Here’s how things stand on Tuesday, January 30, 2024:
Violence in the West Bank
- Israeli special forces dressed as doctors and nurses killed three Palestinians inside Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday.
- The Israeli army said the targeted Palestinians were members of armed groups.
- The Al-Farouq Mosque in Khan Younis refugee camp was bombed, with heavy gunfire ongoing.
- During ongoing raids in the Nur Shams and Tulkarem refugee camps, Israeli forces bulldozed roads, water, telecommunication and electricity lines, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
- Five Palestinians arrested by the Israeli military during a raid on Jenin on Monday said they were tortured in custody, Wafa reported.
Latest on Israel’s continued strikes on Gaza
- Israeli jets targeted a family’s house in the Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City, killing at least 20 civilians and injuring several others on Tuesday, according to Wafa.
- Wafa reported that dozens of women and children have fled a UNRWA shelter in Gaza City after it was raided by Israeli forces on Tuesday. The women and children have sought shelter at Ahli Arab Hospital, which was heavily damaged during the initial phase of Israel’s war on Gaza.
- Israeli military forces shelled Batn al-Sameen area and al-Amal neighbourhood in Khan Younis, south of the Gaza Strip, Wafa reported.
- The Palestinian Hamas movement said on Monday that Israel must halt its Gaza offensive and withdraw from the enclave before more captives are freed. Israel says it will fight until Hamas is eradicated. More than 100 Israeli captives remain in Hamas custody.
- On Monday, Hamas fired its first set of rockets for weeks into Israeli cities, proving it still had the capability to launch them after nearly four months of war.
- US officials said on Monday that forces may have mistaken an enemy drone for an American one and let it pass unchallenged into a desert base in Jordan where it killed three US soldiers and wounded dozens more.
- On Saturday, Israeli forces showed foreign journalists an area in Bani Suheila, in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, where the forces had destroyed a mosque and an Islamic cemetery.
Diplomacy
- White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Monday the US did not want a wider war with Iran or in the region, “but we got to do what we have to do”.
- Twelve Israeli cabinet ministers attended a conference on Sunday calling for rebuilding Israeli settlements in Gaza. This was condemned by Kirby as “irresponsible, reckless, incendiary”.
- Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani said on Monday that he hopes US retaliation for the attack in Jordan would not undercut progress towards a new Israel-Hamas captive release deal.
- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday that the situation in the Middle East is more dangerous than it has been since at least 1973.
- Amid rising hunger in Gaza, the US and several other countries have suspended funding to UN humanitarian agency UNRWA after Israel accused a dozen UNRWA employees of involvement in the October 7 attacks on Israel. The UN, which is investigating the case, calls it “collective punishment”.
- Meanwhile, some countries, including Spain and Norway, have affirmed continued financial support to UNRWA.
