Here’s how things stand on Wednesday, March 13, 2024:
Fighting and humanitarian crisis
- An aid ship carrying food and other essential items to Gaza, which set sail from Cyprus, was nearing the Palestinian enclave after days of delay.
- The departure came after announcements that Cyprus, the European Union, the United States, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom were jointly working on establishing a maritime corridor to provide aid to Gaza.
- Separately, Israeli forces launched air attacks throughout the Gaza Strip, killing and wounding dozens, including 10 people in Deir el-Balah, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday Israel “will finish the job in Rafah”, reaffirming a ground operation will go ahead in the southern Gaza city.
- UK’s Foreign Secretary David Cameron called for “answers from the Israelis” in response to a BBC report revealing that Israeli soldiers subjected Palestinian medical personnel in Gaza to mistreatment, including blindfolding, detention, stripping and repeated beatings during a hospital raid in February.
𝐔𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞 | WFP delivered enough food for 25,000 people to Gaza City early Tuesday in first successful convoy to the north since 20 February.
With people in northern #Gaza on the brink of famine, we need deliveries every day + we need entry points directly into the north. pic.twitter.com/RGxymQXlR9
— WFP Media (@WFP_Media) March 12, 2024
Regional tensions
- Lebanon’s Hezbollah group says two of its fighters have been killed in the Bekaa Valley after Israeli warplanes launched attacks on the area for a second consecutive day.
- Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is “not a natural disaster” and accused Israel of using starvation as a “weapon of war”.
- Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly pledged $1m to support investigations into allegations of sexual and gender-based violence against Palestinian women. The move comes two days after Joly said Canada would provide $1m to organisations supporting survivors of sexual violence during Hamas’s attacks on October 7.
- Dutch caretaker Prime Minister Mark Rutte is visiting Israel and Egypt on Wednesday to discuss the crisis in the Middle East.
Violence in the occupied West Bank
- Israeli forces have stormed the grounds of the Jenin Government Hospital, shooting and killing one Palestinian man and wounding five others, according to the Wafa news agency.
- Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has expressed support for Israeli soldiers amid outrage over the killing of a Palestinian boy near the Shu’fat refugee camp checkpoint.