Israel proposes Palestinian-run 'humanitarian pockets' in Gaza

Israel launched deadly airstrikes on Rafah on Thursday, after threatening to send troops in to hunt for Hamas militants in the southern Gaza city where around 1.4 million Palestinians have sought refuge. Israel has continued its bombing of Rafah, it flattened a mosque and destroyed homes in what residents called one of their worst nights yet.

Mourners wept over at least seven corpses in body bags, laid on cobbles outside a morgue in the city hard against the Egyptian border, where over half of the Palestinian enclave's 1.4 million people are now huddling, mostly in tents.

"They took the people I love, they took a piece of my heart," wailed Dina al-Shaer, whose brother and his family were killed in a strike that relatives said hit their home shortly after midnight. Gaza health authorities said 97 people were confirmed killed and 130 wounded in the last 24 hours of Israeli assaults, but most victims were still under rubble or in areas rescuers could not reach.

Israel proposes Palestinian-run 'humanitarian pockets' in Gaza

Israel is seeking Palestinians who are not affiliated with Hamas to manage civilian affairs in areas of the Gaza Strip designed as testing grounds for post-war administration of the enclave, a senior Israeli official said on Thursday.

But Hamas said the plan, which the Israeli official said would also exclude anybody on the payroll of the internationally recognised Palestinian Authority, would effectively mean an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza and was doomed to failure.

The Israeli official said the planned "humanitarian pockets" would be in districts of the Gaza Strip from which Hamas has been expelled, but that their ultimate success would hinge on Israel achieving its goal of destroying the Islamist faction across the tiny coastal territory that it has been governing.

"We're looking for the right people to step up to the plate," the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. "But it is clear that this will take time, as no one will come forward if they think Hamas will put a bullet in their head."

The plan, the official added, "may be achieved once Hamas is destroyed and doesn't pose a threat to Israel or to Gazans."

Israel's top-rated Channel 12 TV reported that the Zeitoun neighborhood of northern Gaza City was a candidate for implementation of the plan, under which local merchants and civil society leaders would distribute humanitarian aid.

Palestinian gunmen kill one in West Bank shooting

Three Palestinians opened fire at motorists near an Israeli checkpoint in the occupied West Bank near Jerusalem on Thursday, killing one person and wounding five, emergency services said. One woman was seriously wounded, Israel's ambulance service said.

Police said officers and civilians at the site shot dead two gunmen and wounded a third. The assailants were from the area of the West Bank Palestinian city Bethlehem, police said.

At the scene of the shooting near the Israeli Maale Adumim settlement, far-right police minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called for more roadblocks to be erected in the area and said Israeli safety trumped Palestinian freedom of movement.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for thousands more homes to be built in settlements, which most countries deem illegal. Israel disputes this view and cites historical and biblical ties to the land it captured in a 1967 war.

Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group against which Israel has launched a military offensive in Gaza, praised the attack as a "natural response" to the war and called on Palestinians everywhere to take up arms.

Houthis to escalate Red Sea strikes

The Houthis will escalate their attacks on ships in the Red Sea and other waters and have introduced "submarine weapons," in continued solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza war, the group's leader said on Thursday.

Houthi militants in Yemen have launched repeated drone and missile strikes in the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandab Strait and Gulf of Aden since November in support of Palestinians, as the Israel-Hamas war continues and the Gaza death toll reaches almost 30,000.

"Operations in the Red and Arabian Seas, Bab al-Mandab Strait, and the Gulf of Aden are continuing, escalating, and effective," Abdulmalik al-Houthi added in a televised speech. He gave no details of the submarine weapons.

The group's strikes are disrupting a route accounting for about 12% of global maritime traffic and forcing firms to take a longer, more expensive route around Africa.

UK parliament descends into chaos over Gaza ceasefire vote

Dozens of lawmakers stormed out of Britain's parliament on Wednesday with tempers flaring as the three biggest political parties sought to outmaneuvre each other over a vote on a ceasefire in Gaza.

The uproar followed a decision by the speaker to ignore precedent and allow a vote which helped the opposition Labour Party avoid a large-scale rebellion among its own lawmakers over its position on the Israel-Hamas war.

Lawmakers from the governing Conservatives and the opposition Scottish National Party (SNP) left the debating chamber in protest and some tried to take the rare step of holding proceedings in private.

The speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, eventually apologized and said he had made his decision to allow lawmakers to vote on a range of views because he was concerned about their security after some had faced threats of violence over their stance on the war.

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