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Israeli Strikes Kill 15 People in Gaza over Past Day, Palestinian Medics Say

Palestinians walk among the rubble of their destroyed homes during the month of Ramadan, in the city of Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip, 09 March 2025. (EPA)
Palestinians walk among the rubble of their destroyed homes during the month of Ramadan, in the city of Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip, 09 March 2025. (EPA)
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Israeli Strikes Kill 15 People in Gaza over Past Day, Palestinian Medics Say

Palestinians walk among the rubble of their destroyed homes during the month of Ramadan, in the city of Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip, 09 March 2025. (EPA)
Palestinians walk among the rubble of their destroyed homes during the month of Ramadan, in the city of Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip, 09 March 2025. (EPA)

Israeli military strikes have killed at least 15 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, the enclave's health ministry said on Sunday, as Arab and US mediators work to shore up a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Palestinian officials say dozens of people have been killed by Israeli fire despite the January 19 truce that halted large-scale fighting in Gaza.

Israel's military has said its forces have intervened to thwart threats by "terrorists" approaching its troops or planting bombs since the ceasefire took effect.

Gaza's health ministry said most of the latest deaths were on Saturday when an Israeli airstrike killed nine Palestinians including four journalists in the town of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military said six men that it had identified as members of the armed wings of Hamas and the allied Islamic Jihad armed group had been killed in the strike. It said some of the fighters had operated "under the cover of journalists".

Salama Marouf, the head of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, said the military's statement about the incident included the names of people who were not present.

It was based on inaccurate social media reports "without even bothering to verify the facts", Marouf said.

At least four more Palestinians were killed in separate Israeli strikes on Saturday, the Gaza health officials said.

An Israeli drone had fired a missile at a group of Palestinians in the town of Juhr Eldeek in central Gaza on Sunday, killing a 62-year-old man and wounding several others, the medics said. Several others were hurt when an Israeli drone fired a missile towards a group of people in Rafah, they added.

The Israeli military said it was not familiar with the reported drone strikes.

Later on Sunday, an Israeli airstrike killed a Palestinian near the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City, medics said. The Israeli military said in a statement it struck a "terrorist" attempting to plant a bomb on the ground.

CEASEFIRE TALKS

Persistent bloodshed in Gaza underscores the fragility of the three-stage ceasefire agreement mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States, which have stepped in to hammer out a deal between Israel and Hamas over how to proceed.

Israel wants to extend the ceasefire's first phase, a proposal backed by US envoy Steve Witkoff. Hamas says it will resume freeing hostages only under the second phase that was due to begin on March 2.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Saturday negotiators had been instructed to be ready to continue talks based on the mediators' response to a US proposal for the release of 11 living hostages and half of the dead captives.

Hamas on Friday said it had agreed to release American-Israeli soldier Edan Alexander and four bodies of the hostages if Israel agreed to begin talks immediately on implementing the second phase of the agreement. Israel accused Hamas of waging "psychological warfare" on the families of hostages.

An Israeli delegation was in Egypt discussing a possible deal with senior Egyptian officials that would release more hostages, Netanyahu's office said on Sunday.

The war began when Hamas led a cross-border raid into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and capturing 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's subsequent assault on Gaza has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, displaced most of the population and reduced much of the territory to rubble.

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Arab World

Syria President Discusses Security with Visiting Lebanon PM

Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa and Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in Damascus in 2025 (File photo: AFP)
Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa and Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in Damascus in 2025 (File photo: AFP)
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Syria President Discusses Security with Visiting Lebanon PM

Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa and Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in Damascus in 2025 (File photo: AFP)
Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa and Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in Damascus in 2025 (File photo: AFP)

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa met Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in Damascus on Saturday on a visit tackling issues including security, transport and energy.

Beirut and Damascus have been rebuilding their ties after the December 2024 overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in Syria, whose family dynasty exercised control over Lebanese affairs for decades and is accused of assassinating numerous officials in Lebanon who expressed opposition to its rule.

A statement from the Syrian presidency said the officials discussed "developing economic and trade cooperation... and bolstering security coordination in order to support stability and confront challenges", as well as regional and international developments, AFP reported.

Syrian state news agency SANA said the visit aimed to "develop joint cooperation... particularly the economy, transportation and energy" sectors.

Salam was accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Mitri as well as Lebanese ministers for energy, economy and transport.

Salam hailed "significant progress" on joint issues at the end of the visit, telling reporters that "we discussed continuing efforts to address the issue of detained Syrians (in Lebanon) and to uncover the fate of the missing and forcibly detained in both countries".

In March, Lebanon transferred more than 130 Syrian convicts to their home country to serve the remainder of their sentences there, as part of an agreement signed a month earlier.

Lebanon has also been seeking information on political assassinations in the country under the Assad dynasty.

The discussions also addressed "the need for stricter Syria-Lebanon border controls and preventing all types of smuggling", Salam added.

Lebanon and Syria share a porous, 330-kilometre (205-mile) border notorious for the smuggling of people and goods.

Last month, the main border crossing was closed for several days due to an Israeli threat to target it, with Israel accusing Hezbollah of using the crossing for military purposes and smuggling, though it ultimately did not carry out the strike.

Israel and Hezbollah have been fighting since the Iran-backed group drew Lebanon into the Middle East war with rocket fire at Israel on March 2, though a ceasefire was announced last month.

Hezbollah, which fought alongside Syrian government forces during the country's civil war, lost a major ally and cross-border supply route with Assad's ouster.

Syria's new authorities are hostile to the Lebanese group and its sponsor, and have announced the arrest of alleged Hezbollah-affiliated cells in recent months, while the group has denied having any presence in Syria.

Salam said that "we will not allow Lebanon to be used as a platform to harm any of its Arab brothers, including Syria".

Arab World

Settlers Force Re-burial of Palestinian Man in West Bank, Family Says 

Israeli settlement structuers being installed in Sanur near Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, May 9, 2026. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman
Israeli settlement structuers being installed in Sanur near Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, May 9, 2026. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman
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Settlers Force Re-burial of Palestinian Man in West Bank, Family Says 

Israeli settlement structuers being installed in Sanur near Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, May 9, 2026. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman
Israeli settlement structuers being installed in Sanur near Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, May 9, 2026. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman

Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank forced Palestinians to exhume the body of their father from his freshly dug village grave, his family said, near a settlement re-established by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.

Hussein Asasa, 80, died on Friday of natural causes and was buried that evening at the cemetery of Asasa village near Jenin, with all the necessary permits from Israel's military, whose forces were at the site, his son Mohammed said.

But shortly after the burial, the family was called back by some of the villagers, who said settlers were at the grave, ordering the grave be dug up.

"They said the land was for settlement and that burial was not allowed. We told them that this is the village's cemetery, not part of the settlement," said Asasa, Reuters reported.

The settlers then threatened to dig the grave up with a bulldozer, Asasa said, so the family decided to exhume their father's body themselves.

"We found that they already dug the grave and reached the body," Asasa said. "We continued digging and got the body and buried him in another cemetery," he said.

VIDEO SHOWS PEOPLE REMOVING A BODY

Video circulating on social media appeared to show settlers watching as people dig in the ground of a hill slope. They then carry away what looks like a body as Israeli troops walk behind them. Reuters verified the location as Asasa.

The Israeli military said that the funeral had been coordinated with it and that it had not instructed the family to rebury their father. Soldiers were sent to the scene following a report about a confrontation with settlers who were "digging in the area," the military said. "The soldiers confiscated digging tools from the Israeli civilians and remained at the location in order to prevent further friction," the military said. It added that it condemns actions that violate the "dignity of the living and the deceased".

The UN Human Rights Office condemned the incident.

"This is appalling and emblematic of the dehumanisation of Palestinians that we see unfolding across the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territories). It spares no one, dead or alive," said Ajith Sunghay, head of the OHCHR Palestinian office.

Sa-Nur was one of 19 settlements evacuated under the 2005 Israeli disengagement plan, which also included Israel's withdrawal of settlers and troops from Gaza. Netanyahu's government approved Sa-Nur's re-establishment a year ago and construction has advanced rapidly, according to Peace Now, an Israeli settlement watchdog.

The West Bank is among the territories that Palestinians seek for an independent state. Israel cites historical and biblical ties to the land, as well as security needs.

Netanyahu's government, which staunchly opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state, has been accelerating settlement building, while a rise in attacks by settlers on Palestinians has drawn international alarm. The United Nations and most countries deem Israel's settlements on West Bank land captured in the 1967 war illegal, a view that Israel disputes.

Arab World

Gaza Flotilla Activists to Be Released from Israel Detention and Deported

Global Sumud Flotilla Steering Committee members Susan Abdallah, Muhammad Nadir Al-Nuri, Suemeyra Akdeniz Ordu, Maimon Herawati, Thiago Avila and Saif Abukeshek, Eva Saldana, Greenpeace Spain; Maria Serra, GSF Catalunya and Oscar Camps, Open Arms attend a press conference as humanitarian flotilla prepares to depart for Gaza, from Barcelona, Spain, April 12, 2026. REUTERS/Albert Gea
Global Sumud Flotilla Steering Committee members Susan Abdallah, Muhammad Nadir Al-Nuri, Suemeyra Akdeniz Ordu, Maimon Herawati, Thiago Avila and Saif Abukeshek, Eva Saldana, Greenpeace Spain; Maria Serra, GSF Catalunya and Oscar Camps, Open Arms attend a press conference as humanitarian flotilla prepares to depart for Gaza, from Barcelona, Spain, April 12, 2026. REUTERS/Albert Gea
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Gaza Flotilla Activists to Be Released from Israel Detention and Deported

Global Sumud Flotilla Steering Committee members Susan Abdallah, Muhammad Nadir Al-Nuri, Suemeyra Akdeniz Ordu, Maimon Herawati, Thiago Avila and Saif Abukeshek, Eva Saldana, Greenpeace Spain; Maria Serra, GSF Catalunya and Oscar Camps, Open Arms attend a press conference as humanitarian flotilla prepares to depart for Gaza, from Barcelona, Spain, April 12, 2026. REUTERS/Albert Gea
Global Sumud Flotilla Steering Committee members Susan Abdallah, Muhammad Nadir Al-Nuri, Suemeyra Akdeniz Ordu, Maimon Herawati, Thiago Avila and Saif Abukeshek, Eva Saldana, Greenpeace Spain; Maria Serra, GSF Catalunya and Oscar Camps, Open Arms attend a press conference as humanitarian flotilla prepares to depart for Gaza, from Barcelona, Spain, April 12, 2026. REUTERS/Albert Gea

Two activists arrested last month when Israeli forces intercepted the Gaza-bound flotilla they were travelling on are expected to be deported in the coming days after being released from security detention on Saturday, their lawyers said. Saif Abu Keshek, a Spanish national, and Brazilian Thiago Avila were detained by Israeli authorities on April 29 and brought to Israel. The activists were part of a second Global Sumud Flotilla launched from Spain on April 12 to try to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza by delivering aid to the enclave.

Israel's foreign ministry said Abu Keshek was suspected of affiliation with a terrorist organization and Avila was suspected of illegal activity. Both denied the allegations, Reuters reported.

BRAZIL AND SPAIN SAID THE DETENTION WAS UNLAWFUL

The governments of Spain and Brazil said Abu Keshek's and Avila's detention was unlawful, but Israel's Ashkelon Magistrate’s Court remanded them in custody until May 10.

Human rights group Adalah, which has assisted in their legal defense and also said the detention was unlawful, said that Abu Keshek and Avila were informed that they will be released from detention on Saturday and handed over to immigration authorities' custody until their deportation.

"Adalah is closely monitoring developments to make sure that the release from detention goes ahead, followed by their deportation from Israel in the coming days," the group said. Israeli officials were not immediately reachable for comment.

Israeli authorities held them under suspicion of offences that included aiding the enemy and contact with a terrorist group.

Gaza is largely run by Palestinian militant group Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist group by Israel and much of the West. The group's October 7, 2023, attack on Israel started the Gaza war that has left much of the enclave's population homeless and dependent on aid - that humanitarian agencies say is arriving too slowly.