The Israeli army is setting up a division of retirement-age reservists due to “urgent need”.

    Five more children are among dozens of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on central and southern Gaza over the past 24 hours.

    Israeli government considering sanctioning the PA and countries that recognize Palestine.

    Israel’s military warned that cross-border between Hezbollah and Israel could trigger a wider conflagration.

    An Israeli soldier has been killed after a booby-trapped building blew up in southern Gaza, a day after 10 others died in attacks.

    At least 37,337 people have been killed and 85,299 injured in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7. The death toll in Israel from the Hamas-led attacks stands at 1,139 with dozens of people still held captive in Gaza.

    ‘Give families a chance to be reunited’

    A dark cloud hangs over this year’s Eid holiday for many families in Gaza who are separated or have lost loved ones due to the war

    Mohamed Arafat, a displaced Palestinian in Deir el-Balah, is unable to share the holiday with his wife and children because it is too dangerous to go back to Beit Hanoon where they live.

    “I spent every Eid with my family. Now I haven’t seen them for the second successive Eid,” Arafat told Al Jazeera.

    “I want to tell the whole world that this war on Gaza must stop immediately. Give families a chance to be reunited.”

    Israeli strikes have wiped out ‘entire bloodlines’ in Gaza: AP investigation

    The Associated Press has found at least 60 cases in which families in Gaza have lost at least 25 of their members to Israel’s strikes during its war on Gaza.

    Some Israeli attacks have taken out “four generations from the same family”, according to its report.

    Al Jazeera broadcast engineer Mohamed Abu Al-Qumsan lost 19 members of his family in one strike on the Jabalia refugee camp, his extended family is mentioned in the AP report.

    The following families in Gaza are among the hardest hit, according to AP:

•     Eighty members of the extended Abu Abu Al-Qumsan family were killed
•     The Mughrabi family lost more than 70 members in a single air strike in December
•     The Abu Naja family had 50 of its members killed in October strikes, including at least two pregnant women
•     More than 100 members of the Doghmush clan were killed in several weeks of strikes

    Israeli army creates division for retirement-age reserves due to ‘urgent need’

    The Israeli army is creating a new division for reservists over the retirement age of 40 to meet the “urgent need for more troops”, an Israeli Army Radio correspondent said.

    The division of five reserve brigades is in the “advance stages” of planning and will draw on other Israelis who were previously exempt from serving, Doron Kadosh said in a post on X.

    Israeli military Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi recently said enlisting draft-age ultra-Orthodox Jews was “an obvious necessity” while visiting the site of a deadly Hamas ambush on Israeli troops, in Gaza.

    As we also reported earlier, the Israeli government has also supported a draft bill extending the retirement age for reservists despite a backlash from the Israeli public.