Israel used weapons in Gaza that made thousands of Palestinians evaporate
Al Jazeera investigation reveals how US-supplied thermal and thermobaric munitions burning at 3,500C have left no trace of nearly 3,000 Palestinians.
At dawn on August 10, 2024, Yasmin Mahani walked through the smoking ruins of al-Tabin school in Gaza City, searching for her son, Saad. She found her husband screaming, but of Saad, there was no trace.
“I went into the mosque and found myself stepping on flesh and blood,” Mahani told Al Jazeera Arabic for an investigation that aired on Monday. She searched hospitals and morgues for days. “We found nothing of Saad. Not even a body to bury. That was the hardest part.”
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Mahani is one of thousands of Palestinians whose loved ones have simply vanished during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which has killed more than 72,000 people.
According to the Al Jazeera Arabic investigation, The Rest of the Story, Civil Defence teams in Gaza have documented 2,842 Palestinians who have “evaporated” since the war began in October 2023, leaving behind no remains other than blood spray or small fragments of flesh.
Experts and witnesses attributed this phenomenon to Israel’s systematic use of internationally prohibited thermal and thermobaric weapons, often referred to as vacuum or aerosol bombs, capable of generating temperatures exceeding 3,500 degrees Celsius [6,332 degrees Fahrenheit].
Grim forensic accounting
The figure of 2,842 is not an estimate, but the result of grim forensic accounting by Gaza’s Civil Defence.
Spokesperson Mahmoud Basal explained to Al Jazeera that teams use a “method of elimination” at strike sites. “We enter a targeted home and cross-reference the known number of occupants with the bodies recovered,” Basal said.
“If a family tells us there were five people inside, and we only recover three intact bodies, we treat the remaining two as ‘evaporated’ only after an exhaustive search yields nothing but biological traces—blood spray on walls or small fragments like scalps,” he added.
The chemistry of erasure
The investigation detailed how specific chemical compositions in Israeli munitions turn human bodies into ash in seconds.
Vasily Fatigarov, a Russian military expert, explained that thermobaric weapons do not just kill; they obliterate matter. Unlike conventional explosives, these weapons disperse a cloud of fuel that ignites to create an enormous fireball and a vacuum effect.
“To prolong the burning time, powders of aluminium, magnesium and titanium are added to the chemical mixture,” Fatigarov said. “This raises the temperature of the explosion to between 2,500 and 3,000 degrees Celsius [4,532F to 5,432F].”
According to the investigation, the intense heat is often generated by tritonal, a mixture of TNT and aluminium powder used in United States-made bombs like the MK-84.
Dr Munir al-Bursh, director general of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, explained the biological impact of such extreme heat on the human body, which is composed of roughly 80 percent water.
“The boiling point of water is 100 degrees Celsius [212F],” al-Bursh said. “When a body is exposed to energy exceeding 3,000 degrees combined with massive pressure and oxidation, the fluids boil instantly. The tissues vaporise and turn to ash. It is chemically inevitable.”
Anatomy of the bombs
The investigation identified specific US-manufactured munitions used in Gaza that are linked to these disappearances:
- MK-84 ‘Hammer’: This 900kg [2,000lb] unguided bomb packed with tritonal generates heat up to 3,500C [6,332F].
- BLU-109 bunker buster: Used in an attack on al-Mawasi, an area Israel had declared a “safe zone” for forcibly displaced Palestinians in September 2024, this bomb evaporated 22 people. It has a steel casing and a delayed fuse, burying itself before detonating a PBXN-109 explosive mix. This creates a large fireball inside enclosed spaces, incinerating everything within reach.
- GBU-39: This precision glide bomb was used in the al-Tabin school attack. It uses the AFX-757 explosive. “The GBU-39 is designed to keep the building structure relatively intact while destroying everything inside,” Fatigarov noted. “It kills via a pressure wave that ruptures lungs and a thermal wave that incinerates soft tissue.”
Basal of the Civil Defence confirmed finding fragments of GBU-39 wings at sites where bodies had vanished.
A ‘global genocide, not just an Israeli one’
Legal experts said the use of these indiscriminate weapons implicates not just Israel but also its Western suppliers.
“This is a global genocide, not just an Israeli one,” said lawyer Diana Buttu, a lecturer at Georgetown University in Qatar.
Speaking at the Al Jazeera Forum in Doha, Buttu argued that the supply chain is evidence of complicity. “We see a continuous flow of these weapons from the United States and Europe. They know these weapons do not distinguish between a fighter and a child, yet they continue to send them.”
Buttu emphasised that under international law, the use of weapons that cannot distinguish between combatants and noncombatants constitutes a war crime.
“The world knows Israel possesses and uses these prohibited weapons,” Buttu said. “The question is why are they allowed to remain outside the system of accountability.”
Collapse of international justice
Despite the International Court of Justice issuing provisional measures against Israel in January 2024, ordering it to prevent acts of genocide, and an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in November 2024, the killing intensified.
Tariq Shandab, a professor of international law, argued that the international justice system has “failed the test of Gaza”.
“Since the ceasefire agreement [in October], more than 600 Palestinians have been killed,” Shandab said. He highlighted that the war has continued through siege, starvation and strikes. “The blockade on medicine and food is itself a crime against humanity.”
Shandab pointed to the “impunity” granted to Israel by the US veto power at the UN Security Council. However, he noted that universal jurisdiction courts in countries like Germany and France could offer an alternative path to justice, provided there is political will.
For Rafiq Badran, who lost four children in the Bureij refugee camp during the war, these technical definitions mean little. He was only able to recover small parts of his children’s bodies to bury.
“Four of my children just evaporated,” Badran said, holding back tears. “I looked for them a million times. Not a piece was left. Where did they go?”
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Updates: Israel kills 11 Palestinians in Gaza in 24 hours
Israeli ‘ceasefire’ violations continue, at least 11 Palestinians killed in Gaza since dawn
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- 15 Feb 2026 - 15:15(15:15 GMT)
Thanks for joining us
Check out our story on Israel’s approval of a plan to register occupied West Bank land owned by Palestinians as “state property” here.
Read about how more than 100 artists backed the UN’s Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese after resignation calls here.
And you can follow all our Israel-Palestine coverage here.
- 15 Feb 2026 - 15:10(15:10 GMT)
Here’s what happened today
We’ll be closing this live page soon. Here are the day’s main developments:
- The Israeli government approved a resolution to begin the process of settling and registering land in the occupied West Bank for the first time since 1967.
- Palestine’s presidency warned of “serious consequences” after the approval, while Hamas condemned it as a move “to steal and Judaise lands in the occupied West Bank”.
- Gaza’s Health Ministry demanded the “permanent and regular” opening of the Rafah crossing with Egypt “in a way that guarantees the free movement of patients and the wounded without restrictions”.
- Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis asked Doctors Without Borders (MSF) to reconsider its decision to suspend some operations after the NGO said staff saw “armed men” posing “serious security threats” inside the health facility.
- Israeli attacks have killed at least 601 Palestinians and wounded 1,607 in Gaza since the October 10 “ceasefire”, the Health Ministry said.
- Sami al-Dahdouh – a commander in the al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad – was killed in an Israeli attack in Gaza City.
- 15 Feb 2026 - 15:05(15:05 GMT)
Far-right Israeli Knesset member, armed settlers storm school near Nablus
Far-right Israeli Knesset member Zvi Tzukot has forcibly entered the al-Lubban ash-Sharqiya Girls’ Secondary School south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.
Tzukot, accompanied by armed settlers, stormed the schoolyard, filmed inside the school, and threatened staff. After the settlers left, the Israeli army immediately entered the area, Wafa news agency reported.
The Palestinian Education Ministry condemned the incursion and called on the international community to put pressure on Israel to stop the raids.
Samer al-Jamal, director-general of education in southern Nablus, said the incident “constituted a clear violation of all international laws and conventions that guarantee the protection of educational institutions and ensure students’ right to a safe education”.
Israeli soldiers guard settlers on a tour of Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on Saturday, February 14 [Mussa Qawasma/Reuters] Advertisement - 15 Feb 2026 - 15:00(15:00 GMT)
Palestine signs $27m aid agreement with Japan
Palestine’s Minister of Finance and Planning Estephan Salameh has signed a new agreement with Japan for the provision of humanitarian services in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Japan’s aid package of $27.3m will be allocated to support waste management, water and sanitation, the health and energy sectors, and infrastructure projects including roads.
Salameh said the support is an “important step to enhance the resilience of citizens and improve basic services”, Wafa news agency quoted him as saying.
The agreement was signed in Ramallah, the occupied West Bank, at the Finance Ministry in the presence of Japan’s Ambassador to Palestine Ariaki Matsuhiko and a representative of the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
- 15 Feb 2026 - 14:45(14:45 GMT)
Indonesia says troops ready to join Gaza peacekeeping mission by June
Indonesia’s military says up to 8,000 troops are expected to be ready by the end of June to join a potential deployment to Gaza as part of a peacekeeping force under US President Donald Trump’s plan.
Army spokesperson Brigadier-General Donny Pramono said the Southeast Asian nation’s armed forces finalised a proposed troop structure and timeline.
“In principle, we are ready to be assigned anywhere,” Pramono told The Associated Press. “Our troops are fully prepared and can be dispatched at short notice once the government gives formal approval.”
Throughout February, troops will undergo health checks and paperwork followed by a “force readiness review” at the end of the month, Pramono said.
About 1,000 personnel are expected to be ready to deploy as an advance team by April, and the remainder by June.
However, Pramono said being ready doesn’t mean soldiers will actually deploy, as it still requires a political decision and depends on international mechanisms.
Indonesia – the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation – doesn’t have formal diplomatic relations with Israel and has long been a strong supporter of a two-state solution. It has been deeply involved in providing humanitarian aid to Gaza, including funding a hospital.
- 15 Feb 2026 - 14:30(14:30 GMT)
Photos: Civil Defence crews recover bodies after Israeli attacks in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya
Civil defence teams, in coordination with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), use heavy machinery to search the rubble of a destroyed building to recover the bodies of members of the Abu Nasr family following Israeli attacks in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, February 15, 2026 [Saeed MMT Jaras/Anadolu] 
[Saeed MMT Jaras/Anadolu] 
[Saeed MMT Jaras/Anadolu] 
[Saeed MMT Jaras/Anadolu] - 15 Feb 2026 - 14:15(14:15 GMT)
Romanian president to attend Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ meeting as observer
Romanian President Nicusor Dan has announced that he will attend as observer the first meeting of US President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace”.
“Next week I will take part in the first meeting of the Board of Peace in Washington, responding to the invitation addressed by the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump,” Dan wrote on X, after having recently said that his country was still considering whether to join the body, of which Trump is the chairman.
The board, originally intended to oversee the rebuilding of the Gaza Strip, is set to have its first meeting on February 19 in Washington. Its permanent members must pay $1bn to join, which lead to criticisms that the board could become a “pay-to-play” version of the UN Security Council.
“Romania will have observer status and I will reaffirm our strong support for international peace efforts and our willingness to participate in the reconstruction process in the Gaza Strip,” Dan added on X.
- 15 Feb 2026 - 14:00(14:00 GMT)
Israel issues 20 demolition notices near occupied East Jerusalem
Israeli authorities have issued demolition notices to more than 20 residential, agricultural, and commercial structures in the town of Anata, northeast of occupied East Jerusalem, shortly before announcing the decision to seize Palestinian land.
According to the Jerusalem governorate, Israeli forces delivered the notices to property owners in the Wa’ar al-Beik area of the town, citing construction without permits as a reason for the demolitions.
Israel has issued similar notices in the same area in recent days as part of a wider policy to pressure Palestinians and restrict their ability to build homes and public infrastructure.
Local sources also told Wafa news agency that Israeli forces fired volleys of stun grenades and tear gas canisters indiscriminately towards residents in the area.
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- 15 Feb 2026 - 13:50(13:50 GMT)
British Museum removes word ‘Palestine’ from displays after pressure from pro-Israel lawyers
The British Museum has removed the word “Palestine” from displays about the ancient Middle East following “concerns” by a United Kingdom-based Israeli advocacy group.
The British Museum has confirmed that it is reviewing and updating some gallery panels and labels after “Audience testing has shown that the historic use of the term Palestine … is in some circumstances no longer meaningful,” UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) said in a statement.
The group claimed there were “historically inaccurate” references to Palestine in displays covering the ancient Levant and Egypt. It said applying a single name across thousands of years “erases historical changes and creates a false impression of continuity.”
The statement said that responding to the concerns, the British Museum’s spokesperson confirmed it was in the process of reviewing and updating panels and labels on a case-by-case basis.
“For example, the information panels in the Levant gallery, covering the period 2000-300 BC, have all been updated to describe in some detail the history of Canaan and the Canaanites and the rise of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel using those names. A revised text devoted to the Phoenicians was installed in early 2025,” it added.
Advertisement - 15 Feb 2026 - 13:40(13:40 GMT)
Israel’s West Bank move means ‘more threats, intimidation from Israeli settlers’
Xavier Abu Eid, a political analyst based in Ramallah, said the “land registration” announcement by Israel is “packing annexation into some sort of bureaucratic move”.
He told Al Jazeera that the International Court of Justice ruled in 2024 that what the Israelis are doing is a clear sign of annexation of the occupied West Bank.
“People should understand this is not just a step towards annexation. We are experiencing annexation as we speak today,” said Abu Eid. “What the Israeli government is doing is implanting their political programme – a policy that has already been presented.”
Palestinian landowners are now going to face “more threats and intimidation from Israeli settlers supported by the Israeli government”, he noted.
9:32 Israel’s West Bank move means ‘more threats, intimidation from Israeli settlers’: Analysis - 15 Feb 2026 - 13:30(13:30 GMT)
Palestinian presidency slams Israeli plans in the occupied West Bank as ‘threat’ to security
The Palestinian presidency warns of serious consequences after the Israeli government approved a decision to declare areas in the occupied West Bank as state property, according to the Wafa news agency.
According to a statement by the presidency, the decision constituted a “direct threat to security and stability” and amounted to the de facto annexation of Palestinian territory and the entrenching of illegal settlement expansion.
The presidency added that the decision had nullified and contradicted signed agreements with the United Nations Security Council, particularly Resolution 2334, which stipulates that all Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem was illegal and violated international law.
The statement affirmed that the decision would not grant Israel any legitimacy over the State of Palestine and called on the international community, especially the UN and United States, to intervene and force Israel to comply with international law to de-escalate tensions and restore stability.
- 15 Feb 2026 - 13:20(13:20 GMT)
‘Null and void’: Hamas slams Israeli move ‘to steal and Judaise lands in the occupied West Bank’
Hamas has condemned the government decision allowing Israel to, in the group’s words, “steal and Judaise lands in the occupied West Bank by registering them as so-called ‘state lands'”.
The statement called the approval “a null and void decision issued by an illegitimate occupying power”, adding: “It is an attempt to forcibly impose settlement and Judaisation on the ground, in flagrant violation of international law and relevant UN resolutions”.
Hamas called on the UN Security Council and all relevant international parties “to assume their legal and political responsibilities and take immediate action to halt the occupation’s aggression and its ongoing violations against our Palestinian people”.
Earlier, the Israeli government approved a proposal to open the land registration process in the occupied West Bank for the first time since 1967.
- 15 Feb 2026 - 13:10(13:10 GMT)
Israeli government approves resolution on de facto annexation of occupied West Bank
The Israeli government has approved a draft resolution to begin the process of settling and registering land in the occupied West Bank for the first time since 1967.
“We are continuing the settlement revolution to control all our lands,” said Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Meanwhile, Defence Minister Israel Katz described the move as an “essential security and governance measure designed to ensure control, enforcement, and full freedom of action for the State of Israel in the area”, the Jerusalem Post newspaper reported.
Last week, Israel’s security cabinet approved decisions pushed by both Smotrich and Katz that make it easier to seize Palestinian land illegally.
Experts have called it the de facto annexation of the West Bank and say it will fundamentally alter the civil and legal reality of the territory, removing what the Israeli ministers termed “legal obstacles” that have existed for decades against the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied territories.
Read more here.
Current Time 2:10/Duration 2:101xWill any countries take action to stop Israel’s West Bank annexation? - 15 Feb 2026 - 13:00(13:00 GMT)
NGO says 88 Palestinians died in Israeli prisons since genocidal war started in Gaza
The death of a Palestinian paramedic from Gaza in Israeli detention has increased the number of Palestinians killed in Israeli prisons to 88, the nongovernmental Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said, adding that the number only reflects the victims whose names were revealed.
Hatem Ismail Rayyan, a 59-year-old paramedic, was pronounced dead at Israel’s Negev prison, a press statement by the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said earlier in the week.
Rayyan was detained by Israeli forces on December 27, 2024 from the premises of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, alongside his injured son Moaz Rayyan, who remains in Israeli detention, according to the statement by the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society.
The hospital had been under siege by the Israeli military, and was then forcibly closed by Israeli authorities after they stormed the premises at the end of December last year.
- 15 Feb 2026 - 12:45(12:45 GMT)
Photos: Palestinians play football in rubble of Gaza City
Palestinian players with the Gaza Sports Club and Al-Ahly Club play a football match at a newly constructed field surrounded by buildings destroyed in Israeli ground and air operations in Gaza City on February 14, 2026 [Jehad Alshrafi/AP] 
[Jehad Alshrafi/AP] 
[Jehad Alshrafi/AP] - 15 Feb 2026 - 12:30(12:30 GMT)
UK foreign secretary defends ban on Palestine Action despite court ruling against it
Yvette Cooper has defended her decision to ban Palestine Action as “a terrorist organisation” after the High Court ruled the move was unlawful and “disproportionate”.
Cooper, now the foreign secretary, proscribed the group in July when she was serving as home secretary. On Friday, the High Court ruled against the government’s ban after a challenge was brought by Palestine Action.
Asked on Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme to explain her decision-making, Cooper said: “I followed the clear advice and recommendations, going through a serious process that the Home Office goes through, involving different agencies and police advice as well, which was very clear about the recommendation for proscription of this group.
“And the court has also concluded that this is not a normal protest group, that it has found that this group has committed acts of terrorism, that this group is not simply in line with democratic values and has promoted violence.”
Cooper was pressed to reveal the advice she was given that informed her decision to pursue the ban but did not. Instead, she said: “So I was given significant evidence and advice around risks of violence and risks from public safety, and that is what you take seriously.”
The foreign secretary said: “If you ignore advice that you are given about risks to public safety, then you’re really not taking seriously the responsibilities of home secretary.”
British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper [File: Tolga Akmen/Pool via EPA] - 15 Feb 2026 - 12:15(12:15 GMT)
WATCH: Israel wants ‘low-stakes genocide’ in Gaza, author Jehad Abusalim says
UpFront‘s Marc Lamont Hill speaks with Jehad Abusalim, policy analyst and author of Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire, on the Gaza “ceasefire”, the ongoing Israeli strikes, Trump’s plans for Gaza and what lies ahead for the territory.
Watch it below:
25:00 Gaza author and analyst Jehad Abusalim on Trump’s 'Board of Peace' Advertisement - 15 Feb 2026 - 12:00(12:00 GMT)
Albania’s leader to attend Board of Peace meeting in US
Edi Rama, Albania’s prime minister, will travel to Washington, DC, in the coming week to attend the first meeting of Trump’s initiative on Thursday, he says on a podcast.
“I will be in Washington for the official creation of the peace council and the launch of the activities of this council,” Rama said in an interview with the Albanian podcast Flasim.
The board, of which Trump is the chairman, was originally intended to oversee the rebuilding of the Gaza Strip after two years of Israel’s genocidal war, but its charter appears to extend beyond the Palestinian enclave.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the Knesset next to Edi Rama on January 26, 2026 [Ronen Zvulun/Reuters] - 15 Feb 2026 - 11:45(11:45 GMT)
Rafah crossing must reopen for patients on ‘permanent and regular’ basis, Gaza’s Health Ministry says
Gaza’s Ministry of Health is demanding the “permanent and regular” opening of the Rafah land crossing with Egypt “in a way that guarantees the free movement of patients and the wounded without restrictions”.
More than 20,000 patients and wounded people are waiting to travel for treatment, and the partial operation of the Rafah crossing does not rise to the scale of the catastrophe, it said.
Egyptian ambulances go through the Rafah border crossing on the Egyptian side on February 10, 2026 [Reuters] - 15 Feb 2026 - 11:30(11:30 GMT)
African Union demands full UN membership for Palestine
African leaders have called for granting the State of Palestine full membership in the United Nations at the closing session of the African Union summit in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa.
The leaders said Palestinians have the “legitimate right” to self-determination and the end of Israeli occupation.
The summit’s closing statement also condemned any attempts to forcibly displace the Palestinian population and warned of worsening conditions in Gaza.
During the summit, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa emphasised that the situation in the occupied West Bank mirrors the ongoing conditions in Gaza with Israeli forces continuing to “seize Palestinian lands, expand illegal colonies, and protect the actions of colonists who commit various forms of violence and destruction against the Palestinian people”, the Wafa news agency reported.
Participants attend the African Union’s 39th Ordinary Session of Assembly of Heads of State and Government in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia [File: Minasse Wondimu Hailu/EPA] - 15 Feb 2026 - 11:15(11:15 GMT)
Gaza’s Nasser Hospital calls on MSF to reconsider decision to halt operations
In a new statement, the hospital in Khan Younis has asked Doctors Without Borders (MSF) to reconsider its decision to suspend some operations at the medical complex, saying that it “will only exacerbate the suffering of our people under the current circumstances”.
The statement said that Gaza “is experiencing a number of phenomena that are alien to the behaviour of our people” due to the war, including “some families resorting to carrying weapons and resorting to violence”.
It said that the Nasser Medical Complex has been subjected to attacks on several occasions by these families and other groups, leading the institution to have police presence to guard the hospital, ensuring the safe delivery of services and protection of medical staff.
“Some violations by rogue elements still occur from time to time, and they are being pursued immediately,” it also said, concluding: “We emphasise the safety of the hospital and its protection from any armed presence.”
MSF announced it was suspending some operations at Nasser Hospital on Saturday after its staff and patients saw “armed men, some masked” posing “serious security threats” inside the building.
The Geneva-based medical charity reported on its website that non-essential work at the hospital in Khan Younis was halted on January 20.
- 15 Feb 2026 - 11:00(11:00 GMT)
Hamas says Israeli massacres continue despite upcoming Board of Peace meeting
The Palestinian group’s spokesperson Hazem Qassem has said that Israel “committed a new massacre by targeting displaced people in their tents”, calling it “a serious violation of the ceasefire agreement”.
He said that “this criminal escalation comes ahead of the Board of Peace meeting, in a clear attempt to impose a bloody reality on the ground and send a message that all efforts and bodies concerned with establishing calm in Gaza are meaningless, and that the occupation is continuing its aggression despite all parties speaking of the necessity of adhering to the ceasefire agreement”.
As we reported earlier, tents where people were sheltering were attacked in northern Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp, where at least four people were reported killed.
The first meeting of US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace initiative for Gaza is set for February 19 in Washington, with leaders from across the world invited to attend.
The Hamas spokesperson called on the Board of Peace, in its upcoming meeting, “to pressure the occupation to stop its repeated violations and compel it to implement what was agreed upon without delay or manipulation”.
- 15 Feb 2026 - 10:45(10:45 GMT)
Israeli forces to conduct drill near occupied East Jerusalem
An Israeli military statement says the exercise will be held today in the Modi’in-Maccabim-Re’ut settlement, 30km (18.6 miles) west of occupied East Jerusalem, without specifying its duration.
“There will be active movement of security forces and vehicles in the area during the drill,” it added.
The army said the exercise was part of its 2026 annual plan. The Israeli army carried out two drills on Thursday, one on land in the Red Sea area around Eilat and another at sea in the Mediterranean.
- 15 Feb 2026 - 10:30(10:30 GMT)
If you’re just joining us
Here are the latest developments from Gaza and beyond:
- Israeli attacks have killed at least 601 Palestinians and wounded 1,607 in Gaza since the October 10 “ceasefire”, according to the Health Ministry.
- A group called Doctors Against Genocide says the international organisation Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, has made “false allegations” by accusing the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis of harbouring weapons or armed groups within the hospital.
- The Palestinian group Hamas has condemned “the political hypocrisy and double standards that govern the behaviour of Western capitals” towards Israel after France and Germany’s call for the United States special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, to step down.
- The Palestinian Prisoners’ Media Office says Israel’s forces have arrested 13 Palestinians in the Nablus governorate, two others in the governorate of Bethlehem and three in Salfit.
Displaced young Palestinians gather at the site of an overnight Israeli strike that killed several people, according to medics at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip on February 15, 2026 [Bashar Taleb/AFP] - 15 Feb 2026 - 10:19(10:19 GMT)
Commander of PIJ’s armed wing killed in Gaza City’s Tal al-Hawa area
Sami al-Dahdouh, a commander in the al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), has been killed in an Israeli attack in Gaza City’s Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood.
That’s according to Palestinian sources speaking to our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic.
- 15 Feb 2026 - 10:15(10:15 GMT)
Israel killed Palestinians in Gaza City, Khan Younis and Jabalia
Reporting from Gaza City, Gaza
In the past couple of minutes, there was another attack on a group of civilians in Tal al-Hawa, in the southern part of Gaza City where at least one Palestinian was killed.
There was also an attack on a tent, where people were sheltering, in the Jabalia refugee camp where at least four people have been killed. There was also another attack on Khan Younis where at least five people were killed.
This raised today’s death toll to 10 people.
Current Time 3:09/Duration 4:181xIsraeli ‘ceasefire’ violations continue, at least 11 Palestinians killed in Gaza since dawn - 15 Feb 2026 - 10:00(10:00 GMT)
Photos: Palestinians mourn loved ones in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis
Friends and relatives in Khan Younis attend the funeral of Palestinians killed in the latest wave of Israeli attacks on Gaza, on February 15, 2026 [Hani Alshaer/Anadolu]https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2026/2/15/live-israel-kills-at-least-nine-palestinians-in-gaza-since-dawn?UTM_Source=pnsOS&UTM_Medium=push&UTM_Campaign=standard
