WELL over 100 more Palestinians were killed in Gaza at the weekend, with at least 44 — including 22 seeking food aid — killed today alone.

The figures were expected to rise after the Morning Star went to press, and come on top of 62 confirmed killings on Saturday.

And Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir led supporters in storming the al-Aqsa mosque in East Jerusalem after leading a settler march through the illegally occupied Palestinian city.

Mr Ben-Gvir broke Israeli law by praying at the site, which is reserved for Muslim worship under international arrangements.

The mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam, sits on what Jews know as Temple Mount, the site of the Jewish temple thousands of years ago. Mr Ben-Gvir’s provocation took place on Tisha B’Av, a fast day that marks historic disasters including the destruction by Babylon of the original Jewish temple attributed to King Solomon and that of the second temple by the Roman empire. On his march through East Jerusalem, he reiterated calls for Israel to formally declare its sovereignty over Gaza and to expel the native population.

Israeli police arrested three mosque guards after the incursion, presumably for trying to resist it. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz declared: “On Tisha B’Av, two thousand years after the destruction of the second temple, the Western Wall and the Temple Mount are once again under the sovereignty of the state of Israel.”

But condemnation flooded in from Muslim countries, with Saudi Arabia slamming “the repeated provocative practices by officials of the Israeli occupation authorities against al-Aqsa Mosque.” Jordan, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas all issued condemnations.

The United Nations announced today that a million women and girls were starving in Gaza, the whole female population.

The death by starvation of a previously healthy 17-year-old and keen sportsman, Abu Khater, was reported, underlining the depth of Gaza’s Israel-imposed hunger crisis.

Meanwhile Hamas denied reports it had agreed to disarm, saying it would only do so following the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

France, Britain and Canada said last week they would recognise a Palestinian state in September should certain conditions — varying by government, including as to whether they apply to Israel or Palestine — be met.

About three-quarters of countries worldwide recognise a Palestinian state already.