Summary of the day …
It has just gone 5pm in Gaza City and in Tel Aviv. Here are the latest headlines …
UN agency Unicef has warned the Gaza Strip is poised to witness an increase in what an official said was “the already unbearable level of child deaths” due to a worsening food crisis. It says more than 90% of children under five in Gaza are in food poverty, with a similar percentage are affected by infectious diseases, and 70% experiencing diarrhea in the last two weeks.
South Africa’s delegation to the ICJ in The Hague has said Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is “an even more extreme form of the apartheid” than the one formerly in place in South Africa. The court is holding a second day of hearings asking it to give an advisory opinion on the Israeli occupation.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has accused Israel of impeding hospital rescue missions at the Nasser hospital in southern Gaza. The agency reported its staff said “the destruction around Nasser hospital was ‘indescribable’” and that it was concerned for “an estimated 130 sick and injured patients and at least 15 doctors and nurses” who remain at the medical complex, which has “no electricity or running water”.
The total number of Palestinians detained by Israeli security forces from the occupied West Bank since 7 October has risen to 7,120 according to local sources.
Overnight the IDF confirmed that one of its soldiers who had been wounded during the ground offensive in Khan Younis on 15 february had died, taking Israel’s total losses on the ground inside Gaza to 236.
Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy has condemned a UN report which said there were “credible allegations of egregious human rights violations” of Palestinian women and girls by Israeli security forces including rape and strip-searches as motivated by “hatred of Israel and the Jewish people”.
In its latest operational update, Israel’s military has claimed it continues to “operate in the northern, central, and southern Gaza Strip”, and says it has “eliminated a terrorist cell that attempted to attack the troops”.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has reportedly arrived in Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials.
French warships in the Red Sea intercepted and destroyed two drones in overnight attacks coming from Yemen, according to France’s ministry of defence.
In the UK, the opposition Labour party, under considerable political pressure, has called for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in Gaza for the first time.
The UK opposition Labour party has called for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in Gaza for the first time.
This weekend, party leader Keir Starmer said he wanted the fighting to “stop now”, but he has been reluctant to back an immediate and permanent ceasefire given that Hamas has threatened to carry out further attacks as it did on 7 October.
A Labour amendment to a Scottish National Party motion which will be voted on in Westminster tomorrow calls for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, which means an immediate stop to the fighting and a ceasefire that lasts and is observed by all sides, noting that Israel cannot be expected to cease fighting if Hamas continues with violence and that Israelis have the right to the assurance that the horror of 7 October cannot happen again”.
It also calls on the Israelis not to enter Rafah, where 1.5 million people are sheltered, for aid to be allowed to enter Gaza, for settler violence to end and for a diplomatic effort towards a two-state solution.
Read more here: UK opposition Labour party calls for ‘immediate humanitarian ceasefire’ in Gaza
