🔴 Live: Slovenian parliament to vote on recognising Palestinian statehood

The president of the Slovenian National Assembly, Urska Klakocar Zupancic, addresses the media at the inaugural session of the new Slovenian Parliament in Ljubljana on May 13, 2022. © Jure Makovec, AFP

Slovenian lawmakers will vote on Tuesday on whether to recognise a Palestinian state, the parliament speaker said Thursday, just two days after Spain, Ireland and Norway formally recognised it in a coordinated decision. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said he hoped Slovenian lawmakers would reject this move, saying a yes vote next week would be a "reward" to Hamas. Follow our liveblog for the latest developments in the Israel-Hamas war.

Summary:

• Slovenian lawmakers will vote on Tuesday on whether to recognise a Palestinian state, the parliament speaker said Thursday, just two days after Spain, Ireland and Norway formally recognised it in a coordinated decision.

• Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz's centrist party proposed on Thursday holding a parliamentary vote on dissolving the parliament.

• Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Thursday urged the international community to ensure Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are not displaced in their war-ravaged territory.

• Israel pressed on with its offensive on Rafah on Thursday, a day after saying its forces had taken control of a buffer zone along the nearby border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, giving it effective authority over Gaza's entire land frontier. 

• Chinese President Xi Jinping called on Thursday for a peace conference on the war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas as he addressed Arab leaders and diplomats at a forum in Beijing.

• At least 36,224 Palestinians have been killed and 81,777 wounded in Israel’s war in Gaza, according to the latest official death toll given by the territory's Hamas-run health ministry. Some 1,170 people were killed in the Hamas-led October 7 attacks and 250 people were taken hostage, according to Israeli figures, with 132 still missing.

Yesterday's key developments:

• Street fighting and Israeli bombardment rocked Gaza's far-southern city of Rafah on Wednesday, Palestinian residents and officials said, a day after Israeli tanks rolled for the first time into the centre of the city near the Egyptian border.

• The United Nations, which has warned of famine in Gaza, said on Wednesday the amount of humanitarian aid entering the enclave has dropped by two-thirds since Israel began its military operation in the Rafah region this month.

• French President Emmanuel Macron urged Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas to "implement necessary reforms", offering the "prospect of recognition of the state of Palestine" during a phone call Wednesday, his office said.

• An Israeli cabinet minister accused Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's coalition of "failing miserably" amid the Gaza war on Wednesday, prompting a rebuke from Netanyahu's Likud party as political divisions deepen.

About casualty figures from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry:

Gaza’s health ministry collects data from the enclave’s hospitals and the Palestinian Red Crescent. For more on the health ministry’s casualty figures, click here.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP & Reuters)