Live updates: Follow the latest news on Israel-Gaza
The Israeli military intensified strikes on the Gaza Strip on Saturday, leaving at least 24 people dead and scores wounded, medical sources said.
Eight of those killed lived in tents for displaced people at Halima Al Sadiyya School in Jabalia in northern Gaza, Palestinian official news agency Wafa reported.
The Israeli army said it had “conducted a precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a Hamas command and control centre … embedded inside a compound that previously served as the Halima Al Sadiyya School in the northern Gaza Strip”.
It claimed that Hamas used the site “to plan and execute terror attacks” against army troops and Israel.
Gaza's civil defence reported more deaths and injuries after an Israeli air strike later on Saturday on another school sheltering displaced people, in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood of Gaza city.
The agency said its teams had reached the Amr Ibn Al As School, but did not immediately provide casualty figures.
The Israeli army said it had carried out a "precise strike" on a Hamas command and control centre at the site.
Earlier, a rocket hit a flat in Al Nassr neighbourhood in Gaza city, killing a girl and injuring others, medical workers said.
In central Gaza, rescue teams retrieved the bodies of eight people, including three children, who were killed in an Israeli air strike on the Al Husseiniya area west of the Nuseirat camp.
Israeli warplanes also struck a flat in Bureij refugee camp, killing four people and injuring 10 others, including children, medics said.
A man was shot dead north of the Nuseirat refugee camp, and another was killed by Israeli gunfire east of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip .
Israeli forces also opened fire on a young man near the Karem Abu Salem crossing south-east of Rafah, killing him.
Israel's war on the Hamas-governed Gaza strip, which entered its twelfth month on Saturday, has killed more than 40,900 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million and causing a hunger crisis, leading to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.
The war began on October 7 last year when Hamas fighters killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and took more than 200 hostages.
Polio vaccination campaign
Both sides have observed daily pauses in fighting since September 1 to allow medical workers to administer polio vaccinations. The UN-led campaign was launched after an 11-month-old boy in Gaza was last month confirmed to have the first polio case in the occupied Palestinian territories since the disease was declared eradicated there 25 years ago.
The second phase of the campaign started in southern Gaza on Thursday after more than 189,000 children were vaccinated in central Gaza in the first phase. The campaign will shift to northern Gaza on Sunday.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, the UNRWA, said on Friday that nearly 355,000 children had been vaccinated against polio in Gaza's middle and southern areas.
“In the next few days we'll continue rolling out the polio vaccination campaign aiming to reach around 640,000 children under 10 with this critical vaccine,” UNRWA said in a post on X.
Juliette Touma, UNRWA's spokeswoman, said the agency was working with the UN children's agency Unicef, the World Health Organisation and local health partners around the clock and in a race against time to vaccinate every child across the Gaza Strip.
“These temporary pauses do not however replace our calls for a ceasefire. It’s long overdue. It’s time to reach a deal that would bring respite for the people in Gaza, release all hostages and bring in a steady flow of commercial and humanitarian supplies into Gaza,” Ms Touma told Reuters.
According to the WHO, a second round of vaccinations will be required four weeks after the first round.
Race card
5pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (Turf) 1,600m
5.30pm: Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,600m
6pm: Arabian Triple Crown Round-1 Listed (PA) Dh230,000 (T) 1,600m
6.30pm: Wathba Stallions Cup Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 (T) 1,400m
7pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,200m
7.30pm: Handicap (TB) Dh100,000 (T) 2,400m
How much do leading UAE’s UK curriculum schools charge for Year 6?
- Nord Anglia International School (Dubai) – Dh85,032
- Kings School Al Barsha (Dubai) – Dh71,905
- Brighton College Abu Dhabi - Dh68,560
- Jumeirah English Speaking School (Dubai) – Dh59,728
- Gems Wellington International School – Dubai Branch – Dh58,488
- The British School Al Khubairat (Abu Dhabi) - Dh54,170
- Dubai English Speaking School – Dh51,269
*Annual tuition fees covering the 2024/2025 academic year
What the law says
Micro-retirement is not a recognised concept or employment status under Federal Decree Law No. 33 of 2021 on the Regulation of Labour Relations (as amended) (UAE Labour Law). As such, it reflects a voluntary work-life balance practice, rather than a recognised legal employment category, according to Dilini Loku, senior associate for law firm Gateley Middle East.
“Some companies may offer formal sabbatical policies or career break programmes; however, beyond such arrangements, there is no automatic right or statutory entitlement to extended breaks,” she explains.
“Any leave taken beyond statutory entitlements, such as annual leave, is typically regarded as unpaid leave in accordance with Article 33 of the UAE Labour Law. While employees may legally take unpaid leave, such requests are subject to the employer’s discretion and require approval.”
If an employee resigns to pursue micro-retirement, the employment contract is terminated, and the employer is under no legal obligation to rehire the employee in the future unless specific contractual agreements are in place (such as return-to-work arrangements), which are generally uncommon, Ms Loku adds.
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
more from Janine di Giovanni
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
The five pillars of Islam
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre V8 twin-turbocharged and three electric motors
Power: Combined output 920hp
Torque: 730Nm at 4,000-7,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed dual-clutch automatic
Fuel consumption: 11.2L/100km
On sale: Now, deliveries expected later in 2025
Price: expected to start at Dh1,432,000
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League, semi-final result:
Liverpool 4-0 Barcelona
Liverpool win 4-3 on aggregate
Champions Legaue final: June 1, Madrid
'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse Of Madness'
Director: Sam Raimi
Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong, Xochitl Gomez, Michael Stuhlbarg and Rachel McAdams
Rating: 3/5
