Closing summary
It’s 1am in Tel Aviv, Gaza and Beirut. Here’s where we stand:
Dozens of Palestinians, including many women and children, have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a crowded block of flats in the Gaza town of Beit Lahiya on Tuesday. Gaza’s civil defence agency said 93 people had been killed and 40 were still missing, with many of the victims members of the extended Abu Nasr family, as well as Palestinians displaced from elsewhere.
The US state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, called the Israeli strike on Beit Lahiya “a horrifying incident with a horrifying result”. The US is “deeply concerned by the loss of civilian life”, Miller said, noting that “there are reports of two dozen children killed in this incident.” US officials have reached out to Israel’s government “to ask what happened here”, he added.
At least 43,061 Palestinian people have been killed in Gaza and 101,223 injured in Israeli airstrikes since last October, according to the latest figures from the territory’s health ministry on Tuesday.
Israel’s latest major operation in northern Gaza, focused in and around the Jabaliya refugee camp, has killed hundreds of people and driven tens of thousands from their homes in another wave of mass displacement more than a year into the war. Israeli attacks have killed more than 700 people in northern Gaza in a little over three weeks, with nearly 300 of those deaths, mainly in the north, occurring in the past nine days alone.
The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) called for immediate action to avert famine in northern Gaza. It warned that north Gaza “continues to deteriorate, the likelihood of a larger group being impacted by famine will surely increase”. In Gaza’s two northern governorates, where about 300,000 people remain trapped, famine is expected to arrive between now and May.
At least 10 people were killed in an Israeli strike on Sarafand in southern Lebanon late on Tuesday, according to the town’s mayor. An earlier strike further north near Sidon left six dead and 37 wounded, Lebanon’s health ministry said. It said that 2,792 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since last October.
Hezbollah has elected its deputy secretary general, Sheikh Naim Qassem, as its new head, ending a month-long vacuum after the group’s longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed by Israel. Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, warned that Qassem’s appointment was “not for long”.
A senior Hamas official has said the group is “open to any deal or ideas” from mediators to end the war in Gaza but insisted that these should include a complete Israeli military withdrawal from the Palestinian territory. The remarks from Sami Abu Zuhri, do not signal a change from Hamas’s outstanding conditions. Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the war can only end when Hamas is eradicated.
Israel is not addressing the “catastrophic humanitarian crisis” in Gaza, the US envoy to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told the UN security council on Tuesday. Her remarks came as deadline imposed by Washington looms for Israel to improve the situation on the ground in Gaza or face potential restrictions on US military aid.
Norway said it would seek clarification from the international court of justice (ICJ) over Israel’s aid obligations after the Knesset vote banning any cooperation with the UN Palestinian relief agency Unrwa. The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the decision by the Israeli parliament was “intolerable” and would have “devastating consequences”. The UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, on Monday suggested sanctions could be taken against Israeli politicians if Unrwa was “brought to its knees”.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said Unrwa would be prevented from doing general assembly mandated work if Israel implemented the laws, and called on it “to act consistently with its obligations” under the UN charter and international law. In a letter to Netanyahu, Guterres wrote about the “devastating impact on the humanitarian situation of Palestinians in the occupied territory” if the legislation is implemented, his spokesperson said.
Austria’s chancellor Karl Nehammer condemned “in the strongest possible terms” the “very serious” rocket attack on UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, which led to eight Austrian soldiers being injured on Tuesday. The Israeli military said Hezbollah was responsible for the attack on the Unifil headquarters in Naqoura on Tuesday.
Germany has recalled its ambassador to Tehran and summoned the Iranian charge d’affaires in Berlin in protest over the execution of a German-Iranian dual national, Jamshid Sharmahd, accused of terrorism by Iran.
Updated
Care International has condemned the decision by Israel’s Knesset yesterday to ban the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), calling the move “indefensible” and said it “flies in the face of the countless promises to its allies that it plans to increase aid”.
The charity called on the UK government to stop selling arms to Israel in a statement on Tuesday. It said:
We urge world leaders to do all they can to pressure Israel into reversing this law and securing an immediate ceasefire. This is another example of Israel ignoring its obligations under international law. The UK Government must end all arms sales to Israel. What more evidence does this Government need before they stop fuelling this war?
