Israel strikes kill 66 in central Gaza in past 24 hours

United Nations agencies warned on Wednesday that over one million Palestinians in Gaza could experience the highest level of starvation by the middle of next month if hostilities continue.

The World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization said in a joint report that hunger is worsening because of heavy restrictions on humanitarian access and the collapse of the local food system in the nearly eight-month Gaza war.

It says the situation remains dire in northern Gaza, which has been surrounded and largely isolated by Israeli troops for months.

Israel recently opened land crossings in the north but they are only able to facilitate truck loads in the dozens each day for hundreds of thousands of people.

Israel's incursion into Rafah has meanwhile severely disrupted aid operations in the south.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the world authority on determining the extent of hunger crises, said in March that around 677,000 people in Gaza were experiencing Phase 5 hunger, the highest level and the equivalent of famine.

The two UN agencies said in their report Wednesday that that figure could climb to more than one million – or nearly half of Gaza's total population of 2.3 million – by the middle of next month.

"In the absence of a cessation of hostilities and increased access, the impact on mortality and the lives of the Palestinians now, and in future generations, will increase markedly with every day, even if famine is avoided in the near term," it said.

On Tuesday, a separate group of experts said it's possible that famine is underway in northern Gaza but that the war, and restrictions on humanitarian access, have impeded the data collection to prove it.

"It is possible, if not likely," the group known as the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, or FEWS NET, which is funded by the US Agency for International Development, said about famine in Gaza.

Last month, the head of the World Food Programme, Cindy McCain, said northern Gaza had already entered "full-blown famine", but experts at the UN agency later said she was expressing a personal opinion.

An area is considered to be in famine when three things occur: 20 percent of households have an extreme lack of food, or are essentially starving; at least 30 percent of the children suffer from acute malnutrition or wasting, meaning they’re too thin for their height; and two adults or four children per every 10,000 people are dying daily of hunger and its complications.

A Syrian man was arrested after a shooting near the US embassy in Beirut on Wednesday and a judicial official said the assailant carried out the attack "in support of Gaza".

The embassy in the capital's northern suburb of Awkar "was subjected to gunfire by a person holding Syrian nationality", the army said on X.

"Army personnel deployed in the area responded to the sources of fire, wounding the shooter," the statement said, adding that "he was arrested and transported to hospital".

The US embassy said on X that "small arms fire was reported in the vicinity of the entrance" and that "thanks to the quick reaction" of the Lebanese army, security forces "and our embassy security team, our facility and our team are safe".

The judicial official told AFP that the assailant, who was wounded seriously, said he carried out the attack "in support of Gaza", where Israel has been waging a war since October.

The shooter's brother, who lives in Lebanon's Bekaa valley in the country's east, was also detained, the official added, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media.

Hamas's armed wing says it has targeted a D9 military bulldozer with a Yassin-105 anti-armour rocket.

The Al-Qassam Brigades say they attacked the vehicle east of Deir Al-Balah, a city in central Gaza.

The armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad says it has targeted Israeli forces east of the Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.

The Al-Quds Brigades say they used a number of Ababil explosive projectiles.

The number of Palestinians killed during Israel's war on Gaza has risen to at least 36,586, according to the territory's health ministry.

The number of injured stands at 83,074, the ministry says.

It adds that Israeli forces carried out for massacres "against the families in the Gaza Strip", saying 36 killed people and 115 injured had arrived at hospitals in the last 24 hours.

Rescue teams recovered bodies of three people who had been killed as well as dozens of injured people from under the rubble of a house bombed by Israeli forces in the east of Al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza, The New Arab's Arabic edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reports.

A shooting took place earlier this morning in front of the American embassy in Beirut, the Lebanese army confirmed, leaving two injured, including the shooter.

In a statement, the army confirmed that a Syrian national was behind the shooting, adding that he was arrested and transferred to hospital.

It said it had launched a preliminary investigation to determine the circumstances of the incident.

Israeli bombing targeting a home in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza has killed people, Palestinian media reports.

Nine Israeli soldiers were injured, two of them seriously, when ordnance exploded at a military base in the south, the army announced on Wednesday.

"An explosion of munitions occurred on a military base in southern Israel. The incident is under investigation," an army statement said of the Tuesday blast.

It added that the injured soldiers were receiving treatment.

Israeli media reported that the explosion took place at a base in the Naqab (Negev) Desert.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society retrieved the bodies of six killed people from an area in central Gaza after Israeli forces shelled several houses.

The humanitarian group says on social media platform X that the dead were retrieved alongside over eight injured people from the Al-Jafrawi area east of Deir Al-Balah.

🚨Palestine Red Crescent ambulance teams retrieved six martyrs and more than eight injured people from the Al-Ja'frawi area east of Deir al-Balah, central #Gaza after the Israeli occupation targeted several houses with artillery shells.
📷Filmed by: PRCS volunteer, Mohammed… pic.twitter.com/xYRBOkFicv

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) June 5, 2024

Israel is phasing out the use of a military-run detention camp for Palestinians captured during the Gaza war where rights groups alleged there has been abuse of inmates, justice officials said on Wednesday.

State attorneys told the Supreme Court that inmates held at the Sde Teiman site, which was opened after the war began, would be gradually transported to permanent holding facilities.

The transfers have started and most prisoners would be relocated within a couple of weeks. This would allow conditions to improve in the meantime, they said.

State attorney Aner Helman, responding to a petition filed by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, told the court that 700 inmates had already been moved to Ofer, a military stockade in the occupied West Bank.

Another 500 were slated to be transferred in the coming weeks, leaving 200 at Sde Teiman whose future was yet to be decided.

Israel's military is investigating the deaths of Palestinians captured during the Gaza war as well as the Sde Teiman facility.

(Reuters)