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.”
