Palestinian Christians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank are holding temperate gatherings leading up to Easter.

Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed at least 58 Palestinians in one day as Christians mark Good Friday in the besieged and bombarded enclave.

More than half of the casualties were in Gaza City and northern Gaza, but deadly attacks took place across the Palestinian Strip, including in Khan Younis and Rafah in the south, medical sources told Al Jazeera on Friday.

The Israeli military said troops were operating in the Shaboura and Tal as-Sultan areas near Rafah, as well as in northern Gaza, where Israel has taken control of large areas east of Gaza City.

On Friday, Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, repeated that Israel intended to achieve its war aims.

“The [Israeli army] is currently working towards a decisive victory in all arenas, the release of the hostages, and the defeat of Hamas in Gaza,” he said in a statement.

Palestinian Christians in Gaza however continued to hold temperate gatherings leading up to Easter, amid the attacks.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from a local church, Ihab Ayyad said he used to gather with other congregants and visit his neighbours’ homes every year to celebrate.

“This year, we didn’t make the visits because of the total destruction everywhere, as the [Israeli] occupation forces have levelled most of the houses of my relatives and my neighbours,” Ayyad said. “A lot of my relatives and neighbours were martyred or displaced in different places. We haven’t celebrated because we feel very sad.”

Ramez al-Soury said he used to travel out of Gaza to Bethlehem or Jerusalem for the holy week.

But now, an “atmosphere of war” permeates Gaza. “The death smell is everywhere. The smell of killing and destruction is putting a lot of pressure on us,” he said.

Reporting from Gaza City, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said the Christian community is holding onto their faith and has gathered at one of the oldest churches in the world in Gaza – not in defiance but in devotion.

“In Gaza, Good Friday is the power of faith and the quiet strength of those who still believe in peace even when the world around them is nothing but a stage filled with violence and death,” he said.

West Bank settler violence

Rituals to mark Good Friday and Easter have also been held in the occupied West Bank.

There are about 50,000 Palestinian Christians in the region. Israeli authorities, however, require them to acquire permits to travel to Jerusalem, making it difficult for many to join those celebrations.

Moreover, Israeli settlers and the military also attacked Palestinian people on their land in the town of Biddya, in the Salfit governorate in the occupied West Bank, according to Al Jazeera Arabic on Friday, tempering the celebrations.

The Palestine Red Crescent said that a Palestinian was injured in the attack.

Local sources also told Al Jazeera Arabic that dozens of settlers stormed Jabal al-Urma, a hill in the town of Beita in the Nablus governorate, under the protection of the Israeli army.

Settlers are Israeli citizens who live illegally on private Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Israeli settler and military violence has soared across the West Bank – particularly in the north of the territory – since the war on Gaza began in October 2023. The United Nations has said this violence has displaced roughly 40,000 Palestinians since Israel began a new military operation in the occupied West Bank in January.

International Committee for Solidarity with Rached Ghannouchi decries ‘repressive campaign’ against Ennahdha party leader.

Marking the second anniversary of the arrest of Tunisia’s prominent opposition leader Rached Ghannouchi, an international committee formed last year to raise awareness about his imprisonment says he is being held “unjustly” and on “trumped-up charges”.

The International Committee for Solidarity with Rached Ghannouchi called for the immediate release of the imprisoned Ennahdha party leader and former speaker of Tunisia’s parliament.

In a statement on Thursday, it said that more than 15 cases have been brought against Ghannouchi, and “several unjust convictions and sentences” have been issued.

The most recent of these was a 22-year prison sentence issued in February on charges that included plotting against state security – a case “to which he has no connection”, the committee said.

Earlier this year, Ghannouchi was also sentenced to three years for accusations that his party received foreign contributions.

The 83-year-old, who has been the main rival of Tunisian President Kais Saied, was arrested in April 2023 and sentenced to one year in prison on charges of incitement.

He has been a vocal critic of Saied, and became the highest-profile figure to be arrested in the continuing consolidation of power by the president who was elected in 2019 and has overseen a wave of repression and legal reforms that have expanded his rule.

“These unjust trials and sentences take place within the context of a widespread repressive campaign led by Kais Saied’s regime, which is targeting opposition voices from all backgrounds, repressing organised action in all its forms, controlling the media and civil society, and silencing critical voices,” the committee said in its statement.

It said Saied’s government has to “exploit the judiciary as a tool for settling political scores”.

‘An era of political prisoners’

The committee’s statement comes just days after United States-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the Tunisian government to halt its crackdown on opposition and free all detainees.

The rights group said arbitrary detention was being used to eliminate dissent in Tunisia amid a trial of prominent opposition figures – including Ghannouchi – on conspiracy charges.

In a report released Wednesday, HRW reinforced opposition leaders’ concern over what they call the authoritarian rule of Saied since he dissolved parliament in 2021 and began ruling by decree.

The opposition described Saied’s move as a coup. He has denied such accusations, professing he would not become a dictator but rather is trying to rescue the North African country from political chaos and rampant corruption.

The report said Tunis had turned arbitrary detention into a cornerstone of repressive policy.

“Saied’s government has returned the country to an era of political prisoners, robbing Tunisians of hard-won civil liberties,” said Bassam Khawaja, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at HRW.

Since 2023, authorities have arrested dozens of prominent political opposition figures as well as journalists, activists and lawyers in a crackdown critics say has undermined the democracy gained in the 2011 Arab Spring popular uprising.

Israel has continued to conduct near-daily strikes in Lebanon despite a ceasefire with Hezbollah last November.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry has said an Israeli strike on a vehicle near the southern coastal city of Sidon killed one person, with Israel announcing that an attack in the same area had targeted a Hezbollah operative.

Despite a ceasefire last November that sought to halt more than a year of conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, Israel has continued to conduct near-daily strikes in Lebanon.

“The attack carried out by the Israeli enemy against a car on the Sidon-Ghaziyeh road resulted in one dead,” a Health Ministry statement said on the fourth consecutive day of Israeli attacks in the south on Friday.

An AFP journalist said the Israeli attack hit a four-wheel-drive vehicle, sending a pillar of black smoke into the sky.

At the scene of the strike, members of the security forces stood guard as a crowd gathered to look at the charred remains of the vehicle after firemen put out the blaze.

Israel’s military later said it had killed a member of Hezbollah in the area.

“Earlier today [Friday], the IAF [Israeli air force] conducted a precise strike in the area of Sidon and eliminated the Hezbollah terrorist Muhammad Jaafar Mannah Asaad Abdallah,” a military statement said.

It added that Abdallah was “responsible, among other things, for the deployment of Hezbollah’s communication systems throughout Lebanon”.

The Israeli military also said it was behind other attacks this week that it claimed had killed Hezbollah members.

Civilians killed since ceasefire

Hezbollah, significantly weakened by the war, says it is adhering to the November ceasefire, even as Israeli attacks persist.

The United Nations says at least 71 civilians have been killed by Israeli forces in Lebanon since the ceasefire.

Thameen al-Kheetan, spokesperson for the UN Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said on Tuesday that the death toll included 14 women and nine children. He called for investigations into “each and every military action where civilians are killed”.

Under the November ceasefire, Israel was to withdraw all of its forces from south Lebanon and Hezbollah was to pull its fighters back north of Lebanon’s Litani River and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south. But despite the deal, Israeli troops have remained at five south Lebanon positions that they deem “strategic”.

Lebanon’s army has been deploying in the south near the border in regions where Israeli forces pulled back. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun told Al Jazeera on Monday that the army was “dismantling tunnels and warehouses and confiscating weapons bases” south of the Litani “without any problem from Hezbollah”.

On Thursday, a senior Hezbollah official told the Reuters news agency the group is ready to hold talks with the Lebanese president about its weapons if Israel withdraws from southern Lebanon and stops its strikes.

Separately, a Hezbollah official said on Friday that the group categorically refused to discuss handing over its weapons to Lebanon’s army unless Israel withdrew completely from the south and stopped its “aggression”.

“Wouldn’t it be logical for Israel to first withdraw, then release the prisoners, then cease its aggression … and then we discuss a defensive strategy?” Wafiq Safa said in an interview with Hezbollah’s Al Nur radio station.

“The defensive strategy is about thinking about how to protect Lebanon, not preparing for the party to hand over its weapons.”