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Israeli colonists on Thursday stormed the courtyards of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem under heavy protection from Israeli occupation police.According to the Palestinian news agency (WAFA), eyewitnesses reported that dozens of colonists entered the mosque compound in groups, conducted provocative tours, and performed Talmudic rituals while being guarded by Israeli forces.Extremist colonist groups had earlier called for incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque on Wednesday and Thursday.The holy site has witnessed a rise in such incursions since the start of the ongoing war, widely described as a campaign of genocide, marking a serious escalation and a violation of its sanctity.

Israeli occupation forces carried out an incursion today into the Quneitra countryside in southern Syria, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA). SANA reported that a unit of Israeli forces, consisting of five military vehicles, entered the vicinity of the town of Saida al-Hanout in the Quneitra countryside before withdrawing shortly afterward. The agency added that Israeli occupation forces conducted another incursion yesterday into the town of Tal al-Ahmar al-Sharqi, also in the Quneitra countryside, using four military vehicles accompanied by two tanks and a number of soldiers. The forces carried out a field deployment lasting about an hour before withdrawing toward Tal al-Ahmar al-Gharbi. The Israeli occupation continues to violate Syrian sovereignty in contravention of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement, United Nations resolutions, and international law. Syria has condemned these repeated aggressions and called on the international community to take a firm stance to halt them.

Three Palestinians were killed Saturday, including one elderly man who was shot by Israeli forces east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, according to medical sources. The sources confirmed that the elderly resident of Al Qarara succumbed to gunfire targeting civilian gatherings. Another Palestinian died from injuries sustained near an aid checkpoint southwest of Khan Younis, while medical teams recovered the body of a man who had gone missing following an Israeli airstrike on Al Qarara the previous day. Civil defense crews also retrieved the bodies of more than ten victims from the Al Mughraqa area and the Turkish hospital zone in central Gaza's Netzarim region. Local reports indicated several injuries after Israeli artillery targeted civilians on Al Ajarma Street in Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza. Meanwhile, thousands of displaced Palestinians continued returning from the south to the north of the Strip for a second consecutive day, following the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel that took effect Friday afternoon. QNA's correspondent observed heavy foot and vehicle traffic along Salah Al Din Street and the coastal Al Rashid Road, as families made their way back to inspect their homes, many of which were damaged or destroyed during the recent ground offensive in Gaza City. The correspondent further reported that the scale of devastation became clear as residents reached their neighborhoods, only to find entire blocks flattened. Residential buildings, infrastructure, and key landmarks were obliterated, especially in Gaza City, which bore the brunt of the incursion. The ceasefire agreement, brokered in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, came into effect Friday afternoon, ending a wide-scale Israeli assault on Gaza that began on October 7, 2023. The offensive resulted in over 67,000 deaths, approximately 170,000 injuries, mostly among women and children, and a famine that claimed the lives of 460 people, including 154 children.

A gut-wrenching new film about a five-year-old girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza last year was given a 23-minute standing ovation after its premiere at the star-studded Venice Film Festival Wednesday."The Voice of Hind Rajab", a docu-drama about real events from January 2024, left much of the audience and many journalists sobbing as it screened for the first time.Franco-Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania and her cast, all dressed in black, were also in tears as they soaked in applause, cheers and shouts of "Free Palestine! at the 1,032-seat main festival cinema."We see that the narrative all around world is that those dying in Gaza are collateral damage, in the media," Ben Hania told journalists ahead of the premiere."And I think this is so dehumanising, and that's why cinema, art and every kind of expression is very important to give those people a voice and face." Her film tells the story of Hind Rajab Hamada who was fleeing the Israeli military in Gaza City with six relatives last year when their car came under fire.The sole survivor, her desperate calls with the Red Crescent rescue service -- which were recorded and released -- brief caused international outrage."The Voice of Hind Rajab" has plenty of famous names attached as executive producers -- from actors Joaquin Phoenix, who attended the premiere, and Brad Pitt to Oscar-winning directors Jonathan Glazer ("The Zone of Interest") and Mexico's Alfonso Cuaron ("Roma")."I'm very happy, and I never in my life thought that can be possible," Ben Hania said of her A-list backers.Its premiere came on the same day as a senior Israeli military official said one million Palestinians could be displaced by a new offensive around Gaza City."The Voice of Hind Rajab" makes chilling use of the real phone recordings of Hind Rajab, but tells the story through a dramatised Red Crescent team which is trying to coordinate her rescue."It is dramatisation, but very close to what they experienced," Ben Hania added.Hind Rajab was eventually found dead along with two ambulance staff who went to rescue her."Please come to me, please come. I'm scared," she can be heard sobbing repeatedly in the film while bullets fly in the background.She is described as six years old, but a death certificate viewed by AFP in Gaza showed her age as five.Deadline magazine said the film "could be the lightning rod that supporters of the Gazan cause are waiting for", while Vogue tipped it for Venice's top prize on Saturday.A critic in Variety magazine said the "shattering" audio footage "carries a brutal emotional wallop" but the mix of drama and documentary footage was "questionable."The Gaza conflict has been a major talking point at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, where thousands of protesters marched to the entrance of the event on Saturday.An open letter calling on festival organisers to denounce the Israeli government has been signed by around 2,000 cinema insiders, according to the organisers.Hind Rajab's mother, Wissam Hamada, said she hoped the film would help end the war."The whole world has left us to die, to go hungry, to live in fear and to be forcibly displaced without doing anything," Hamada told AFP by phone from Gaza City where she lives with her five-year-old son.Israel's bombardment has killed at least 63,633 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations deems reliable.Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said the circumstances of Hind Rajab's death were "still being reviewed", without giving further details.It has never announced a formal investigation into the case.The war in Gaza has regularly caused tension in the cinema world since Israel launched its offensive in October 2023 in retaliation for a storming of Israel by Palestinian Hamas group fighters.Hundreds of actors and directors signed an open letter during the Cannes film festival in May saying they were "ashamed" of their industry's "passivity" about the war.Cannes began under the shadow of the killing of Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, the subject of the documentary which was picked for a sidebar section of the festival.A day after Hassouna was told the film had been selected, an Israeli air strike on her home in northern Gaza killed her and 10 relatives.

Israeli forces killed at least 16 Palestinians across Gaza Thursday and wounded dozens in the south of the enclave, local medics said, as residents reported that Gaza City suburbs were under intensifying bombardment.The Israeli military is preparing to seize Gaza City, the territory's largest urban centre, despite international calls on Israel to desist over fears that a ground offensive would cause significant casualties and displace the roughly one million Palestinians sheltering there.In Gaza City residents said families were fleeing their homes, with most heading towards the coast, as Israeli forces shelled the eastern suburbs of Shejaia, Zeitoun, and Sabra. Thursday's deaths took to 71 the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in the past 24 hours, Gaza's health ministry said.The Israeli military said in a statement that it was continuing to operate throughout the enclave.The military had killed three Hamas fighters in the past day, it said, without saying how they had identified the individuals.A spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross said 31 patients, most with gunshot wounds, were admitted to the Red Cross Field Hospital in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Four of them were declared dead on arrival."Patients said they were injured while trying to reach food distribution sites," the spokesperson said, adding that since the aid hubs began operations on May 27, the hospital had treated over 5,000 "weapon-wounded patients".United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters Israel's expanded military operation in Gaza City would have "devastating consequences".Guterres also said UN-led humanitarian efforts in the devastated Palestinian enclave were being blocked or delayed and people were dying of hunger as a "result of deliberate decisions that defy basic humanity"."Starvation of the civilian population must never be used as a method of warfare. Civilians must be protected. Humanitarian access must be unimpeded," he said. "No more excuses. No more obstacles. No more lies."With the enclave in the grips of a humanitarian crisis, the Gaza health ministry said Thursday that four more people, including two children, had died of malnutrition and starvation in the enclave, raising the number of deaths from such causes to 317 people, including 121 children, since the war started.Dozens of Palestinians were admitted to Nasser Hospital in nearby Khan Younis with gunshot wounds, according to a doctor there who said soldiers had fired on a crowd of Palestinians that had gathered near an aid distribution hub.Mohammad Saqer, the head of nursing, told Reuters most of the patients had been admitted with gunshot wounds to the upper parts of the body and that many were in critical condition.The patients had reported they were shot as they sought to collect food from a distribution site in Rafah, he said.The Israeli military had no immediate comment.