Closing summary
Oscar-winning Palestinian director Hamdan Ballal, who was attacked by Jewish settlers and detained by Israeli forces, has been released from detention.
At least 50,144 Palestinian people have been killed and 113,704 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement earlier today.
The Israeli military issued more calls to evacuate parts of northern Gaza, telling Palestinians to head towards “known shelters” in the south even though there is no guarantee of safety there.
Press freedom organisations have condemned the killing of two journalists in Gaza on Monday, who died in separate targeted airstrikes by the Israeli armed forces. Hossam Shabat, a 23-year-old correspondent for the Al Jazeera Mubasher channel, was killed by an airstrike on his car in the eastern part of Beit Lahiya.
Israeli legislators have given their approval to the 2025 state budget, a key test for Benjamin Netanyahu’s fragile coalition government that would be at risk of collapse if the vote didn’t go his way and snap elections were called.
At least five people have been killed in Israeli shelling of the southern Syrian province of Daraa, local authorities said. It came after the Israeli military said it had launched attacks on the Syrian airbases of Tadmur and T-4.
In a post on X early this morning, the United States Central Command (Centcom) appeared to confirm fresh attacks on Yemen, targeting Houthi rebels. The post came after reports of new US attacks on the northern province of Saada, which reportedly injured at least two people and destroyed a cancer hospital.
In an earlier post, we reported that Israeli shelling had, according to officials, killed at least five people in southern Syria earlier on Tuesday.
The Syrian foreign ministry has now put out a statement in reaction to the deadly attack (this text has been translated):
The Israeli forces’ brutality is unacceptable. We affirm our absolute rejection of these crimes.
We call for an international investigation into the crimes committed against innocent people and into Israeli violations. We also call on the Syrian people to hold on to their land and reject any attempts at displacement or the imposition of a new reality by force.
We affirm that these attacks will not deter Syrians from defending their rights and their land.
Annie Kelly is a human rights journalist for the Guardian
Press freedom organisations have condemned the killing of two journalists in Gaza on Monday, who died in separate targeted airstrikes by the Israeli armed forces.
Hossam Shabat, a 23-year-old correspondent for the Al Jazeera Mubasher channel, was killed by an airstrike on his car in the eastern part of Beit Lahiya.
Video reportedly from minutes after the airstrike, which has not been verified by the Guardian, shows people gathering around the shattered and smoking car and pulling a body out of the wreckage.
Mohammed Mansour, a correspondent for Palestine Today, was also killed on Monday, reportedly along with his wife and son, in an airstrike on his home in south Khan Younis.
In the hours after the deaths, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Palestinian press freedom organisations released statements condemning the attacks. “CPJ is appalled that we are once again seeing Palestinians weeping over the bodies of dead journalists in Gaza,” said Carlos Martínez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director.
“This nightmare in Gaza has to end. The international community must act fast to ensure that journalists are kept safe and hold Israel to account for the deaths of Hossam Shabat and Mohammed Mansour. Journalists are civilians and it is illegal to attack them in a war zone.”
You can read the full story here:
Updated
Summary of the day so far...
Oscar-winning Palestinian director Hamdan Ballal, who was attacked by Jewish settlers and detained by Israeli forces, has been released from detention.
At least 50,144 Palestinian people have been killed and 113,704 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement earlier today.
The Israeli military issued more calls to evacuate parts of northern Gaza, telling Palestinians to head towards “known shelters” in the south even though there is no guarantee of safety there.
Israeli legislators have given their approval to the 2025 state budget, a key test for Benjamin Netanyahu’s fragile coalition government that would be at risk of collapse if the vote didn’t go his way and snap elections were called.
At least five people have been killed in Israeli shelling of the southern Syrian province of Daraa, local authorities said. It came after the Israeli military said it had launched attacks on the Syrian airbases of Tadmur and T-4.
In a post on X early this morning, the United States Central Command (Centcom) appeared to confirm fresh attacks on Yemen, targeting Houthi rebels. The post came after reports of new US attacks on the northern province of Saada, which reportedly injured at least two people and destroyed a cancer hospital.
Updated
Oscar-winning Palestinian director released from Israeli detention
Hamdan Ballal – the oscar-winning Palestinian director who was attacked by Jewish settlers and detained by Israeli forces – has been released from detention, it has been confirmed.
My colleague Lorenzo Tondo has more in this report:
Hamdan Ballal and two other Palestinians left a police station in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, where they were being held on Tuesday. Ballal had bruises on his face and blood on his clothes.
The three had spent the night on the floor of a military base while suffering from serious injuries sustained in the attack, according to Ballal’s lawyer, Lea Tsemel.
The Israeli military said on Monday it had detained three Palestinians suspected of hurling rocks at forces and one Israeli civilian involved in a what it described as a violent confrontation. On Tuesday, it referred further queries to police, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Lamia Ballal, the director’s wife, said she heard her husband being beaten outside their home as she huddled inside with their three children. She heard him screaming, “I’m dying!” and calling for an ambulance. When she looked out the window, she saw three men in uniform beating Ballal with the butts of their rifles and another person in civilian clothes who appeared to be filming the violence.
“Of course, after the Oscar, they have come to attack us more,” Lamia said. “I felt afraid.”
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No Other Land, a film about Israeli displacement of a Palestinian community, won the documentary feature film Oscar at the beginning of this month.
The documentary, which has Palestinian and Israeli directors, focuses on the steady forced displacement of Palestinians from their homes in Masafer Yatta, a region in the occupied West Bank targeted by Israeli forces.
The film’s co-directors are Palestinian activist Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham. It highlights the parallel realities in which the two friends live - Abraham with his yellow Israeli number plate that lets him travel anywhere, while Adra is confined to a territory that only ever gets smaller for Palestinians, despite it being their homeland.
Despite the critical acclaim, the film could not find distribution in the US and was self-distributed instead. “I believe it’s clear that it’s for political reasons,” Abraham told Deadline about the lack of formal distribution.
In an acceptance speech after winning an Oscar, Abraham said:
We made this film, Palestinians and Israelis, because together our voices are stronger. We see each other, the atrocious destruction of Gaza and its people which must end, the Israeli hostages brutally taken in the crime of October 7, which must be freed.
When I look at Basel, I see my brother but we are unequal. We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law and Basel is under military law that destroys his life and he cannot control.
There is a different path. A political solution without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both of our people. And I have to say as I’m here, the foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path.
And why? Can’t you see that we are intertwined? That my people can be truly safe if Basel’s people are truly free and safe. There is another way. It’s not too late for life, for the living.
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Lawyer for Oscar-winning Palestinian director detained by Israeli forces says he will be released
The lawyer for Oscar award winning Palestinian director Hamdan Ballal, who was attacked by a group of Israeli settlers, says he will be released from detention by the Israeli military (see post at 11.18 for more details).
Lea Tsemel, the attorney for Ballal, one of four co-directors of the No Other Land documentary, made the announcement. It is unclear when Ballal will be released.
Tsemel said on Tuesday that her client and two other Palestinians spent the night on the floor of a military base while suffering from serious injuries sustained in the attack.
She had earlier said they were accused of throwing stones at a young settler, allegations they deny.
Ballal had his house in the Israeli-occupied West Bank surrounded by settlers during yesterday’s attack in the village of Susya, the Center for Jewish Nonviolence group (CJNV) said.
Updated
Israel says Al Jazeera journalist it killed in Gaza was Hamas 'terrorist sniper'
On Tuesday, Israel confirmed it had killed an Al Jazeera employee in the Gaza Strip, accusing the journalist, Hussam Shabat, of being a “sniper terrorist” for Hamas, the AFP news agency reports.
Al Jazeera said Shabat was killed on Monday by an Israeli strike on his vehicle in northern Gaza. Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemned the attack as part of a “massacre of journalists” in the Palestinian territory.
A joint statement released by Israeli military and Shin Bet internal security agency said that forces had “eliminated... a sniper terrorist from the Beit Hanun Battalion of the Hamas terrorist organisation, who was also employed as a journalist by Al Jazeera”.
Referring to Shabat, the Israeli statement that said security forces had “in October 2024... exposed the terrorist’s direct affiliation with the military wing of the Hamas terrorist organisation”.
Israel has repeatedly accused Al Jazeera reporters in Gaza of being “terrorist operatives” affiliated with groups like Hamas and has suspended the network’s broadcasts. The network vehemently denies these accusations.
Jonathan Dagher, head of the RSF’s Middle East desk, said in a statement that Israel’s accusations from 2024 “can in no way justify his murder, as they are based on documents that in no way constitute that the journalist had any affiliation” with Hamas’s armed wing.
According to the Israeli statement, “internal Hamas documents” proved Shabat had taken part in military training conducted by the militant group’s Beit Hanun Battalion in 2019.
Al Jazeera denies Israel’s accusations and says Israel systematically targets its staff in Gaza.
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Israel’s state budget has become law, the Times of Israel reports.
The passing of the budget occurred before a 31 March deadline that would have seen Netanyahu’s government fall if not passed.
“The budget has everything we need to win on the front and on the home front. We all approached this budget with a great sense of mission and responsibility,” said finance minister Bezalel Smotrich.
“We promoted measures that will support growth and allow the Israeli economy to maintain its strength and continue to prosper. This is a war budget, and, God willing, it will also be the victory budget.”
Updated
Israel Katz, Israel’s defence minister, said on Tuesday that if Hamas continues to not hand over hostages taken on 7 October 2023, the Palestinian militant group will pay “a heavy price,” Reuters reports.
“Our main goal now is to return all the kidnapped people home. If Hamas continues its refusal, it will pay increasingly heavy prices in taking territory and thwarting terrorist operatives and infrastructure until it is completely defeated,” Katz said in a statement.
At least 50,144 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 2023 - health ministry
At least 50,144 Palestinian people have been killed and 113,704 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
Gaza’s health ministry has said in the past that thousands of other dead people are most likely lost in the rubble of the territory.
The whereabouts of one of the Palestinian co-directors of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land is still unknown after he was beaten by Jewish settlers and detained by the Israeli military.
Attorney Lea Tsemel told The Associated Press she had no information on filmmaker Hamdan Ballal’s whereabouts early on Tuesday, around 12 hours after witnesses said he was attacked and detained in the occupied West Bank.
Ballal was one of three Palestinians detained in the village of Susya yesterday evening, according to Tsemel, who is representing them. Police told her they’re being held at a military base for medical treatment, and she said she hasn’t been able to speak with them.
Basel Adra, another co-director, witnessed the detention and said around two dozen settlers – some masked, some carrying guns, some in Israeli uniform - attacked the village.
My colleague Lorenzo Tondo has filed a report with more detail of the attack, which involved a group of about 15 armed settlers in the Masafer Yatta area south of Hebron. You can read it here.
Updated
Here are the latest images that have been sent to us over the newswires after another round of deadly Israeli airstrikes struck Gaza:
Nine members of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) are missing for a third consecutive day after being targeted by Israeli forces in Rafah, southern Gaza, the PRCS wrote in a post on X.
The PRCS is the main provider of emergency medical services in the Strip, providing vital first aid, taking injured people to hospitals and finding shelter for Palestinians displaced by Israel’s assault on the territory.
The PRCS posted to social media this morning:
For the third consecutive day, the fate of nine Palestine Red Crescent ambulance crew members remains unknown after they were besieged and targeted by Israeli occupation forces in Rafah.
Meanwhile, the occupation authorities continue to reject all coordination attempts by international organizations to facilitate the rescue team’s access to the site.
The Palestine Red Crescent expresses its deep concern for the safety of its teams and holds the Israeli occupation authorities fully responsible for their fate.
Updated
In a statement regarding the airstrike on Syria, the Israeli military said:
IDF (army) troops identified several terrorists who opened fire toward them in southern Syria. The troops returned fire in response and the IAF (air force) struck the terrorists. Hits were identified.
Israeli shelling kills five people in southern Syria - officials
At least five people have been killed in Israeli shelling of the southern Syrian province of Daraa, local authorities said.
In a post on Telegram, provincial authorities reported a provisional toll of “five people killed in the Israeli bombardment of the town of Kuwayya... west of Daraa”.
In an earlier post, we reported that the Israeli military said it had launched attacks on the Syrian airbases of Tadmur and T-4. No casualties were immediately reported in the aftermath of the attack.
Israel says it is hitting military sites linked to Iranian forces and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, both allies of the former Syrian government.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas warned on Monday during a visit to Jerusalem that Israeli airstrikes on Syria and Lebanon risked “further escalation” in the region.
“Military actions must be proportionate, and Israeli strikes into Syria and Lebanon risk further escalation,” Kallas was quoted as saying as a joint news conference with Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar.
Israel’s air force carried out hundreds of airstrikes against weapons depots, naval bases and Syrian military infrastructure in the weeks after the fall of the Assad regime last year in what it said was an attempt to prevent the weaponry from falling into rebel hands.
Kallas said Israel’s attacks were “unnecessary because Syria is right now not attacking Israel and that feeds more radicalisation that is also against Israel”.
Updated
Senior Trump administration officials have triggered bipartisan outrage after broadcasting classified military plans through a Signal group chat to which they had inadvertently added a prominent journalist.
According to reporting in the Atlantic, the editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was accidentally invited into a Signal chat group with more than a dozen senior Trump administration officials including Vice-President JD Vance, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, national security adviser, Mike Waltz, secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, and others.
My colleague Joseph Gedeon reports on the anger expressed by both Democrats and Republicans over the historic mishandling of national security information. Here is an extract from his story:
On the Senate floor on Monday, the minority leader, Chuck Schumer, called it “one of the most stunning breaches of military intelligence I have read about in a very, very long time” and urged Republicans to seek a “full investigation into how this happened, the damage it created and how we can avoid it in the future”…
Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic minority leader, called for a “substantive investigation into this unacceptable and irresponsible national security breach”, saying the leak was “completely outrageous and shocks the conscience”.
The Republican senator John Cornyn described the incident more colloquially, telling reporters it was “a huge screw-up” and suggesting that “the interagency would look at that” to determine how such a significant security lapse occurred.
US appears to confirm fresh attacks on Yemen
The United States Central Command (Centcom) appears to have confirmed fresh attacks on Yemen, with a video posted to X of fighter jets taking off accompanied by the caption “Give ‘em Hell Harry!!!” in a likely reference to the USS Harry S Truman, an American aircraft carrier stationed near Yemen.
Give ‘em Hell Harry!!!#HouthisAreTerrorists pic.twitter.com/BdYihp7PyK
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 25, 2025
The post came after reports of new US attacks on the northern province of Saada, which reportedly injured at least two people and destroyed a cancer hospital.
The Houthis, an armed movement who have taken control of most of Yemen over the past decade, say they have targeted international shipping in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza.
The attacks stopped when a fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire took hold in January - a day before Donald Trump took office - but earlier this month the Houthis said they would renew attacks against Israeli vessels after Israel cut off the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
On 15 March, the Trump administration launched what it described as a “decisive and powerful” series of deadly airstrikes against the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, with the stated aim of deterring the rebel group from attacking Red Sea shipping. Officials say the US strikes have killed many civilians, including women and children.
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As we mentioned in the opening summary, Israel’s security cabinet has approved a suggestion by the country’s defence minister, Israel Katz, to set up a new administration within his department tasked with enabling Palestinians to “voluntarily” leave Gaza, their homelands.
In a statement a couple of days ago, Katz’s office said the new directorate would work to:
Prepare for and enable safe and controlled passage of Gaza residents for their voluntary departure to third countries, including securing their movement, establishing movement routes, checking pedestrians at designated crossings in the Gaza Strip, as well as coordinating the provision of infrastructure that will enable passage by land, sea and air to the destination countries.
Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are among the countries that have heavily condemned the Israeli plan.
The Qatari foreign ministry said that “any form of Palestinian displacement constitutes a blatant violation of international humanitarian law”. Jordan’s foreign ministry wrote in a post on X:
The ministry of foreign affairs and expatriates condemned in the strongest terms Israel’s announcement of the establishment of a special agency targeting the displacement of Palestinians under the pretext of “voluntary departure” from the Gaza Strip.
This coincided with the Israeli security cabinet’s approval of the demolition of 13 illegal settlement neighborhoods in the West Bank, in preparation for their “legalisation” as colonial settlements.
The ministry stressed that all Israeli measures targeting the Palestinian presence on their land are invalid and represent a flagrant violation of international law and international humanitarian law, and part of practices that constitute the crime of forced displacement of Palestinians from their occupied land.
Fresh evacuation orders made as overnight Israeli attacks on Gaza kill over 20 Palestinians
Welcome to our live coverage of the latest developments in the Middle East, with a particular focus on Israel’s continuing war on Gaza.
Gaza’s health ministry said yesterday that 730 Palestinian people had been killed in Israeli attacks since the country’s military resumed intensive bombardments across the strip last Tuesday, including about 60 people in the past 24 hours.
Israeli attacks have killed at least 23 Palestinians, including seven children, since midnight in Gaza, according to Al Jazeera and the Associated Press. Most of the attacks reportedly targeted areas in south and central Gaza.
The victims include three children and their parents who were killed in an Israeli airstrike on their tent near the southern city of Khan Younis, according to Nasser hospital which has received dead bodies throughout the war.
Three people were killed in an airstrike on a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp, according to the Awda hospital, while an Israeli airstrike on a residential building killed 5 people in Gaza City, according to officials.
In other news:
Hossam Shabat, a journalist for the Al Jazeera Mubasher channel, was killed in northern Gaza on Monday. Witnesses told the network that his car was targeted in the eastern part of Beit Lahiya. Earlier in the day, Mohammad Mansour, a reporter who worked for Palestine Today, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis.
The Israeli military issued more calls to evacuate parts of northern Gaza, telling Palestinians to head towards “known shelters” even though there is no guarantee of safety there. “Terrorist organizations are once again returning to and firing rockets from populated areas … For your safety, head south toward the known shelters immediately,” the Israeli military spokesperson wrote on X, after issuing similar warnings for the northern towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun.
In extraordinary blunder, top Trump cabinet members added the Atlantic magazine editor to a Signal group chat discussing secret military plans for recent attacks in Yemen. The major security breach sparked bipartisan outrage and calls from one Democratic group for Pete Hegseth to resign as defence secretary.
The Israeli military said earlier today it struck targets – “Tadmur and T4” - at two Syrian military bases in Homs province, claiming they hosted “military capabilities”.
Israel’s defence ministry has announced the creation of an administration dedicated to the “voluntary departure of Gaza residents to a third country”, drawing outrage from Egypt, which borders Gaza and Israel. Cairo expressed “its strong condemnation” of the creation of the authority.
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