Leaders hail passage of Women's Reservation Bill, demand swift implementation

There are reports of "intense shooting" by Israeli forces east of Khan Younis and Rafah after a four-day ceasefire went into effect on Friday morning.

Al-Jazeera reported that two Palestinians were killed and another was wounded by Israeli soldiers shooting at hundreds of people who tried to return to the north of the besieged Gaza Strip.

Some of those wounded have been evacuated to a hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa.

The Israeli military also warned Palestinians that the "war is not over", telling them not to try to return to homes in the northern part of Gaza, which it described as a "dangerous war zone".

Gaza residents said the Israelis had dropped leaflets warning people not to travel north and have fired over the heads of some people who were trying to get back into Gaza City.

Israeli attacks had raged in the hours leading up to the truce, with officials inside the enclave saying a hospital in Gaza City was among the targets bombed.

Sirens sounded in two Israeli villages outside the southern Gaza Strip, warning of possible incoming Palestinian rockets. The Israeli military also said fighting would resume soon.

"This will be a short pause, at the conclusion of which the war and fighting will continue with great might and will generate pressure for the return of more hostages," Israeli minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant said.

Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross in Israel and the Occupied Territories confirmed the death of one of its aid workers who had worked for more than 20 years for them.

"We are devastated by the killing of our valued colleague Abdellatif Ali Moussa, along with several of his family, in northern Gaza," they said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Israel launched the war on Gaza after Hamas launched Operation al-Aqsa Storm inside the occupied territories on Oct. 7.

At least 14,854 Palestinians, including more than 6,150 children and 4,000 women, have been killed and over 36,000 others injured in the Israeli strikes.

Some 207 health workers and 65 Palestinians are among those killed, while 7,000 Palestinians are still missing.

According to the report, 60 percent of homes in Gaza have either been destroyed or damaged due to the aggression. 

An Israeli woman held by the military wing of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas during the regime’s war on the Gaza Strip has thanked the movement’s fighters for their kind and humane behavior.

Daniel Aloni’s commendation came in a letter released by Palestinian media outlets on Monday. She was held in Gaza along with her six-year-old daughter Emelia.

The letter was written in Hebrew while Aloni was in detention in which she has praised the behavior of al-Qassam Brigades’ fighters who accompanied and guarded her and her daughter during the days they spent in the blockaded territory.

Daniel and her daughter were among the first batch of Israeli captives who were released on Friday after the Hamas movement reached a prisoner swap deal with the regime.

Other released Israeli captives have also testified to the good treatment they had received while in Hamas captivity.

After being released on humanitarian grounds, an 85-year-old Israeli woman said the Hamas fighters provided all the needs of the captives and gave them the same food that they themselves ate.

Aloni thanked al-Qassam fighters from the bottom of her heart for "extraordinary humanity that you have shown towards my daughter Emelia. You treated her like your own.”

She added that due to extraordinarily good care that Hamas fighters provided her daughter she “considered herself a queen in Gaza and felt like she was the center of the world.”

Here is the full text of Aloni’s letter, which has been translated from Hebrew:

“To the commanders who have accompanied me in recent weeks. It seems that we will part ways tomorrow, but I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your extraordinary humanity that you have shown towards my daughter Emelia. You treated her like your own. You welcomed her in your room whenever she walked in. She says that you are all her friends, not just acquaintances. You are her true and good loved ones. Thank you, thank you, thank you for the countless hours you spent with her as caregivers. Thank you for being patient with her and showering her with sweets, fruits, and everything available, even if it wasn’t readily accessible. Children should not be in captivity, but thanks to you and other kind-hearted individuals and leaders we have met during our presence here, my daughter considered herself a queen in Gaza and felt like she was the center of the world. We did not meet a single person, whether a member or leader, during our long stay [in Gaza] who did not treat her with kindness, tenderness, and love. I will forever be a captive of gratitude because she will not leave this place with a permanent psychological trauma. I will remember your kind manners, which you showed in here despite the difficult situation you were coping with yourselves, and the heavy losses that befell you here in Gaza. I wish in this world that we could be really good friends one day. I wish you all good health and well-being. Health and love to you and your families. Thank you very much. Daniel and Emelia.” 

The southern Gaza Strip is currently facing its “worst bombardment” since the beginning of Israel’s brutal aggression against the Palestinian territory, says a spokesperson for the UN Children’s Agency (UNICEF).

“I am seeing massive child casualties,” James Elder wrote in an X post on Sunday. “We have a final warning to save children; and our collective conscience.”

In a separate video message from the Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, Elder said he felt like he was “running out of ways” to describe the horrors children face in the Israeli-besieged territory.

“I feel like I’m almost failing in my ability to convey the endless killing of children here,” he added.

Israel resumed its brutal onslaught on Gaza early Friday after declaring an end to a week-long humanitarian truce.

The regime’s military also stepped up its attacks in southern Gaza, which was earlier declared a “safe zone”.

Currently, only half of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are minimally to partially functional. They are all overflowed with dead and wounded people amid an acute lack of fuel and medical supplies.

‘No safe place in Gaza’

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk also warned on Sunday that nowhere is safe in Gaza amid Israel’s fresh raids and evacuation orders.

“As a result of Israel’s conduct of hostilities and its orders for people to leave the north and parts of the south, hundreds of thousands are being confined into ever smaller areas in southern Gaza without proper sanitation, access to sufficient food, water and health supplies, even as bombs rain down around them,” he said. “I repeat, there is no safe place in Gaza.”

The UN rights chief also underlined the need for an end to violence and a long-term political solution between Palestinians and Israelis.

“Silence the guns and return to dialogue – the suffering inflicted on civilians is too much to bear. More violence is not the answer. It will bring neither peace nor security,” he noted.

Türk further said that renewed Israeli bombardments have killed hundreds of Palestinians and largely halted the already limited aid operations within Gaza.

Extremely serious allegations of multiple and grave breaches of international law must be fully investigated and those responsible held to account, he said, calling for international probes in cases where national authorities prove unwilling or unable to carry out inquiries.

Israel waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group conducted Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

Since the start of the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 15,523 Palestinians, mostly women and children, injured 41,316 others, and left vast swathes of Gaza in ruins.