Biden and Netanyahu speak for first time since fatal Israeli airstrike on aid workers in Gaza : Live updates

To dissuade the Israelis from following their current plan, the president will have to use more than words: he must make America’s diplomatic, financial and military support for Israel firmly conditional. American aircraft, tanks and missiles used in combat in Gaza must now have a new fitment – some political strings attached. If they do not, then the flow of American armaments and technology to Israel will have to cease. Indeed, depriving Israel of the weapons of war, and adding to its international isolation, is becoming, sadly, inevitable. If need be – and that seems highly likely – America must stop sending arms to Israel.

Read the full editorial here.

Monday’s deadly IDF strike on a group of aid workers in Gaza is bringing attention to the high civilian death toll in the Israel-Hamas war.

Just how many innocents have been affected?

According to the UN, at least 32,623 Palestinians overall have been killed since the fighting began, with seventy percent of the dead women and children.

Israel, meanwhile, claims that it has killed between 11,500 and 13,000 Palestinian militants since the war began.

Amid the fallout of a disasterous strike on seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza, Israel has promised to adjust its tactics.

To start, Israel says it will establish a joint operational coordination room inside of its Southern Command to work alongside humanitarian agencies and coordinate safe movements.

The country has also said it will release an investigative report on the airstrike to the public, according to Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, who gave a public briefing on Thursday.

“And I believe that, after we present this to the ambassadors from the respective countries, and to the members of the WCK organisation, we will make it public in a clear, transparent manner – and that will happen soon,” he said.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, the US was quick to assist the Ukrainians in prosecuting war crimes, and in bringing charges itself against four Russian-allied troops in December.

However, Attorney General Merrick Garland has barely spoken in public about potential war crimes in the Israel-Hamas war, despite numerous instances during the conflict that rights group believe have crossed the line.

As NPR notes, Mr Garland has said just 29 words in public about war crimes in the conflict in Gaza.

“Hamas murdered more than 30 Americans and kidnapped more during their terrorist attack on Oct. 7. We are investigating those heinous crimes, and we will hold those people accountable,” he said in December.

The parents of Jacob Flickinger, one of seven aid workers killed this week in an Israeli airstrike, don’t believe the incident in Gaza was an accident.

“They were aware, the entire world was aware, this food shipment was coming in,” John Flickinger told CBS News on Thursday. “It’s been international news for days. They were aware the food was picked up at the ship on the coast of Gaza and delivered to a warehouse along an approved humanitarian route approved by Israel. Soon after they dropped the food off, we know they were targeted. The convoy was clearly marked. The vehicles were clearly marked. The facts on the ground seemed to indicate it wasn’t a ‘tragic accident.’”

Civilians who survived the fighting at the Shifa hospital said the violence left them without food and medicine, and caused them deep psychological trauma.

One patient told the World Health Organization, “My psyche has been shattered from within.”

Read more of our reporting on the siege.

Israel’s war cabinet has agreed to reopen the Erez border crossing between Israel and northern Gaza for the first time since the war with Hamas began last year, CNN reports, citing an Israeli official.

The decision was made to allow the reopening to let more humanitarian aid into the besieged strip.

Joe Biden on Thursday shared a photo of his recent high-stakes call with Benjamin Netanyahu, the first between the two men since seven World Central Kitchen aid workers were killed this week by an Israeli air strike in Gaza.

Read more on their conversation from Andrew Feinberg and Richard Hall.

Mourners gathered in the Polish city of Przemysl on Thursday to pay tribute to Damian Sobol, 35, a World Central Kitchen humanitarian worker who was killed by the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza on Monday in an airstrike.

“There is no consent for killing innocent people, let’s remember this and let’s remember that Damian was helping so that other people would not die of hunger,” Waldemar, a local who works with Ukrainian refugees and previously worked with Sobol, told broadcaster TVN.

“We started here as volunteers. Damian set off further on the volunteering path and unfortunately was murdered by Israeli services.”

Mourners placed candles and flowers in a central plaza on Thursday in honour of Sobol.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US president Joe Biden reportedly did not discuss the IDF’s hinted-at invasion of Rafah during their call on Thursday.

A US official told Al Jazeera that the US president “refused” to broach the topic.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has said it will be impossible to defeat Hamas without entering the southern Gazan city, where over 1m people are now living, many of whom were told by the IDF to evacuate south at the beginning of the war with Hamas.

US officials, meanwhile, have reportedly warned that an invasion of Rafah would be a “disaster” and argued for alternative options.