Closing summary
It has gone 5pm in Gaza, Tel Aviv and Beirut, and 6pm 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 southern Gaza Strip came under intense Israeli bombardment overnight, despite international pressure for an immediate ceasefire in the Palestinian territory where famine is looming. According to AFP, a fireball lit up the night sky in the southern city of Rafah, while the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said early on Wednesday that 66 people had been killed overnight, including three in Israeli airstrikes in and around Rafah.
The sound of explosions was also heard and smoke was seen rising in Gaza City in the north, reported AFP, where Israeli troops have been attacking the city’s largest hospital for more than a week.
Israeli forces surrounded two hospitals in Khan Younis, where the health ministry said 12 people, including some children, were killed in an Israeli strike on a camp for the displaced. The Palestinian Red Crescent warned that thousands were trapped in the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis and said “their lives are in danger”.
Hezbollah said it launched dozens of rockets at Kiryet Shmona, an Israeli town over the border in response to deadly Israeli strikes on the village of Hebbariyeh in southern Lebanon a day earlier. Rescue services in Israel said that a 25-year-old man was killed and one person was injured when a direct hit sparked a fire in an industrial park in Kiryat Shmona.
An Israeli airstrike after midnight on Tuesday hit an office of the Islamic Emergency and Relief Corps killing seven volunteers, according to the Lebanese Ambulance Association. The Israeli military said it had struck a military building and killed a member of Lebanon’s al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Group, and several other militants. It said the man was involved in attacks against Israel.
11 Palestinian civilians were killed and others were injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting a house of the Dhair family in the city of Rafah on Wednesday, reported the Palestinian news agency Wafa. It also said that an Israeli fighter jet targeted another house in the same city, resulting in several injuries to its residents.
Wafa also reported that two people were critically injured when Israeli tanks stationed near the Kuwait roundabout area in Gaza City, north of the Strip, “opened a barrage of gunfire towards a group of civilians while they were waiting for humanitarian aid” on Wednesday.
Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant said he told the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, that “only a decisive victory will bring to an end of this war”. Gallant, whose Washington talks went ahead despite Israel’s cancellation of separate US talks on the planned Rafah offensive, added that Israel would not cease operating in Gaza until the return of all the hostages.
Hamas has asked donor countries to stop their airdrops after 12 people drowned trying to recover parachuted food aid from the sea off Gaza’s Mediterranean coast. In a statement on Tuesday evening, Hamas called for “an immediate end to airdrop operations” and “the immediate and rapid opening of land crossings”. Hamas and the Swiss-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor also said another six people were killed in stampedes trying to get aid.
At least 32,490 Palestinians have been killed and 74,889 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, according to the latest figures from the Gaza health ministry. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.
Hamas’s top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said the UN resolution calling for a Gaza ceasefire showed that Israel faces “an unprecedented [level of] political isolation” and was “losing its political cover” at the security council. He spoke at a news conference in Tehran after talks with officials in Iran.
The Israeli prime minister’s handling of relations with the Biden administration, which led the US on Monday to decline to veto a ceasefire resolution at the UN security council, was greeted by sharp criticism by Israeli commentators. After the US abstention, prominent columnists across the Israeli media condemned Benjamin Netanyahu’s growing friction with the US president, Joe Biden.
The Biden administration’s policy on Gaza has been widely criticised as being in disarray as the defence secretary described the situation as a “humanitarian catastrophe” the day after the state department declared Israel to be in compliance with international humanitarian law.
Three Palestinians were killed during an arrest raid in Jenin overnight and Wednesday morning, according to the Times of Israel which cites information from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). According to the report, the IDF said it carried out a drone strike in the occupied West Bank city, killing two Palestinian gunmen. It also said a Palestinian was killed by Israeli fire during the raid, after explosive devices were thrown at troops, who opened fire on the man. The Guardian has been unable to independently verify the reports.
Israel is preparing for a Rafah ground operation in mid April or early May, according to the Times of Israel, which cited a report from the Arabic language Al-Akhbar daily newspaper. The report is attributed to Egyptian sources who have been in contact with IDF officials, quoted by Al-Akhbar. According to the Egyptian sources, the Rafah ground operation would last between four and eight weeks and would be accompanied by an evacuation of the civilian population in Rafah.
A spokesperson for the UN child welfare agency warned on Tuesday that the mental suffering of Gaza’s children is so deep that some hope to die quickly to escape the “nightmare”. “The unspeakable is regularly said in Gaza now,” said Unicef spokesperson James Elder, who is in the territory. After meeting young people on Monday, he told AFP that several teenagers said they were “so desperate for this nightmare to end that they hoped to be killed”.
Al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis was “taken out of service”, said the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) in a statement on Tuesday. It said that the hospital “stopped working completely after the occupation forces forced the hospital’s crews and the wounded to evacuate it and closed its entrances with dirt barriers”.
Parliamentary pressure is building on the UK government to ban arms sales to Israel. A letter signed by more than 130 parliamentarians to the foreign secretary, David Cameron, highlights action taken by other countries, most recently Canada, which last week announced it would halt all arms exports to Israel.
The UK is facing legal action over its pause in funding for Unrwa, after Israel’s allegations that 12 staff at the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees were involved in the 7 October attacks against Israel. London-based law firm Bindmans has sent a pre-action letter, the first stage in a legal claim, on behalf of a British-Palestinian man whose family are in Gaza and reliant on humanitarian aid provided by Unwra.
Updated
11 Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrikes on a house, says Wafa news agency
The Palestinian news agency Wafa is reporting that 11 civilians were killed and others were injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting a house of the Dhair family in the city of Rafah on Wednesday.
It also said that an Israeli fighter jet targeted a house belonging to the al-Hamayda family in Rafah, resulting in several injuries to its residents.
Wafa claim that Israeli tanks stationed near the Kuwait roundabout area in Gaza City, north of the Strip, “opened a barrage of gunfire towards a group of civilians while they were waiting for humanitarian aid”, which critically injured two people.
The news agency also said that Israeli forces had raided al-Nasser hospital in the city of Khan Younis, south of the Gaza Strip. Wafa writes: “[Israeli forces] detained a number of medical personnel and displaced persons who sought refugee inside the hospital. The soldiers also ordered a number of civilians to evacuate the hospital.”
