Welcome and opening summary

 

5h ago

07.27 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/mar/28/middle-east-crisis-live-us-and-israel-in-talks-to-revive-washington-trip-to-discuss-rafah

 

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.