Symbolic imageIsraeli strike destroys Gaza City mosque as Katz says Israel holds 60 percent of the Strip
Israeli jets destroyed the Al-Muttaqin Mosque in Gaza City on Tuesday, next to tents sheltering displaced Palestinians, killing at least one person and wounding more than twelve, according to Al Jazeera. Hours earlier, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Israeli television that Israel controls more than 60 percent of Gaza and intends to reach 70 percent. Both happened while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was preparing to meet US President Donald Trump in Washington.
What happened
Israeli warplanes struck the Al-Muttaqin Mosque in Gaza City on Tuesday, close to the YMCA building, destroying the mosque and tents housing displaced Palestinians, Al Jazeera reported. At least one Palestinian was killed and more than twelve wounded; the broadcaster's correspondent in Deir el-Balah said the area had been warned, but with a very narrow window to move. In a separate strike on a busy market in the Nuseirat refugee camp, Israeli forces killed one Palestinian and wounded at least twenty, according to health officials cited by Al Jazeera. Speaking to the C14 channel the same day, Katz said Israeli forces now evacuate the population, attack with full force, take ground and stay there, and that nothing remains of former Hamas strongholds such as Jabalia and Shujaiyya (TASS). Le Monde documents the same pattern before this week: on 21 July an Israeli missile hit the Al-Masri family home in Sabra, killing the parents and four children aged 6 to 14, after which the Israeli army told Israeli media it had targeted a Hamas member.
The view from outside
Russian state agency TASS puts the emphasis on the diplomatic friction, citing Israel's Channel 13 that Washington is pressing for Israeli withdrawals from Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, and that Netanyahu told ministers he intends to refuse. Turkey's Daily Sabah, carrying Anadolu material, focuses on humanitarian consequences: UNICEF's head for the Palestinian territories, Jonathan Veitch, says destroyed pipelines force UN staff to truck water along dangerous routes, and that two UNICEF drivers were killed in April near the Mansoura filling station.
What could happen next
Sunday's security cabinet decision, which in theory allows the first members of an International Stabilization Force into Gaza, now sits alongside Katz's stated aim of taking more territory, and Al Jazeera notes the force would only enter areas outside Israeli military control. Netanyahu's meeting with Trump is where the reported US demand for withdrawals meets his stated refusal. In the occupied West Bank the same week, Israeli settlers set fire to a house near Bethlehem, forcing eight Palestinians to flee, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, while Wafa reported Israeli military orders seizing about 200 dunums in the Jenin governorate. Whether water pipelines and pumping stations are repaired, as UNICEF requests, remains the practical test of the ceasefire's humanitarian side.
Israel: Katz says Israel holds more than 60 percent of Gaza, will push to 70 percent and will not give up its security zones in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria; the army says its strikes target Hamas members and that it supports Palestinians while blocking Hamas from taking aid.
Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank: Residents and health officials cited by Al Jazeera and Le Monde say the strikes keep killing civilians despite the ceasefire, with warnings too short to evacuate, while Palestinian officials report settler arson near Bethlehem and land seizures in Jenin.
Also involved