Knesset rejects Palestinian state, Gaza bombardment continues and U.S. ends pier mission

The Knesset has voted to pass a resolution rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state. Wednesday's resolution passed overwhelmingly - by 68 votes to 9 - and rejects a Palestinian state even as part of a negotiated settlement with Israel.

The resolution stated: "The establishment of a Palestinian state in the heart of the Land of Israel will pose an existential danger to the State of Israel and its citizens, perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and destabilize the region."

It continued: "It will only be a matter of a short time until Hamas takes over the Palestinian state and turns it into a radical Islamic terror base, working in coordination with the Iranian-led axis to eliminate the State of Israel. Promoting the idea of ​​a Palestinian state at this time will be a reward for terrorism and will only encourage Hamas and its supporters to see this as a victory."

The resolution was co-sponsored by parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition, but also received support from right-wing opposition parties and Benny Gantz's centrist National Unity party.

Fighting continues

Israeli forces bombarded the Gaza Strip's historic refugee camps in the center of the enclave and struck Gaza City in the north on Thursday, killing at least 13 people, and tanks pushed deeper into Rafah in the south, health officials and residents said.

One Israeli airstrike killed six people in Zawayda town in central Gaza and two other people died in a strike on a house in Bureij camp. An Israeli air strike killed three people in a car in Deir Al-Balah, a city packed with people displaced from elsewhere in Gaza, health officials said.

In Gaza City in the north, medics said two Palestinians were killed in another airstrike.

The Israeli military said in a statement its forces killed two senior Islamic Jihad commanders in two airstrikes in Gaza City, including one whom it said had taken part in the October 7 attack in southern Israel that triggered the Gaza war.

On Tuesday, Israel said it had eliminated half of the leadership of Hamas' military wing and killed or captured about 14,000 fighters since the start of the war. Israel says 326 of its soldiers have been killed in Gaza.

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Official media in Lebanon and a Hamas-allied group said one of its commanders had been killed in an Israeli strike on Thursday in the country's eastern Bekaa valley.

Since Hamas's October 7 attack that triggered the war in the Gaza Strip, Israel has repeatedly targeted the commanders and members of Jamaa Islamiya, whose armed wing in the past nine months has launched attacks on it from southern Lebanon.

Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) said that "Jamaa Islamiya commander Mohammed Hamed Jbara" was killed when an "enemy drone" targeted his vehicle in the village of Ghazze, in the Bekaa valley.

U.S. abandons floating pier mission

The U.S. military announced on Wednesday that its mission to install and operate a temporary, floating pier off the coast of Gaza was complete, formally ending an effort to bring humanitarian aid to Palestinians.

The Trident pier, announced by President Joe Biden during a televised address to Congress in March, was a massive endeavor that took about 1,000 U.S. forces to execute. Aid began flowing via the pier to Gaza in May, an operation aimed at helping avert famine after months of war between Israel and Hamas.

But bad weather and distribution challenges inside Gaza limited the effectiveness of what the U.S. military says was its biggest aid delivery effort ever in the Middle East. The pier was only operational for about 20 days.

The UN World Food Programme paused operations at the pier in June because of security concerns, causing aid to pile up on the Gaza shore.

Meanwhile, Italy has sent food supplies and health equipment for the Gaza population aboard a humanitarian flight that landed in Jordan, a statement said on Thursday, as part of Rome's 'Food for Gaza' initiative to help civilians there.

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