Closing summary
In Nasser hospital, southern Gaza’s main health facility, authorities are reported to have recovered a further 35 bodies in the past day from what they say is one of at least three mass graves found at the site, taking the total found there to 310 in the past week.
UN rights chief Volker Turk said he was “horrified” by the destruction of the Nasser and al-Shifa medical facilities in Gaza and the reports of mass graves discovered there. Turk, addressing a UN briefing via a spokesperson, also decried Israeli strikes on Gaza in recent days, which he said have killed mostly women and children. He also repeated a warning against a full-scale incursion on Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, where more than 1 million people are sheltering, saying this could lead to “further atrocity crimes”.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said it had launched a drone attack against Israeli military bases north of the city of Acre, in its deepest strike into Israeli territory since Israel’s war in Gaza began in October. The Israeli military said it had no knowledge of any of its facilities being hit by Hezbollah, but had said earlier on Tuesday that it intercepted two “aerial targets” off Israel’s northern coast. Hezbollah said it acted in retaliation for an earlier Israeli attack killing one of its fighters.
Israel bombarded northern Gaza overnight in some of the heaviest shelling in weeks, residents said. Shelling was intense east of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia and continued on Tuesday morning in areas such as Zeitoun, one of Gaza City’s oldest suburbs, with residents reporting at least 10 strikes in a matter of seconds along the main road. Just west of Beit Hanoun in Beit Lahiya, medics and Hamas media said strikes had hit a mosque and a crowd gathering on the coastal road to collect aid dropped from the air.
At least 34,183 Palestinian people have been killed and 77,143 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement.
Qatar said there was no reason to end the presence of an office for Hamas in Doha while its mediation efforts continued amid Israel’s war in Gaza. It came after the US state department said Hamas “moved the goalpost” and changed its demands in negotiations with Israel. But it’s not clear what exactly has shifted in the details of the talks, which are being mediated by Egypt and Qatar.
A Palestinian rights group’s legal challenge to try to stop British arms exports to Israel over allegations of breaches of international law in the war in Gaza will be heard in October at London’s high court, a judge ruled on Tuesday.
We are closing this blog now, but you can stay up to date on the Guardian’s Middle East coverage here.
Updated
The high court has granted permission for a judicial review hearing challenging the UK government’s decision to continue granting arms to Israel which organisations say risk being used in violation of international law in Gaza.
The legal challenge against the UK Department for Business and Trade by the Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq and the UK-based Global Legal Action Network (Glan) has been revived after the court first dismissed the case urging the suspension of UK arms sales to Israel in February.
The organisations, who first launched the case in December, made their case for a judicial review of the government’s arms sales in a “rolled-up” hearing at the high court in London on Tuesday. The hearing of the legal challenge will take place in early October.
Speaking before the court, Victoria Wakefield KC for Al-Haq mentioned the “strength of feeling” of those she represents, citing the overwhelming scale of civilian harm in Gaza, the catastrophic food insecurity and ground offensive in Rafah. More than 34,000 Palestinians – mostly civilians – have been killed during Israel’s military campaign, which was sparked by a Hamas attack on southern Israel on 7 October.
“Its frankly difficult to conceive,” said Wakefield. “The bodies are mounting up and it will get worse and worse and worse.”
The case comes as the UK government faces ongoing pressure to disclose the official legal advice on the government’s reasoning for continuing to export arms to Israel. Earlier this month, more than 600 lawyers, academics and retired senior judges warned that the UK government is breaching international law by continuing to arm Israel.
In January, court documents revealed that Foreign Office legal advisers were unable to conclude that Israel was in compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL) in its bombardment of Gaza. On 18 December, the government decided to continue arms sales licenses despite serious concerns expressed by Foreign Office officials about aspects of the Israeli assault against Hamas.
Since 18 December, there have been 5 legal assessments of the situation in Gaza. Court documents reveal that a new decision was made on 8 April, with the decision to continue arms sales licenses.
In written submissions, Sir James Eadie KC for the secretary of state for Business and Trade said the issues have been considered “with conspicuous care and thoroughness”.
“The secretary of state’s position is that those decisions have at all times been lawful and, in particular, rational,” said Eadie.
Glan said that “in a last-minute strategic shift” the government refrained from asking the Court to find the claim is inarguable, and argued that relevant documents can only be shared in closed, secret proceedings due to national security.
“The UK government has stretched legal reasoning to the point of absurdity in order to arm a country that is committing grave violations of international humanitarian law,” said Dearbhla Minogue, a senior lawyer at Glan after the hearing.
“The government seems to be making this process as painstakingly slow as possible. Given the urgency of the situation in Gaza the government should listen to the international legal consensus and halt weapons sales now.”
Authorities recover 35 bodies over the past day at Nasser hospital
In Nasser hospital, southern Gaza’s main health facility, authorities are reported to have recovered a further 35 bodies in the past day from what they say is one of at least three mass graves found at the site, taking the total found there to 310 in the past week.
Palestinians say Israeli troops buried corpses there with bulldozers, Reuters reported.
The Israeli military said its troops had dug up some bodies at the site and reburied them after testing to make sure no hostages were among them.
The Associated Press has reported the burial area in the Nasser hospital was built when Israeli forces were besieging the facility last month.
At the time, people were not able to bury the dead in a cemetery and dug graves in the hospital yard, the civil defence group said.
Updated
Police arrested about 150 protesters at pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Yale and New York University on Monday night, while Columbia University announced that classes would be taught remotely for the rest of the semester, as anger boiled over on leading US campuses.
On the Yale University campus in New Haven, Connecticut, authorities arrested at least 47 protesters on Monday evening, the university said in a statement. Students who were arrested will be referred for disciplinary action.
Several hundred people had been protesting on the Yale university campus, including hunger strikers, demanding the university divest from military weapons manufacturers and other companies with ties to Israel. Yale said it had repeatedly asked students to leave, and warned them they could face law enforcement and disciplinary action if they did not.
And in downtown Manhattan, police clashed with protesters at New York University. There were reports of officers using pepper spray as demonstrators tried to block a police bus from leaving the scene with detained students, and more than 100 people were arrested.
You can read the full story by my colleagues, Erum Salam and Joanna Walters, here:
Key event
Finland says it supports the activities of the UN relief works agency for Palestinians (Unrwa) across the region, with 10% of the country’s support for the agency this year earmarked for “risk management”.
Minister for Foreign Trade and Development @VilleTavio met with Senior Deputy Heli Uusikylä from UNRWA’s Gaza office. Finland supports UNRWA’s work in Gaza and across the region. 10 % of Finland’s support for UNRWA this year is earmarked for risk management. @UNRWA @UNRWA_EU pic.twitter.com/SdQ7U1HZGE
— MFA Finland 🇫🇮 (@Ulkoministerio) April 23, 2024
Allegations of the involvement of Unrwa staff in the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel led major donors in January to cut their funding to the agency, the main channel of humanitarian support not only to Palestinians in Gaza but to Palestinian refugee communities across the region.
Finland was among the countries which withdrew funding from Unrwa over the claims but it has since reversed this decision.
The funding was cut despite the dire needs of 2.3 million people in Gaza, most of whom have been forced from their homes by the Israeli offensive since 7 October and have been struggling to find water, food, shelter or medical care.
An independent review, led by the former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna, has found Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence of its claims that employees of Unrwa are members of terrorist organisations.
Updated
Hezbollah reportedly launches deepest attack into Israel since Gaza war
Reuters reports that Hezbollah has said in a statement it had launched a drone attack on Israeli military bases north of the city of Acre, which would mark its deepest attack inside Israel since 7 October.
Hezbollah - a Lebanese Shia Muslim militant group – said it acted in retaliation for an earlier Israeli attack killing one of its fighters.
The group published what appeared to be a satellite photo, with the location of the strike symbolised by a flash with a red circle around it that sat halfway between Acre and Nahariyya to the north.
Israel and anti-Israeli forces including Hezbollah have frequently exchanged fire over the UN-drawn blue line that divides Israel and Lebanon since 7 October.
In recent weeks Israeli soldiers have been wounded on the Lebanese side of the line, and in the last couple of days an Israeli drone operating over Lebanese airspace was shot down.
Updated
Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian man early Tuesday in the West Bank city of Jericho, an eyewitness and Palestinian officials said.
Associated Press reports the Palestinian health ministry identified the man as Shadi Jalaita, 44, and said he suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the chest.
His uncle, Shafiq Jalaita, said the man had been outside his home watching an Israeli military raid taking place at a neighbour’s house in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Suddenly, three gunshots rang out, he said.
“The third bullet hit his chest and came out of his back,” Jalaita said.
The Israeli army has not commented on the shooting.
The health ministry said a child also was shot in the stomach in Jericho and was in critical condition. No further details were available.
Israel’s military has said that the incident in northern Israel has ended, and that the sirens were sounding for the risk of falling shrapnel. It says “the IDF aerial defense array successfully intercepted two suspicious aerial targets off the northern coast”.
Here are some of the latest images sent to us today from Gaza over the news wires.
Within the last thirty minutes the IDF has posted to its Telegram channel that warning sirens have sounded in the north of Israel. It also claims “the IDF aerial defence array successfully intercepted a suspicious aerial target off the coast of Nahariyya.”
Summary of the day so far...
Israel bombarded northern Gaza overnight in some of the heaviest shelling in weeks, residents said. Shelling was intense east of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia and continued on Tuesday morning in areas such as Zeitoun, one of Gaza City’s oldest suburbs, with residents reporting at least 10 strikes in a matter of seconds along the main road. Just west of Beit Hanoun in Beit Lahiya, medics and Hamas media said strikes had hit a mosque and a crowd gathering on the coastal road to collect aid dropped from the air.
UN rights chief Volker Turk said he was “horrified” by the destruction of the Nasser and al-Shifa medical facilities in Gaza and reports of mass graves discovered there. The emergency services said yesterday that 73 more bodies had been found at the site of the Nasser hospital, the biggest in southern Gaza, in the past day, raising the number found over the week to at least 283 people.
At least 34,183 Palestinian people have been killed and 77,143 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement.
Qatar said there was no reason to end the presence of an office for Hamas in Doha while its mediation efforts continued amid Israel’s war in Gaza. It came after the US state department said Hamas “moved the goalpost” and changed its demands in negotiations with Israel. But it’s not clear what exactly has shifted in the details of the talks, which are being mediated by Egypt and Qatar.
Qatar said there was no reason to end the presence of an office for Hamas in Doha while its mediation efforts continued amid Israel’s war on Gaza.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari added in a press conference that Qatar remained committed to mediation but was reassessing its role in “frustration with attacks” on its efforts.
The US state department has said Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, has “moved the goalpost” and changed its demands in negotiations with Israel.
But it’s not clear what exactly has shifted in the details of the talks, which are being mediated by Egypt and Qatar.
Updated
The Senate is returning to Washington to vote on $95bn in war aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, taking the final steps in Congress to send the legislation to Joe Biden’s desk after months of delays.
The foreign aid package, which was approved by the US House of Representatives over the weekend, includes $26.4bn (£21.34bn) in military support for Israel.
The package has had broad congressional support since Biden first requested the money last summer.
But congressional leaders had to navigate strong opposition from a growing number of conservatives who question US involvement in foreign wars.
Several dozen Democrats voted against the bill aiding Israel as they demanded an end to the bombardment of Gaza that has killed, according to Gaza’s health ministry, over 34,000 Palestinians.
Israel strikes northern Gaza in heaviest shelling in weeks – residents
The Israeli military bombarded northern Gaza overnight in some of the heaviest shelling in weeks, residents have told Reuters.
Army tanks made a new incursion east of Beit Hanoun on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, though they did not penetrate far into the city, according to residents, with gunfire reportedly reaching some schools where displaced people were sheltering.
Shelling was intense east of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia and continued on Tuesday morning in areas such as Zeitoun, one of Gaza City’s oldest suburbs, with residents reporting at least 10 strikes in a matter of seconds along the main road.
Just west of Beit Hanoun in Beit Lahiya, medics and Hamas media said strikes had hit a mosque and a crowd gathering on the coastal road to collect aid dropped from the air.
“It was one of those nights of horror that we had lived in at the start of the war. The bombing from tanks and planes didn’t stop,” Um Mohammad, 53, a mother-of-six living 700 metres from Zeitoun, said.
“I had to gather with my children and my sisters who came to shelter with me in one place and pray for our lives as the house kept shaking,” she told Reuters.
“I don’t know if we will make it alive before this war stops.”
The Israeli army said rockets launched overnight into Israel had come from firing positions in northern Gaza. It said it had struck rocket launchers and killed several militants overnight, in what the army called “targeted and precise” strikes.
Updated
A source close to Hezbollah said an Israeli strike deep into Lebanon killed a fighter of the Iran-backed militant group on Tuesday as he was travelling in a vehicle, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
The strike hit the Abu al-Aswad area near the coastal city of Tyre, about 35 kilometres (22 miles) from the border, an AFP journalist reported.
The source told AFP that the fighter killed was an engineer attached to Hezbollah’s air defence forces.
Lebanon’s state-run National news agency said an Israeli drone had fired on his vehicle, which an AFP journalist said was completely burnt out. These claims are yet to be independently verified by the Guardian.
Israel and Hezbollah – a Lebanese Shia Muslim militant group – trade almost daily strikes across the border, which began with the start of Israel’s war on Gaza after the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was quoted by media as saying he does not believe the Palestinian militant group Hamas will leave Qatar, where it is based, adding he had seen no such signs from Doha either.
Speaking to reporters on a return flight from Iraq, the Turkish leader also said the full capture of Gaza by Israel would “open the door” for further invasions of Palestinian territories, according to broadcaster Haberturk and other media outlets.
Erdoğan met the head of Hamas’ politburo, Ismail Haniyeh alongside key members of his cabinet and Sameh Shoukry, the Egyptian foreign minister, on Saturday to discuss Israeli attacks on Gaza and efforts to calm tensions across the region, according to the Turkish presidential office.
Qatar’s prime minister said last week that his country was re-evaluating its role as mediator in ceasefire talks between Hamas and Israel, citing concerns that its efforts are being undermined by politicians seeking to score points.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who is also foreign minister, said there was a “misuse of this mediation for narrow political interests, and this necessitated Qatar to undertake a full evaluation of this role”.
Updated
UN rights chief 'horrified' by mass grave reports at Gaza hospitals
UN rights chief Volker Turk has said he was “horrified” by the destruction of the Nasser and al-Shifa medical facilities in Gaza and reports of mass graves discovered there.
The emergency services said yesterday that 73 more bodies had been found at the site of the Nasser hospital, the biggest in southern Gaza, in the past day, raising the number found over the week to at least 283 people.
Israel says it was forced to battle inside hospitals because Hamas fighters operated there, which medical staff and Hamas deny.
Turk, addressing a UN briefing via a spokesperson on Tuesday, also decried Israeli strikes on Gaza in recent days, which he said have killed mostly women and children.
He also repeated a warning against a full-scale incursion on Rafah, saying this could lead to “further atrocity crimes”.
Here are some of the latest images coming out from the newswires:
Rights groups have flagged numerous incidents of civilian harm during Israel’s war on Gaza, as well as raising the alarm about rising violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Palestinian health ministry records show Israeli forces or settlers have killed at least 460 Palestinians since the Hamas attack on 7 October.
The state department in its 2023 human rights report about Israel said the war has had “a significant negative impact” on the human rights situation in Israel, and cited allegations of numerous incidents such as arbitrary or unlawful killings, enforced disappearance, torture and unjustified arrests of journalists among others.
However, so far the Biden administration has said it has not found Israel in breach of international law.
Advocates have raised questions of double standards saying Washington has been quick to condemn the actions of, for example, Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, but the Biden administration has been careful not to go too far in its criticism of Israel.
Ireland’s foreign minister, Micheál Martin, has welcomed the conclusion of the Colonna report into the UN relief works agency for Palestinians (Unrwa), which found that Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence of its claims that employees of the agency are members of terrorist organisations.
The Colonna report, which was commissioned by the UN in the wake of Israeli allegations, found that Unrwa had regularly supplied Israel with lists of its employees for vetting, and that “the Israeli government has not informed Unrwa of any concerns relating to any Unrwa staff based on these staff lists since 2011”.
Allegations of the involvement of Unrwa staff in the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel led major donors in January to cut their funding to the agency, the main channel of humanitarian support not only to Palestinians in Gaza but to Palestinian refugee communities across the region.
Speaking in Cairo ahead of a meeting with the Egyptian foreign minister and a visit to the Rafah crossing into Gaza, Martin said the report had vindicated Ireland’s response to the allegations made by Israel.
He was quoted by RTÉ as saying:
We were very clear from the word go that you could not replace or undermine Unwra’s role in terms of giving vital aid, teaching, education.
Half a million children in Gaza have been without education, and the only credible organisation that can deliver education is Unrwa.
We took an opposite view to most countries, we actually increased our aid at that time, and I’m hoping now as a result of the publication of this report that some countries who have paused their support will now allow their support.
Updated
Death toll in Gaza reaches 34,183, says health ministry
At least 34,183 Palestinian people have been killed and 77,143 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
The death toll includes 32 people killed in the past 24 hours.
Most of the casualties since October have been women and children, the ministry has said, and thousands more bodies are likely to remain uncounted under rubble across the devastated enclave.
EU sanctions announced after Iran’s attack against Israel are “regrettable” because the country was acting in self-defence, Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, has said.
Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles on Israel in what it said was retaliation against a suspected Israeli bombing of its embassy compound in Damascus.
On Monday, EU foreign ministers agreed in principle to expand sanctions on Iran by agreeing to extend restrictive measures on Tehran’s weapons exports of any drone or missile to Iranian proxies and Russia.
“It is regrettable to see the EU deciding quickly to apply more unlawful restrictions against Iran just because Iran exercised its right to self-defence in the face of Israel’s reckless aggression,” Amirabdollahian wrote on X, before calling on the EU to apply sanctions on Israel instead.
It is regrettable to see the EU deciding quickly to apply more unlawful restrictions against Iran just because Iran exercised its right to self-defence in the face of Israel’s reckless aggression. The EU should not follow Washington’s advice to satisfy the criminal Israeli…
— H.Amirabdollahian امیرعبداللهیان (@Amirabdolahian) April 23, 2024
Tensions flared between pro-Palestinian student protesters and school administrators at several US universities on Monday, as in-person classes were cancelled and demonstrators arrested.
The protests, which began last week at Columbia University with a large group of demonstrators establishing a so-called “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on school grounds, have spread to other campuses, including Yale and MIT.
Some Jewish students at Columbia have reported intimidation and antisemitism amid the days-long protest, which is calling for the prestigious New York institution to divest from companies with ties to Israel.
Classes were moved online on Monday, with university president Nemat Shafik calling for a “reset” in an open letter to the school community.
You can read more about the student protests at Columbia University here.
Opening summary
Welcome to our latest live news blog on Israel’s war in Gaza and the wider Middle East crisis.
The US state department says Hamas has “moved the goalpost” and changed its demands in negotiations with Israel. But it’s not clear what exactly has shifted in the details of the talks, which are being mediated by Egypt and Qatar.
State department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday at his daily press briefing that the US would continue to push for an agreement that would see hostages taken on 7 October released and a pause in fighting in Gaza, Reuters reported.
Hamas fighters killed about 1,200 people and abducted another 253, on 7 October, according to Israeli tallies. Some of the hostages were freed in a November truce, but efforts to secure another deal to release the remaining 133 captives appear to have stalled for now.
Hamas has been pushing for a far more significant cessation in hostilities, including a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, even as Israeli officials have vowed to continue with the war.
Here is a summary of some of the other latest developments:
Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence of its claims that employees of the UN relief agency Unrwa are members of terrorist organisations, an independent review led by the former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna has found. Israeli allegations of the involvement of Unrwa staff in the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel led major donors in January to cut their funding to the agency.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has rejected the idea that Washington might have a “double standard” when applying US law to allegations of abuses by the Israeli military in Gaza, while suggesting that examinations of such charges are ongoing.
Gaza authorities say over 200 bodies have been recovered so far from a temporary mass grave at what is left of Nasser hospital, which was besieged and raided by Israeli troops. Residents said Israeli troops fought their way back into an eastern section of Khan Younis in a surprise raid on Monday. Israel’s military has said that it remains operational during the Passover holiday and “is at full readiness in all areas”.
The head of the World Health Organization on Monday again called for safe passage for humanitarian aid missions throughout Gaza after an aid team failed to complete its most recent trip to the devastated northern part of the enclave.
Doctors in Gaza have saved a baby from the womb of her mother as she lay dying from head injuries sustained in an in Israeli airstrike. The girl was delivered via an emergency caesarean section at a hospital in Rafah.
At least 34,151 Palestinians have been killed and 77,084 injured by israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October, Gaza’s health ministry said on Monday. Israel says that over the same period 260 of its troops have been killed inside the Gaza Strip during its ground operation, with 1,582 injured.
In a resignation letter, Aharon Haliva, the general in command of the IDF’s military intelligence directorate on 7 October, has described the Hamas attack inside southern Israel as a “black day” that he has carried with him ever since. Haliva said he was proud of the way that the men and women of the IDF had responded since that day, but that in failing to prevent the assault his team had not “lived up to the task”. He will stay in post until a replacement is appointed.
Israeli forces conducted raids across the Israeli-occupied West Bank early Monday, injuring a man in the Balata refugee camp and detaining at least 25 more according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society.
Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi is in Islamabad on a three-day trip to Pakistan.
Updated
