Here’s how things stand on Monday, April 8, 2024:
Fighting and humanitarian crisis
- Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary visited destroyed houses after Israeli troops withdrew from central Khan Younis after four months of ground assaults. “People told us that they did not even recognise their houses, their neighbourhoods from the amount of destruction,” Khoudary said in a report released on Sunday.
- On Sunday, about 322 humanitarian trucks were allowed to get into the Gaza Strip from both the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing and the Rafah border crossing in the south of the enclave.
- “These humanitarian convoys are loaded with water, sugar, flour and all kinds of basic necessities that Palestinians very desperately need,” Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reported from Rafah.
- The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said on Sunday that nurse Mohammed Abed has been found dead, two weeks after Israeli forces fired at him during the evacuation of al-Amal Hospital where he worked.
- Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Sunday that Israeli troops are preparing for future ground operations, including in the southern city of Rafah, after withdrawing from other areas of the Gaza Strip.
Diplomacy and geopolitical tensions
- Negotiations over a truce are making progress in Cairo and all parties have agreed on basic points, Egypt’s Al Qahera News state-affiliated TV channel said early on Monday, quoting a senior Egyptian source. But specifics of the discussions are not yet known.
- Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday for new talks on a potential ceasefire in the six-month conflict, following the arrival on Saturday of US CIA Director William Burns.
- The United Kingdom’s backing for Israel is “not unconditional“, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said on Sunday.
- “Our backing is not unconditional”, Cameron wrote in The Sunday Times. “We expect such a proud and successful democracy to abide by international humanitarian law, even when challenged.”
- The UN Security Council will meet to consider Palestine’s request to become a UN member state on Monday. The council will hold closed consultations in the morning before a public meeting to discuss Palestine’s formal application for full UN membership begins at midday New York time (16:00 GMT).
- About 600 German civil servants have written to Chancellor Olaf Scholz and senior ministers calling on the government to “cease arm deliveries to the Israeli government with immediate effect”.
- The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is set to begin two days of public hearings in a case brought by Nicaragua over Germany’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has recalled Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel as a “day of pain for Israel and the world”. “Nothing can justify the horror unleashed by Hamas on October 7,” he said on Sunday.
- The Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned Israeli authorities for the death of Palestinian novelist and activist Walid Daqqa, 62, in an Israeli prison. The ministry said on Sunday Israeli authorities’ “deliberate medical neglect” of Palestinian prisoners was part of a broader “policy of oppression and abuse” and “racist laws and legislation”.
Violence in the occupied West Bank
- Israeli forces arrested at least 23 Palestinians during extensive raids in the Hebron governorate of the occupied West Bank on Sunday night, including about 20 people from the town of Dura, local media reported.
- Israeli forces also raided other locations throughout the occupied West Bank overnight, including Tulkarem where Israeli bulldozers were filmed driving through the streets.
