An Israeli tank fired from a close distance at the family car of six-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, and a tank shell directly hit the ambulance that was dispatched to help, according to an investigation.

The killing of the child and her family in Gaza City in late January prompted international condemnation.

Rajab, who survived the initial shooting, had begged for help as she bled out among the bodies of her dead relatives while on the phone with paramedics and her mother for three hours.

In a documentary on civilian killings in the war on Gaza, Al Jazeera TV’s Fault Lines provided a detailed reconstruction of the incident, compiled in collaboration with nonprofit investigative groups, Forensic Architecture and Earshot.

The investigation revealed the Israeli tank was likely just 13 to 23 metres (42 to 75 feet) away when it opened fire on Rajab and her relatives in their car.

The Israeli military refused to answer Al Jazeera’s questions on the details of the incident. However, the new evidence further disproves previous claims by the Israeli military that its forces were not present in the area.

Until she was taken out of the house, Porat identified nine living hostages. She wasn't a witness to the close-range shooting of any of the hostages, or to any of them being hit in the exchange of fire. "I didn't see anyone execute anyone," she says. "I didn't see a body." That is compatible with what Hadas Dagan said – she was held in the house until the end of the event and saw only two hostages who were not alive. "Long before the two [tank] shells, Adi and I saw that two were no longer with us," she says.

Porat: "At one point I went to sit in a jeep with one of the Shin Bet [security service] men, and suddenly I see a tank moving along the road." The driver of the tank was Armored Corps officer Col. Nissim Hazan. A few hours earlier, Hazan had located the tank, which was damaged, in the area of the Re'im party. Hazan pulled a dead soldier out of the tank, rendered it serviceable, collected a pickup crew and asked on the radio, "Where do you need me?" At Be'eri, he was told. Hazan arrived at the entry gate of the kibbutz and was directed to Pesi Cohen's house.

"I understood that this tank wasn't like another bullet that's fired from a rifle," Porat relates. "So I asked: If you fire shells, won't the hostages be hurt? And the Shin Bet man told me, 'No, we only shoot at the sides, take down walls.' I believed him."

Lt. Col. Salman Habaka, a battalion commander in the Armored Corps, entered Be'eri with three tanks, all of which operated in other parts of the kibbutz. Habaka was killed last November in a battle in the northern Gaza Strip. However, testimony he gave before his death indicates that firing tank shells at homes in Be'eri was quite a routine practice that day – by order of Hiram Barak.

Sources in Hamas told Haaretz that this was 'intended to ensure that Israel will not be able to evade all stages of the deal and return to fighting once all the hostages are released.' Israel said Hamas' response was tantamount to a rejection of the proposal itself

Hamas has demanded that the cease-fire agreement stipulate that Israel withdraw from all areas of the Gaza Strip in the first week of the deal's implementation, and that if Israel does not do so, the release of hostages will be halted.

In a response given by Hamas to mediators on Wednesday, the group is seeking a complete cessation of fire from the Israeli army and the withdrawal of the IDF from population centers on the first day of the cease-fire. On the third day, Hamas seeks an Israeli withdrawal from the Salah a-Din road, which connects between both sides of the Strip and the coastal road.

In return, Hamas offers to release three hostages – both living and dead – every three days, totaling 33. Hamas opposes preconditioning the identities of prisoners that will be released in return as well as their distancing from Gaza, and demands that their release be based on the amount of time they have spent in Israeli prisons.

Sources in Hamas told Haaretz that "The amendments that were submitted are intended to ensure that the withdrawal and cease-fire be established in the first phase, and that Israel will not be able to evade the implementation of all stages of the deal and return to fighting once all the hostages are released."

Hamas also demanded in its response that China, Russia and Turkey be guarantors of the deal.

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Israeli forces attacked two hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip as they pushed deeper into the Jabalia refugee camp and increased bombardment of crowded Rafah districts.

Artillery shelling hit al-Awda Hospital, north of Jabalia, which has been under Israeli siege since the weekend.

Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia was also shelled, forcing bed-ridden patients and medical staff to evacuate.

On Monday, the medical team at al-Awda said that snipers were “aiming at the building and an artillery rocket hitting the fifth floor, where the administration department is located,” according to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

An air strike in the crowded Yabna refugee camp in Rafah killed three children on Tuesday, Al Jazeera Arabic said.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled that Israel must halt its offensive in Gaza's Rafah, following a plea from South Africa.

The court issued a ruling in January that Israel must do everything to prevent genocidal acts being committed in Gaza, but stopped short of ordering a ceasefire.

However, South Africa argued that Israel's recent ground attack in Rafah, preceded by months of bombardment, changed the situation on the ground and should compel the court to issue fresh emergency orders.

ICJ President Nawaf Salam said the humanitarian situation in Gaza was now "disastrous" and said earlier measures issued were insufficient.

The Israeli army has started to publish identifying details about Gazans it says spied on civilians for Hamas' General Security apparatus; a military source to Haaretz: the army has received legal permission for the operation Send in e-mailSend in e-mail

Last Friday, the IDF airdropped pamphlets over mosques in several locations in the Gaza Strip, apparently during noontime prayers. The pamphlets show the photos and ID numbers of 130 men. According to the military source Haaretz spoke with, these men were recruited by Hamas' General Security apparatus in order to spy on Gazan residents.

"Call us if you don't want your photo appearing here," it says at the bottom of the last page of the pamphlet, which is named (in Arabic) "The Revealer." The top part of the same page shows a row of silhouettes.

On the pamphlet's first page, there is a photo of a man, with his name. The caption is: "Today's snitch." The text quotes information this man supposedly provided, about a person who frequently went to Egypt, having relations with a married Egyptian woman whose husband frequently travels to the Gulf States for work.

According to the writing in some of these photos, one can conclude that they were taken on the background of the logo and heading of the Palestinian interior ministry in Gaza. Some of the photos are of children who look younger than ten, one of them even younger than five. Some names appear without a photo.

Prisoners held at an Israeli detention camp in the Negev desert are being subjected to widespread physical and mental abuses, with at least one reported case of a man having his limb amputated as a result of injuries sustained from constant handcuffing, according to two whistleblowers who worked at the site.

The sources described harrowing treatment of detainees at the Israeli Sde Teiman camp, which holds Palestinians from Gaza and suspected Hamas militants, including inmates regularly being kept shackled to hospital beds, blindfolded and forced to wear nappies.

One whistleblower, who has worked in the facility as a prison guard, said detainees were forced to stand up for hours, or to sit on their knees. The source, who spoke out at risk of reprisals, said several detainees were beaten with truncheons and not able to move their heads or to speak at the facility.

“The prisoners are detained in a sort of cages, all blindfolded and handcuffed,” the source said. “If someone speaks or moves, they are immediately silenced or they are forced to stand with their hands raised above their head and handcuffed for up to one hour.

“If they are unable to keep their hands raised, the soldiers attach the handcuffs to the bars of the cage. Many of the detainees had infected wounds that were not being properly treated.”

The source claimed the military had no proof that detainees were all members of Hamas, with some inmates repeatedly asking why they were there. According to the whistleblower, most were considered suspects and some were released. “But they had not been formally charged. It was a kind of filtering camp, a provisional detention,” he said.

Exclusive: Members of security forces giving settlers who intercept vital supplies information on location of convoys, group says

Individual members of Israel’s security forces are tipping off far-right activists and settlers to the location of aid trucks delivering vital supplies to Gaza, enabling the groups to block and vandalise the convoys, according to multiple sources.

Settlers intercepting the vital humanitarian supplies to the strip are receiving information about the location of the aid trucks from members of the Israeli police and military, a spokesperson from the main Israeli activist group behind the blockades told the Guardian.

The claim of collusion by members of the security forces is supported by messages from internal internet chat groups reviewed by the Guardian as well as accounts from a number of witnesses and human rights activists.

(Jerusalem, May 14, 2024) – Israeli forces have carried out at least eight strikes on aid workers’ convoys and premises in Gaza since October 2023, even though aid groups had provided their coordinates to the Israeli authorities to ensure their protection, Human Rights Watch said today. Israeli authorities did not issue advance warnings to any of the aid organizations before the strikes, which killed or injured at least 31 aid workers and those with them. More than 250 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since the October 7 assault in Israel, according to the UN.

The eight incidents reveal fundamental flaws with the so-called deconfliction system, meant to protect aid workers and allow them to safely deliver life-saving humanitarian assistance in Gaza.

“Israel’s killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers was shocking and should never have happened under international law,” said Belkis Wille, associate crisis, conflict, and arms director at Human Rights Watch. “Israel’s allies need to recognize that these attacks that have killed aid workers have happened over and over again, and they need to stop.”

For decades, Joe Biden has proudly declared that he is a Zionist, and he has repeated that claim since Hamas’s 7 October attacks on Israel. But for the student anti-war protests gripping the US, the words “Zionist” and “Zionism” have become a watchword – pejorative and emblematic of the violent state policies driving the war on Gaza.

On social media and in the streets, critics no longer call out supporters of the state of Israel as “pro-Israel”: they call them Zionist. Some university encampments have posted signs saying: “Zionists not allowed.”

Student protesters say that their criticisms of Zionism are rooted in the state of Israel’s displacement and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Pro-Israel activists have responded by defending the term. “If the last six months on campus have taught us anything, it is that a large and vocal population of the Columbia community does not understand the meaning of Zionism,” a group of more than 500 Columbia University students recently wrote. “We are proud to be Zionists.”

Amid growing U.S. concerns about the humanitarian situation in Rafah, the Israeli security cabinet approved last night the "expansion of the area of ​​operation" of the Israel Defense Forces in the southern Gaza city, according to three sources with knowledge of the details.

The big picture: President Biden said this week said if Israel invades Rafah, where more than one million displaced Palestinians are sheltering, the U.S. will stop supplying it with artillery shells, bombs for fighter jets and other offensive weapons.

The Israeli army suffered losses on Sunday in an attack that the Israeli media described as unusual, as the Palestinian Resistance bombed gatherings of soldiers at the Kerem Shalom (Karem Abu Salem) crossing located in southern Gaza.

According to Al-Jazeera, Israeli media reported that a publication ban was imposed on them regarding the exact location of the shells and the army’s losses.

Some Israeli newspapers and websites reported that up to 10 soldiers were injured, some of them in serious condition.