By Abdul Adil
London, (The Muslim News): Israeli attacks killed five Palestinians and wounded 32 others in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, while a six-year-old girl and a man died from injuries sustained in earlier attacks, according to medical sources. The violence coincided with Israel’s parliamentary elections.
In the latest reported attack, an Israeli drone strike killed three Palestinians and injured 15 others, five of them critically, at a government checkpoint near Muawiya Mosque in the Al-Mawasi area of Rafah in southern Gaza, a medical source told Anadolu. The checkpoint monitored commercial trucks entering the enclave through the Kerem Shalom crossing.
In northern Gaza, Israeli troops shot dead Mahmoud Samih al-Harsh, 28, on al-Hawja Street in the Jabalia refugee camp, medical sources said.
Earlier Wednesday, Mohammed Alyan al-Bayouk, 33, was killed and three others, including an elderly woman, were injured when an Israeli drone struck the rooftop of a house in central Khan Younis. Separate attacks in southern and central Gaza injured several more Palestinians, including civilians targeted near Al-Tina Street in Khan Younis and passersby near the Nuseirat refugee camp.
Six-year-old Tahani Mohammed Saeed Shalalfeh died from wounds sustained when Israeli forces opened fire in Al-Mawasi on Monday. Ahmed Yassin Bseiso also succumbed to injuries sustained days earlier in an Israeli strike on al-Thawra Street in central Gaza City.
Additional incidents included injuries to a fisherman from shrapnel off Khan Younis, shootings in Qizan Rashwan and east of Hamad City, and gunfire that wounded two Palestinians, including a child, east of the Bureij refugee camp. Israeli naval vessels also shelled and fired machine guns toward Palestinians on the beach near the al-Shati refugee camp west of Gaza City, local sources said.
Since October 2023, Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians and wounded over 175,000, according to figures cited in the report. The assault has also caused widespread destruction across the territory. More than 1,500 Palestinians have reportedly been killed since a ceasefire took effect in October 2025.
Israeli forces demolish homes and uproot trees near Bethlehem
Israeli forces demolished an occupied residential building and bulldozed land on Wednesday in the village of al-Walaja, northwest of Bethlehem, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Activist Ibrahim Awadallah said the demolished three-story building belonged to brothers Yahya, Mustafa, Hamza and Mohammed Yousef Rabah. Each floor measured 170 square metres, and the building housed five families comprising 12 people.
Israeli forces also bulldozed half a dunum of land belonging to Khaled Mousa al-Araj, uprooted more than 50 fruit trees, including olive and almond trees, and destroyed a retaining wall measuring 35 metres long and 15 metres wide, along with a staircase and water tanks.
WFP Chief calls Gaza hunger crisis ‘unacceptable’
World Food Program (WFP) chief Luke Lindberg on Wednesday described the hunger situation in Gaza as “unacceptable,” pledging to defend humanitarian workers against attacks and highlighting funding shortages that are constraining the agency’s operations.
Speaking at a news conference at United Nations headquarters in New York, Lindberg said Gaza faced “a very serious need” and stressed that protecting staff was his top priority.
Asked about reports of Israeli troops firing on WFP convoys, Lindberg said he would stand up for employees wherever they were working.
“I will absolutely stand up for our employees, no matter where on Earth they are located,” he said, adding that he would seek to protect humanitarian workers and their families from violence.
Lindberg said more than 700 humanitarian workers had been killed while trying to save lives in recent years, describing the toll as unacceptable.
He also acknowledged the importance of US support, noting that Washington is the WFP’s largest funder. Lindberg said President Donald Trump had personally called him after the United States nominated him for the position, adding that he maintained strong relationships with members of the Trump administration.
However, he emphasized that addressing humanitarian crises required broader international cooperation and could not be achieved by a single country or organization.
Oman calls for inclusive Gulf Security Framework
Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi has criticized decades of Gulf security arrangements that excluded Iran and relied heavily on foreign military powers, calling for a regional framework that includes Tehran.
Speaking during a lecture at Cambridge University, Albusaidi said excluding Iran had been among the most damaging priorities imposed on the region from outside.
He argued that the approach had fostered an unstable security system based on what he described as a false perception of fundamental antagonism between Iran and the Arab Gulf states.
“There is no such fundamental antagonism,” he said, warning that any regional security architecture excluding Iran would be inherently unstable.
Albusaidi also said Oman and Iran had developed the outline of a temporary arrangement to restore navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, although implementing the proposal would require compromises from both Tehran and Washington.
He called for a non-aggression pact involving the six Gulf Arab states, Iran and Iraq, advocating a regional arrangement that would reduce dependence on the United States’ military role.
Regional mediators seek to revive US-Iran nuclear talks
Regional mediators led by Qatar are working to restart negotiations between the United States and Iran in an effort to prevent a renewed outbreak of war, Axios reported Wednesday, citing US, Israeli and regional sources.
According to the report, mediators are urging Tehran to allow United Nations inspectors to visit nuclear sites damaged in bombings in exchange for some relief from US sanctions.
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Türkiye are supporting the diplomatic initiative, the report said.
US President Donald Trump confirmed that discussions with Iran were taking place through mediators but expressed uncertainty about whether the negotiations would succeed.
“We need to finish the job — either through a deal or another way — we will find out if negotiations can succeed,” Trump told Axios.
The diplomatic efforts come amid weeks of threats by Trump to launch large-scale strikes against Iran, raising concerns that negotiations could fail and hostilities resume.
[Photo: Families of four Palestinians killed by Israeli military at al-Mawasi coastal area near Rafah mourning as their bodies are transferred to the morgue at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza, Palestine, on October 28, 2026.Photojournalist: Abed Rahim Khatib/AA]
