Here’s how things stand on Tuesday, February 13, 2024:
Humanitarian crisis in Gaza
- On Tuesday, at least five people were killed in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, while four more were killed by an Israeli bomb in the Brazil neighbourhood of Rafah. A growing international chorus is calling for a ceasefire as Israel plans an assault on Rafah – home to 1.4 million people, most of whom were displaced from other parts of Gaza.
- Meanwhile, on the Israeli side, three soldiers were killed and two others were injured during the fighting. They were part of the 630th Battalion deployed in southern Gaza.
- Hala Mekdad, a 10-year-old girl, has died in the intensive care room of Nasser Hospital after electricity at the hospital was cut off overnight, according to a video shared on social media by a doctor at the hospital and verified by Al Jazeera.
- Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip has been under siege for weeks, with Ashraf al-Qudra, the spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Gaza, saying that Israeli snipers have fired at and killed people in the hospital’s yard.
- The bodies of several people killed near Nasser Hospital have reportedly been lying on the ground for several days as it is too unsafe to reach them, the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA said.
- Israel has described Rafah as the last remaining Hamas stronghold in the territory and signalled that its ground offensive may soon target the town on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip. At least 63 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes in Rafah on Sunday overnight, ahead of the impending ground offensive.
- Palestinian health authorities say more than 28,000 people have been killed. More than 85 percent of Gazan residents have become homeless due to the destruction of residential buildings in Israeli strikes. A UN survey found that nearly one in 10 children under five is acutely malnourished.
Regional tensions and diplomacy
- Israel is facing growing international pressure to agree to a ceasefire with Hamas.
- Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a statement “strongly” condemning “Israel’s military aggression against Rafah city in Gaza and the resulting destruction and massacre of the Palestinian people”. More than 100 people were killed in intense Israeli bombardments on Sunday overnight through to Monday.
- Meanwhile, United States President Joe Biden and King Abdullah II of Jordan discussed strategies to end the war in a meeting in Washington, DC.
- Biden and Netanyahu also spoke after two Egyptian officials and a Western diplomat said Cairo threatened to suspend its peace treaty with Israel if troops were sent into Rafah.
- Separately, a cargo ship that Yemen’s Houthis struck in the Red Sea was bound for a port in Iran, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said. The ship was struck by two missiles but is “seaworthy with minor damage and no injuries to the crew”, CENTCOM added.
Houthi Attack in Bab al-Mandeb
On Feb. 12 from 3:30 to 3:45 a.m. (Sanaa time), Iranian-backed Houthi militants fired two missiles from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen toward the Bab al-Mandeb. Both missiles were launched toward MV Star Iris, a Greek-owned, Marshall… pic.twitter.com/vfihRaw0rr
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) February 13, 2024
Occupied West Bank
- According to reports by Palestinian news agency Wafa, Israel set a Palestinian truck ablaze overnight in the town of Huwara, in the occupied West Bank.
- Meanwhile, Wafa also said that about 9,000 Palestinian prisoners are subjected to “unprecedented retaliatory measures”.
- “The Israeli Prison Service has further stripped the detainees of basic tools and means of communication with the outside world, such as television and family visits,” Wafa said.
- The number of settlers in the West Bank now stands at 517,407, up from 502,991 a year earlier. Additionally, the United Kingdom has also announced sanctions on four Israeli settlers accused of committing human rights abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank after a similar move by the US this month.
- Announcing the asset freezes and travel and visa bans against the settlers, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said: “Israel must also take stronger action and put a stop to settler violence.”
