Senior United Nations officials on Tuesday welcomed the opening of a maritime corridor from Cyprus to deliver additional aid to the Gaza Strip, but said it could not replace the delivery of humanitarian assistance by land. The ship taking almost 200 tonnes of food to Gaza left early Tuesday in a pilot project testing a new sea route for aid deliveries to a population on the brink of famine. Read our blog to see how the day's events unfolded.
This blog is no longer being updated. For more coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, please click here.
Summary
- A ship taking almost 200 tonnes of food to Gaza left a port in Cyprus early Tuesday in a pilot project to open a new sea route of aid to a population on the brink of famine.
- Israeli warplanes struck Lebanon's Bekaa Valley for a second consecutive day on Tuesday, hitting a facility belonging to Hezbollah and killing at least two members of the Iran-backed group, sources in Lebanon said.
- The Muslim holy month of Ramadan began Monday in much of the world, ending hopes for a new ceasefire by the start of the holy month after a latest round of truce talks in Cairo stalled.
- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for "silencing the guns" in Gaza in honour of Ramadan.
- At least 31,184 Palestinians have been killed and 72,889 wounded since Israel started its offensive on Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave. Around 1,140 people were killed in the Hamas-led October 7 attacks and 250 people taken hostage, according to Israeli figures, with 132 still missing.
Yesterday's key developments:
- Israel launched air strikes near Lebanon's eastern city of Baalbek on Monday, security sources said, the second raids in the region since cross-border hostilities began after the Gaza war.
- A ship belonging to Spanish aid group Open Arms containing 200 tonnes of food is still waiting to set sail from Cyprus to the Gaza Strip.
- Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday rejected US President Joe Biden's assessment that his approach to the conflict is"hurting Israel more than helping".
- Yemen's port city of Hodeidah and other western coastal areas were hit on Monday by a dozen airstrikes attributed to a US-British coalition defending ships in the Red Sea, according to Al Masirah, the main Houthi-run television news outlet.
Gaza’s health ministry collects data from the enclave’s hospitals and the Palestinian Red Crescent.
The health ministry does not report how Palestinians were killed, whether from Israeli airstrikes and artillery barrages or errant Palestinian rocket fire. It describes all casualties as victims of “Israeli aggression”.
The ministry also does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Throughout four wars and numerous skirmishes between Israel and Hamas, UN agencies have cited the Hamas-run health ministry’s death tolls in regular reports. The International Committee of the Red Cross and Palestinian Red Crescent also use the numbers.
In the aftermath of war, the UN humanitarian office has published final death tolls based on its own research into medical records. The UN's counts have largely been consistent with the Gaza health ministry’s, with small discrepancies.
For more on the Gaza health ministry’s tolls, click here.
(FRANCE 24 with AP)
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)
