🔴 Live: White House says 'we warned Iran' over Israel threats

Iranians burn Israeli and US flags during a protest at Palestine square in Tehran, Iran on April 1, 2024. © AFP

The White House said Thursday it had "warned" Iran after President Joe Biden said Tehran was threatening a significant attack on Israel over a strike that destroyed an Iranian consulate building in Damascus. The announcement came as the UN Security Council acknowledged Israel's pledge to open more entry points for humanitarian aid into Gaza but said "more should be done" to help civilians in the besieged Palestinian territory. Follow our liveblog for the latest updates on the Israel-Hamas war. 

Summary: 

• US President Joe Biden on Wednesday promised "ironclad" support for Israel as Iran threatens reprisals over a strike that levelled an Iranian consulate building in Damascus and killed two generals in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
• Neither Hamas nor Israel have shown any sign of agreeing to a truce in Gaza despite setting themselves a 48-hour deadline earlier this week and facing pressure from international mediators.
• The US Middle East envoy Brett McGurk called the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and Iraq to ask them to deliver a message to Iran urging it to lower tensions with Israel following the suspected Israeli strike on Iran's consulate building in Syria, a source with knowledge of the situation said to Reuters.         
• The US military on Thursday said it had shot down 11 drones belonging to Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels after the group claimed it had targeted Israeli and American ships off the Gulf of Aden.
• At least 33,545 Palestinians have been killed and 76,094 wounded since Israel began its offensive on Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave. Around 1,170 people were killed in the Hamas-led October 7 attacks and 250 people taken hostage, according to Israeli figures, with 132 still missing.

Yesterday's key developments

• Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told lawmakers in Madrid that recognition of Palestinian statehood is "in Europe's geopolitical interests". 
• Relatives and official Hamas media said that three sons of Ismail Haniyeh, the Islamist militant group’s leader, were killed in an Israeli air strike in the Gaza Strip.
• The Israeli army said early Wednesday it had carried out bombardments on positions of the Lebanese group Hezbollah in Syria in a bid to thwart its "entrenchment" in the country.
• US President Joe Biden said Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's Gaza policy was a "mistake" and urged Israel to call for a ceasefire in an interview aired Tuesday. 

About casualty figures from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry:

Gaza’s health ministry collects data from the enclave’s hospitals and the Palestinian Red Crescent.

The health ministry does not report how Palestinians were killed, whether from Israeli airstrikes and artillery barrages or errant Palestinian rocket fire. It describes all casualties as victims of “Israeli aggression”.

The ministry also does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. 

Throughout four wars and numerous skirmishes between Israel and Hamas, UN agencies have cited the Hamas-run health ministry’s death tolls in regular reports. The International Committee of the Red Cross and Palestinian Red Crescent also use the numbers.

In the aftermath of war, the UN humanitarian office has published final death tolls based on its own research into medical records. The UN's counts have largely been consistent with the Gaza health ministry’s, with small discrepancies. 

For more on the Gaza health ministry’s tolls, click here.

(FRANCE 24 with AP) 

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP & Reuters)