Here’s how things stand on Tuesday, April 16, 2024:
Fighting and humanitarian crisis
- Two mass graves were discovered by Gaza’s Ministry of Health and the Civil Defence Forces in the north of the Gaza Strip on Monday. The first mass grave was discovered at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, and the second was found in Beit Lahiya.
- Separately, four people, including a child, were killed and several wounded in an Israeli attack on a house west of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, the Wafa news agency reported on Monday.
- Israeli army vehicles reportedly surrounded a school where hundreds of people were sheltering amid gunfire and explosions in Beit Hanoon in the northern Gaza Strip, according to a video verified by Al Jazeera on Monday.
- About 90 percent of approximately 4,000 buildings located along Gaza’s eastern border with Israel have been destroyed or damaged, according to a preliminary analysis of satellite imagery from the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) released on Monday.
- The UN humanitarian agency, OCHA, said the first bakery to reopen in the north of the Gaza Strip received fuel just enough to operate for four days. Long lines have been seen outside the bakery in Gaza City after it received the fuel delivery from the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) on Sunday.
Diplomacy and geopolitical tensions
- Israel’s military chief said on Monday his country would respond to Iran’s weekend missile and drone attack amid calls for restraint by allies anxious to avoid an escalation of conflict in the Middle East.
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu summoned his war cabinet for the second time in less than 24 hours to discuss how to react to Iran’s first-ever direct attack on Israel, a government source said on Monday.
- The United States is renewing efforts to push through a stalled funding package for Israel despite stressing it will not help with any counteroffensive measures against Iran.
- China said it believed Iran could “handle the situation well and spare the region further turmoil” while safeguarding its sovereignty and dignity. Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke to his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amirabdollahian, on Monday.
- Pro-Palestinian protesters blocked major roads on Monday in the US states of Illinois, California, New York and the Pacific Northwest, temporarily preventing travel into some of the country’s most heavily used airports.
- US Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday that Washington’s commitment to Israel’s defence amid current tensions with Iran is unquestionable.
- Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territory, said Israel and those providing military and political support for its war on Gaza are legally and morally responsible for rebuilding the Palestinian enclave.
Violence in the occupied West Bank
- At least 12 young Palestinian men were arrested early on Tuesday amid Israeli raids across the occupied West Bank, Wafa reported.
- The uptick in settler violence in the occupied West Bank is flying under the radar due to the ongoing war in Gaza and the recent standoff between Israel and Iran, according to Omar Raman, an expert on Israel-Palestine with the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, a think tank in Doha, Qatar.
