Israel’s military says its soldiers are operating in central Deir el-Balah, which has so far largely been spared from ground fighting, further forcing Palestinians into just 11 percent of the Gaza Strip.

    Israeli forces wound a Palestinian journalist covering the expanding ground invasion of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, after shooting her in the back.

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Tel Aviv – his 9th visit since October 7. Before his meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Blinken said this was a “decisive moment” to strike a ceasefire deal with Hamas and bring the captives home.

    Blinken’s visit comes as Israel continues to insist on remaining in the Philadelphi Corridor – the entire border area between Gaza and Egypt – a point of contention in the ongoing ceasefire negotiations.

    At least 40,099 people have been killed and 92,609 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 and more than 200 were taken captive.

    UN decries ‘normalisation of violence against aid workers’

    The UN’s acting humanitarian chief has expressed concern over the increasing “normalisation of violence against aid workers” in a statement released on World Humanitarian Day.

    Joyce Msuya, the acting director of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), added that the “lack of accountability” for aid worker deaths is “unacceptable, unconscionable and enormously harmful for aid operations everywhere”.

    More than 280 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since October, including many local employees of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, OCHA said.

    More than half of the deaths in 2023, or 163, were aid workers killed in Gaza during the first three months of the war, mainly in Israeli air strikes, OCHA added.