Israel-Gaza war live: Palestinians hail ICJ’s ‘historic’ ruling on Israeli occupation | Israel-Gaza war

As we mentioned in the opening summary, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has said that a long-sought ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was within sight.

Speaking at the Aspen security forum in Colorado on Friday, he said:

I believe we’re inside the 10-yard line and driving toward the goalline in getting an agreement that would produce a ceasefire, get the hostages home and put us on a better track to trying to build lasting peace and stability.

There remains some issues that need to be resolved, that need to be negotiated. We’re in the midst of doing exactly that.

The US has been working with Qatar and Egypt to try to arrange a ceasefire in order to free hostages held since the 7 October Hamas attacks, and get more humanitarian aid into the enclave devastated by Israeli airstrikes.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to travel to Washington next week and address a joint session of the US Congress on Wednesday. He is expected to meet Joe Biden if the US president has recovered from Covid-19 by then, the White House has said.

Netanyahu has reportedly said Israel needed control of the Palestinian side of Gaza’s border with Egypt to stop weapons reaching. It is a condition that conflicts with Hamas’s position that Israel must withdraw from all Gaza territory after a ceasefire.

He has also said that Israel must also be allowed to keep on fighting until its war aims of destroying Hamas and bringing home all hostages are achieved.

We are restarting our live coverage of Israel’s war in Gaza and the wider Middle East crisis.

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has welcomed the international court of justice’s (ICJ’s) landmark ruling that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories violates international law, calling the decision “historic” and saying Israel must be compelled to implement it.

The Palestinian foreign minister, Riyad al-Maliki, called it a “watershed moment”.

It came after the UN court on Friday ordered Israel to end its occupation of the Palestinian territories “as rapidly as possible” and make full reparations for its “internationally wrongful acts” in a sweeping and damning advisory opinion that says the occupation violates international law.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, would shortly transmit the advisory opinion to the 193-member world body and “it is for the general assembly to decide how to proceed in the matter”, UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said.

The ICJ’s opinion said Israel should pay reparations to Palestinians for damages caused by the occupation. It also found that the UN security council, the general assembly and all states had an obligation not to recognise the occupation as legal and not to give aid or support toward maintaining it. The court’s findings are not binding but carry weight under international law.

Israel’s foreign ministry rejected the court’s opinion as “fundamentally wrong” and one-sided, and repeated its stance that a political settlement in the region could only be reached by negotiations. “The Jewish nation cannot be an occupier in its own land,” Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.

The court’s opinion also angered West Bank settlers as well as politicians such as the far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, Reuters reported. The ICJ opinion was “contrary to the Bible, morality and international law”, said Israel Gantz, head of the Binyamin Regional Council, one of the largest settler councils.

In other news:

• Hamas demanded “immediate action” against the Israeli occupation after the ICJ ruling. In a statement the Palestinian militant group welcomed the decision, saying it puts “the international system before the imperative of immediate action to end the occupation”.

• Israel threatened reprisals after a drone claimed by Yemen’s Houthi rebels killed a civilian in a Tel Aviv apartment building near a US embassy branch office. The pre-dawn attack drew condemnation from António Guterres and an appeal for “maximum restraint” to avoid “further escalation in the region”. Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant vowed revenge on Friday, posting on X: “The security system will settle the score with all who try to harm the state of Israel, or sends terrorism against it, in a decisive and surprising manner.” Military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said Israel believed the drone used was Iranian-made and upgraded so it could reach Tel Aviv from Yemen, at least 1,800km (1,100 miles) away.

• Len Blavatnik, the second-richest man in Britain, is facing a series of protests in the UK after his Israeli television channel was accused of cancelling programmes to please Benjamin Netanyahu.

• The UK announced it would resume funding to the UN Palestinian refugee agency Unrwa. Britain’s foreign minister, David Lammy, told parliament he was reassured that the agency had taken steps to “ensure it meets the highest standards of neutrality” and that the UK would provide £21m ($27m) to the agency.

• The US secretary of state Antony Blinken said a ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel that will release Israeli hostages in Gaza are “inside the 10-yard line”. “But we know that anything in the last 10 yards are the hardest,” Blinken said on Friday. International mediators, including the US, are pushing Israel and Hamas toward an internationally backed phased deal that would halt the fighting and free about 120 hostages in Gaza.

• The UN human rights office (OHCHR) warned that “anarchy” was spreading in Gaza, with rampant looting, unlawful killings and shootings as the population faced an acute humanitarian crisis. Ajith Sunghay, head of OHCHR for Gaza and the West Bank, described unlawful killings and looting in the absence of law enforcement as linked to “Israel’s dismantling of local capacity to maintain public order and safety in Gaza”.

• An Israeli airstrike killed a woman who was nine months pregnant in Gaza, but her baby survived after the mother’s body was rushed to a hospital delivery room, medical officials said. Ola al-Kurd, 25, was among seven people killed in an Israeli strike that hit the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, the Associated Press reports.

• Dozens of people were killed in Israeli attacks on residential buildings across the Gaza Strip overnight and into Saturday morning, according to reports.