Live updates on Israel's war against Hamas

Clad in black and their faces masked, dozens of Israeli settlers burned olive trees and threw rocks at Palestinians in a coordinated attack on Friday on a West Bank village's annual harvest that injured at least two people including a journalist.

Some 80 settlers, some of them carrying gas canisters, descended from a hill above a terraced olive grove where villagers from Abu Falah had gathered to pick ripe fruit, a cherished annual tradition in Palestinian life, Reuters witnesses said.

"The settlers want to attack us and force us from our homes," said Moutaz Abdelhadi, 42, a farmer who witnessed the attack in Abu Falah.

Partway through the attack, at least two Israeli military jeeps sped through the area, kicking up dust as villagers ran out of their way.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree on Saturday cancelling legislative elections scheduled for November 28, 2026, and setting presidential and legislative elections for September 11, 2027, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Israeli strikes killed at least five Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in two separate attacks on Saturday, health officials said.

Medics said an Israeli strike killed four people near Panda Mall in Gaza City, while another killed one person in the Tuffah neighbourhood further south of the city.

Israel has stepped up strikes against Hamas in recent weeks, saying the Palestinian resistance group has been rearming and carrying out attacks in violation of the ceasefire.

Hamas denies rebuilding its arsenal or planning attacks and accuses Israel of undermining a US-brokered ceasefire agreed a year ago.

Israeli forces have raided the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, imposed a curfew, arrested several residents and demolished memorials to Palestinians killed by Israel, Al Jazeera reported, citing Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Local sources told Wafa that troops entered the city from several directions before dawn with military jeeps, vehicles and a bulldozer, and declared a curfew. Soldiers have raided and searched homes in several neighbourhoods, including al-Dawar, the Northern Mountain, Rafidia and Khallet al-Amoud, and ransacked them, the sources said.

At least nine people have been arrested, among them journalist Omair Istitieh, brothers Hamza and Omar al-Kakhan, and brothers Osama and Islam Salameh, Wafa said. It added that the military bulldozer has also demolished memorials in the al-Dawar and Ras al-Ein areas.

Israel carried out new strikes in Gaza on Wednesday as it marked the third anniversary of the October 7, when the ongoing war in the enclave began, with Palestinian officials reporting two dead.

Loud bangs across the border in Gaza were audible from the site of the Nova music festival. In Gaza City, Al-Shifa hospital reported two people killed in an Israeli strike overnight.

Gaza's civil defence identified one of the dead as Mohamed Tamous and said he was a volunteer for the agency, which serves as an emergency rescue service under resistance force Hamas.

Today marks the third anniversary of the beginning of war in Gaza, which has spilled over throughout the region over time. At least 74,243, Palestinians have been killed and 175,168 have been wounded in the besieged enclave since October 7, 2023. 

It may be noted that the mediators have tried to put the Israeli aggression against Palestinians to an end through ceasefire agreements multiple times and a so-called pause in the fighting was last achieved last year on October 11. 

However, Israeli strikes continue to ignore the year-old “ceasefire” as Gaza's humanitarian and medical systems slid further towards collapse, with winter around the corner.

Since the ceasefire that began on October 11, 2025, a total of 1,460Palestinians have been killed and nearly 5,100 injured, while the bodies of over 830 Palestinians have been recovered, Al Jazeera reported.

Hamas political bureau chief Khalil al-Hayya has offered condolences to Metropolitan Alexios of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Gaza over the deaths of two Christian women in an Israeli strike on Gaza City.

Al-Hayya expressed solidarity with the victims' families and Gaza's Christian community, saying Palestinians share the same pain regardless of religion. He said Israeli attacks "do not distinguish between a mosque and a church".

An Israeli airstrike killed at least five Palestinians, including four women, in an apartment building in Gaza City early on Saturday, health and civil defense service officials said.

Among the dead were a Christian mother and her daughter, medics said.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

The strike destroyed the apartment building and started a fire.

"We were asleep and suddenly heard continuous strikes and heavy explosions; the children woke up startled and started running and screaming," said eyewitness Ahmed Al-Dahdouh.

"We ran out and found that our neighbour's house was struck and there were dismembered martyrs, women, men and children; we started to pull them out; they were scattered under the rubble," he told Reuters.