked Israel with drones and over 200 rockets
Hezbollah said it fired more than 200 rockets and explosive drones at northern Israel on Thursday in retaliation for the killing of a senior Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon in an Israeli strike. The latter later announced that it had struck positions in southern Lebanon in response after reporting rocket and air raid alerts throughout northern Israel, as far as the occupied Golan Heights.
“As part of the response to the attack and assassination carried out by the enemy” in Tyre, in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah attacked five positions on the Syrian Golan Heights annexed by Israel and in northern Israel with “more than 200 rockets of different types,” according to a statement from the Lebanese Shiite movement. Hezbollah also said it carried out an “air attack with a squadron of explosive drones” against eight military positions in northern Israel and on the Golan.
“Following the sirens triggered in northern Israel, many projectiles and suspicious aircraft crossed the border between Lebanon and Israeli territory,” the Israeli army said in a short statement. “The army is currently striking launch sites in southern Lebanon,” it said. The Lebanese movement had already fired a hundred rockets into Israel on Wednesday in response to the death of commander Mohammed Neemeh Nasser (Hajj Abu Neemeh) in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon.
Hamas says it sent mediators ‘ideas’ to stop war
Hamas said on Wednesday it had sent mediators new “ideas” to end the war in the Gaza Strip. In a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, Israel confirmed that it was “evaluating” Hamas’ “comments” on a deal to release hostages held in Gaza and would respond to the mediators.
Hamas said it had “exchanged some ideas with the mediating brothers with the aim of ending the aggression against (its) Palestinian people.” Hamas said Wednesday night that it had discussed the issue with officials from Qatar and Egypt and had contacts with Turkey. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh “contacted the mediating brothers in Qatar and Egypt regarding the ideas that the movement is discussing with them” with a view to ending the war in Gaza, the movement said in a statement. The Hamas leader also spoke with “Turkish officials […] of the latest developments,” the text specifies.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians flee southern Gaza
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled the southern Gaza Strip after an evacuation order from Israel, raising fears of a major new offensive in the area, which was subjected to renewed Israeli bombardment on Wednesday. Around 250,000 people, according to the UN, are targeted by the evacuation order issued Monday by the army after rocket fire into Israel.
Occupied West Bank: Israel approves seizure of 1,270 hectares
Israel has approved the seizure of 1,270 hectares of land in the occupied West Bank, the largest land grab in Palestinian territory in three decades, according to the Israeli organization “Peace Now”. The land, located in the Jordan Valley, was declared “government property” by the Israeli authority in charge of land affairs in the Palestinian Territories in late June, according to official documents seen by AFP on Wednesday.
This is a record seizure since the Oslo Peace Accords (1993), the anti-colonization organization said in a statement. “The size of the area […] is the largest since the Oslo Accords, and 2024 marks a peak in the extent of state land declarations.” The Israeli decision “is a step in the wrong direction,” said Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman for the UN secretary-general. “The direction we want to go is to find a negotiated two-state solution,” Israeli and Palestinian.
Since the beginning of the year, the Israeli government has officially seized 23.7 km2 of the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967. It announced on March 22 the seizure of 800 hectares of land in the West Bank with a view to building new colonies.
UN denounces “unacceptable” treatment of Palestinian prisoners
The United Nations on Wednesday denounced reports of “unacceptable abuse” and even torture of Palestinian detainees since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the war in Gaza, and demanded an investigation. The United Nations has long expressed concern about the conditions of detention of Palestinians in Israeli prisons. However, the situation appears to have worsened since the start of the war.
Asked about a recent case in which the Israeli military acknowledged that soldiers tied a wounded Palestinian to a military vehicle during a raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said there was a “definite need for a transparent and independent investigation into this matter so that we can find out what happened, and to ensure that those who committed these acts are brought to justice.”
Israel: One soldier killed, another injured in knife attack
A soldier was killed and another wounded in a stabbing attack in Karmiel, northern Israel, on Wednesday, police said. The assailant was killed by the soldier who lost his life, according to Israeli media. “The attacker in Karmiel was an Israeli Arab citizen from Nahf,” a village in northern Israel, a police spokesman told AFP. “One of the two soldiers shot him,” he added.
The deceased soldier, aged 19, was the one who killed the perpetrator of the stabbing attack, according to Israeli media. Ynet And Times of Israel. This was a “suspected terrorist attack,” the police spokesman said in a statement earlier in the day, suggesting that it was linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The attacker was “neutralized on the scene” and his death was later confirmed, the statement added.
West Bank: Five Palestinians killed in Israeli operations
Five Palestinians were killed in two Israeli army operations in the occupied West Bank, Israeli and Palestinian sources said on Wednesday. Four Palestinians died in a night operation in the Nour Shams refugee camp near the city of Tulkarem, the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry said in a statement.
According to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, the four men, aged 20 to 25, were killed by an Israeli drone strike on the camp in the northern West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967. “An Israeli air force aircraft struck a terrorist cell in the Nour Shams area as its members were preparing an explosive device,” the Israeli army said in a statement, confirming the four deaths.