Israel steps up Gaza City attacks and agrees new West Bank settlement

TOP HEADLINES

• The Israeli military maintained its pressure on Gaza City with heavy bombardments. READ MORE BELOW

• The head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency, Philippe Lazzarini, voiced concern that children suffering from malnutrition in Gaza will die if emergency provisions are not immediately put in place during Israel's Gaza City military operation. 

• Two more people have died of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza in the past 24 hours, the territory's health ministry said. READ MORE BELOW

• A group of 17 U.S. Senators sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling for the U.S. to press Israel to grant access and protection to journalists in Gaza.

• Israel has "work" to do in winning over young people in the West as polls show collapsing support, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted to a UK-based podcast.

• Netanyahu stepped up his personal attacks on Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese over his government's decision to recognize a Palestinian state, saying Albanese's political record had been damaged forever.

• The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, representing relatives of Israeli captives in Gaza, urged the public to join an anti-war march on Thursday in front of Israel's Kirya military base in Tel Aviv.

• Israel approved a major settlement project in an area of the occupied West Bank. READ MORE BELOW

• Turkish port authorities have begun informally requiring shipping agents to provide letters declaring vessels are not linked to Israel and not carrying military or hazardous cargo bound for the country, according to two shipping sources.

IN DETAIL

Israeli pressure on Gaza intensifies

The Israeli military maintained its pressure on Gaza City with heavy bombardments overnight, residents said, ahead of a Thursday meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers on plans to seize the enclave's largest city.

The military laid out plans to call up 60,000 reservists on Wednesday in a sign that the government was pressing ahead with the offensive, despite international condemnation. However, one military official said most reservists would not serve in combat and that the strategy to take Gaza City had not yet been finalized.

Calling up tens of thousands of reservists is also likely to take weeks, giving time for mediators to attempt to bridge gaps over a new temporary ceasefire proposal that Hamas has accepted, but the Israeli government is yet to officially respond to.

The proposal calls for a 60-day ceasefire and the release of 10 living hostages being held in Gaza by Hamas militants and of 18 bodies. In turn, Israel would release about 200 long-serving Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

The Israeli government has restated that all of the remaining 50 hostages held by militants in Gaza must be released at once. Israeli officials believe that around 20 of them are still alive.

Netanyahu was scheduled to meet with some cabinet ministers on Thursday to discuss his plan to seize Gaza City, according to Haaretz and other Israeli media, without giving more details.

The plan was approved this month by the security cabinet, which he chairs, even though many of Israel's closest allies have urged the government to reconsider.

In Gaza City, thousands of Palestinians have left their homes as Israeli forces have escalated shelling on the Sabra and Tuffah neighborhoods. Some families have left for shelters along the coast, while others have moved to central and southern parts of the enclave, according to residents.

Israeli tanks have been edging closer to densely populated Gaza City over the past 10 days. Israeli officials have said evacuation notices would be issued to Palestinians there before the military moves in.

Starvation deaths

Two more people have died of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza in the past 24 hours, the territory's health ministry said on Thursday. 

The new deaths raised the number of Palestinians to die from such causes to 271, including 112 children, since the war began.

Israel disputes malnutrition and starvation figures posted by the Gaza health ministry.

An Israeli attack on Gaza City's Sheikh Radwan neighborhood on Thursday killed a girl and injured other children, according to the Wafa news agency.

According to medical sources of Al Jazeera at least 20 people have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza on Thursday. The sources said that eight aid seekers were among the dead.

Controversial West Bank settlement agreed

Israel approved a major settlement project on Wednesday in an area of the occupied West Bank that the international community has warned threatens the viability of a future Palestinian state.

Israel has long had ambitions to build on the roughly 12-square-kilometer parcel known as E1 just east of Jerusalem, but the plan had been stalled for years amid international opposition.

The latest announcement also drew condemnation, with UN chief Antonio Guterres saying the settlement would effectively cleave the West Bank in two and pose an "existential threat" to a contiguous Palestinian state.

Last week, Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich backed plans to build around 3,400 homes on the ultra-sensitive tract of land, which lies between Jerusalem and the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim.

All of Israel's settlements in the West Bank, occupied since 1967, are considered illegal under international law, regardless of whether they have Israeli planning permission.

The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) criticized the latest move.

"This undermines the chances of implementing the two-state solution, establishing a Palestinian state on the ground, and fragments its geographic and demographic unity," the PA's foreign ministry said in a statement.

Israel heavily restricts the movement of West Bank Palestinians, who must obtain permits from authorities to travel through checkpoints to cross into east Jerusalem or Israel.

Guterres repeated a call for Israel to "immediately halt all settlement activity", warning that the E1 project would be "an existential threat to the two-State solution", his spokesperson said.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy also rejected the plans, saying it would "divide a Palestinian state in two and mark a flagrant breach of international law."