Israeli Aggression
Live Reporting
Netanyahu will go down in history for ‘using hunger as a weapon’ in Gaza
French Senator Guillaume Gontard says Netanyahu will go down in history for “using hunger as a weapon” in Gaza.
In his speech at the Senate General Assembly on Wednesday, the president of the ecologist group in the French Senate said history books would write that Israel caused an explosion of violence in the Gaza Strip after October 7.
He quoted EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell when he labelled Gaza as “the world’s biggest open-air graveyard” while adding that the “apocalypse-like” situation in Gaza has been noted by journalists and doctors.
On a Jordanian aid airdrop over Gaza City
Jordan is one of several nations airdropping aid into Gaza amid the Israeli attacks, helping to bring dozens of tonnes of food, medical supplies and other necessities to a desperate population.
I was on one of the Jordanian air force’s recent airdrop flights over Gaza City, which the crew took as a “personal mission” to help their Palestinian neighbours.
“It’s our duty to deliver this aid to our family [the Palestinians],” one crew member told me after the flight. “But it is not enough.”
At least 65 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks in 24 hours
Israeli attacks have killed at least 65 people and wounded 92 across Gaza in the latest 24-hour reporting period.
These casualties bring the total number of people killed in Gaza to 31,988, with 74,1888 injured, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry.
An additional 8,000 people are missing.
The majority of these victims are women and children, according to the ministry.
Israeli army issues evacuation warning for al-Shifa Hospital
Hani Mahmoud, our colleague on the ground in Gaza, is reporting that the Israeli army is warning the displaced people in al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City to evacuate immediately or it would be bombed.
Judging by the pattern of bombing at the hospital and areas around it, it seems like the entire complex will be destroyed, he added.
Ceasefire talks: What are Israel and Hamas saying?
Late last week, Hamas presented a proposal for a potential truce to mediators which included the release of Palestinian prisoners for Israeli captives’ release, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the delivery of aid, among other things.
In response, Netanyahu’s office said the offer was based on “unrealistic demands”.
One fundamental disagreement between the two sides is that Hamas wants a permanent ceasefire while Israel insists on the “total eradication of Hamas”.
Blinken says ‘gaps narrowing’ between Israel and Hamas on ceasefire
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said he believes “the gaps are narrowing” and a ceasefire agreement is “very much possible” between Hamas and Israel, the Saudi news channel Al Hadath reports.
“We worked very hard with Qatar, Egypt and Israel to put a strong proposal on the table … Hamas wouldn’t accept it. They came back with other demands. The negotiators are working on that right now, but I believe it’s very much doable, and it’s very much necessary,” he told the outlet.
Blinken added that if “Hamas cares at all about the people it purports to represent, then it would reach an agreement”.
An Israeli delegation is currently in Doha to meet with Egyptian, US and Qatari mediators to discuss a three-stage captives-for-ceasefire proposal tabled by Hamas.
Israel orders 25 patients to return to Gaza from East Jerusalem hospitals
Israeli authorities ordered 25 patients who had been receiving treatment in hospitals in occupied East Jerusalem to return to Gaza on Wednesday, the UN office for humanitarian affairs (OCHA) reports.
The patients are among 400 patients, including cancer patients, from Gaza who were stranded in the occupied West Bank in October last year, OCHA added.
Until October 7, around 1645 Palestinians were referred to hospitals outside the Gaza Strip each month, of which only around 80 percent received travel permits from Israeli authorities, OCHA adds.
Although the 25 patients ordered to return are reportedly no longer receiving in-patient care, health care services in the Gaza Strip have almost completely collapsed.
The Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, the only hospital specialising in cancer in Gaza, closed in November last year, after an Israeli strike hit one of its buildings.
Netanyahu tells US senators 28,000 people killed in Gaza
On his virtual call with US Republican Senators on Wednesday, Netanyahu estimated the death toll in Gaza at 28,000, Senator Josh Hawley has told the New York Times.
That figure places the number killed in the besieged enclave since Israel began its offensive in October at 4,000 lower than Gaza’s Ministry of Health, which estimates at least 31,923 deaths as of March 20.
Hawley told the New York Times that Netanyahu insisted that Israel was making every effort to minimise civilian casualties.
“He was very mindful of it, he talked about it at some length,” Hawley said.
Netanyahu tells US Republican senators that Gaza war will continue
Benjamin Netanyahu has told Republican Senators that Israel will continue its efforts to defeat Hamas in Gaza, US lawmakers have said, after the Israeli prime minister addressed them via videolink.
“We asked … him for an update, and we got it on the war, on the release of the hostages and in the efforts to defeat Hamas. We told him Israel has every right to defend themselves, and he said that’s exactly what they continue to do,” Senator John Barrasso said.
Netanyahu’s speech came almost a week after Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s Democratic majority leader and the US’s most senior Jewish politician, gave a speech branding Netanyahu an obstacle to peace and urging elections be held in Israel.
Earlier we reported that US House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson said he was considering inviting Netanyahu to address Congress.
Palestinians in Gaza struggle to get cash as hunger deepens
Amid the continuing Israeli military bombardment, Palestinians in Gaza are facing a severe financial crisis and cash shortage.
In Rafah, there are only three working ATMs serving 1.5 million Palestinians. People have to stay in long lines for hours, some sleep overnight on the street so as not to return empty-handed to their families. Money exchange shops take a commission fee that can reach up to 19 percent for $100.
This cash shortage is badly hurting Palestinians who are already no longer able to afford food and other basic necessities due to skyrocketing prices.
Dozens of former US officials pen letter urging Biden to take firmer line with Israel
Almost 70 former US officials, diplomats and military officers have urged President Joe Biden to take a firmer stance with Israel over its actions in Gaza, as well as the expansion of settlements and failure to respect civil liberties in the occupied West Bank.
“The United States must be willing to take concrete action to oppose” such practices, the group said in an open letter to Biden.
The collection of a dozen former ambassadors, as well as retired State Department officials and former Pentagon, intelligence and White House officials, also said that this concrete action must include “restrictions on provision of [US] assistance [to Israel] consistent with US law and policy”.
The letter also highlighted growing dismay in the US over the mounting death toll from Israeli operations in Gaza, and while it said an assault on Hamas was “necessary and justified”, Israel’s actions “have been marked by repeated violations”.
Israeli raids across the occupied West Bank
The Israeli raid on the Nur Shams refugee camp is one of several across the occupied West Bank tonight.
Israeli forces have arrested two Palestinian boys aged 16 and 18 years in the village of Hosan, west of Bethlehem, Wafa reports.
According to the Wafa news agency and local news reports verified by Al Jazeera, Israeli forces have also raided:
The village of Jalbon, northeast of Jenin
Yabad, southwest of Jenin
The city of Qalqilya
The early morning raids come after the Israeli army and internal security agency Shin Bet said in a joint statement that an Israeli jet struck two “senior Islamic Jihad operatives inside a vehicle in the area of Jenin” in the occupied West Bank.
Two killed in Israeli drone attack on West Bank’s Nur Shams refugee camp
Two Palestinian men have been killed by an Israeli drone attack on Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Red Crescent has said, according to the Wafa news agency.
Video verified by Al Jazeera shows one of the men being taken to Thabet Thabet Governmental Hospital in nearby Tulkarem.
We reported earlier that the drone attack on the al-Manshiya neighbourhood was part of an Israeli raid on the camp on the Nur Shams refugee camp.
As many as 50 Israeli military vehicles have raided the camp, declaring it a closed military zone, prohibiting entry and exit of Palestinians, Wafa reported.
Israeli air strike kills three in West Bank: Palestinian ministry
JENIN (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – An Israeli strike on Wednesday killed three Palestinians in a car in the occupied West Bank, including a senior Islamic Jihad militant, the Palestinian health ministry said.
AFP journalists saw a crowd gathered around the charred remains of a vehicle and blood on the pavement in the northern West Bank city of Jenin after the army said "an aircraft struck two senior Islamic Jihad operatives".
Saudi Arabia boosts funding to UNRWA by US$40 million targeting Gaza relief
RIYADH (Reuters) - A Saudi-funded humanitarian agency pledged on Wednesday (Mar 20) to boost the kingdom's funding to the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) by US$40 million, according to a statement.
The donation by the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSrelief), which is dedicated to Gaza, comes as UNRWA faces a severe funding crunch after the United States and Britain paused support following Israel's accusations that a dozen of its 13,000 staff in Gaza took part in the Oct 7 Hamas attack on the country.
Blinken tours the Middle East as Israel-Hamas war pushes Gaza towards famine
GAZA STRIP (AFP) - US top diplomat Antony Blinken touched down Wednesday (Mar 20) in the Middle East to bolster efforts for a truce in the war in Gaza, as Israeli forces pushed on with a raid on the territory's largest hospital.
Global concern has mounted over the military conflict now in its sixth month, in which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas in response to a deadly attack by its fighters on Oct 7.
Netanyahu tells Republicans Gaza war will continue, days after Senate leader speech
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US Republican senators on Wednesday (Mar 20) that Israel will continue its efforts to defeat the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip, senators told reporters after he addressed a party lunch.
"He's going to do what he said he's going to do. He's going to finish it," Senator Jim Risch said.
