Here’s how things stand on Wednesday, February 14, 2024:
Humanitarian crisis in Gaza
- Israel and Hamas are making progress towards another truce and captive release deal, an Egyptian and a Western official have told the AP news agency as negotiations continue in Cairo amid an impending Israeli offensive in Rafah.
- Releasing Palestinian prisoners is now the “main gap” as truce negotiations continue, according to Israeli and US officials who spoke to Israel’s Walla news outlet.
- On Tuesday Israeli tanks shelled parts of Rafah for the second night in a row, causing waves of panic, residents said.
- Dozens were killed in overnight attacks on Monday. On Tuesday, two journalists, including an Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent, were targeted by an Israeli drone. Al Jazeera’s Ismail Abu Omar’s right leg had to be amputated after the strike. A photojournalist working with him was also wounded in the attack.
- Amid threats of an Israeli ground assault, hundreds of displaced families have started to leave the area – now home to about 1.4 million people.
- “More than half of Gaza’s population – well over 1 million people – are crammed in Rafah, staring death in the face: They have little to eat, hardly any access to medical care, nowhere to sleep, nowhere safe to go,” UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said.
Regional tensions and diplomacy
- South Africa’s government said on Tuesday that it had filed an urgent request with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to consider whether Israel’s military operations targeting Rafah in southern Gaza are a breach of the provisional measures the court handed down last month in the genocide case against Israel.
- The US Senate has passed an emergency spending package that would provide $60bn in military aid to Ukraine and $14.1bn to Israel, replenish US weapons systems and provide food, water and other humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza.
- The Church of England has said in a statement that the manner in which Israel is conducting its war on Gaza “cannot be morally justified”.
- Separately, a group of nine independent UN human rights experts have issued a statement calling on governments to protect the right to peaceful protests in solidarity with people in Gaza.
- And protesters in Providencia, in Chile’s Santiago province, demanded an end to Israeli aggression on Gaza and the severing of relations with Israel, according to local media.
Occupied West Bank
- The Israeli military has arrested three men during raids on the city of Qalqilya in the occupied West Bank, the Wafa news agency reported. A man has also been arrested in the town of Ni’lin, west of Ramallah, according to local media.
- According to the publication around 7,000 Palestinians have been detained in the West Bank since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza.
- Israeli forces have also raided the city of Ramallah and stationed their vehicles in the vicinity of the Palestine Medical Complex, Wafa said.
