Mustafa Muhammad Abu Ara had been subjected to torture and denied medical treatment, Palestinian governmental body says
Hello and welcome to the Israel-Gaza war live blog.
We start with news that a Hamas leader in the West Bank has died in Israeli custody after a deterioration in his health condition, a Palestinian governmental body has said.
Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has pressed Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu on the “dire” humanitarian situation in Gaza in talks that she described as frank, adding “I will not be silent.” In comments that were closely watched for signs of a shift from Joe Biden’s policy approach, the US vice-president said after her meeting with Biden: “What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time.”
US President Joe Biden also held talks with Netanyahu, who told him: “From a proud Jewish Zionist to a proud Irish-American Zionist, I want to thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the state of Israel.” In a statement, the White House said Biden had pressed Netanyahu on closing “remaining gaps” on a ceasefire deal, as well as finding a “durable end to the war in Gaza”.
After the meetings, a senior Israeli official suggested that Harris’ comments could make a ceasefire deal less likely, according to Israeli media. “It’s to be hoped that the vice president’s comments at the press conference aren’t interpreted by Hamas as meaning that there’s daylight between the United States and Israel, which would make a deal less likely,” the senior diplomatic figure said according to Haaretz newspaper.
Netanyahu was set to meet Donald Trump at Mar-al-Lago for the first time in nearly four years on Friday. He is expected to try to mend ties with the Republican presidential nominee, who broke ties with him in 2021 after the Israeli prime minister became one of the first world leaders to congratulate Biden for his presidential election victory.
US state and local officials have invested $1.7bn of public money in Israel Bonds – an organization that sells Israeli bonds to fund that nation’s government and buttress its military – since 7 October. An investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has revealed contacts between buyer and seller that experts say may cross a line.
At least 39,175 Palestinians have been killed and 90,403 have been wounded in the Israeli military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
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