Summary of the day
Here are all the key developments from the Middle East crisis today:
Israel and the US revived talks on an official, high-level visit to Washington to discuss the planned offensive on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, after they had been cancelled when Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted angrily to the US decision to abstain in a UN security council vote on a ceasefire.
A gunman in military uniform opened fire on vehicles in the occupied West Bank, wounding at least three people, including a 13 year-old boy, emergency services said.
Australian officials scrambled to “understand what the allegations are” against Unrwa staff and complained of “precious nothing in the public domain” hours before the government suspended funding to the “vital” aid agency.
Bayan Abusultan, a Gaza city-based journalist, has not been heard from since 19 March when she tweeted that her only brother had been killed by Israeli forces “in front of [her] eyes”. There has been no activity on her social media accounts since, sparking concerns about her safety.
France will provide over 30 million euros to United Nations Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA this year to support its operations amid the devastating war in Gaza, said the foreign ministry in Paris.
The Palestinian Authority announced the formation of a new Cabinet as it faces international pressure to reform.
Thanks for following today. We’re closing for the rest of the day but we’ll be back with key updates in the crisis tomorrow.
The Palestinian Authority has announced the formation of a new Cabinet as it faces international pressure to reform, Associated Press reports.
President Mahmoud Abbas, who has led the PA for nearly two decades, announced the new government in a presidential decree on Thursday. None of the incoming ministers is a well-known figure.
Abbas tapped Mohammad Mustafa, a longtime adviser, to be prime minister earlier this month. Mustafa, a politically independent US-educated economist, has vowed to form a technocratic government and create an independent trust fund to help rebuild Gaza. Mustafa will also serve as foreign minister.
Interior Minister Ziad Hab al-Rih is a member of Abbas’ secular Fatah movement and held the same portfolio in the previous government. The Interior Ministry oversees the security forces. The incoming minister for Jerusalem affairs, Ashraf al-Awar, registered to run as a Fatah candidate in elections in 2021 that were indefinitely delayed.
At least five of the incoming 23 ministers are from Gaza, but it was not immediately clear if they are still in the territory.
France will provide over 30 million euros to United Nations Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA this year to support its operations amid the devastating war in Gaza, said the foreign ministry in Paris.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Christophe Lemoine told journalists:
We will make our contributions while ensuring that the conditions are met for UNRWA to fulfil its missions in a spirit devoid of incitement to hatred and violence.
He did not say when the next payment to the agency would be made. According to the usual quarterly schedule, the next tranche is due in April.
The White House says it is working to rearrange a visit by an Israeli delegation to Washington that was abruptly cancelled by Benjamin Netanyahu after the US decision not to veto a UN security council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, writes Guardian correspondent Peter Beaumont.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, confirmed reports that the Israeli prime minister had climbed down over the visit and agreed to reschedule it. “We’re now working with them to find a convenient date that’s obviously going to work for both sides,” she said.
Netanyahu has come in for withering criticism domestically over his handling of relations with Israel’s most important military and diplomatic ally, which came to a head after the security council vote on Monday.
Following the vote, Netanyahu’s office cancelled a visit to Washington by a delegation led by the Israeli strategic affairs minister, Ron Dermer, and national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, to discuss Israel’s planned military operation against the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which the US opposes.
The latest diplomatic moves came as the UN reported that famine was “ever closer to becoming a reality in northern Gaza” and that the territory’s health system was collapsing owing to the continuing hostilities and “access constraints”.
In the UK, pro-Palestine protesters have occupied the entrance to the government’s trade department over its perceived links to the supply of arms to Israel, PA media reports.
London for a Free Palestine targeted the Department for Business and Trade early on Thursday.
The protesters staged a distraction involving a cyclist crashing into a pedestrian, before forcing their way past a security guard and sitting on the floor in the entrance to the government building, chanting the slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.
Zak Suffee, 37, who works as a charity campaigner, said the department was “where the arms contracts are agreed for Israel”.
He called on the government to halt arms deals with Israel, saying that “stopping sales to Israel and calling for a ceasefire are big steps that could really help, and by not doing that means that they are actually enabling genocide”.
Once the protesters had been removed by police from inside the building, they unfurled a banner which read “stop arming Israel” while wearing black T-shirts emblazoned with the same message.
“We have been seeing the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians”, Mr Suffee said, adding: “It’s really time for the UK Government to actually do something. And this is one very concrete thing that will enable the killing to stop.
“It’s possible that the UK’s hands will be tied because they prefer to stay in good favour with America, but I think the right thing to do is call for an arms embargo, make sure that no sales to Israel happen and ideally shut down the arms factories.”
The Department for Business and Trade has been contacted for comment.
Updated
Bayan Abusultan, a Gaza city-based journalist, has not been heard from since 19 March when she tweeted that her only brother had been killed by Israeli forces “in front of [her] eyes”.
There has been no activity on her social media accounts since, sparking concerns about her safety.
Israeli forces just murdered my only brother in front of my eyes.
— Bayan 𓂆 (@BayanPalestine) March 19, 2024
أخويا شهيد.
Reporters sans frontières - Reporters Without Borders (RSF) wrote on X she was among those sequestered in the raid on Al Shifa hospital in Gaza and demanded that the Israeli army immediately shed light on her disappearance.
#Gaza: RSF alerts on the disappearance of 🇵🇸 journalist Bayan Abusultan, last seen on 19/03 among those sequestered in the raid on Al Shifa hospital in Gaza. RSF demands that the 🇮🇱 army immediately shed light on the disappearance of @BayanPalestine. pic.twitter.com/Q11b1XJHD7
— RSF (@RSF_inter) March 27, 2024
As of March 27, 2024, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists at least 95 journalists and media workers were among the more than 32,000 killed since the war began on October 7.
Updated
32,552 Palestinians have been killed and 74,980 injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, the Gazan health ministry said.
Australian officials scrambled to understand allegations before Unrwa funding suspended, documents show
Australian officials scrambled to “understand what the allegations are” against Unrwa staff and complained of “precious nothing in the public domain” hours before the government suspended funding to the “vital” aid agency.
New documents obtained by Guardian Australia show how the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade rushed to gather information after Israel alleged 12 Unrwa staffers were involved in the 7 October Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel.
The emails shed light on some of the internal discussions that occurred prior to the government’s decision in late January to pause $6m in emergency top-up funding to the agency, although some parts of the documents are redacted.
Just two weeks earlier, a senior Dfat official had described Unrwa as “the largest provider of humanitarian assistance in Gaza” with a distribution network that was “vital for assistance to reach those in need”.
The foreign minister, Penny Wong, announced on Saturday 27 January that the $6m in top-up funding to Unrwa would be paused “temporarily”, after similar moves by other countries including the United States.
A gunman in military uniform opened fire on vehicles in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, wounding at least three people, including a 13 year-old boy, emergency services said.
The Israeli military said soldiers had blocked routes in the area, adjacent to the town of Al-Auja in the Jordan Valley, following reports and were pursuing the gunman.
Israeli media said a man wearing military uniform opened fire on passing vehicles, hitting a school bus, in which a 13 year-old boy was hurt by shrapnel, and wounding two other men in separate cars.
Israel and US resume talks over high-level visit
Israel and the US have revived talks on an official, high-level visit to Washington to discuss the planned offensive on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
The talks were cancelled after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted angrily to the US decision to abstain in a UN security council vote on a ceasefire, allowing it to pass.
“So we’re now working with them to find a convenient date that’s obviously going to work for both sides,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
No date has been finalised yet. One US official said strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer and national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi would be among the delegation to come to Washington, reports Associated Press.
The delegation to the US was meant to discuss a promised ground invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which is overflowing with displaced civilians. Israel has so far rejected American appeals to call off the planned assault.
Welcome and opening summary
It’s almost 9:30am in Gaza and Tel Aviv and welcome to our latest blog on the Israel-Gaza war and the wider Middle East crisis.
Talks have restarted aimed at bringing top Israeli officials to Washington to discuss potential military operations in Gaza, reports Associated Press.
The visit was cancelled after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu cancelled a planned visit this week in anger over the US deciding to abstain on a UN ceasefire resolution, the White House said Wednesday.
More on that in a moment but first, here’s a summary of the latest developments:
A human rights official has resigned from the US state department over Gaza saying the Biden administration is flouting US law by continuing to arm Israel, and is hushing up evidence that the US had seen on Israeli human rights abuses.
Ireland is to seek to widen the definition of genocide to include blocking humanitarian aid in a landmark international court of justice (ICJ) case against Israel. The Irish government will intervene in the case taken by South Africa and argue that restricting food and other essentials in Gaza may constitute genocidal intent, the foreign minister, Micheál Martin, said on Wednesday.
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”.
A series of Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon killed 16 people and a barrage of rockets fired by the militant group Hezbollah killed one Israeli man, making Wednesday the deadliest day in more than five months of fighting along the border, reports Associated Press.
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.
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.
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.
Dozens of Israeli settlers and rightwing activists have protested by again blocking the entrances of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) office in Jerusalem and calling for the body’s closure.
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”.
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 US military says it has downed four drones launched by Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen aimed at a US warship in the Red Sea. US Central Command said in a statement on X that its forces had “engaged and destroyed four long-range unmanned aerial systems” at about 2 am Sana’a time (2300 GMT), adding there were no injuries or damage reported to US or coalition ships.
