That’s all for now of our live coverage of the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n
Tonight’s main story was Israel intercepting the Global Sumud Flotilla as it sailed towards Gaza.<\/p>\n
Almost 50 vessels carrying nearly 500 people had been trying to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza.<\/p>\n
Israel imposed the blockade on Gaza in 2007 after Hamas took control of the coastal enclave and it has blocked numerous attempts to reach Gaza since, including a vessel in 2010 by its special forces, in which at least nine Turkish activists were killed.<\/p>\n
Israel argues the blockade is necessary to stop weapons from being smuggled to Hamas, and called Thunberg’s previous attempt to reach Gaza a propaganda stunt in support of Hamas.<\/p>\n
The first mentions of the interception came from the activists onboard the ships.<\/p>\n
Several took to social media saying ships were approaching them.<\/p>\n
Israel repeated its previous allegation that the flotilla was a “provocation”, pointing to the fact organisers refused alternative ways to get the aid into Gaza.<\/p>\n
It also shared a video of climate activist Greta Thunberg, the best-known participant on the flotilla, surrounded by Israeli soldiers saying she was “safe and healthy”.<\/p>\n
The interception has been ongoing for hours, and is expected to continue well into the night.<\/p>\n
Watch Thunberg being detained here…<\/p>\n
Meanwhile…<\/p>\n
Israel’s assault of Gaza City continues, with defence minister Israel Katz saying the IDF had almost surrounded the urban centre.<\/p>\n
Gaza City is the focus of an Israeli campaign, where it has levellled high-rise buildings and demanded all Palestinians leave.<\/p>\n
Katz said any Palestinians who remain behind will be considered a terrorist and face the “full force” of Israel’s army.<\/p>\n
As all this unfolds, at least two more people, including a child, died of famine in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.<\/p>\n
Simultaneously, the deadline set by Donald Trump for the militant group continues to tick down.<\/p>\n
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said it remained in place, and that “sensitive discussions” were ongoing.<\/p>\n
A source familiar with Hamas’ deliberations with other factions told Reuters news agency: “Accepting the plan is a disaster, rejecting it is another; there are only bitter choices here, but the plan is a Netanyahu plan articulated by Trump.”<\/p>\n
And across Europe, protests against the interception of the flotilla were held in Istanbul, Athens, Rome and Barcelona.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That’s all for now of our live coverage of the war in Gaza. Tonight’s main story was Israel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-174617","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}