- 28 Apr 2024 - 00:00(00:00 GMT)
That’s a wrap from us
Thank you for joining us for updates on everything related to Israel’s war on Gaza.
For more news, analysis and opinion on the conflict, click here.
- 27 Apr 2024 - 23:40(23:40 GMT)
A look at what happened today
We will be closing this live page soon. Here’s a quick recap from today:
- US news site Axios, citing two Israeli officials, reported that a new Israeli proposal for a possible deal with Hamas included a willingness to discuss the “restoration of sustainable calm” in Gaza.
- Israeli FM Katz said the Rafah invasion would be “suspended” if a prisoner swap deal is reached.
- Al Jazeera’s correspondent reported that 30 rockets were fired from Lebanon towards Israel.
- An Israeli strike in Srebbine, southern Lebanon, destroyed a house and injured 14 civilians, two of them seriously, according to Al Jazeera’s reporter.
- Student protests in the United States against the war on Gaza and universities’ ties with Israel continued.
- Students at Columbia released their five demands from the US university, including a demand to divest from companies that aid the Israeli government and another to sever ties to Israeli universities.
- Some senior US officials advised Secretary of State Antony Blinken that they do not find “credible or reliable” Israel’s assurances that it is using US-supplied weapons in accordance with international humanitarian law, according to an internal State Department memo reviewed by Reuters.
- Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian farmers in residential areas in the occupied West Bank.
- Hamas’s military wing released a video of two Israeli captives demanding the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reach an exchange deal.
- At least seven people were killed in an Israeli army attack on a home in Rafah, Wafa reported.
- A flotilla hoping to deliver aid to Gaza was blocked in Turkey after the West African country of Guinea-Bissau withdrew its flagged vessels.
- Muqtada al-Sadr, an influential Shia Muslim leader in Iraq, expressed his support for the pro-Palestinian encampments at universities in the United States.
- 27 Apr 2024 - 23:25(23:25 GMT)
WATCH: A 74-year-old Palestinian activist spends six months in Israeli jail
Omar Assaf has just been released from an Israeli prison after six months in custody.
Our cameras caught him reuniting with his family and a little bit of his story.
Watch our video for more:
- 27 Apr 2024 - 23:10(23:10 GMT)
‘We’re living this war in all aspects of life’
Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary was one of the signatories of the letter calling on US White House journalists to boycott the correspondent’s dinner.
She spoke to us from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza. Here is what she said:
I don’t have the words to describe what I have been going through since October 7.
This is not something that has been ending. It has been continuous every single day for more than 200 days. We have been killed, displaced and homeless, and we’re not only reporting on this, but we’re also living it with every single detail.
We’re living this war in all aspects of life. We have not seen our families as journalists. We have not been able to eat well. We have been dehydrated.
We have been reporting in one of the harshest conditions any reporter can go through despite losing a lot of colleagues, and it hurts our souls and our hearts every single day.
We have been constantly targeted by the Israeli air strikes and shelling.
All of these daily things we have been living as journalists are overwhelming [and] exhausting, but we still continue because there have been at least 100 Palestinian journalists whom I personally know that have been killed since October 7.
If they were here today with us, they would be reporting, and they would be raising the voice of the voiceless Palestinians.
- 27 Apr 2024 - 22:55(22:55 GMT)
Pro-Palestine protesters arrested at Indiana University
The Indiana University police department in Bloomington, United States, says that 23 protesters have been arrested.
Indiana State Police and Indiana University police told pro-Palestinian protesters they could not pitch tents and camp on campus.
When the tents were not removed, police arrested and transported protesters to the Monroe County Justice Center on charges of criminal trespass and resisting arrest.
A police statement read, “The Indiana University Police Department continues to support peaceful protests on campus that follow university policy.”
- 27 Apr 2024 - 22:40(22:40 GMT)
Protesters shout, ‘Shame on you’, outside White House correspondents dinner
It’s astonishing. We’ve never seen a White House correspondent’s dinner like this.
At the Washington Hilton, the president is here to speak while being warmly applauded by the national US press core.
But these VIPs are all dressed up in the evening finery, and they have to run the gauntlet of hundreds of protesters out here who are shouting, “Shame on you”.
“Shame on you” for breaking bread when there are 140 journalists dead as a result of, as far as they say, Biden’s complicity in their murder.
- 27 Apr 2024 - 22:25(22:25 GMT)
Rockets fired from southern Lebanon at northern Israel
Al Jazeera’s correspondent reports that 30 rockets were fired from Lebanon towards Israel.
The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation reported that rockets were fired from Lebanon towards the Meron area, which is located in northern Israel.
Israeli media and platforms broadcast scenes showing explosions over the area.
As we have reported, there were several exchanges of fire across the Lebanon-Israel border on Saturday.
An Israeli strike in Srebbine, southern Lebanon, destroyed a house and injured 14 civilians, two of them seriously.
Since October 8, the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah and the Israeli military have traded fire regularly.
You can read our in-depth analysis of these cross-border attacks here.
- 27 Apr 2024 - 22:05(22:05 GMT)
Photos: Day 10 of pro-Palestine protest at Columbia University
Students continue to occupy an encampment at Columbia University’s campus in New York.
They have been protesting the university’s investments in Israel and showing their support for Palestine for almost two weeks – inspiring other students across the nation to do the same.
- 27 Apr 2024 - 21:50(21:50 GMT)
Prominent US activist expresses support for campus pro-Palestine protests
Linda Sarsour tells Al Jazeera that she is “extremely inspired and encouraged by these young people all across this country”.
Sarsour, who is of Palestinian descent, was visiting the protest at Princeton University where students, as they are on campuses across the country, are protesting in support of Palestinians, as well as against their institutions’ investments in Israel.
“These young people are reaffirming and demonstrating that the tide is shifting on Palestine, that the Palestinian people have solidarity not just across the United States of America, but across the world,” she said.
When asked why no major university presidents are supporting the students in their protests, she said that the institutions “are beholden to their donors, instead of being loyal to their students”.
- 27 Apr 2024 - 21:35(21:35 GMT)
Police staying away from Emory University after Thursday’s violent scenes
Over the last hour or so, the number [of protesters has] steadily been growing. At the moment, it’s probably more of a gathering than a protest.
But this is very much a peaceful affair, and that’s been very much what the organisers have been selling it as on social media. [They say] come along, bring a blanket, bring some food, bring something to drink, sit on the ground, make some posters, write some slogans on the floor with chalk, just show your solidarity through peaceful motives.
There’s also a significant lack of police here. The occasional officer walks by, but compared to Thursday, when we saw those scenes and those mass arrests, the police are very much staying away.
The president of this university is coming under increasing pressure because he is the man who said that the police were right to be here on Thursday when we saw those violent arrests. Yesterday, one of the faculties here held a motion to hold a vote of no confidence in him.
- 27 Apr 2024 - 21:20(21:20 GMT)
Israeli truce proposal includes possibility of ‘restoration of sustainable calm’ in Gaza: Report
US news site Axios, citing two Israeli officials, reports that a new Israeli proposal for a possible deal with Hamas includes a willingness to discuss the “restoration of sustainable calm” in Gaza after an initial release of captives on humanitarian grounds.
According to Axios, the Israeli officials said the new proposal was formulated jointly by the Egyptian intelligence delegation and the Israeli negotiations team.
The new proposal is reported to offer a response to several of Hamas’s demands, including a willingness to allow the full return of displaced Palestinians to their homes in northern Gaza and a withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Netzarim Corridor, which splits the north of Gaza from the rest of the enclave.
Axios states that “the proposal also includes a willingness to discuss the establishment of a sustainable ceasefire as part of the implementation of the second phase of the deal”, which would take place after the release of the Israeli captives on humanitarian grounds.
This would mark the first time since Israel began its war on Gaza that Israeli leaders have shown an openness to discussing an end to the war as part of a deal to release the captives.
- 27 Apr 2024 - 21:05(21:05 GMT)
WATCH: Aid ship delayed as Israel creates ‘administrative roadblock’
A flotilla aiming to deliver aid to Gaza has been blocked in Turkey after the West African country of Guinea-Bissau withdrew its flagged vessels.
“Sadly, Guinea-Bissau has allowed itself to become complicit in Israel’s deliberate starvation, illegal siege and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza,” said the Freedom Flotilla Coalition.
Watch our video to learn more:
- 27 Apr 2024 - 20:50(20:50 GMT)
491 Palestinians killed in West Bank since Oct 7: Ministry
The Palestinian Authority (PA) Ministry of Health has said that the number includes 123 children, five women, five elderly people and 10 detainees in Israeli prisons.
Earlier today, we reported that Israeli troops killed two men, ages 20 and 21, in Jenin, and injured two others moderately, according to medics at Jenin’s government hospital.
- 27 Apr 2024 - 20:35(20:35 GMT)
Palestinian journalists call for boycott of White House correspondents dinner
More than two dozen Palestinian journalists have called for a boycott of the upcoming White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, which annually brings reporters, politicians and a glitzy array of celebrities together.
With President Joe Biden heading a long list of VIP guests, Palestinian journalists penned an open letter urging their American colleagues not to attend the dinner.
“You have a unique responsibility to speak truth to power and uphold journalistic integrity,” said the letter. “It is unacceptable to stay silent out of fear or professional concern while journalists in Gaza continue to be detained, tortured, and killed for doing our jobs.”
According to the New York-based Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ), at least 97 journalists – including 92 Palestinians – have been killed since October 7. At least 16 others have been wounded.
In addition to the boycott call, an antiwar coalition is planning a demonstration not far from the Washington Hilton hotel where the dinner will take place.
The antiwar group Code Pink, part of the coalition, said it planned to “shut down” the dinner to protest “the complicity of the Biden administration in the targeting and killing of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli military”.
- 27 Apr 2024 - 20:20(20:20 GMT)
Four US state depts raise concerns in internal memo that Israel may be violating international law in Gaza
Some senior US officials have advised Secretary of State Antony Blinken that they do not find “credible or reliable” Israel’s assurances that it is using US-supplied weapons in accordance with international humanitarian law, according to an internal State Department memo reviewed by Reuters.
Under a National Security Memorandum (NSM) issued by President Joe Biden in February, Blinken must report to Congress by May 8 whether he finds credible Israel’s assurances that its use of US weapons does not violate US or international law.
By March 24, at least seven State Department bureaus had sent their contributions to an initial “options memo” to Blinken.
“Some components in the department favoured accepting Israel’s assurances, some favoured rejecting them, and some took no position,” an unnamed US official quoted by Reuters said.
A joint submission from four bureaus raised “serious concern over non-compliance” with international humanitarian law during Israel’s prosecution of the war on Gaza.
The assessment from the four bureaus said Israel’s assurances were “neither credible nor reliable.” It cited eight examples of Israeli military actions that the officials said raise “serious questions” about potential violations of international humanitarian law.
These included repeatedly striking protected sites and civilian infrastructure; “unconscionably high levels of civilian harm to military advantage”; taking little action to investigate violations or to hold to account those responsible for significant civilian harm and “killing humanitarian workers and journalists at an unprecedented rate”.
- 27 Apr 2024 - 20:05(20:05 GMT)
Protests in Israel constant reminder to the gov’t that it remains very unpopular
There were perhaps as many as 30,000 people earlier on, both here outside the Defence Ministry and in front of the Tel Aviv Museum of Modern Art, where the families of the captives gather every night.
These protests are gathering momentum. They have been here since long before October 7. I was here this time last year as people protested against the government and its attempts to change the way judges were appointed to the Supreme Court.
They picked up again in recent months as people called for an end to the war in Gaza and the resignation of the government, particularly [Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu.
Many of the protesters here saying that Netanyahu is deliberately prolonging this war in Gaza, because it saves him from the ultimate reckoning at the ballot box.
The difference this year from last year is that there’s a more mixed crowd because many people have lost faith and Benjamin Netanyahu.
All the polls say that if there’s a new election, then he will almost certainly lose.
- 27 Apr 2024 - 19:50(19:50 GMT)
Israeli army says it hopes Gaza aid pier ready by early May
The Israeli army has said it hopes a pier to deliver aid to Gaza will be ready by early May, as it pushes ahead with its war on the besieged coastal enclave.
“We will be working with our partners on this endeavour … in the upcoming weeks, hopefully to make it fully functional early May,” Israeli army spokesperson Nadav Shoshani told an online press briefing on Saturday.
Shoshani said, “There will be no American boots on the ground, so once the aid gets to the land, the international organisations are going to be the ones carrying them out.”
Plans for the pier were first announced by US President Joe Biden in early March as Israel continues to hold up aid deliveries by land.
UN agencies have said maritime deliveries alone cannot deliver sufficient aid to ward off the threat of famine and have called on Israel to open up more border crossings for road convoys.
- 27 Apr 2024 - 19:35(19:35 GMT)
Hamas reviewing Israeli proposal for Gaza ceasefire
Senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya has given no details of Israel’s offer, but said it was in response to a Hamas proposal two weeks ago.
Negotiations earlier this month centred on a six-week ceasefire proposal and the release of 40 captives in exchange for freeing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
A separate Hamas statement said leaders from three main factions active in Gaza discussed attempts to end the war. It didn’t mention the Israeli proposal.
The statements came hours after an Egyptian delegation wrapped up a visit to Israel.
Egypt has cautioned that an offensive into Rafah could have “catastrophic consequences” on the humanitarian situation in Gaza as well as on regional peace and security.
- 27 Apr 2024 - 19:20(19:20 GMT)
Israeli fighter jets target Hezbollah infrastructure: Israeli military
We reported earlier on an exchange of fire between Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and the Israeli military in the north of Israel.
The Israeli military now says that its fighter jets struck Hezbollah infrastructure in the areas of Markaba and Srebbine in southern Lebanon.
Al Jazeera’s correspondent, Zeina Khodr, reports that the strike in Srebbine destroyed a house and that 14 civilians were injured, two of them seriously.
- 27 Apr 2024 - 19:05(19:05 GMT)
Husam Zomlot, Jeremy Corbyn lead pro-Palestine protest in London
The official account of the Palestinian Mission to the UK has posted a picture of Husam Zomlot, Palestine’s ambassador to the UK, leading a protest in London.
Also pictured is Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader of the UK Labour Party and vocal critic of Israel’s war on Gaza.
#HappeningNow: Ambassador @hzomlot leading the massive protest in London to demand an end to the Israeli genocide in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/oHPECFV7fC
— Palestine in the UK (@PalMissionUK) April 27, 2024
- 27 Apr 2024 - 18:50(18:50 GMT)
Injuries after Israel bombs town in southern Lebanon
According to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency, nine were injured in an Israeli raid on the town of Srebbine in the south of the country.
The Israeli raid targeted a house in the southern Lebanese town of Srebbine. NNA said one person was injured critically and that among the wounded were two Syrian citizens.
- 27 Apr 2024 - 18:35(18:35 GMT)
Police say they will not interfere in peaceful protests at George Washington University
It’s noisy at the moment. Several organisers have been speaking at a news conference, making clear their intent not to vacate this area.
At the moment, there are a little more than 100 students encamped in what is called University Square.
Unlike what is happening at other universities like Princeton, this is a public university, so effectively, this is all public space.
University administrators and the police are well aware of this. Administrators did ask the police to come in 24 hours ago and remove tents.
However, Washington, DC police declined to do so. They insisted that the demonstrations were peaceful and that they would not interfere as long as they remained so.
Now, some of the students have told us that the university is using retaliatory methods. It has suspended a number of the students who have been demonstrating. The university identifies them when they leave the square behind me and go into one of the adjoining buildings to use a bathroom, for example, and as they would need to log in to the system. They have then been identified by that login.
However, the students insist they will remain here. The police maintain that their job is to stand here and observe and take no action while these demonstrations remain peaceful.
- 27 Apr 2024 - 18:20(18:20 GMT)
Blinken set to travel to Saudi Arabia to discuss Gaza, regional security
The US State Department says that the secretary of state will make the visit on Monday and Tuesday to meet regional partners and discuss efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza.
The State Department said in a statement, “[Blinken] will discuss the recent increase in humanitarian assistance being delivered to Gaza and underscore the importance of ensuring that increase is sustained.”
“The Secretary will also emphasize the importance of preventing the conflict from spreading and discuss ongoing efforts to achieve lasting peace and security in the region, including through a pathway to an independent Palestinian state with security guarantees for Israel,” it added.
- 27 Apr 2024 - 18:10(18:10 GMT)
Israeli foreign minister says deal would defer Rafah operation
Israel’s foreign minister says that a planned incursion into the city of Rafah could be suspended should there be a deal to secure the release of Israeli captives held by Hamas.
“The release of the hostages is the top priority for us,” said Foreign Minister Israel Katz during an interview with Israeli broadcaster Channel 12.
Asked if that included putting off a planned operation that would target Hamas battalions in the city of Rafah, Katz answered, “Yes.”
He went on to say: “If there will be a deal, we will suspend the operation.”
Israel’s allies, the United Nations and major NGOs have urged Israel not to invade the southern Gaza Strip city, in which hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are currently sheltering.
- 27 Apr 2024 - 18:00(18:00 GMT)
Princeton protestors won’t leave until the university divests from Israel
This is day three at Princeton University, and these students are walking a fine line.
The university has said that they are not allowed to sleep here, so they have been coming in shifts to continually occupy this space for these past three days.
On Thursday, the first day, when a couple of them put up a tent, police came in and arrested them. So that’s the line they have to walk.
I talked to a history professor and he was saying there was a bit of irony here that this university is instilling values in the students and then punishing them for practising those values.
These students have decided to take their stand on this issue: They’re demanding divestment from the university from anything invested in Israel or in the war on Gaza, and they say they’ll stay here until they get what they asked for.
Israel’s war on Gaza updates: Hamas says reviewing new Israeli proposal
Official Khalil al-Hayya gave no details of offer, as Israeli FM says Rafah invasion to be ‘suspended’ if deal reached.
This live page is now closed. You can continue to follow our coverage of the war in Gaza here.
- Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya says the group is reviewing a new Israeli truce proposal, as Israeli FM Katz says Rafah invasion would be “suspended” if a prisoner swap deal is reached.
- At least seven people were killed and others injured when the Israeli army bombed a home in southern Gaza’s Rafah, Palestinian news agency Wafa reports, citing local and medical sources.
- Hamas’s military wing has published a video of two Israeli captives held in Gaza, showing footage of them calling on PM Netanyahu’s government to make a deal to secure their release.
- Growing student protests in the United States against the war on Gaza and universities’ ties with Israel have spread into Europe and beyond.
- At least 34,388 Palestinians have been killed and 77,437 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The death toll in Israel from Hamas’s October 7 attacks stands at 1,139, with dozens of people still held captive in Gaza.
Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies