EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell says Israel’s major military incursion into the occupied West Bank must not be “the premises of a war extension from Gaza” and a repeat of the “full-scale destruction” seen in the Palestinian enclave.

    The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) suspends staff movement across Gaza after one of its “clearly marked UN humanitarian vehicle” was hit at least 10 times by Israeli gunfire at a military checkpoint.

    Eight Palestinians have been killed in the latest Israeli bombing of a school sheltering displaced people to the east of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.

    The largest Israeli military raid on the occupied West Bank in decades continues with at least 12 Palestinians killed and dozens wounded after the first day of the incursion on Wednesday.

    At least 40,534 people have been killed and 93,778 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7.

    Two girls and a woman killed in central Gaza

    The Wafa news agency is reporting that Israeli forces launched attacks on the Nuseirat refugee camp and the city of Deir el-Balah at dawn, killing at least two girls and a woman.

    The girls were killed in Nuseirat and the woman’s body was recovered from Deir el-Balah.

    The killings come as Israeli forces continue to pound Nuseirat, Deir el-Balah and northern Gaza City, local sources told Wafa.

    Earlier, the agency reported that rescue crews had recovered the bodies of four people after Israeli forces bombed southern Rafah. Several more were killed in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City in Israeli air attacks, while two Palestinians were killed in Israeli artillery attacks on southern Khan Younis, it added.

    A ceasefire in Gaza is necessary to secure Red Sea shipping

    Hassan el-Tayyab, an analyst at the US think tank, Friends Committee on National Legislation, welcomed the agreement by the Houthis to allow rescue crews to salvage the damaged oil tanker, the Sounion, in the Red Sea.

    But he said the region will not see a permanent de-escalation without a ceasefire in Gaza.

    “The absolute last thing that we need right now – on top of all this regional violence – is an ecological disaster,” el-Tayyab told Al Jazeera.

    “It’s not the first agreement of its kind. We saw an agreement in 2023 brokered by the UN to get the Houthis and the Saudis and everybody basically agree to offload the crude from the Safer oil tanker,” he noted.

    “I think it’s in [the Houthis’s] best interest to not have an ecological disaster. It’s in everyone’s best interest. But unfortunately, without a ceasefire in Gaza, we’re not going to see the type of regional de-escalation that all of us really want to see – in the Red Sea, but also in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Iran and elsewhere.”

    Much more needs to be “done to really secure Red Sea shipping”, he added.

    Palestinians face escalation in ‘unlawful killings’ by Israel in West Bank: Amnesty

    Israeli forces have followed their “escalation in unlawful killings” in the occupied West Bank with a major military assault on the Palestinian territory that puts “more Palestinians at risk”, Amnesty International said.

    Describing an already “horrifying spike in lethal force” against Palestinians by Israeli soldiers and armed settlers, Amnesty said the new military operation will result “in further loss of Palestinian lives” as well as “an increase in forced displacement, destruction of critical infrastructure and measures of collective punishment”.

    “Amid alarming reports that Israeli forces have encircled and blocked off access to hospitals, Amnesty International urges the Israeli authorities to take action to safeguard health facilities and personnel,” Amnesty’s Erika Guevara Rosas said in a statement.

    “As the occupying power, Israel has a clear obligation to protect Palestinians, their homes and the infrastructure throughout the occupied Palestinian territory,” Guevara Rosas said.