Summary of the day …
It is approaching 4.30pm in The Hague, 5/30pm in Gaza City and Tel Aviv, and 6.30pm in Damascus. Here are the headlines …
Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reacted to a Knesset vote endorsing his stand against a unilaterally declared Palestinian state by saying “The Knesset came together in an overwhelming majority against the attempt to impose on us the establishment of a Palestinian state, which would not only fail to bring peace but would endanger the state of Israel.”
The US has told the International Court of Justice in The Hague that the Hamas attack on 7 October demonstrated Israel’s “legitimate security needs” in any solution to conflict in the region. The US urged the court not to “find that Israel is legally obligated to immediately and unconditionally withdraw from occupied territory”, but instead “preserve and promote the established framework” for reaching a two-state solution. Russia and France will make oral submissions to the court later on Wednesday.
Israeli strikes across Gaza killed at least 67 Palestinians overnight and into Wednesday, including in areas where civilians have been told to seek refuge. Aid group Doctors Without Borders said that two people were killed when a shelter housing staff in the Gaza Strip was struck during an Israeli operation. The IDF said it recovered “weapons including an RPG and AK-47 rifle” and has located dozens of “terror infrastructures, observation posts, weapon storage facilities, and underground targets” during the last 24 hours. One Israeli soldier was announced as being killed.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has announced it is pausing deliveries of food aid to northern Gaza. This comes after incidents on 18 and 19 February when WFP says convoys were unable to deliver aid as planned, largely due to a breakdown in civil order. It said a truck was looted and the driver beaten.
The Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel says it found evidence of “systematic and intentional” rape and sexual abuse during the Hamas attack on 7 October, and claimed that Hamas chose to use “sadistic sexual crimes” in order to “harm Israel strategically”. Orit Sulitzeanu, CEO of the organisation, said “The report, submitted to decision-makers at the UN, leaves no room for denial or disregard. Silence is no longer an option. We expect international organisations to take a clear stance”.
At least two people have been killed by what has been described by Syria’s media as an Israeli airstrike on Damascus. A residential building was struck in the Kafr Sousa district of the capital. Israel’s military have not commented on the claim.
In London the UK parliament will vote later on an opposition motion calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. The exact wording of the motion has sparked a political row among opposition parties.
Iran’s oil Minister Javad Owji has said Israel was behind last week’s attack on Iranian gas pipelines.
An Israeli airstrike on south Lebanon killed a woman and wounded her daughter on Wednesday, state media said.
My colleague Jason Burke has a wrap of today’s news here: UN agency pauses Gaza food aid deliveries after looting and gunfire
Netanyahu: 'Knesset came together' against establishment of Palestinian state which would 'endanger the state of Israel'
Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reacted to a Knesset vote endorsing his stand against a unilaterally declared Palestinian state.
Reuters reports he said “The Knesset came together in an overwhelming majority against the attempt to impose on us the establishment of a Palestinian state, which would not only fail to bring peace but would endanger the state of Israel.
The vote drew condemnation from the Palestinian foreign ministry, which accused Israel of holding the rights of the Palestinian people hostage by forceful occupation of territories where Palestinians seek to establish a state.
“The ministry reaffirms that the State of Palestine’s full membership in the United Nations and its recognition by other nations does not require permission from Netanyahu,” it said in a statement.
The Israeli position says that any permanent accord with the Palestinians must be reached through direct negotiations between the sides and not by international dictates. Critics have argued this effectively gives Israel an unlimited veto against recognising Palestine. Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
The issue of conflict between Israel and Hamas and the level of casualties in Gaza has loomed large over UK domestic politics in recent days. We have two pieces about that if you are interested.
Libby Brooks, our Scotland correspondent, has written an analysis on how the stakes are high as the Scottish National Party, who are in power in the devolved Scottish government, and the main UK opposition party Labour, who are hoping to form the next UK-wide government within the next 12 months, wrestle over the precise wording of Gaza ceasefire calls.
Harriet Sherwood has written on how Prince William’s statement about Gaza yesterday has prompted speculation about the involvement of the UK Foreign Office, and whether the royal statement was encouraged or even engineered to increase pressure on Israel. You can read that here:
Warning: this block contains graphic description of sexual and gender-based violence
The Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel says it found evidence of “systematic and intentional” rape and sexual abuse during the Hamas attack on 7 October, and claimed that Hamas chose to use “sadistic sexual crimes” in order to “harm Israel strategically”.
The report said the sexual and gender-based violence occurred in four main places – the Nova music festival, communities near the Gaza border, Israeli military bases that were overrun by Hamas and places where hostages were held in Gaza.
Orit Sulitzeanu, the CEO of the organisation, said:
The report, submitted to decision-makers at the UN, leaves no room for denial or disregard. The terrorist organization Hamas chose to harm Israel strategically in two clear ways – kidnapping citizens and committing sadistic sexual crimes. Silence is no longer an option. We expect international organizations to take a clear stance.
AP reports that the findings, published Wednesday, did not specify the number of cases it had documented or identify any victims, even anonymously. Sulitzeanu said such determinations were difficult because many of the victims were killed after being assaulted, and first responders were so overwhelmed by the scale of death and destruction that they did not document signs of sexual abuse.
Publishing the report, the organisation said it “does not provide quantitative information due to the nature of the events, most of which resulted in the victims’ deaths, making their full extent unknown and possibly unknowable.”
The report’s authors, Dr. Carmit Klar-Chalamish and Noga Berger, said “The brutal practices used on 7 October, such as genital mutilation of girls, women, and men, shooting, and weapon insertion, were designed to destroy and inflict sadistic terror. The manner in which these assaults were carried out aimed to reinforce their impact on the victims and their communities.”
The Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent, Bethan McKernan, previously reported in January that evidence points to systematic use of rape and sexual violence by Hamas in 7 October attacks. In that piece, she wrote:
By cross-referencing testimonies given to police, published interviews with witnesses, and photo and video footage taken by survivors and first responders, the Guardian is aware of at least six sexual assaults for which multiple corroborating pieces of evidence exist. Two of those victims, who were murdered, were aged under 18.
At least seven women who were killed were also raped in the attack, according to Prof Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, a legal scholar and international women’s rights advocate, from her examination of evidence so far. The New York Times and NBC have both identified more than 30 killed women and girls whose bodies bear signs of abuse, such as bloodied genitals and missing clothes, and according to the Israeli welfare ministry, five women and one man have come forward seeking help for sexual abuse over the past few months.
The report comes a day after Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy described a statement by UN-affiliated experts which asserted 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”.
As I mentioned earlier, lawmakers in London are voting on a motion calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. The precise wording – and indeed the parliamentary procedures being used – have become a source of some domestic political controversy in the UK.
While the debate and vote itself are unlikely to have any immediate impact whatsoever on the situation on the ground in Gaza, there may be some longer-term implications for UK policy towards Israel and the Palestinian people. The opposition Labour party is some distance ahead in the polls at the moment, and with a UK general election guaranteed before January 2025, tey are expected to form the next government. That makes their positioning on the issue more significant.
My colleague Andrew Sparrow is live blogging the debate in the House of Commons over here:
UN agencies have reported that the food situation has been worsening in northern Gaza due to restrictions on the amount of humanitarian aid being allowed to enter the Gaza Strip, and the difficulties in distributing aid, caused in part by damage to infrastructure from Israeli bombing, and in part to concerns over civil disorder.
ActionAid spoke to Dr Hossam Abu Safiya, a paediatric consultant in the northern Gaza Strip, who said yesterday that the lack of food and clean water was killing children. He told them:
We have lost a significant number of children in recent days due to widespread malnutrition. We have recorded many cases that have been admitted to the intensive care unit. Most of the cases arrived in a state of advanced dehydration. There is a spread of infection, especially at the level of the digestive system.
The picture was also difficult for new mothers and newborns. Abu Safiya said:
Most cases that give birth, whether at home or in shelter centres, are in a very critical situation. Most of the children’s sizes and weights are small. Unfortunately, there is no proper nutrition for the mother and no proper nutrition for the child. And the lack of supportive milk for children leads to a worsening of children’s health conditions. The health situation is catastrophic in every sense of the word.
Riham Jafari, advocacy and communications coordinator at ActionAid Palestine said it was “beyond heartbreaking” that the hunger crisis was “completely avoidable”, and that “the world can and must do much more to ensure that life-saving food supplies and other humanitarian aid can enter Gaza at scale.”
Hostage relatives pile political pressure on Israeli government with demonstration in Tel Aviv
A protest aimed at the Israeli government has been held in Tel Aviv today by families and supporters of Israelis being held captive by Hamas in Gaza.
Wearing masks depicting some of the people being held by Hamas, and holding up signs saying “Sorry for being kidnapped” the demonstration the day after Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich sparked fury by claiming the hostages were “not the most important thing” in Israel’s war objectives.
Smotrich had criticised those saying the hostages had to be returned “at any price”, saying “‘At any price’ is a problem. We have to return the hostages and we have to put pressure on Hamas. It’s not the most important thing. Why make it a competition? We need to destroy Hamas. That is very important.”
Israel’s opposition leader Yair Lapid responded by saying “Smotrich’s attack on the families of the hostages is a moral disgrace. Heartless people cannot continue to lead the state of Israel into the abyss.”
Knesset votes to back Netanyahu's opposition to 'unilateral' creation of a Palestinian state.
Israel’s Knesset has voted to back prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opposition to the “unilateral” creation of Palestinian state.
Reuters reports 99 of 120 lawmakers voted to support the declaration passed earlier this week by the cabinet. Nine people voted against.
The Israeli position also says that any permanent accord with the Palestinians would have to be reached through direct negotiations between the sides, and not by international dictates.
Critics have argued this position effectively gives Israel a unilateral veto on the creation of a Palestinian state, and is one of the reasons little progress has been made towards a two-state solution since the Oslo Accords were signed 30 years ago.
In its case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague this week, the Palestinian delegation cited Netanyahu’s own words in an attempt to demonstrate that Israel is not approaching negotiations in good faith, with the prime minister having promised Israeli’s that “We will forever keep Jerusalem united under Israel’s sovereignty” and a declaration he gave in 2019 in which he said:
I am guided by several principles when it comes to the [Israeli-occupied] West Bank. The first – this is our homeland. The second – we will continue to build and develop it. Third – not one resident or community will be uprooted in a political agreement. Fourth – the Israeli military and security forces will continue to rule the entire territory, up to the Jordan valley.
Israel’s military has also released details of its attack inside Lebanon.
On the IDF’s official Telegram channel, it said that today:
IDF fighter jets struck three Hezbollah operational command centers in southern Lebanon. Furthermore, this morning, IDF artillery struck in order to remove a threat in the areas of Aalma El Chaeb and Dhayra in southern Lebanon.
The statement also reiterated Israel’s position:
Hezbollah’s military activity south of the Litani River in Lebanon, including the use and storage of armaments, is a clear violation of UN security council resolution 1701. The IDF will continue to defend Israel’s borders from any threat.
Since 7 October Israel and anti-Israeli forces in Lebanon have repeatedly exchanged fire over the UN-drawn blue line that separates the two countries/.
UN security council resolution 1701 was passed in 2006, which among other things, called for:
Israel and Lebanon to support a permanent ceasefire and a longterm solution based on the following principles and elements.
full respect for the blue line by both parties
security arrangements to prevent the resumption of hostilities, including the establishment between the blue line and the Litani river of an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the government of Lebanon and of Unifil.
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UK prime minister Rishi Sunak has said “calling for an immediate full ceasefire now, which collapses back into fighting in days or weeks, would not be in anyone’s interest”.
Speaking in the Commons, SNP MP Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) said: “Voting against the Iraq war was the vote that I’m most proud of in my time in this House. Today, after 29,000 deaths in Gaza, we face a vote of similar significance.
“Does the prime minister believe that MPs today should look back with that same pride knowing that they have done everything possible to stop the death, destruction and misery tonight?”
Sunak said: “Nobody wants to see the fighting in Gaza go on for a moment longer than is necessary. Nobody wants to see innocent civilians suffer, and that’s why we’re doing absolutely everything we can to bring about an immediate humanitarian pause, allowing for the safe release of hostages which (Mr Wishart) failed to mention, I believe.
“But also getting more aid into Gaza to create the conditions for a genuinely sustainable ceasefire. That is the position that is shared by our allies, that is what our diplomatic efforts are focused on, and that’s what our motion tonight will reflect.”
Sunak later told the Commons: “Just calling for an immediate full ceasefire now, which collapses back into fighting in days or weeks, would not be in anyone’s interest.”
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An Israeli air strike on south Lebanon killed a woman and wounded her daughter on Wednesday, state media said, while a hospital source told AFP a young girl had also died.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement and Israel have been exchanging near-daily fire across the border since the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said that Khadija Salman was killed and her daughter seriously wounded in the “enemy” strike on the southern village of Majdal Zun.
Requesting anonymity, a hospital source confirmed the woman had died and her daughter remained in serious condition, adding that a young girl was also killed.
The cross-border exchanges since October have killed at least 271 people on the Lebanese side, most of them Hezbollah fighters but also including 42 civilians, according to an AFP tally. According to the Israeli army, 10 soldiers and six civilians have been killed.
Hezbollah said Wednesday it had carried out several attacks on Israeli troops and positions.
Last week, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah vowed that Israel would pay “with blood” for civilians it killed, after 10 civilians, including seven members of one family, were killed in Lebanon’s largest single-day death toll so far. Five Hezbollah fighters were also killed.
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Antony Blinken will meet with president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Wednesday, amid a diplomatic spat after the Brazilian leader likened Israel’s war in Gaza to the Nazi genocide during the Second world war.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Tuesday that Washington disagreed with Lula’s comments, but declined to preview what Blinken would say in the meeting on the issue.
US officials have said they expect Lula and Secretary of State Blinken to have a robust conversation on issues of global security, including the conflict in Gaza sparked by attacks in southern Israel by Hamas militants on Oct. 7, Reuters reports.
Israel said on Monday that Lula is not welcome in Israel until he takes back the comments.
Lula’s comments came after he visited the Middle East last week and just ahead of a meeting of foreign ministers in Rio de Janeiro as part of Brazil’s presidency of the G20 group of advanced economies.
Here are the latest images coming across the wires from Gaza and elsewhere:
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Summary of the day so far …
It has just gone 1pm in The Hague, 2pm in Gaza City and Tel Aviv, and 3pm in Damascus. Here are the latest headlines …
The US has told the International Court of Justice in The Hague that the Hamas attack on 7 October demonstrated Israel’s “legitimate security needs” in any solution to conflict in the region. The US urged the court not to “find that Israel is legally obligated to immediately and unconditionally withdraw from occupied territory”, but instead “preserve and promote the established framework” for reaching a two-state solution. Russia and France will make oral submissions to the court later on Wednesday.
Israeli strikes across Gaza killed at least 67 Palestinians overnight and into Wednesday, including in areas where civilians have been told to seek refuge. Aid group Doctors Without Borders said that two people were killed when a shelter housing staff in the Gaza Strip was struck during an Israeli operation. The IDF said it recovered “weapons including an RPG and AK-47 rifle” and has located dozens of “terror infrastructures, observation posts, weapon storage facilities, and underground targets” during the last 24 hours. One Israeli soldier was announced as being killed.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has announced it is pausing deliveries of food aid to northern Gaza. This comes after incidents on 18 and 19 February when WFP says convoys were unable to deliver aid as planned, largely due to a breakdown in civil order. It said a truck was looted and the driver beaten.
At least two people have been killed by what has been described by Syria’s media as an Israeli airstrike on Damascus. A residential building was struck in the Kafr Sousa district of the capital.
In London the UK parliament will vote later on an opposition motion calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. The exact wording of the motion has sparked a political row among opposition parties.
Iran’s oil Minister Javad Owji has said Israel was behind last week’s attack on Iranian gas pipelines.
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”.
US at ICJ: conflict between Israel and Palestinians 'cannot be resolved through violence or unilateral actions'
Richard Visek of the US state department has concluded the US oral submission to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
He finished by saying:
As I said at the outset, you have a difficult task before you. Others have asked you to broadly construe the questions on the law. They have asked you to try to resolve the whole of the dispute between the parties through an advisory opinion addressed to questions focusing on the acts of only one party.
The United States disagrees with that, that this approach would be consistent with the court’s role within the United Nations, or the established UN framework for achieving peace through negotiations.
Hamas’s attacks, hostage taking and other atrocities, the ongoing hostilities and the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza and the violence in the West Bank reinforce the United States resolve to urgently achieve a final peace that includes the full realisation of Palestinian self-determination. The current crisis illustrates the vital need to achieve this peace. This final peace with a Palestinian state living safely and securely alongside a secure Israel fully integrated into the region.
As Secretary Blinken said, quote, we are not going to have durable security for Israel, unless and until Palestinian political aspirations are met.
The lack of meaningful progress on a negotiated end to the conflict and establishment of peace between the parties and for the region cannot and must not persist. The security council and general assembly continue to make clear their support for the two state solution and the established framework to fulfil it.
This conflict cannot be resolved through violence or unilateral actions.
Negotiations are the path to lasting peace.
For these reasons, we respectfully encourage the court to carefully calibrate its advice in this proceeding to support and promote final realisation of peace and stability within the established UN framework. Set out UN security council resolutions 242 and 338.
The court has finished the morning session, and will reconvene at 2pm GMT when Russia and France will be among the countries giving their oral submission. You will be able to watch proceedings live on the blog.
The US has argued in the International Court of Justice in The Hague that there is no time limit in law for a state to occupy another territory and that it should not order Israel to unilaterally withdraw from the Palestinian territory it has occupied since 1967 without there being commitments from the Palestinian side on Israel’s security.
Richard Visek of the US state department told the panel of judges:
The court should not deviate from longstanding principles of international law, including with respect to the law of belligerent occupation.
International law does not provide for an occupation itself to be rendered unlawful or void, based either on its duration or on any violations of occupation law.
…
With respect to duration, international law does not impose specific time limits on an occupation. That said, belligerent occupation is a temporary measure for administering territory under the control of belligerent armed forces.
A few days ago, at the Munich Security Conference, Secretary Blinken emphasise that it is more urgent than ever to proceed to a Palestinian state, one that also ensures the security of Israel and makes the necessary commitments to do so.
In light of these considerations, the court should not find that Israel is legally obligated to immediately and unconditionally withdraw from occupied territory.
US tells ICJ that 7 October attack demonstrated Israel's 'legitimate security needs'
The key argument that the US is making to the International Court of Justice in The Hague is summed up here:
First, and fundamentally, the court should not take up the suggestion of some to interpret the questions in this proceeding as encompassing the entire question of Palestine. The request seeks advice only with respect to the legal consequences of the conduct of one of the parties to the underlying conflict. This one-sidedness, which contrasts with the reciprocity inherent in the established framework, necessarily must inform the courts approach to this advisory proceeding.
Second, contrary to the assertions of some participants, and in calling for the court to take this measured approach to the question referred, the US is by no means suggesting there is no role for the court. Nor is it the position of the US of the court must refrain from considering violations of international law or the legal consequences thereof.
Our argument is grounded in respect for the UN Charter and the roles and responsibilities assigned to the UN’s principal organs. The court’s advisory function was designed to assist the UN’s principal political organs in the proper performance of their respective functions. In exercising its advisory role, the court must necessarily consider the extent to which the security council and general assembly have taken action to address the matter of international peace and security.
Essentially the US is arguing that the court should not offer an advisory opinion because the case before it is one-sided against Israel – the country has declined to take part directly in the proceedings although it has made a written submission – and that the security council and general assembly of the UN have an established framework and the matter is in hand.
Richard Visek of the US state department went on to say:
The challenge for the court is how to provide its advice in a way that promotes the framework rather than disrupting its balance, potentially making the possibility of negotiations even more difficult.
In this regard, it would not, as some participants suggest, be conducive to achievement of the established frameworkto issue an opinion that calls for a unilateral immediate and unconditional withdrawal by Israel. That does not take account for Israel’s legitimate security needs.
…
We were all reminded of those security needs on 7 October, and they persist. Regrettably, those needs have been ignored by many of the participants in asserting how the court should consider the questions before it.
US asks ICJ to 'preserve and promote the established framework' for reaching a two-state solution
The US oral submission to the International Court of Justice in The Hague has urged the court to “preserve and promote the established framework” for reaching a two-state solution.
Opening his address, Richard Visek of the US State Department said:
The court has a serious and difficult task before it. In the time since the general assembly first requested this advisory opinion, the international community has confronted the horror of the terrorist attacks of 7 October, including the taking of hostages who have yet to be released. And also the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, which has had severe widespread and tragic consequences for Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Violence, including extremist settler violence, has also searched in the West Bank.
The United States, along with others, is engaging intensively with the Palestinians and with Israel, and with other states in the region and within the United Nations, not only to address the current crisis but to get beyond where we have, namely, to advance a political settlement that will lead to a durable peace in the region that includes lasting security for Israelis and Palestinians and a path to Palestinian statehood.
He went on to say:
The security council and the general assembly remain convinced that the Israelis and Palestinians must take the steps necessary to resolve their conflict and create such an enduring peace.
This court’s advisory opinion will have consequences for the parties to the conflict and for the ongoing efforts of all of those working to achieve a durable peace. It will do so for the security council, which bears primary responsibility for maintenance of international peace and security. It will do so for the general assembly, which requested the court’s advice and it will do so for the other members of the international community throughout the term, the tumultuous and often violent history of the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
As the court can see in the submissions before it, there was broad international support for achieving a negotiated solution to the conflict that will give rise to a Palestinian state, a solution in which two peoples live side by side with equal measures of freedom, security, opportunity and dignity, and which results in broader regional integration and stability with respect for the right of all states to live in peace within secure and recognise borders.
It is for these reasons that the United States encourages the court to ensure that its opinion preserves and promotes the established framework and the prerogatives of the principal political organs of the United Nations to identify the appropriate measures to address this particular matter of international peace and security.
He then argued that an end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories requires “the termination of belligerency” and “the mutual recognition and respect for the rights of Israel and every other state in the region to live in peace within secure and recognised boundaries free from threats or acts of force.”
Saying “the promise of Oslo has yet to be fulfilled” he said nevertheless the framework remains “the only basis for achieving a comprehensive peace in the region”.
The US is now addressing the International Court of Justice in The Hague in the case concerning the “legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.”
You can watch it here:
Citing Iran’s semi-official Student News Network, Reuters is reporting that no Iranians were killed in a strike on Damascus in Syria, which is believed to have originated from Israel and killed at least two people.
Israel has previously targeted Iranian officials inside Syria. The attack was earlier described by Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, as an assassination attempt.
Here is a video report on the apparent Israeli missile strike on a building in Damascus in Syria.
At the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the court is hearing day three of oral submissions in the case “legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.”
You can watch it here:
So far this morning Colombia, Cuba and Egypt have given their presentations.
Colombia’s representative Andrea Jiménez Herrera accused Israel of a “scorched earth policy” in the Gaza Strip, and said that recent developments made the need for a solution in the region even more urgent.
She told the court “the very existence of the Palestinian people” is at stake in the case, and that Colmbia sought an end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian territoy, and “the establishment of a fully viable Palestinian state, existing side by side with Israel and its neighbours, fostering peace and security in the region.”
Cuba was represented by Anayansi Rodriguez Camejo, and she said “the situation that is taking place in the eyes of all confirms the ongoing genocide”. She also criticised those who “for years have supported each and every one of the policies and practices of Israel” which have denied the Palestinian people their rights.
Jasmine Moussa is speaking for Egypt at the moment. She has said it is shocking that some states have advised the court not to give its opinion – Italy and Canada are among states to have recommended the court keeps its counsel – and said the court’s intervention is vital given “the complete absence of any real prospect for a peaceful solution”.
Moussa condemend the “vicious wholesale destruction of Gaza today after years of Israel imposing the medieval tactics of siege and blockade”, and said the Palestinian people had been subjected to the most prolonged occupation in the modern world.
In UK domestic politics, the precise wording of how to call for a halt in fighting has become a contentious issue. Geneva Abdul reports:
Lisa Nandy has said opposition party Labour’s amendment to the Scottish National party’s motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza is a moment to “lift our debate up” away from party politics and “speak with one voice”, ahead of what is likely to be a tense Commons vote in London on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Labour explicitly called for a ceasefire in the region for the first time since fighting broke out in October, in an attempt to defuse a fresh crisis over leader Keir Starmer’s stance that had led to some of the party’s MPs rebelling in a vote over a ceasefire in November.
The Labour party currently lead opinion polls in the UK by a large margin, and the country must by law have a general election before January 2025, leading to a widespread expectation that Starmer will be the next prime minister of the UK.
“We hope that this is a moment where we can lift our debate up away from the party politics … and the whole house can speak with one voice alongside our international partners about the need for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire right now,” Nandy told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
In a carefully caveated 237-word amendment to the SNP motion calling for an immediate end to violence, Labour also calls for Israel not the invade the city of Rafah, for aid to be allowed to flow to Gaza and for the international community to work towards a two-state solution. It stresses that Israel cannot be expected to abide by a ceasefire if Hamas continues to threaten further violence.
Read more of Geneva Abdul’s report here: Labour’s Gaza amendment is chance to ‘speak with one voice’, says Nandy
Al Jazeera has spoken to people in Gaza this morning. One man, who had just lost his one-and-a-half-year-old son in an Israeli attack, told the news network:
This is a crime in which everyone participated. The US veto participated in this crime as did those Arabs and Muslims who failed to support us.
Another man, whose nephews had been killed, said:
They were sitting on the beach of Khan Younis at night, presumably in a safe area, when they were attacked. They are three children. They are not guilty.
At least 67 Palestinians killed overnight in Israeli strikes on Gaza
Israeli strikes across Gaza killed at least 67 Palestinians overnight and into Wednesday, including in areas where civilians have been told to seek refuge, AP reports.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah says it received 44 bodies after multiple strikes in central Gaza. Associated Press reporters saw the bodies arriving in ambulances and private vehicles.
Also Wednesday, the aid group Doctors Without Borders said that two people were killed when a shelter housing staff in the Gaza Strip was struck during an Israeli operation in an area where Palestinians have been told to seek shelter.
“While details are still emerging, ambulance crews have now reached the site, where at least two family members of our colleagues have been killed and six people wounded. We are horrified by what has taken place,” the group said in a post on social media.
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There are reports of explosions in southern Lebanon, near the UN-drawn blue line that separates Israel from Lebanon. Israel and anti-Israeli forces in the area have been almost constantly exchanging fire since 7 October.
Yesterday, Israel’s government spokesperson Eylon Levy warned Hezbollah that it must “back off” from the boundary, otherwise Israel would force it back.
Earlier today, Israeli media reported that the IDF had instructed residents in several communities near the blue line to limit their movements.
Some more images here from the scene of an apparent missile strike in Damascus, which Syrian state media has blamed on Israel.
The International Court of Justice in The Hague will be sitting again today to here oral arguments in the case “legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.”
The session is due to begin at 9am GMT. The proceedings are live streamed which you can watch here, and you can find all the documents here.
Yesterday South Africa, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands, Bangladesh and Belgium spoke in the morning session, and Belize, Bolivia, Brazil and Chile spoke in the afternoon. There are six days of hearings scheduled and today will be the third.
The court is being asked to offer an advisory opinion, which is likely to take months, and in all probability its findings will be ignored by Israel, which has ignored a previous 2004 ruling that its construction of a barrier wall in the occupied West Bank was illegal.
However, the case has afforded the opportunity for the Palestinian people to put forward a nearly 400 page on the record submission documenting its claims against Israel, including quotes from significant Israeli figures that imply the state has no intention of ever allowing the Palestinian Authority to regain territory Israel seized in 1967.
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Overnight the IDF announced the death of another soldier, stating he was killed in the northern Gaza Strip. It brings to 237 the number of Israeli soliders officially recorded as killed inside Gaza.
A source told Reuters earlier this week that Hamas says it has lost 6,000 fighters since 7 October. Israel has put the number of enemy combatants it has killed at a higher figure – more than 10,000. The Hamas-led health ministry in Gaza has claimed that more than 29,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 65,000 injured since 7 October.
It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
At least two people killed in missile strike on Damascus – reports
Syria’s state TV says an Israeli strike that hit a residential area in the country’s capital of Damascus has killed two people.
AP reports the strike damaged the fourth floor of a ten-storey building, shattered window glass on nearby buildings and also damaged dozens of cars parked in the area. An empty parked bus for the nearby Al-Bawader private school was also damaged and people were seen rushing to the school to take their children.
There has been no comment from the Israeli military, which rarely acknowledges attacking targets inside Syria.
Updated
This image has been released by Syrian media showing a building damaged in an apparent Israeli missile attack on the Kafr Sousa district in Damascus.
Reuters reports witnesses heard several back-to-back explosions, and that the blasts scared children at a nearby school and ambulances rushed to the area.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
The neighbourhood hosts residential buildings, schools and Iranian cultural centres, and lies near a large, heavily guarded complex used by security agencies.
UN World Food Programme pausing food deliveries to northern Gaza
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has announced it is pausing deliveries of food aid to northern Gaza.
This comes after incidents on 18 and 19 February when WFP says convoys were unable to deliver aid as planned, largely due to a breakdown in civil order. It said a truck was looted and the driver beaten.
The UN has said between 1 January and 15 February, 77 missions were planned to deliver aid to the north of the Gaza Strip. Of these missions, the UN says “12 were facilitated by the Israeli authorities, three were partially facilitated, 14 were impeded, 39 were denied access, and nine were postponed.”
The pause in aid delivery comes as a UN-backed report found that one in six children under the age of two in northern Gaza were found to be “acutely malnourished”.
Israel's military claims to have killed 'dozens' more fighters in Gaza Strip
In its latest operational update, Israel’s military has claimed to be operating “in the area of Zaytun, south of Gaza City” and said it has “killed dozens of terrorists in ground encounters and targeted airstrikes”.
The IDF said it recovered “weapons including an RPG and AK-47 rifle” and has located dozens of “terror infrastructures, observation posts, weapon storage facilities, and underground targets”.
It also claims that the military “expanded activities in western Khan Younis, targeting and killing terrorists with precise sniper fire and striking terror infrastructure.”
The claims have not been independently verified.
In this morning’s First Edition newsletter, my colleague Archie Bland has spoken to our diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour about the shifting language around ceasefire calls, and what it tells us. Bland writes:
The daily details of the horror being visited on civilians in Gaza can make any conversation about the language of ceasefire proposals being put forward in foreign capitals seem absurd.
A massive majority at the UN general assembly backed a ceasefire in December; so did the pope. A few days later, both Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer backed a “sustainable” ceasefire. Twenty-six of 27 EU states again called for a ceasefire on Monday. Benjamin Netanyahu has not yet been persuaded by any of them.
But the calls for a ceasefire, and the subtle ways that they’ve changed over time, do tell us something about Israel’s weakening position on the international stage. This week, in the UK and at the UN, rival propositions for what a ceasefire might look like have emerged. Behind the diplomatic wrangling, and a particular crisis today for the Labour party in Britain, is a complicated story about how the violence might end, and who might be able to influence it.
Read more here: Wednesday briefing – Everyone claims to back a ceasefire in Gaza. But what are they really saying?
Israel launches missile attack on Damascus – reports
Several Israeli missiles hit the Kafr Soussa district in Syria’s capital Damascus on Wednesday, Syrian state media reported.
AP reports pro-government Sham FM radio station said the strike hit a building near an Iranian school and caused casualties. Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said the strike was “an assassination” but did not specify who might have been the target.
Reuters reports the neighbourhood houses senior security officials, security branches and intelligence headquarters and Iranian installations. It was previously targeted in what was believed to be an Israeli attack in February 2023 that killed up to 15 people.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of war-torn Syria in recent years, and in December, an Israeli airstrike on a suburb of Damascus killed Iranian general Seyed Razi Mousavi, a longtime adviser of the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in Syria
This map shows the location of the suburb, and where the earlier February attack happened.
More details soon …
Iran blames Israel for last week's attack on gas pipelines
Iran’s oil Minister Javad Owji has said Israel was behind last week’s attack on Iranian gas pipelines Reuters reports, citing semi-official news agency Tasnim.
Two explosions hit Iran’s main south-north gas pipeline network on Feb. 14 and were initially described by Owji as a “terrorist act of sabotage”, without naming any suspects.
Owji said on Wednesday “The enemy intended to disrupt households’ gas supplies … but within two hours our colleagues worked to counter the Israeli plot which only damaged several pipes.”
Welcome and summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.
The UN World Food Programme has said it has paused deliveries of food to isolated northern Gaza across the territory, raising fears of potential starvation. On Monday, it said its convoy had “faced complete chaos and violence due to the collapse of civil order”.
It comes as UN agency Unicef has warned that Gaza could witness an increase in what an official said was “the already unbearable level of child deaths” due to a worsening food crisis.
More on that in a moment, first here’s a summary of the day’s other main news.
The US has vetoed a UN security council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza for the third time, arguing that it would undermine negotiations over a hostage deal. The US was the lone vote against a ceasefire resolution put forward on Tuesday by Algeria.
China expressed “strong disappointment” over the veto, according to state media. “China expresses its strong disappointment at and dissatisfaction with the US veto,” Xinhua reported, citing UN representative Zhang Jun. “The US veto sends a wrong message, pushing the situation in Gaza into a more dangerous one,” said Zhang.
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.
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”.
