Qatar has accused Israel of facilitating “the deliberate starvation of the Palestinian people” in a weekly briefing given by foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al Ansari. He called on the international community to apply more pressure on Israel, and said it was “painful” that the delivery of aid was still an issue.
In a statement issued after the briefing, Al Ansari said:
The deliberate starvation of the Palestinian people cannot be tolerated and the international community must stand against this issue.
Any aid provided to Gaza Strip is a very small part of what the residents of the strip need. There are two and a half million people living in complete absence of health and emergency services. More than one million people live in tents in the south of the Strip.
Aid should be freely provided without restrictions, as the state of Qatar has always emphasised.
Al Ansari said that 80 planes of aid had been delivered via an air bridge Qatar had set up to deliver aid, but “the challenges of entering this aid are great and ongoing.”
He continued:
So far, we have not seen real pressure from the international community to allow full and unconditional entry of aid. The State of Qatar, in cooperation with its partners, seeks to stop the aggression before the holy month of Ramadan. It is painful that the entry of humanitarian aid is one of the issues on the table.
Organisers of pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the UK have responded to recent government statements about protests with their own joint statement. The group, which includes Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Stop the War and the Muslim Association of Britain, said:
Since October, hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets of London and their local areas calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, yet politicians have denounced these peace protesters as “hate marchers” for expressing the majority view.
Under intense political pressure from the government, political commentators, and a range of pro-Israel groups pushing to have the protests banned, the policing of the demonstrations has been increasingly aggressive and restrictive. It has been marked by unprecedented use of restriction orders, pressure on the organisers not to march, and violent arrests of protesters.
The groups are planning to host a press conference at parliament in London later today.
Earlier, home secretary James Cleverly said pro-Palestine protesters have “made their point” and questioned the value of continuing demonstrations, while UK policing minister Chris Philp said the government might consider increasing the amount of notice that protesters have to give to police when organising large-scale demonstrations.
Israel’s military has said it has carried out air raids on what it described as “a Hezbollah weapons storage facility” and “a Hezbollah weapons manufacturing site” in southern Lebanon.
In a statement published to its official Telegram channel, it said:
Following the sirens sounded in the area of Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel earlier today Wednesday, approximately ten launches which crossed from Lebanon into northern Israel were identified. The IDF Aerial Defense Array successfully intercepted a number of the launches. In response, the IDF struck the sources of the fire in Lebanon.
A short while ago, IDF fighter jets struck a Hezbollah weapons storage facility and military structures in the area of Ramyeh in southern Lebanon. Additionally, overnight, the IDF struck a Hezbollah weapons manufacturing site in the area of Khirbet Selm.
Earlier Israeli media reported that a building was damaged after rockets hit Israel’s northernmost city of Kiryat Shmona, and the Hamas Al-Qassam Brigades claimed in a Telegram message that it had launched 40 Grad missiles from southern Lebanon at military targets in northern Israel. Israeli authorities have not reported any casualties.
Families of people still being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza are staging a protest march today calling for their return. The march starts at the site of the Nova music festival, scene of some of the worst atrocities during the 7 October attack inside Israel, and will go to Jerusalem.
Israel believes 134 hostages are still being held in Gaza, of which it believes 32 people have been killed.
In the UK, repeated protests calling for an end to the fighting in Gaza have become a thorny political issue, leading to a row in parliament last week over MPs voting for a ceasefire, and a renewed scrutiny on the security and safety of MPs, who claim they are being targeted by protesters.
Appearing on television this morning in the UK, policing minister Chris Philp said that protests would be allowed to continue, saying “We are a free country and people have the right to protest, so we will continue to police those protests,” however he indicated that the government might consider a change in the law so that organisers have to give authorities more advanced notice of the intention to stage a demonstration.
He told viewers:
For very, very large protests where we’re talking about tens of thousands, or possible even hundreds of thousands of people, it may make planning for the police easier if it’s more like a couple of weeks, but that’s just something the home secretary’s thinking about, and certainly nothing’s been decided.
Philp said that to date about 600 arrests have been made at protests over the Gaza conflict since 7 October.
The policing minister said there would be a meeting in Downing Street in London today including prime minister Rishi Sunak to discuss the police response to protests directly outside MPs’ houses. “We can’t cede an inch of territory to people who seek to intimidate our elected representatives,” he told broadcaster LBC.
Earlier the home secretary, the equivalent of an interior minister, James Cleverly, had questioned the value of the continuing demonstrations in the UK, saying pro-Palestine protesters have “made their point”.
“I’m not sure that these marches every couple of weeks add value to the argument. They’re not really saying anything new,” he told the Times newspaper.
Hamas has said it launched two missile salvoes consisting of 40 Grad missiles from southern Lebanon into northern Israel.
Reuters reports Al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement on its Telegram channel it had bombed the headquarters of the 769th Eastern Brigade and the airport barracks in Beit Hilal.
There have been frequent exchanges of fire over the UN-drawn blue line that separates Israel and Lebanon since 7 October. Israel has evacuated some northern communities, and has repeatedly told Hezbollah and other anti-Israeli forces in the area that they must back-off and respect the UN mandated demilitarised zone between the blue line and the Litani river.
Yesterday the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, Unifil, described what it saw as “a disturbing shift” in the intensity of fire being exchanged.
Israeli media is also this morning reporting that a building was damaged after rockets hit Israel’s northernmost city of Kiryat Shmona.
Al Jazeera reports Gaza’s al-Awda hospital has had to suspend all surgical operations after its operating theatres were destroyed. Acting director Mohamed Salha told the news agency:
This means that all medical services related to obstetrics and gynaecology have stopped completely. We were the only hospital in northern Gaza for orthopaedic surgeries. There is no other alternative place in northern Gaza or Gaza City because the health ministry’s hospitals are out of service completely.
Overnight Israel’s military has announced that two further soldiers were killed druing the ground operation in Gaza. The IDF said they were killed in combat in the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, and that seven soldiers were also wounded.
In its latest operational briefing, Israel’s military has claimed it struck “eight significant terror targets” overnight which it said had been responsible for rockets fired towards the Israeli city of Ashkelon.
In a message posted to its official Telegram channel, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) wrote:
During joint ground and aerial activity in the Gaza Strip, eight significant terror targets were struck in an area from which rockets were fired toward the city of Ashkelon last night. Terror tunnel shafts and infrastructure used by terrorist operatives were also struck.
The briefing went on to claim that “ground troops conducted targeted raids on compounds, and located weapons and military equipment” in western Khan Younis, and that “IDF paratroopers killed a number of terrorists with sniper fire” while separately in Khan Younis “an IDF fighter jet … struck terrorists in a military compound who were preparing to ambush the troops.”
The claims have not been independently verified.
Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Rafah for Al Jazeera has said that Israeli attacks on the city seem to be “more systematic right now”. He told the news network:
The Israeli military targeted a home and so far there have been two children who were pulled out from the rubble. There are more people under the rubble and volunteers from the civil defence, paramedics and locals have rushed to the area to help with the rescue efforts.
Someone on the ground told us that the houses were full of displaced families who had evacuated from Gaza City in recent weeks and also another displaced family who was evacuated from Khan Younis at the start of the ground invasion.
At the beginning of its campaign, Israel’s military repeatedly ordered the Palestinian population to move south to Rafah for their safety while it conducted an extensive aerial bombardment and ground operations in the north and central Gaza Strip. It has been estimated that at least 85% of Gaza’s population has been displaced, with some families being forced to move multiple times.
Qatar has accused Israel of facilitating “the deliberate starvation of the Palestinian people” in a weekly briefing given by foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al Ansari. He called on the international community to apply more pressure on Israel, and said it was “painful” that the delivery of aid was still an issue.
In a statement issued after the briefing, Al Ansari said:
The deliberate starvation of the Palestinian people cannot be tolerated and the international community must stand against this issue.
Any aid provided to Gaza Strip is a very small part of what the residents of the strip need. There are two and a half million people living in complete absence of health and emergency services. More than one million people live in tents in the south of the Strip.
Aid should be freely provided without restrictions, as the state of Qatar has always emphasised.
Al Ansari said that 80 planes of aid had been delivered via an air bridge Qatar had set up to deliver aid, but “the challenges of entering this aid are great and ongoing.”
He continued:
So far, we have not seen real pressure from the international community to allow full and unconditional entry of aid. The State of Qatar, in cooperation with its partners, seeks to stop the aggression before the holy month of Ramadan. It is painful that the entry of humanitarian aid is one of the issues on the table.
Russian media is reporting that representatives of Hamas and Fatah will meet in Moscow on Thursday to discuss the possibility of a united Palestinian government across both Gaza and the West Bank.
Citing the RIA state news agency, Reuters reports that Russian deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov confirmed the meeting has taken place.
One of Israel’s stated war aims has been the dismantling of Hamas, and senior Israeli officials have repeatedly said Hamas can have no role in the governance of Palestinian territories the “day after” the war in Gaza.
Yesterday the Guardian’s diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour reported that both Qatar and Egypt were supporting work to set up a new Palestinian technocratic government.
The Palestinian ambassador to the UK, Husam Zomlot, said Hamas would have no members, but the fact that it would be consulted showed efforts were under way to see if Palestinian unity between Hamas and Fatah was achievable. The two factions have been divided since Hamas threw the Fatah movement out of Gaza in 2007.
Palestinian prime minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, and his government resigned en masse on Monday.
Another rocket exploded without causing any damage late Tuesday night off the side of a ship traveling through the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen, authorities said.
The UK Maritime Trade Operations reported the attack happened about 110 kilometers (70 miles) off the coast of the Houthi-held port city of Hodeida. The rocket exploded several miles off the bow of the vessel, it said.
“The crew and vessel are reported to be safe and are proceeding to next port of call,” the UKMTO said.
Associated Press reports the private security firm Ambrey said the vessel targeted appeared to be a the Marshall Islands-flagged, Greek-owned bulk carrier in the area at the time.
Yesterday Yemen’s Houthis announced that they would not reconsider their attacks on shipping in the area until Israel had lifted its siege of Gaza. The group have issued a ban on ships with connections to Israel, the US and the UK passing through the Red Sea.
A group of more than 50 broadcast journalists have sent an open letter to the embassies of Israel and Egypt calling for “free and unfettered access” to Gaza for foreign media.
The letter, sent by correspondents and presenters from the main broadcasting outlets based in the UK, also appeals for better protection for journalists already reporting in the territory.
PA Media reports 55 journalists signed the letter from outlets including Sky News, the BBC, ITV and Channel 4. It said:
Almost five months into the war in Gaza, foreign reporters are still being denied access to the territory, outside of the rare and escorted trips with the Israeli military.
We urge the Governments of Israel and Egypt to allow free and unfettered access to Gaza for all foreign media.
We call on the government of Israel to openly state its permission for international journalists to operate in Gaza and for the Egyptian authorities to allow international journalists access to the Rafah crossing.
The letter continued “It’s vital that local journalists’ safety is respected and that their efforts are bolstered by the journalism of members of the international media. The need for comprehensive on the ground reporting of the conflict is imperative.”
An unprecedented number of local journalists have been killed by Israeli military action since the conflict erupted on 7 October when Hamas launched its surprise attack inside Israel.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has found at least 88 journalists and media workers have been killed. Four journalists are missing and 25 have been reported arrested.
Sherif Mansour of the CPJ has said:
CPJ emphasises that journalists are civilians doing important work during times of crisis and must not be targeted by warring parties. Journalists across the region are making great sacrifices to cover this heart-breaking conflict. Those in Gaza, in particular, have paid, and continue to pay, an unprecedented toll and face exponential threats. Many have lost colleagues, families, and media facilities, and have fled seeking safety when there is no safe haven or exit.
Here are some more images of the stricken Belize-flagged Rubymar, which was en route from the UAE to Europe via the Red Sea when she was hit by a Houthi attack on 20 February.
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.
UK-owned cargo ship, Rubymar, has begun to sink in the Red Sea after it was hit by a Houthi attack on 18 February.
The Rubymar is reportedly carrying 22,000 tonnes of fertiliser that. On Monday the owner of the vessel said it was looking at towing the vessel to Saudi Arabia once a leak can be fixed.
More on that in a moment, first here’s a round-up of the day’s other main events:
A Hamas official has told Reuters that US president Joe Biden’s words about a halt to fighting in Gaza are premature, and do not match the situation on the ground. Biden had seemed confident that a truce would be agreed by Monday, but as well as the words from Hamas, a senior Israeli official has also said that he does not understand where Biden’s optimism is coming from. Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson said the country remains “upbeat and optimistic” about the prospects for a deal.
Unifil, the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, has said it is witnessing “a disturbing shift” in the exchanges of fire between Israel and anti-Israeli forces across the UN-drawn blue line that separates northern Israel and southern Lebanon. On Tuesday morning Israel said it had struck several targets inside Lebanon in response to a barrage of 35 rockets fired at one of its military installations in northern Israel.
The formation of a new Palestinian technocratic government would be aided by both Qatar and Egypt and involves consultations with all Palestinian political factions – including Hamas, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, Husam Zomlot, has said.
Three Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in clashes in the occupied West Bank early on Tuesday. At least 400 Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers and settlers in the occupied West Bank since the 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas.
Yemen’s Houthis said they could only reconsider their missile and drone attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea once Israel ends its “aggression” in the Gaza Strip. The US says it has targeted Iranian and Houthi commanders in a new round of sanctions, and the UK has also issued new sanctions against Iran and Yemen.
Israel is intentionally starving Palestinians and should be held accountable for war crimes – and genocide, according to the UN’s leading expert on the right to food. “There is no reason to intentionally block the passage of humanitarian aid or intentionally obliterate small-scale fishing vessels, greenhouses and orchards in Gaza – other than to deny people access to food,” Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, told the Guardian.
The UN humanitarian office has accused Israeli forces in Gaza of stalling a medical evacuation convoy in Khan Younis and forcing paramedics to strip for searches before detaining them. In comments made in Geneva, Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the United Nations humanitarian office (OCHA) appealed for the release of all detained health personnel.
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2024-02-28 07:13:00Z
CBMicmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnRoZWd1YXJkaWFuLmNvbS93b3JsZC9saXZlLzIwMjQvZmViLzI4L21pZGRsZS1lYXN0LWNyaXNpcy1saXZlLXJlZC1zZWEtaG91dGhpLWF0dGFjay1nYXphLWlzcmFlbC1oYW1hc9IBcmh0dHBzOi8vYW1wLnRoZWd1YXJkaWFuLmNvbS93b3JsZC9saXZlLzIwMjQvZmViLzI4L21pZGRsZS1lYXN0LWNyaXNpcy1saXZlLXJlZC1zZWEtaG91dGhpLWF0dGFjay1nYXphLWlzcmFlbC1oYW1hcw
