Live updates: Middle East crisis

Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur in the occupied Palestinian territory, has accused Israel of deliberately starving Gaza as a matter of policy, Al Jazeera reported. 

She compared the deprivation to the widespread destruction inflicted on civilians, saying the objective is intentional. 

In a post on X, she urged world leaders who visited Israel after the 7 October attack to return and explain why sanctions on Israel and a protective presence in the occupied territory are necessary to prevent further humanitarian disaster.

Hamas says Netanyahu’s comments on a “decisive victory” and dismantling Rafah were a “desperate attempt to cover up his army’s failure in Gaza and convince his audience of an illusion”, Al Jazeera reported, citing a statement from the Palestinian group.

“We affirm that our people’s resistance will continue until the occupation is defeated, and that Rafah will remain a symbol of steadfastness and a nightmare that haunts the invaders,” Hamas said.

Israeli attacks have killed 2,308 people and 5,973 wounded since Israel broke a ceasefire on March 18, Al Jazeera reported, citing a statement from Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said among those killed were 595 children and 308 women.

Israel said it carried out a strike in Syria against extremists who attacked members of the Druze community, following through on a promise to protect the minority group as sectarian violence spread near Damascus on Wednesday.

It appeared to be Israel's first military action in support of Syrian Druze since Bashar al-Assad was toppled, reflecting its deep mistrust of the Sunnis who replaced him and posing a further challenge to interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa's efforts to establish control over the fractured nation.

Soon after the attack Syrian government in a statement vowed to "protect all components" of society, including the Druze minority, following sectarian clashes with its loyalists that killed about 40 people in two days.

Syria "affirms its unwavering commitment to protect all components of the Syrian people... including the children of the honourable Druze community," the foreign ministry said in a statement, also expressing its rejection of "foreign interference".

Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi was released from U.S. immigration custody on Wednesday, after a judge ruled he should be free on bail to challenge the Trump administration's efforts to deport him over his participation in pro-Palestinian protests.

Mahdawi, born and raised in a refugee camp in the West Bank, was arrested earlier this month upon arriving for an interview for his U.S. citizenship petition. A judge swiftly ordered President Donald Trump's administration not to deport him from the United States or take him out of the state of Vermont.

After two weeks in detention, Mahdawi walked out of the federal courthouse in Burlington, Vermont, after U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford ordered his release at a court hearing on Wednesday, according to his lawyers.

Israel cannot be forced to allow the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA to operate in Gaza, the United States said on Wednesday at a World Court hearing in The Hague.

At the third day of hearings on the matter, the US said Israel had the right to determine which organisations could provide basic needs to the population of the occupied Palestinian territories.

"An occupational power retains a margin of appreciation concerning which relief schemes to permit," US State Department legal adviser Joshua Simmons said.

"Even if an organisation offering relief is an impartial humanitarian organisation, and even if it is a major actor, occupation law does not compel an occupational power to allow and facilitate that specific actor's relief operations."

Iran on Wednesday executed a man convicted of espionage for Israel's Mossad spy agency and involvement in the 2022 assassination of a Revolutionary Guards colonel, the judiciary said.

Mohsen Langarneshin, described as "a high-ranking spy" who supported Mossad operations inside Iran, was hanged in the morning, the judiciary's Mizan Online news website reported.

With over two million Palestinians on the verge of starvation, Pakistan Tuesday urged the world community to act in a decisive bid to end Israel’s blockade of Gaza — now nearing three months — and allow humanitarian aid to enter the war-torn enclave.

“The blockade of Gaza must be lifted — now,” Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, permanent representative of Pakistan to the UN, said in an address to the UN Security Council in which he also called for an “immediate and permanent” ceasefire.

As food supplies in the coastal enclave are running critically low, some families are resorting to eating “whatever they can find”, even if its not safe for consumption, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has said, reported Al Jazeera.