Closing summary
It has gone 6pm in Gaza, Tel Aviv and Beirut, and 7pm in Sana’a. We will be closing this blog soon, but you can stay up to date on the Guardian’s Middle East coverage here.
Here is a recap of the latest developments:
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa) said on Saturday that “one in three children under two years of age are now acutely malnourished in northern Gaza” in a social media post on X. “Children’s malnutrition is spreading fast and reaching unprecedented levels in Gaza. Famine is looming. There is no time to waste,” it added, sharing a press release on the situation by Unicef. The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza has in recent weeks recorded at least 27 deaths from malnutrition and dehydration, most of them children.
The first aid ship to test the new humanitarian maritime route across the eastern Mediterranean arrived in Gaza on Friday and offloaded almost 200 tonnes of food. The US charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) said it had offloaded the aid onto a makeshift jetty it built from the rubble of destroyed buildings. The cargo was being “readied for distribution in Gaza,” said the charity.
The Israeli military on Friday confirmed the aid vessel, operated by the Spanish charity Open Arms, had arrived in Gaza and said soldiers had been deployed to secure the area and conduct a security inspection.
A second cargo of food aid was ready to depart by sea from Cyprus to Gaza on Saturday, the island’s president said. “The first ship has started its return to Cyprus, and we are ready to dispatch the second ship,” the Cypriot president, Nikos Christodoulides, told journalists. WCK said the second boat also had two forklifts and a crane to assist with future maritime deliveries to Gaza.
A source told Reuters that David Barnea, head of the Mossad Israeli intelligence agency, is expected to resume Gaza ceasefire talks with Qatar’s prime minister and Egyptian officials in Doha on Sunday. The source said the discussions would cover the remaining gaps between Israel and Hamas on the ceasefire negotiations, including the number of Palestinian prisoners who could potentially be released in exchange for the remaining Israeli hostages as well as humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu approved plans for an attack on Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, officials in Israel said on Friday. Netanyahu made the decision after a meeting of Israel’s war cabinet to discuss a new proposal from Hamas for a ceasefire which he rejected as “still absurd”.
Republicans and Israeli officials were quick to express outrage after Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer sharply criticised Netanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza and called for Israel to hold new elections. House speaker Mike Johnson said Schumer’s call for new elections was “inappropriate” and Benny Gantz, a political rival of Netanyahu and member of Israel’s war cabinet, said Schumer’s remarks were “counterproductive.”
US president Joe Biden on Friday said Senator Chuck Schumer made “a good speech” that reflected many Americans’ concerns when he publicly broke with Netanyahu over his handling of the war in Gaza. “I’m not going to elaborate on the speech. He made a good speech,” Biden said, adding that he had been given advance notice of Schumer’s comments.
An air strike on Nuseirat on Friday evening that killed 36 members of the same family was one of 60 “deadly air strikes” reported on “a very bloody night” by the press office of the Hamas-run government. The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza blamed Israel for the strike in Nuseirat, while the Israeli military said it was looking into the incident.
At least seven Palestinians were killed on new attacks on Nuseirat camp on Saturday morning, reported Al Jazeera.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party hit back at criticism on Friday by Hamas and other factions over his appointment of a new prime minister they said could deepen divisions as the war with Israel in Gaza rages. The real disconnection from reality and the Palestinian people is that of the Hamas leadership,” said Fatah, accusing Hamas of not having itself “consulted” the other Palestinian leaders before launching its attack on Israel.
At least 63 Palestinians were killed and 112 injured in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, according to the latest figures from the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry. According to the statement, at least 31,553 Palestinians have been killed and 73,5469 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.
A Palestinian gunman opened fire toward a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank on Saturday and was then shot dead by Israeli soldiers there, said Israel’s military. The man opened fire from the Palestinian cemetery in Hebron at the adjacent Jewish settlement, Israel’s public broadcaster Kan reported. There was no immediate comment from Palestinian officials.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels discussed “expanding confrontations and encircling” Israel in a meeting in Lebanon with Hamas and other Palestinian factions, a Houthi official told AFP on Saturday. Representatives from Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine met last week with the Houthis in Beirut, the official said on condition of anonymity.
Belgian prime minister Alexander De Croo warned Israel on Saturday against using hunger as a “weapon of war” in the Gaza Strip, reported Politico. Separately, in a post on X, the Belgian prime minister said his country “continues to support Unrwa” and described it as the “backbone of aid to the people in Gaza”.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said on Friday that 16 of its ambulances had been taken out of service due to Israeli attacks. In a social media post on X, the PRCS said: “The occupation forces deliberately target the PRCS’s ambulances, despite their internationally protected Red Crescent emblem.”
Joe Biden should use his leverage and the law to pressure Israel to change how it is prosecuting the war in Gaza, the Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen said on Friday. Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, is among a group of senators urging Biden to stop providing Israel with offensive weapons until it lifts restrictions on the delivery of food and medicine into Gaza.
Record numbers of Palestinian detainees are filling Israeli prisons where they face “systemic abuse” and torture, rights advocates have warned, calling for international action. Members of several Israeli NGOs travelled to Geneva this week to raise concerns before the UN about a major “crisis” inside the country’s prisons. The NGOs also voiced alarm at reported conditions inside the military camps holding those detained inside Gaza, where at least 27 Palestinians have reportedly died since October.
US and Jordanian aircraft on Saturday dropped food supplies to Palestinian civilians trapped in the Gaza Strip in a joint humanitarian aid operation, US Central Command (Centcom) said in a statement. Centcom called the airdrops “part of a sustained effort and we continue to plan follow-on aerial deliveries.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its fighter jets had struck a building used by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon’s Tayr Harfa and another infrastructure in Labbouneh overnight, according to the Times of Israel.
Thousands of people took to the streets of Syria’s rebel-held north-west on Friday to mark 13 years since pro-democracy protests swept the country, chanting against president Bashar al-Assad and the region’s jihadist rulers.
Updated
Republicans and Israeli officials were quick to express outrage after Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer sharply criticised Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza and called for Israel to hold new elections, reports the Associated Press (AP). They accused the Democratic leader of breaking the unwritten rule against interfering in a close ally’s electoral politics.
According to the AP, senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell reacted to Schumer – who had said that Netanyahu had “lost his way” and was an obstacle to peace – by saying it was “hypocritical for Americans who hyperventilate about interference in our own democracy to call for the removal of a democratically elected leader.”
House speaker Mike Johnson said Schumer’s call for new elections was “inappropriate” and Benny Gantz, a political rival of Netanyahu and member of Israel’s war cabinet, said Schumer’s remarks were “counterproductive.”
Thousands of people took to the streets of Syria’s rebel-held north-west on Friday to mark 13 years since pro-democracy protests swept the country, chanting against president Bashar al-Assad and the region’s jihadist rulers.
The government’s brutal suppression of the 2011 uprising triggered a civil war that has killed more than half a million people, drawn in foreign armies and jihadists, and divided the country.
The former al-Qaida affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) now controls a significant swathe of the north-west, where hundreds have protested in recent weeks against its leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani. Anger is still simmering over the death of a man in the group’s custody.
Hundreds of protesters paraded through the city of Idlib, many of them brandishing placards that read “Down with Jolani … Assad.”
You can read the full piece here:
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels discussed “expanding confrontations and encircling” Israel in a meeting in Lebanon with Hamas and other Palestinian factions, a Houthi official told AFP on Saturday.
Houthi attacks on Red Sea ships since the start of the Israel-Hamas war have disrupted global trade, actions the rebels say are in solidarity with the Palestinians.
Representatives from Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine met last week with the Houthis in Beirut, the official said on condition of anonymity.
Palestinian sources on Friday told AFP that the meeting had taken place, with one of them saying the representatives discussed “mechanisms to coordinate their actions of resistance” for the “next stage” of the war in Gaza, now in its sixth month.
Another Palestinian source, also requesting anonymity to share details of the meeting, told AFP that those present discussed the “complementary role of Ansar Allah [the Houthis] alongside Palestinian factions, especially in the event of an Israeli offensive on Rafah”.
Most of the Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million people have sought refuge in Rafah, on the coastal territory’s southern border with Egypt, the last major urban area spared an Israeli ground offensive.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Friday he had approved the military’s plan for a ground operation in the city, without providing a timeline.
The Houthis, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are all part of the Iran-backed “axis of resistance”, an alliance of groups hostile to Israel and the US that also includes Lebanese Hezbollah and armed groups in Iraq.
In a speech on Thursday, Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Huthi threatened to expand the group’s attacks to target ships avoiding the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden by sailing south around Africa.
Air strike on Nuseirat on Friday evening killed 36 members of the same family, reports AFP
An air strike on Nuseirat on Friday evening that killed 36 members of the same family was one of 60 “deadly air strikes” reported overnight by the press office of the Hamas-run government, from Gaza City in the north to Rafah in the south, reports AFP.
“This is a bloody night, a very bloody night,” Salama Maarouf of the Hamas-run government media office told the news agency.
AFP, who spoke to survivors of the Nuseirat air strike reported the following:
Displaced by Israeli bombardment, the Tabatibi family gathered in central Gaza to eat together during the first Friday night of Ramadan, a scene that soon turned into a bloodbath.
An air strike hit the building where they were staying as women prepared the pre-fasting meal, killing 36 members of the family, survivors told AFP on Saturday.
“This is my mother, this is my father, this is my aunt, and these are my brothers,” 19-year-old Mohammed al-Tabatibi, whose left hand was injured in the strike, said through tears at the al-Aqsa martyrs hospital in nearby Deir al-Balah.
“They bombed the house while we were in it. My mother and my aunt were preparing the suhoor food. They were all martyred.”
He spoke as bodies were spread out in the hospital courtyard, then stacked on a truck to be driven to a cemetery.
Because there were not enough body bags, some of the dead - including at least two children - were wrapped in white cloth stained with blood, AFPTV footage showed.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which provided the same death toll, blamed Israel for the strike in Nuseirat, while the Israeli military said it was looking into the incident.
Updated
Belgian prime minister warns Israel against using hunger as a 'weapon of war'
Belgian prime minister Alexander De Croo warned Israel on Saturday against using hunger as a “weapon of war” in the Gaza Strip, reports Politico.
According to the report, De Croo also urged the Israeli government to open more access points for humanitarian aid. “I see today there is a very large population [in Gaza] at risk of famine,” De Croo told journalists in Amman, Jordan during a tour of the Middle East.
“It’s up to Israel to prove that famine won’t be used as a weapon of war,” he said.
Separately, the Belgian prime minister said his country “continues to support Unrwa” and described it as the “backbone of aid to the people in Gaza”.
He also expressed his condolences to Philippe Lazzarini, the secretary general of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa), for the more than 160 Unrwa staff who have been killed since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war.
“Israel urgently needs to provide more humanitarian access to Gaza. Tactics of starvation are inadmissible,” wrote De Croo in a post on X.
Israel urgently needs to provide more humanitarian access to Gaza.
— Alexander De Croo 🇧🇪🇪🇺 (@alexanderdecroo) March 16, 2024
Tactics of starvation are inadmissible.
Belgium continues to support @UNRWA
It is the backbone of aid to the people in #Gaza
We expressed condolences to @UNLazzarini for over 160 staff who have been killed. pic.twitter.com/SBLDfTKtC1
Updated
US and Jordanian aircraft on Saturday dropped food supplies to Palestinian civilians trapped in the Gaza Strip in a joint humanitarian aid operation, US Central Command (Centcom) said in a statement.
The airdrops by a US air force C-130 aircraft and a Royal Jordanian air force C-130 aircraft came as the main UN agency working in Gaza said that one in three children under the age of two years old is acutely malnourished. It warned of looming famine.
Centcom called the airdrops “part of a sustained effort and we continue to plan follow-on aerial deliveries.”
The US, Israel’s main ally, and other countries have called on Israel to allow in more humanitarian aid. Israel blames UN agencies for slow deliveries, saying it puts no limits on assistance.
The US began aid airdrops on March 2 and is planning to begin a sealift from the island of Cyprus.
Updated
A second cargo of food aid was ready to depart by sea from Cyprus to Gaza on Saturday, the island’s president said, after a first aid shipment landed in the besieged Palestinian enclave overnight.
“The first ship has started its return to Cyprus, and we are ready to dispatch the second ship,” the Cypriot president, Nikos Christodoulides, told journalists.
The second ship, with 240 tonnes of aid, was moored at Larnaca port awaiting a signal to sail. US based charity World Central Kitchen (WCK), which arranged the mission with the UAE and Spanish charity Open Arms with support from the Cypriot government, said the new shipment included pallets of canned goods and bulk products.
WCK said the second boat also had two forklifts and a crane to assist with future maritime deliveries to Gaza. A crew ship would accompany the cargo boat with eight workers to operate the machinery and offload the aid, it said. In the first mission, the charity offloaded aid onto a makeshift jetty WCK had built from the rubble of destroyed buildings.
Updated
Ceasefire talks 'expected to resume tomorrow'
A source has told Reuters that David Barnea, head of the Mossad Israeli intelligence agency, is expected to resume Gaza ceasefire talks with Qatar’s prime minister and Egyptian officials in Doha on Sunday.
The source said the discussions would cover the remaining gaps between Israel and Hamas on the ceasefire negotiations, including the number of Palestinian prisoners who could potentially be released in exchange for the remaining Israeli hostages as well as humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Updated
Palestinian gunman killed after opening fire on settlement, Israeli military says
A Palestinian gunman opened fire toward a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank on Saturday and was then shot dead by Israeli soldiers there, reports Reuters citing Israel’s military.
The man opened fire from the Palestinian cemetery in Hebron at the adjacent Jewish settlement, Israel’s public broadcaster Kan reported. It aired footage that showed a man standing between graves and firing an assault rifle.
There was no immediate comment from Palestinian officials, said Reuters.
Violence in the West Bank has risen since the war in Gaza began, almost six months ago, with stepped-up Israeli raids and Palestinian street attacks.
The absence of a breakthrough in Gaza ceasefire negotiations has added to fears that violence in the region will further flare during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, which began this week.
PRCS says 16 of its ambulances have been taken out of service due to Israeli forces 'deliberately' targeting them
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said on Friday that 16 of its ambulances had been taken out of service due to Israeli attacks.
In a social media post on X, the PRCS said: “The occupation forces deliberately target the PRCS’s ambulances, despite their internationally protected Red Crescent emblem.”
“Those working in the medical field, facilities, and medical transportation are entitled to protection under international humanitarian law,” it added.
Since the beginning of the war on #Gaza, 16 PRCS ambulances have been taken out of service due to the Israeli occupation's attacks. The occupation forces deliberately target the PRCS's ambulances, despite their internationally protected Red Crescent emblem.
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) March 15, 2024
📍Those working in… pic.twitter.com/48VlWSogaB
Updated
At least seven Palestinians killed on new attacks on Nuseirat camp this morning, says Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera are reporting that the “latest Israeli attacks have focused on the Nuseirat camp in the central part of Gaza”.
A spokesperson for the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry said early on Saturday that 123 people had been killed across Gaza in the past 24 hours, including 36 people in a strike on a house sheltering displaced people in central Nuseirat.
Al Jazeera say that there have been more attacks on the Nuseirat camp this morning, killing at least seven people.
Joe Biden should use his leverage and the law to pressure Israel to change how it is prosecuting the war in Gaza, the Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen said.
Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, is among a group of senators urging Biden to stop providing Israel with offensive weapons until it lifts restrictions on the delivery of food and medicine into Gaza, where children are now dying of hunger and famine looms.
“We need the president and the Biden administration to push harder and to use all the levers of US policy to ensure people don’t die of starvation,” Van Hollen said in an interview on Friday.
This week, Van Hollen and seven of his colleagues sent a letter to the president arguing that Israel was in violation of the Foreign Assistance Act, a section of which prohibits the sale and transfer of military weapons to any nation that restricts the delivery of US aid.
You can read the full piece by Lauren Gambino in Washington here:
Reuters have a short explainer on how a famine is declared:
The international food insecurity watchdog, the IPC, is expected to report soon on the extent of the hunger crisis in Gaza after saying in December there was a risk of famine in the projection period through May.
For the IPC to declare famine, at least 20% of the population must be suffering extreme food shortages, with one in three children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying daily from starvation or malnutrition and disease.
63 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, says health ministry
The latest figures from the Gaza health ministry, which is run by Hamas, said 63 Palestinians were killed and 112 injured in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours.
According to the statement, at least 31,553 Palestinians have been killed and 73,5469 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October.
The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.
Here are some of the latest images on the newswires:
Ceasefire talks with Israel and Hamas expected to restart, say Egyptian officials
Stalled talks aimed at securing a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas are expected to restart in earnest in Qatar as soon as Sunday, according to Egyptian officials reports the Associated Press (AP).
The talks would mark the first time both Israeli officials and Hamas leaders joined the indirect negotiations since the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
International mediators had hoped to secure a six-week truce before Ramadan started earlier this week, but Hamas refused any deal that wouldn’t lead to a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, a demand Israel rejected.
In recent days, however, both sides have made moves aimed at getting the talks, which never fully broke off, back on track.
Hamas gave mediators a new proposal for a three-stage plan that would end the fighting, according to two Egyptian officials, one who is involved in the talks and a second who was briefed on them. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to the AP because they were not authorised to reveal the contents of the sensitive discussions.
The first stage would be a six-week ceasefire that would include the release of 35 hostages – women, those who are ill and older people – being held by militants in Gaza in exchange for 350 Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel.
Hamas would also release at least five female soldiers in exchange for 50 prisoners, including some serving long sentences on terror charges, for each soldier. Israeli forces would withdraw from two main roads in Gaza, let displaced Palestinians return to north Gaza, which has been devastated by the fighting, and allow the free flow of aid to the area, the officials said.
In the second phase, the two sides would declare a permanent ceasefire and Hamas would free the remaining Israeli soldiers held hostage in exchange for more prisoners, the officials said.
In the third phase, Hamas would hand over the bodies it is holding in exchange for Israel lifting the blockade of Gaza and allowing reconstruction to start, the officials said.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the proposal “unrealistic.” However, he agreed to send Israeli negotiators to Qatar for more talks.
Those talks were expected to resume Sunday afternoon, though they could get pushed to Monday, the Egyptian officials said.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party hit back at criticism on Friday by Hamas and other factions over his appointment of a new prime minister they said could deepen divisions as the war with Israel in Gaza rages, reports AFP.
Abbas appointed Mohammed Mustafa, a long-trusted adviser on economic affairs, as prime minister on Thursday and tasked him with forming a new government.
But the factions said in a statement Friday that “making individual decisions, and engaging in formal steps that are devoid of substance, like forming a new government without national consensus, is a reinforcement of a policy of exclusion and the deepening of division”.
Such steps point to a “huge gap between the [Palestinian] Authority and the people, their concerns and their aspirations,” they said.
According to AFP, the other signatories were Islamic Jihad, the second-largest militant group in Gaza, the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Palestinian National Initiative, a political party which seeks a third way between Fatah and Hamas.
Mustafa replaces Mohammed Shtayyeh, who resigned less than three weeks ago citing the need for change after the Hamas attack of 7 October triggered war with Israel in Gaza.
He accepted the appointment and said in a letter to Abbas published on Friday that he was “well aware of the severity of the … dire circumstances that the Palestinian people are going through”.
Fatah hit back at Hamas late on Friday, accusing the Islamist movement in a statement of “having caused the return of the Israeli occupation of Gaza” by “undertaking the 7 October adventure”.
This led to a “catastrophe even more horrible and cruel than that of 1948,” they said. “The real disconnection from reality and the Palestinian people is that of the Hamas leadership,” said Fatah, accusing Hamas of not having itself “consulted” the other Palestinian leaders before launching its attack on Israel.
At least 27 Palestinians have reportedly died inside military camps holding those detained inside Gaza since October, said Tal Steiner, the executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI). Steiner told AFP that this was “unprecedented and extremely severe”.
There was no access to the camps, nor had her organisation, or foreign journalists, been permitted to enter Gaza to speak with those released, she said.
Reports relying on testimony from former camp inmates suggest that detainees are often held “in open-air cages”, where “they are handcuffed and blindfolded 24 hours a day”. Prisoners reportedly had to sleep on the floor of the cages in the cold, were beaten, and deprived of medical care, she added.
While there are no official numbers, NGOs estimate that about 1,000 people are now detained in the camps.
Another 600 people from Gaza arrested on Israeli soil on 7 October are being held in the Israeli prison system.
Steiner told AFP that all those detained in Gaza, including children and reportedly even an 82-year-old woman, were being held under Israel’s unlawful combatants law. That law denies protections typically granted to detainees and prisoners of war. “The law in its current form is unconstitutional,” she said.
Steiner and Miriam Azem of the Adalah legal centre, both Israeli nationals, said defending Palestinians’ rights in Israel had become increasingly difficult since 7 October, and that they had faced threats and verbal abuse. Steiner and Azem travelled to Geneva this week to raise concerns before the UN about a major “crisis” inside Israel’s prisons
“It’s not an easy place to be,” Steiner said. The trauma caused by Hamas’s attack and the frantic concern over the fate of the hostages is understandable, she said, but “that does not give you an excuse to torture”.
“This is not just the question of us versus them. This is us versus us,” Steiner said. “If Israel can prove that it holds even the worst of its enemies in humane conditions, that will be a triumph.”
Updated
Rights advocates denounce ’systemic abuse’ in Israeli prisons
Record numbers of Palestinian detainees are filling Israeli prisons where they face “systemic abuse” and torture, rights advocates warned, calling for international action, reports AFP.
Members of several Israeli NGOs travelled to Geneva this week to raise concerns before the UN about a major “crisis” inside the country’s prisons.
“We are extremely, extremely concerned,” said Tal Steiner, the executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI). “What we’re looking at is a crisis,” she told AFP.
She said nine people had allegedly died behind bars since 7 October, according to Israeli sources. “There are almost 10,000 Palestinians in Israeli custody right now, … a 200% increase from any normal year,” she said.
While the UN and others have long raised concerns about conditions for Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons, Steiner said the situation had worsened dramatically since war erupted in Gaza.
“During the military onslaught on Gaza, there’s been a crisis within Israeli detention facilities and prisons that has been really left ignored,” Miriam Azem of the Adalah legal centre told AFP. The centre is dedicated to protecting the rights of Israel’s Palestinian citizens.
Her organisation had managed to document “19 clear cases” of torture within the Israeli prison system just since 7 October, including sexual violence, she told AFP.
“We’re seeing really widespread and systemic use of many, many tools in order to inflict torture and ill-treatment on Palestinians.”
This crisis, she said, “requires the immediate intervention of the international community”. Steiner agreed, warning that this was “an ongoing crisis.
“People are (suffering) in detention right now … An urgent intervention is very much needed,” she said.
The Israeli Prison Service told AFP: “All prisoners are detained according to the law.”
The service was “not aware of the claims”, against it, the spokesperson said, but stressed that any complaints filed by detainees “will be fully examined and addressed by official authorities”.
Updated
'One in three children under two years of age are now acutely malnourished in northern Gaza', says Unrwa
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa) said on Saturday that “one in three children under two years of age are now acutely malnourished in northern Gaza” in a social media post on X.
“Children’s malnutrition is spreading fast and reaching unprecedented levels in Gaza. Famine is looming. There is no time to waste,” it added, sharing a press release on the situation by Unicef.
🚨 1 in 3 children under 2 years of age are now acutely malnourished in northern #Gaza.
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) March 16, 2024
Children's malnutrition is spreading fast and reaching unprecedented levels in #Gaza. Famine is looming. There is no time to waste.@UNICEF @UNICEFmena @unicefchief https://t.co/YbkEf2C9ay
The post comes as the first aid ship to test the new humanitarian maritime route across the eastern Mediterranean arrived in Gaza and offloaded almost 200 tonnes of food.
Aid agencies have repeatedly said that bringing in aid to Gaza by sea and through airdrops will not be enough to make up for difficulties getting in supplies by land.
AFP reports that the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza has in recent weeks recorded at least 27 deaths from malnutrition and dehydration, most of them children.
Updated
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its fighter jets had struck a building used by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon’s Tayr Harfa and another infrastructure in Labbouneh overnight, according to the Times of Israel.
World Central Kitchen says 'all cargo' offloaded and 'being readied for distribution in Gaza'
A US charity said on Saturday that its team in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip had finished unloading the first maritime aid shipment to reach the besieged territory, reports AFP.
“All cargo was offloaded and is being readied for distribution in Gaza,” World Central Kitchen (WCK) said in a statement, noting that the aid was “almost 200 tonnes of food”.
The group is preparing a second boat of 240 tonnes of food to set sail from Cyprus, the starting point of a new maritime aid route across the eastern Mediterranean.
The humanitarian effort is intended to mitigate food shortages that have prompted famine warnings in Gaza from the UN and aid workers.
“That shipment includes pallets of canned goods and bulk product including beans, carrots, canned tuna, chickpeas, canned corn, parboiled rice, flour, oil and salt,” WCK said. The second shipment would also include a forklift and a crane to assist with deliveries, it added.
AFP reports that the US charity had to build a jetty southwest of Gaza City to deliver the aid.
The humanitarian group said it had “no information to release on when our second boat and the crew ship will be able to embark.”
The Israeli military on Friday confirmed the first vessel, operated by the Spanish charity Open Arms, had arrived and said soldiers had been deployed to secure the area and conduct a security inspection.
The military also said the delivery of humanitarian aid by sea did not constitute a breach of its years-long maritime blockade of Gaza, which has been ruled since 2007 by Hamas.
José Andrés, founder of the WCK, said on social media platform X on Friday that the first shipment was “a test” and that “we could bring thousands of tonnes each week.”
We did it! Teams of @WCKitchen and @openarms_fund working hard to offload all 200 tons…12 trucks! This was a test! To learn…we could bring thousands of tons a week..with what we learn we will get better…working with the local communities of Palestinians “Operation Safeena” is… pic.twitter.com/tX5FdGlhGB
— José Andrés 🇺🇸🇪🇸🇺🇦 (@chefjoseandres) March 15, 2024
Updated
You can also hear Biden’s comments on Schumer’s speech in this video:
Biden says Schumer made ‘good speech’ in breaking with Benjamin Netanyahu
US president Joe Biden on Friday said Senator Chuck Schumer made “a good speech” that reflected many Americans’ concerns when he publicly broke with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over his handling of the war in Gaza.
While the US president announced no changes in his administration’s policy towards Israel, his views on the speech Schumer made Thursday from the floor of the US Senate, where the New York Democrat is the majority leader, could portend a broader shift in sentiment.
Tensions have been rising between senior members of the Biden administration, including the president and the vice-president, Kamala Harris, and rightwinger Netanyahu, in the continued absence of a ceasefire deal.
Schumer’s speech was a surprise to many and attracted criticism from US Republican lawmakers and Israel’s ruling party.
“I’m not going to elaborate on the speech. He made a good speech,” Biden said at the start of an Oval Office meeting with Irish taoiseach Leo Varadkar, adding that he had been given advance notice of Schumer’s comments.
“I think he expressed a serious concern shared not only by him, but by many Americans,” Biden said.
You can read Chris Stein’s full piece here:
Jason Burke in Silwad and Sufian Taha have written about how Palestinian prisoners became central to Gaza ceasefire talks. Here is a snippet of it, but you can read the full piece at the link below:
The issue of the release of Palestinians from Israeli prisons has become the linchpin of any deal that might bring even a temporary halt to the war in Gaza, analysts say.
“The prisoners are seen as a huge rights issue for Palestinians and a major security issue for Israel. But though this is one of the most contentious issues, it’s also where we see a willingness to compromise,” said Dr Julie Norman, an associate professor of political science at University College London and the author of a book on Palestinian prisoners.
After weeks of fruitless negotiations, news came in a quick flurry on Friday with a fresh set of demands from Hamas and an announcement that an Israeli delegation would travel to Qatar to rejoin indirect talks mediated by the Gulf state.
Read the full piece here:
Updated
Benjamin Netanyahu has approved plans for an attack on Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, where more than a million people displaced from elsewhere in the territory have sought shelter, officials in Israel have said.
The decision was made as a ship towing a barge loaded with food arrived off Gaza on Friday. It was a test run for a new aid route by sea from Cyprus into the devastated Palestinian territory, where famine looms after five months of Israel’s military campaign.
Any attack on Rafah is likely to cause civilian casualties and worsen an already acute humanitarian crisis across Gaza.
Germany’s foreign affairs minister, Annalena Baerbock, tweeted: “A large-scale offensive in #Rafah cannot be justified. Over a million refugees have sought protection there and have nowhere to go. A humanitarian truce is needed immediately so that more people don’t die and the hostages are finally released.”
Netanyahu made the decision after a meeting of Israel’s war cabinet to discuss a new proposal from Hamas for a ceasefire.
As a first stage, Hamas has proposed it would release the Israeli women, children, elderly and sick people it is holding hostage in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including some convicted of multiple murders of Israelis.
You can read Jason Burke’s full piece here:
Aid boat unloads in Gaza as Hamas ceasefire deal rejected by Netanyahu
A first aid ship plying a new maritime corridor from Cyprus began unloading its cargo of desperately needed food in Gaza on Friday as Hamas proposed a six-week truce in the war.
News agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that its footage showed the Open Arms, which set sail from Cyprus on Tuesday, towing a barge that the Spanish charity of the same name says is loaded with 200 tonnes of food for Palestinians threatened with famine.
World Central Kitchen, the US charity working with Open Arms, said it was readying another boat with supplies of beans, canned meat, flour, rice and dates in the Cypriot port of Larnaca but stressed the need for more road access to bring aid into Gaza.
The Israeli military said it had deployed troops to “secure the area” around the jetty while the cargo of aid was unloaded. The “vessel underwent a comprehensive security inspection”, it said.
A spokesperson for the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry said early on Saturday that 123 people had been killed across Gaza in the past 24 hours, including 36 people in a strike on a house sheltering displaced people in central Nuseirat.
The office of Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Friday he had approved the military’s plan for an operation in Rafah, where most of the Gaza Strip’s population has sought refuge, without providing details or a timeline.
In negotiations aimed at securing a new truce and hostage deal, Hamas had put forward a proposal for a six-week ceasefire and the exchange of several dozen Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, an official from the militant group told AFP.
Hamas would want this to lead to “a complete [Israeli] withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and a permanent ceasefire”, the official said.
Netanyahu rejected Hamas’s proposal for a truce and release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, saying its demands “are still absurd”. However, he said he would send Israeli delegates to Qatar to continue truce efforts “once the security cabinet discusses the Israeli position”.
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Opening summary
It has gone 10.30am in Gaza and Tel Aviv. This is our latest Guardian live blog on the Israel-Gaza war and the wider Middle East crisis.
The first Gaza aid ship plying a new maritime corridor from Cyprus began unloading its cargo of desperately needed food in the territory on Friday as Hamas proposed a new six-week ceasefire in the war.
A US charity said it was readying another boat with food supplies but stressed the need for more road access to bring aid into Gaza.
The Israeli military said it had deployed troops to “secure the area” around the jetty while the cargo of aid was unloaded.
The office of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Friday that he had approved the military’s plan for an operation in the southern city of Rafah, where most of Gaza’s population has sought refuge, without providing details or a timeline.
In negotiations aimed at securing a new truce and hostage deal, Hamas put forward a new proposal for a six-week ceasefire and the exchange of several dozen Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, an official from the militant group said. But, Netanyahu rejected the proposal by Hamas for a truce and a hostage-prisoner exchange, saying its demands “are still absurd”.
However, Netanyahu said he would send Israeli delegates to Qatar to continue truce efforts “once the security cabinet discusses the Israeli position”.
More on that story soon. In other key developments:
Witnesses reported airstrikes and fighting in the southern Gaza Strip’s main city of Khan Younis as well as areas of the north where humanitarian conditions have been particularly dire. A spokesperson for the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry said early on Saturday that 123 people had been killed across Gaza in the past 24 hours, including 36 people in a strike on a house sheltering displaced people in central Nuseirat.
The US Central Command said on Friday that Houthis fired three anti-ship ballistic missiles from Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen towards the Red Sea. It said there were no injuries or damage reported.
The international court of justice (ICJ) said it would hold hearings next month on Nicaragua’s case against Germany for providing weapons to Israel and defunding the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa). According to Nicaragua, Germany is violating the 1948 Genocide conventions and the 1949 Geneva conventions surrounding the laws of war in Gaza, where Israeli forces have killed more than 30,000 Palestinians since last October.
The US president, Joe Biden, said the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, made a “good speech” on Thursday when Schumer called for new Israeli elections and criticised Netanyahu. Biden added: “He [Schumer] expressed serious concerns, shared not only by him but by many Americans.”
The US needs to see a clear and implementable plan in Rafah, including how to get civilians out of harm’s way, the US secretary of state said on Friday. Antony Blinken, whose comments came after Netanyahu’s office said it approved plans for an invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza, also said the US had not yet seen such plans.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters that Israel’s rejection of its latest truce counter-proposal showed that Netanyahu was “determined to pursue the aggression against our people and undermine all efforts exerted to reach a ceasefire agreement”. It was up to Washington to push its ally Israel to accept a ceasefire, he said.
Hamas criticised the “unilateral” designation by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, of ally and leading business figure Mohammad Mustafa as prime minister with a mandate to help reform the Palestinian Authority and rebuild Gaza.
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, was due to travel to Jordan and Israel over the weekend to lobby for more aid to be delivered to Gaza, his spokesperson said on Friday. The German leader would also reiterate his warning against a ground offensive in Rafah.
Protests have been held in Dublin and Belfast urging Joe Biden to demand a permanent ceasefire in the Middle East. The Amnesty International demonstrations took place to coincide with Irish premier Leo Varadkar’s meeting with the US president at the White House as part of the traditional St Patrick’s Day visit on Friday.
The US Central Command has conducted its 11th aid drop into Gaza. Centcom said on Friday: “US C-17 and C-130s dropped over 35,700 US meals ready to eat and 31,800 bottles of water into northern Gaza, an area of great need, allowing for civilian access to the critical aid.”
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