Live updates: Israel-Hamas war

Students at the George Washington University in Washington, DC joined the nationwide Gaza protest encampment movement on Friday in a peaceful demonstration.

Police have clashed with students critical of the war and the Biden administration's support for Israel's war in Gaza, with nearly 550 arrests made over the protests in the last week across major US universities, according to a Reuters tally.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday protests at US universities over US-ally Israel's war in Gaza are a hallmark of American democracy, but criticised what he called the "silence" about Palestinian fighter group Hamas.

The war in Gaza continues to reverberate through US university campuses where students have camped out in tents as they protested Israel's actions in Gaza.

American-Israeli anti-colonialism activist Miko Peled addressed the Gaza solidarity encampment at the Columbia University,

"The road to free Palestine goes through freeing Columbia University from Zionist occupation," he said.

Peled said Palestine will be free from the river to the sea. Zionism was without any doubt a racist genocidal ideology that produced an apartheid state that has been engaged in genocide for almost eight decades, he said.

“It only took three years after the end of the genocide in Europe for commencement of the genocide of Palestinian people,” he said.

China will host Palestinian unity talks between fighter group Hamas and its rivals Fatah, the two groups and a Beijing-based diplomat said on Friday, a notable Chinese foray into Palestinian diplomacy amid the war in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas, which controls Gaza, is the group whose fighters stormed into Israeli border areas on October 7. Israel has since then launched a full-fledged war in the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians.

Fatah is the movement of Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli occupied West Bank.

The two rival Palestinian factions have failed to heal their political disputes since Hamas fighters expelled Fatah from Gaza in a short war in 2007. Washington is wary of moves to reconcile the two groups, as it supports the PA but has banned Hamas as terrorists.

A Fatah official told Reuters a delegation, led by the group's senior official Azzam Al-Ahmed, had left for China. A Hamas official said the faction's team for the talks, led by senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk, would be flying there later on Friday.

"We support strengthening the authority of the Palestinian National Authority, and support all Palestinian factions in achieving reconciliation and increasing solidarity through dialogue and consultation," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin at a regular briefing on Friday, without confirming the meeting.

Israeli forces have killed at least 15 more people including women and kids in fresh attacks on Khan Younis, Rafah and Nuseirat refugee camp, Al Jazeera reported.

Gaza’s Civil Defence said exhumation of hundreds of bodies had been completed from a mass grave at the Nasser Medical Complex amid calls for an international probe into possible Israeli war crimes at the hospital.

Hamas said it had received on Saturday Israel's official response to its latest ceasefire proposal and will study it before submitting its reply, the group's deputy Gaza chief said in a statement.

"Hamas has received today the official response of the Zionist occupation to the proposal presented to the Egyptian and the Qatari mediators on April 13," Khalil Al-Hayya, who is currently based in Qatar, said in a statement published by the group.

After more than six months of war with Israel in Gaza, the negotiations remain deadlocked, with Hamas sticking to its demands that any agreement must end the war.

An Egyptian delegation visited Israel for discussion with Israeli officials on Friday, looking for a way to restart talks to end the conflict and return remaining hostages taken when Hamas fighters stormed into Israeli towns on Oct. 7, an official briefed on the meetings said.

Lashing out at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for its ongoing military aggression and brutalities in the besieged enclave, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has dubbed the former as the “butcher of Gaza”.

Addressing the League of Parliamentarians for al-Quds (Jerusalem) in Istanbul, President Erdogan said: “Netanyahu, like villains before him, has etched his name in history with shame as the butcher of Gaza.”

He said that “no one can expect us to remain silent in the face of the genocide.”

Erdogan reiterated that Turkey will continue its efforts for the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Palestinian group Hamas responded to the letter of 18 countries, including the United States (US), calling for the release of Israeli captives and said that it is "serious about releasing Israeli captives within the framework of an agreement" that also ensures the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Khalil al-Hayya, a member of the group's political bureau, told Al Jazeera Arabic in a televised interview on Thursday it remains committed to achieving an agreement with Israel to end the war on Gaza, but only if its conditions including a lasting ceasefire are met.

In response, Hamas said it regretted that the letter did not address basic issues facing people in Gaza. It added that the letter failed to stress the necessity of a permanent ceasefire in the enclave and a full withdrawal of Israeli troops.

Hamas said it remained open to any proposals that took into account the rights of Palestinians. The statement further called for the safe return of internally displaced people in Gaza and aid for reconstruction, as well as a pathway towards self-determination.

The countries that signed the letter to Hamas all have citizens believed to be still held captive in Gaza. Signatories included Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Thailand, the UK and the US.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened that the International Criminal Court's (ICC) rulings on the Palestinians' genocide case would "set a dangerous precedent" but would not affect Israel's actions.

"Under my leadership, Israel will never accept any attempt by the International Criminal Court in The Hague to undermine its basic right to defend itself," Al Jazeera quoted the prime minister's statement shared online.

"While decisions made by the court in The Hague will not affect Israel’s actions, they will set a dangerous precedent that threatens soldiers and public figures."

Last month, the Law for Palestine organisation made the first in a series of submissions to the ICC, accusing Israeli leaders of committing the crime of genocide committed against Palestinians.

"The 200-page document, drafted by 30 lawyers and legal researchers from across the world and reviewed by more than 15 experts, makes a compelling case for the genocidal intent as well as for the prosecutorial policy that the court has followed in other cases," the group's Anisha Patel and Hassan Ben Imran wrote in an opinion piece published by Al Jazeera.

"If the ICC fails to act once again, it risks undermining its own authority as an institution of international justice and the international legal regime as a whole," they said.

At least 34,356 Palestinians have been martyred and 77,368 others injured as Israel continues its military aggression in Gaza since October 7 last year, the Gaza health ministry confirmed.