Summary of the day so far:
It has just gone 5.20pm in Rafah, Tel Aviv and Beirut, and 6.20pm in Damascus. Here is a recap of the latest developments:
An exodus of Palestinians into Egypt must be “avoided at all costs”, and could be the “nail in the coffin” of a future peace process, the UN’s high commissioner for refugees Filippo Grandi said on Friday. “The position of Egypt has been very clear. People should not go across the border. I think Egypt has very valid reasons,” Filippo Grandi told BBC television from the Munich Security Conference. He also said a spillover of refugees from Gaza into Egypt ‘would be a disaster for the future of peace’. When asked whether Egyptian authorities had contacted the UNHCR about possible contingency plans he said: “The Egyptians said that people should be assisted inside Gaza and we are working on that.”
Egypt is preparing an area at the Gaza border which could accommodate Palestinians in case an Israeli offensive into Rafah prompts an exodus across the frontier, four sources told news agency Reuters, in what they described as a contingency move by Cairo. Egypt, which denied making any such preparations, has repeatedly raised the alarm over the possibility that Israel’s devastating Gaza offensive could displace Palestinians into Sinai – something Cairo says would be completely unacceptable – echoing warnings from Arab states such as Jordan. The Sinai Foundation for Human Rights, an Egyptian non-governmental organisation, also published images on Monday that it said showed construction trucks and cranes working in the Egyptian area near the Gaza border.
Israel will coordinate with Egypt on Palestinian refugees and will find a way to not harm Egypt’s interests, Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz said on Friday at the Munich Security Conference. When asked where refugees in Rafah would go, he suggested Gaza’s second city Khan Younis.
Western leaders are hoping a round of meetings at the Munich Security Conference will put overwhelming pressure on Israel not to press ahead with a ground offensive in Rafah. Almost all the key figures, save the Iranian foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, were present in Munich on Friday, including foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar and Jordan.
Negotiations over a ceasefire in Gaza appear to have stalled, with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday pushing back hard against the US vision for after the war – particularly its calls for the creation of a Palestinian state. After speaking overnight with president Joe Biden, Netanyahu wrote on X that Israel will not accept “international dictates regarding a permanent settlement with the Palestinians”, saying that if other countries unilaterally recognised a Palestinian state, it would give a “reward to terrorism”.
US president Joe Biden again cautioned Netanyahu against moving forward with a military operation in Rafah before coming up with a “credible and executable plan” to ensure the safety of Palestinian civilians, in a phone call between the leaders on Thursday evening, the White House said.
Five patients in intensive care died after their oxygen cut off when Israeli forces raided Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, health officials said. A witness at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, which was raided by Israeli forces on Thursday, told AFP that the army had shot “at anyone who moved inside the hospital”. Hospital officials also said that two Israeli airstrikes on Rafah overnight killed at least 12 people, including nine members of the same family.
Two people were killed and four were wounded in what Israeli police said was a shooting attack near a junction in southern Israel on Friday. Authorities in the district said the suspected shooter was killed by an armed civilian.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry raised fears over the fate of six other patients in the intensive care unit at Nasser hospital and three children, saying it held Israel “responsible for the lives of patients and staff considering that the complex is now under its full control”. A doctor at the hospital in Khan Younis, told Al Jazeera that the situation there is “catastrophic”. Dr Nahed Abu Taima, who is a director at medical complex, said electric power was cut off from the entire medical complex and that “many patients” in ICUs, those on oxygen supply and also those on dialysis were “left fighting for their lives”.
More than “20 terrorists” suspected to have been involved in the 7 October attack were arrested at Nasser hospital, said the Israeli military on Friday. On Thursday IDF spokesperson R Adm Daniel Hagari had said there was “credible intelligence” to suggest hostages had been held at the hospital, and that bodies of some of the captives may still be inside, but the military said later it had “not yet found any evidence of this”, although forces had found “weapons, grenades and mortar bombs” at the hospital complex.
The hunger crisis in Gaza has reached “unprecedented levels, as people run out of even animal feed to eat” said development charity ActionAid on Friday. The charity warned that “as grim as the picture is, things will get substantially worse” if Israel proceeds with its plans for a full military operation in Rafah.
The Palestinian ambassador to the UK, Husam Zomlot, said that eight of his relatives who were sheltering in the southern Gaza town of Rafah were killed in an Israeli strike. Zomlot also identified a girl in a distressing photo that has been widely shared online as his wife’s seven-year-old cousin Sidra Hassouna.
French president Emmanuel Macron said on Friday “the recognition of a Palestinian state is not a taboo for France,” at a joint press conference in Paris with King Abdullah II of Jordan. Macron also repeated a warning against Israel attacking the city of Rafah, saying it “could only bring about an unprecedented humanitarian disaster”.
Russia has invited Hamas and other Palestinian factions including Fatah to Moscow for talks on the Israel-Hamas war and other issues in the Middle East from 29 February, the state-run Tass news agency reported, citing deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov.
112 Palestinians have been killed and 157 were injured in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, said the Gaza health ministry. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.
Israeli strikes on targets in south Lebanon killed five fighters from Hezbollah and the allied Amal movement, the groups said on Friday. A strike on one house in Al-Qantara village killed three members of the Amal movement, the group said. Hezbollah separately announced the death of two of its fighters, bringing to 12 the number killed since Wednesday.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said on Friday that Israeli forces had released two of its doctors that were arrested a week ago during a raid on the al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis, however 12 others from its teams remained under arrest, the PRCS said, including seven who were arrested at the same hospital.
Palestinian solidarity groups Palestine Speaks and Jewish Voice for Just Peace in the Middle East filed criminal charges against Volker Beck, a former member of parliament and the head of the German-Israeli Society, for suspected incitement of hate and denial of war crimes in Israel’s war in Gaza.
Pro-Palestinian activists have filed criminal charges against a German politician for suspected incitement of hate and denial of war crimes in Israel’s war in Gaza, they said on Friday.
According to Reuters, the charges against Volker Beck, a former member of parliament and the head of the German-Israeli Society, were brought by Palestinian solidarity groups Palestine Speaks and Jewish Voice for Just Peace in the Middle East.
“This is the first step in holding public figures who publicly make genocidal statements legally accountable,” the group wrote on its Instagram.
The charges, filed at five prosecutor offices across Germany, cite Beck’s statements on social media, in opinion pieces and media interviews in which he expressed support for Israel’s military operation in Gaza, calling for making humanitarian aid conditional on Hamas freeing Israeli hostages.
Beck rejected the claims as “nonsense”. “There is no genocide in Gaza and I do not advocate genocide,” he told Reuters, adding that he had filed complaints against the groups for defamation. “These people have a disturbed relationship with the rule of law if they believe that many complaints lead to more investigations.”
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) last month ordered Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent its troops from committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, in a case brought by South Africa.
