The government of Haiti declared a 72-hour state of emergency on Sunday after armed gangs stormed a major Port-au-Prince prison. At least 12 people were killed and about 3,700 inmates escaped in the jailbreak.
Gang leaders say they want to force the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who had travelled abroad.
The groups aiming to oust him control around 80% of Port-au-Prince.
Gang violence has plagued Haiti for years.
A government statement said two prisons - one in the capital and the other in nearby Croix des Bouquets - were stormed over the weekend.
It said the acts of "disobedience" were a threat to national security and said it was instituting an immediate night-time curfew in response, which started at 20:00 local time (01:00 GMT on Monday).
Haitian media reported that other police stations were attacked, distracting authorities before the coordinated assault on the jails.
Among those detained in Port-au-Prince were gang members charged in connection with the 2021 killing of President Jovenel Moïse.
The latest upsurge in violence began on Thursday, when the prime minister travelled to Nairobi to discuss sending a Kenya-led multinational security force to Haiti.
Gang leader Jimmy Chérizier (nicknamed "Barbecue") declared a co-ordinated attack to remove him.
"All of us, the armed groups in the provincial towns and the armed groups in the capital, are united," said the former police officer, who is thought to be behind several massacres in Port-au-Prince.
Haiti's police union had asked the military to help reinforce the capital's main prison, but the compound was stormed late on Saturday.
On Sunday the doors of the prison were still open and there were no signs of officers, Reuters news agency reported. Three inmates who tried to flee lay dead in the courtyard, the report said.
A journalist for the AFP news agency who visited the prison saw around 10 bodies, some with signs of injuries caused by bullets.
One volunteer prison worker told the Reuters news agency that 99 prisoners - including former Colombian soldiers jailed over President Moïse's murder - had chosen to remain in their cells for fear of being killed in crossfire.
Reuters
The US embassy in Port-au-Prince on Sunday urged its citizens to leave Haiti "as soon as possible". The French embassy said it was closing visa services as a "precaution".
While Haiti has been plagued by gangs for years, the violence has further escalated since President Moïse's assassination at his home in 2021. He has not been replaced and elections have not been held since 2016.
Under a political deal, Mr Henry was due to stand down by 7 February. But planned elections were not held and he remains in post.
On Monday, Kenyan authorities said the prime minister had returned to Haiti.
Speaking to the BBC's Newsday, Claude Joseph - who was serving as acting prime minister when President Moïse was assassinated and who is now head of the opposition party called Those Committed to Development - said Haiti was living through a "nightmare".
Mr Joseph said Prime Minister Henry wanted "to stay as long as possible in charge".
"He agreed to step down on 7 February. Now he decides to stay, despite the fact that there are huge protests throughout the country asking him to step down - but it's unfortunate that now those criminals are using violent means to force him to step down."
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Anger at the shocking levels of violence, on top of the political vacuum, have led to several demonstrations against the government, with protesters demanding the resignation of the prime minister.
Haiti: The basics
Population: 11.5 million (estimate)
Area: 27,800 sq km (slightly smaller than Belgium, about the same size as the state of Maryland in the US)
Location: Caribbean country sharing a border with the Dominican Republic
Languages: French, Haitian Creole
If you are in Haiti, tell us what is happening where you are by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk
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Germany’s ambassador to Moscow was summoned to the Russian foreign ministry on Monday in order to explain the leaked discussion between senior military personnel about sending weapons to Ukraine.
Alexander Graf Lamsdorff arrived at the foreign ministry without responding to journalists’ requests for comment, according to reports on Russian news agencies.
Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, has accused Russia of waging “an information war” against Germany, by intercepting and then leaking a sensitive meeting among high-level military officers of the German military or Bundeswehr.
Russia has accused Germany, backed by its allies, of planning an all-out war on Russia.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said the leaked discussions showed that the appetite for war in Europe “still remains very very high”, and the aim was to ensure “Russia’s strategic defeat on the battlefield”.
The former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev commented that: “Germany is planning a war with Russia”.
Pistorius dismissed the reactions as: “completely absurd”, accusing Moscow of wanting to sow distrust and discord in Germany.
In the telephone conference, four officers, including the head of Germany’s air force, Ingo Gerhartz, prepare for a discussion with defence minister Pistorius about the possible deployment of Taurus missiles to Ukraine, coming to the conclusion that a speedy delivery and the use of the missiles in the immediate future would only be possible if German soldiers were involved.
Taurus training for Ukrainian soldiers in order to avoid putting German soldiers on Ukraine soil, was a possibility, but would take months of preparation. The officers also discussed the possibility of using the missiles to destroy the Russian-built bridge connecting the illegally annexed Crimean peninsula and Russia.
Last week, Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, ruled out the sending of Taurus missiles because he said the operation would involve sending German troops to Ukraine. He said: “German soldiers can at no point and in no place be linked with the targets that this (Taurus) system reaches. Not even in Germany.”
As the German government struggles to deal with the fallout from the leak, with questions asked about the security of its internal communications and speculation over what other discussions Russia has been able to listen in on, defence policy experts said the intercepted communication was clearly meant to undermine Germany’s Ukraine strategy.
Roderich Kiesewette, the opposition Christian Democrats’ defence expert, said that Russia had leaked the meeting at this moment in time in order to specifically: “undermine a German Taurus delivery”. He suggested the leak was carried out “in order to divert public conversation away” from other issues, including the death of Alexei Navalny.
An object that fell in a field in Poland, a Nato member, was a weather balloon.
The Fakt tabloid reported earlier on Monday that a military object had fallen in a field near the town of Milakowo, but police in nearby Ostroda confirmed to Reuters that the object was a weather balloon.
“I confirm that this morning we received a report that an object fell in the fields near Milakowo, now we can confirm that it was a meteorological balloon,” a police spokesperson said.
“Our activities here focused on securing this place until the arrival of the army, and at the moment we are trying to explain the origin of this object and why it was found in these fields in our area.”
In November 2022, a stray Ukrainian missile struck the Polish village of Przewodow in southern Poland, killing two people and raising fears at the time of the war in Ukraine spilling over the border.
Poland plans to ask the EU to put sanctions on Russian and Belarusian agricultural products, the country’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, said on Monday during a visit to the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.
Tusk has said agricultural products from Russia and Belarus were causing market distortions.
“Latvia decided to implement an embargo on the import of (agricultural) products from Russia,” he told a news conference last week. “We will analyse the case of Latvia, and I do not rule out that Poland will take an appropriate initiative.”
Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has ruled out arming Ukraine with long-range Taurus missiles if German soldiers needed to be involved to help operate them.
“You cannot deliver a weapons system that has a very wide reach and then not think about how control over the weapons system can take place,” he was quoted by Reuters as saying at a school function.
“And if you want to have control and it’s only possible if German soldiers are involved, that’s out of the question for me.”
Germany has so far resisted sending Taurus missiles to Ukraine, wary of widening the scope of the war and being dragged into a direct confrontation with Russia.
Germany’s ambassador to Moscow was summoned to the Russian foreign ministry on Monday in order to explain the leaked discussion between senior military personnel about sending weapons to Ukraine.
Alexander Graf Lamsdorff arrived at the foreign ministry without responding to journalists’ requests for comment, according to reports on Russian news agencies.
Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, has accused Russia of waging “an information war” against Germany, by intercepting and then leaking a sensitive meeting among high-level military officers of the German military or Bundeswehr.
Russia has accused Germany, backed by its allies, of planning an all-out war on Russia.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said the leaked discussions showed that the appetite for war in Europe “still remains very very high”, and the aim was to ensure “Russia’s strategic defeat on the battlefield”.
The former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev commented that: “Germany is planning a war with Russia”.
Pistorius dismissed the reactions as: “completely absurd”, accusing Moscow of wanting to sow distrust and discord in Germany.
In the telephone conference, four officers, including the head of Germany’s air force, Ingo Gerhartz, prepare for a discussion with defence minister Pistorius about the possible deployment of Taurus missiles to Ukraine, coming to the conclusion that a speedy delivery and the use of the missiles in the immediate future would only be possible if German soldiers were involved.
Taurus training for Ukrainian soldiers in order to avoid putting German soldiers on Ukraine soil, was a possibility, but would take months of preparation. The officers also discussed the possibility of using the missiles to destroy the Russian-built bridge connecting the illegally annexed Crimean peninsula and Russia.
Last week, Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, ruled out the sending of Taurus missiles because he said the operation would involve sending German troops to Ukraine. He said: “German soldiers can at no point and in no place be linked with the targets that this (Taurus) system reaches. Not even in Germany.”
As the German government struggles to deal with the fallout from the leak, with questions asked about the security of its internal communications and speculation over what other discussions Russia has been able to listen in on, defence policy experts said the intercepted communication was clearly meant to undermine Germany’s Ukraine strategy.
Roderich Kiesewette, the opposition Christian Democrats’ defence expert, said that Russia had leaked the meeting at this moment in time in order to specifically: “undermine a German Taurus delivery”. He suggested the leak was carried out “in order to divert public conversation away” from other issues, including the death of Alexei Navalny.
Russia’s supreme court has upheld a ruling barring opposition politician Boris Nadezhdin from running in this month’s presidential election, Nadezhdin said.
Nadezhdin was barred from standing when the Central Election Commission said it had found irregularities, including names of dead people, in the list of supporters’ signatures he had presented in support of his candidacy.
Nobody expected Nadezhdin, a centre-right candidate who has called himself a “principled opponent” of the war, to win even if he was allowed to participate, given Vladimir Putin’s total dominance and control of the state.
But his campaign has captured people’s attention because of his outright opposition to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Putin is set to secure another six-year term in the 15-17 March vote, which would keep him in the Kremlin until at least 2030.
Dmitry Medvedev, former president of Russia and deputy chairman of its security council, said Ukraine belonged to Russia and tensions between Washington and Moscow were worse than during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the RIA news agency reported.
Medvedev said in a public lecture that American special forces and military advisers were already waging war against Russia, according to Reuters.
The Kremlin said a purported recording of German military discussions showed Germany’s armed forces were discussing plans to launch strikes on Russian territory.
Russian media on Friday published a 38-minute recording of a call in which German officers were heard discussing weapons for Ukraine and a potential strike by Kyiv on a bridge in Crimea, prompting officials in Moscow to demand an explanation.
“The recording itself says that within the Bundeswehr, plans to launch strikes on Russian territory are being discussed substantively and concretely. This does not require any legal interpretation. Everything here is more than obvious,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.
“Here we have to find out whether the Bundeswehr is doing this on its own initiative. Then the question is: how controllable is the Bundeswehr and how much does Scholz control the situation? Or is it part of German government policy?” Peskov said.
“Both (scenarios) are very bad. Both once again emphasise the direct involvement of the countries of the collective west in the conflict around Ukraine.”
Germany is among the Nato countries that have supplied weaponry to Ukraine including tanks.
Russian attacks against Ukraine killed one person and injured 21 over the past day, according to regional authorities.
Russia targeted a total of nine Ukrainian oblasts – Chernihiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Kharkiv. Casualties were reported in the latter four regions.
A total of 16 people, including a 15-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl, were injured in Kurakhove, Donetsk oblast, after Russian forces dropped a 500-kilogram guided missile on the roof of a residential building, Ukraine’s National Police said.
The attack damaged 15 apartment buildings, according to authorities.
Russia also hit the city of Pokrovsk with an Iskander-M missile, injuring three people, police said. Four multi-apartment buildings, 12 cars, and roads were damaged, the statement read.
One person was killed in Kherson oblast as a result of Russian attacks,said Oleksandr Prokudin, the regional governor.
Russian troops launched 10 strikes against multiple settlements in Kherson oblast, damaging around 16 houses, nine apartment buildings, and administrative buildings in Kherson, Prokudin noted.
In Kharkiv oblast, Russian troops shelled the city of Vovchansk and attacked the village of Velykyi Burluk with guided aerial bombs, according to governor Oleh Syniehubov. Five houses and a warehouse were damaged, he said.
A 60-year-old man sought medical help after a Russian attack on the villages of Kruhliakivka and Petropavlivka in the Kupiansk district, the governor reported.
A Russian artillery strike against Nikopol district in Dnipropetrovsk oblast injured a 51-year-old woman, governor Serhii Lysak said.
On the evening of 3 March, a Russian kamikaze drone attacked Nikopol, damaging the post office, a private house, and a car, according to the report.
The Kremlin said it had nothing to say about the funeral of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which drew thousands of people to Moscow’s streets last week.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters the Kremlin had “nothing more to say on this subject” when asked about it.
Crowds of people chanted “Putin is a murderer” and “No to war” as they marched, under heavy police presence, to the Borisovsky cemetery where Navalny, 47, was lowered into the ground on Friday to the strains of Frank Sinatra’s My Way.
Russian authorities claim Navalny, Vladimir Putin’s most formidable domestic opponent, fell unconscious and died suddenly after a walk. His widow has accused Putin of murdering him.
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency launched a cyber-attack attack against the servers of the Russian defence ministry, gaining access to “a bulk of classified service documents,” the agency said.
The main department of intelligence of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence wrote on Telegram:
Now the Ukrainian special service has the information protection and encryption software used by the morph, as well as an array of secret service documents of the Russian Ministry of War.
These are orders, reports, orders, reports and other documents that circulated between ＞2,000 structural units of the Russian military service.
The information obtained allows us to establish the complete structure of the system of the Russian Ministry of Defence and its units.
These claims are yet to be independently verified.
A railway bridge near the Russian city of Samara has been rocked by an explosion, the RIA news agency reported.
Located on the Volga river in Russia’s southwest, the Samara region is one of the country’s heavy industry hubs.
The incident, which happened around 6am, was reportedly caused by an explosive device.
The bridge and the adjacent railway connection were used by Russia to transport military cargo, according to the main department of intelligence of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence.
Russia has in recent months reported a series of attacks on its industrial and logistics infrastructure which it blamed on Ukraine.
No casualties have been reported, but traffic over the bridge has been suspended, the Russian Railways said, describing the incident as “illegal interference”. These claims are yet to be independently verified by the Guardian.
Nato will begin large-scale military drills on Monday – which will last nearly two weeks – to defend its newly expanded Nordic territory.
More than 20,000 soldiers from 14 countries will take part in the Norweigan-led Nordic Response 24 exercises in the northern regions of Finland, Norway and Sweden, with the participation of Finland as a Nato member for the first time.
The other participating nations in the exercise that runs through to 15 March reportedly include: Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the US.
“The exercise will demonstrate Nato’s operating capability, cohesion, and will to defend all of the Alliance’s area,” the Finnish military said in a statement.
“As Steadfast Defender 24 will be the most substantial training exercise of Nato in decades, its preparations and those of Nordic Response 24 have been underway now for a number of years already.”
Relations between Moscow and Helsinki deteriorated after Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, prompting Finland to drop decades of military non-alignment and join the western military alliance Nato in April 2023.
Russia, with which Finland shares an 830-mile (1,340km) border, swiftly warned of “countermeasures”.
With its bid now ratified by all Nato members, neighbouring Sweden is now finalising formalities to enter the military alliance as its 32nd member – most likely in March.
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
Nato will start an exercise on Monday to defend its newly expanded Nordic territory when more than 20,000 soldiers from 14 countries take part in drills lasting nearly two weeks in the northern regions of Finland, Norway and Sweden.
With over 4,000 Finnish soldiers taking part, the Norway-led Nordic Response 2024 are part of the largest Nato military exercises in decades, called Steadfast Defender 24.
“For the first time, Finland will participate as a Nato member nation in exercising collective defense of the alliance’s regions,” the Finnish Defense Forces said in a statement. We will bring you more on this shortly. In other key developments:
Volodymyr Zelenskiycalled for Ukraine’s western partners to summon the political will to provide Kyiv with the necessary military supplies or the world will face “one of the most shameful pages of history”. The Ukrainian president issued his appeal as a US package to provide military and other assistance remains blocked by disagreements in Congress. A clearly angry Zelenskiy, speaking in his nightly video address, said the world had to “react firmly” to ensure that the war becomes a “hopeless” enterprise for Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, who wants only “war and death.” “The main thing is political will in order to realise this, to secure the level of supplies which will help,” he said. “If this is not the case, it will become one of the most shameful pages of history, if America or Europe loses to Iranian “Shaheds” [drones] or Russian fighter jets.”
Germany’s defence minister has accused Russia of conducting an “information war” aimed at creating divisions within the country, in his first comments after the publication of an audio recording of a meeting of senior German military officials. Russian media on Friday published a 38-minute recording of a call in which German officers were heard discussing weapons for Ukraine and a potential strike by Kyiv on a bridge in Crimea, prompting officials in Moscow to demand an explanation.
The death toll from a Russian drone strike on an apartment building in Odesa on Saturday rose to 12, after rescue workers found another four bodies. Among the dead was an eight-year-old girl, discovered near the body of her older brother, who had been uncovered earlier, regional governor Oleh Kiper said. The dead also included a mother who was found holding her baby, as well as a toddler and a second baby.
Five people were injured overnight by Russian shelling on residential areas in Myrnohrad and Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region, according to the regional prosecutor’s office. Ukraine’s interior ministry also reported one death and three people injured in the southern Kherson region on Sunday after Russian strikes.
People were still queueing up to place flowers on Alexei Navalny’s grave in Moscow’s Borisovskoye cemetery on Sunday. The pile of floral tributes is growing despite state intimidation as Russians pay tribute to the late opposition leader.
Turkey believes it is time for ceasefire talks to start in Ukraine, its foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, said at a press conference on Sunday. Fidan said: “A dialogue for a ceasefire [in Ukraine] should start. That doesn’t mean recognising the occupation [by Russia], but issues of sovereignty and ceasefire should be discussed separately.”
The wife of Vladimir Kara-Murza, one of Russia’s most high profile political prisoners, says it has taken two years to secure a meeting with the UK government, despite him being a British citizen. Kara-Murza is serving a 25-year sentence in a Siberian jail and his wife, Evgenia, told the Observer she only met David Cameron on Friday.
Ukraine’s border with Poland remains blocked at all six checkpoints to trucks because of protests by Polish farmersabout the import of grain from Ukraine, according to local reports. State Border Guard spokesperson Andrii Demchenko said on national television that about 2,400 trucks had been waiting to pass the border as of Sunday, according to a report in The Kyiv Independent.
Ukraine launched a mass drone attack on the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula early on Sunday, with unconfirmed reports of powerful explosions near the port of Feodosia. Russia’s defence ministry said Ukraine launched 38 drones and that its air defences destroyed all of them. It did not say whether any damage or casualties resulted from the attack in a statement on its Telegram channel.
The government of Haiti declared a 72-hour state of emergency on Sunday after armed gangs stormed a major Port-au-Prince prison. At least 12 people were killed and about 3,700 inmates escaped in the jailbreak.
Gang leaders say they want to force the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who had travelled abroad.
The groups aiming to oust him control around 80% of Port-au-Prince.
Violent gang wars have killed thousands in the country since 2020.
A government statement said two prisons - one in the capital and the other in nearby Croix des Bouquets - were stormed over the weekend.
It said the acts of "disobedience" were a threat to national security and said it was instituting an immediate night-time curfew in response, which started at 20:00 local time (01:00 GMT on Monday).
Haitian media reported that other police stations were attacked, distracting authorities before the coordinated assault on the jails.
Among those detained in Port-au-Prince were gang members charged in connection with the 2021 killing of President Jovenel Moïse.
The latest upsurge in violence began on Thursday, when the prime minister travelled to Nairobi to discuss sending a Kenya-led multinational security force to Haiti.
Gang leader Jimmy Chérizier (nicknamed "Barbecue") declared a co-ordinated attack to remove him.
"All of us, the armed groups in the provincial towns and the armed groups in the capital, are united," said the former police officer, who is thought to be behind several massacres in Port-au-Prince.
Haiti's police union had asked the military to help reinforce the capital's main prison, but the compound was stormed late on Saturday.
On Sunday the doors of the prison were still open and there were no signs of officers, Reuters news agency reported. Three inmates who tried to flee lay dead in the courtyard, the report said.
A journalist for the AFP news agency who visited the prison saw around 10 bodies, some with signs of injuries caused by bullets.
One volunteer prison worker told the Reuters news agency that 99 prisoners - including former Colombian soldiers jailed over President Moïse's murder - had chosen to remain in their cells for fear of being killed in crossfire.
Reuters
The US embassy in Port-au-Prince on Sunday urged its citizens to leave Haiti "as soon as possible". The French embassy said it was closing visa services as a "precaution".
Violence has been rife since President Moïse's assassination at his home in 2021. He has not been replaced and elections have not been held since 2016.
Under a political deal, Mr Henry was due to stand down by 7 February. But planned elections were not held and he remains in post.
On Monday, Kenyan authorities said the prime minister had returned to Haiti.
Speaking to the BBC's Newsday, Claude Joseph - who was serving as acting prime minister when President Moïse was assassinated and who is now head of the opposition party called Those Committed to Development - said Haiti was living through a "nightmare".
Mr Joseph said Prime Minister Henry wanted "to stay as long as possible in charge".
"He agreed to step down on 7 February. Now he decides to stay, despite the fact that there are huge protests throughout the country asking him to step down - but it's unfortunate that now those criminals are using violent means to force him to step down."
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Anger at the shocking levels of violence, on top of the political vacuum, have led to several demonstrations against the government, with protesters demanding the resignation of the prime minister.
If you are in Haiti, tell us what is happening where you are by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk
Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:
If you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.
A Hamas delegation has arrived in Cairo for talks on efforts to broker a ceasefire in the war in Gaza after indications that Israel has provisionally accepted a six-week phased hostage and truce deal before the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Qatari and US mediators also arrived in the Egyptian capital on Sunday, according to the state-linked Al Qahera News.
Talks involving Israeli negotiators took place in the Qatari city of Doha on Saturday and Hamas is expected to respond on Sunday or Monday as time runs out before the unofficial deadline of 10 or 11 March, when Ramadan starts. The month of fasting is often accompanied by an uptick in violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, even in quieter years.
A Hamas official told Agence France-Presse that if Israel were to meet its demands – which include a complete military withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and stepped-up humanitarian aid – this would “pave the way for an agreement within the next 24-48 hours”.
Another unnamed Palestinian official told Reuters, however, that a ceasefire deal was still not imminent, saying: “We’re not there yet.”
A US official said on Saturday that Israel had “more or less accepted” a deal presented by mediators.
Stemming the bloodshed in Gaza has been a difficult diplomatic task in the nearly five-month-old war sparked by Hamas’s attack on Israel in which, according to Israeli figures, about 1,200 people were killed and another 250 abducted.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 30,000 people, displaced more than 85% of the 2.3 million-strong population from their homes and left more than half of the strip’s infrastructure in ruins, according to data from Gaza’s health ministry and the UN.
Increasing the flow of aid is crucial. The local health ministry said on Sunday that 15 children had died from malnutrition and dehydration at Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya, and the UN has said about a quarter of the total population is “one step away from famine”.
Hamas has indicated its negotiating position could be influenced by the deaths of 115 Palestinians in Gaza who were killed after Israeli troops opened fire near a crowd of people scrambling to get food from an aid convoy on Thursday.
Israel’s military said on Sunday that a preliminary review found its forces did not strike the convoy and that most Palestinians died in a crowd crush, although it acknowledged it fired at individuals who it said posed a threat to soldiers.
The military spokesperson R Adm Daniel Hagari did not give details on the alleged threat but said “an independent, professional and expert body” would do a more thorough examination that would be shared “hopefully in the coming days”.
UN officials visiting al-Shifa hospital the day after the attack said they saw many survivors with gunshot wounds, matching interviews with doctors treating the injured and witness accounts of the incident.
The scale of the looming starvation has pushed the US to start airdropping food into the besieged territory, a move criticised by aid agencies and human rights groups as expensive and ineffective.
A November truce in which about 100 hostages were freed in exchange for 240 Palestinians in Israeli jails collapsed after a week, and progress on a second deal has proved elusive.
With just a week left until Ramadan begins, desperate civilians in Gaza, the relatives of the remaining hostages and international mediators are all aware that time may be running out to broker a comprehensive ceasefire.
The latest negotiations have centred on a proposal to pause the fighting for six weeks, increase the flow of aid, and for Hamas to free the default defined category of vulnerable hostages: the sick, the wounded, elderly people and women.
The number and identity of Palestinian prisoners to be released has to date been a particular sticking point in talks since the first ceasefire collapsed at the beginning of December.
A senior Hamas official told AFP that if Israel were to meet its demands - which include a military withdrawal from Gaza and stepped-up humanitarian aid - this would “pave the way for an agreement within the next 24-48 hours”.
Envoys from the US, Qatar and Hamas have reportedly already arrived in Cairo, as all sides have been scrambling to agree a truce before Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month that begins on March 10/11.
Born a month into Israel’s war in Gaza, infant twins Wesam and Naeem Abu Anza were buried on Sunday, the youngest of 14 members of the same family whom Gaza health authorities say were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Rafah overnight.
Reuters reports:
Their mother, Rania Abu Anza, held one of the twins, its tiny body wrapped in a white shroud, to her cheek and stroked its head during the funeral on Sunday. A mourner held the second baby close by, pale blue pyjamas visible beneath a shroud.
“My heart is gone,” wept Abu Anza, whose husband was also killed, as mourners comforted her. She resisted when asked to release the body of one of the babies ahead of burial. “Leave her with me,” she said.
The twins - a boy and a girl - were among five children killed in the strike on a house in Rafah, according to the health ministry in Gaza.
Abu Anza said she had given birth to them - her first children - after 11 years of marriage.
“We were asleep, we were not shooting and we were not fighting. What is their fault? What is their fault, what is her fault?” Abu Anza said. “How will I continue to live now?”
Relatives said the twins had been born some four months ago, about a month into the war which began on 7 October, when Hamas stormed Israel, in an attack that killed 1,200 people and resulted in another 253 being abducted, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s offensive has killed more than 30,000 people in the Gaza Strip since then, according to Gaza health authorities.
The executive director of Unicef, Catherine Russell, has called for a “humanitarian ceasefire now”, saying that “every minute counts” for children in Gaza facing severe malnutrition.
Russell said she was horrified to hear that at least ten children in Gaza had died of malnutrition and dehydration.
She wrote on X:
Severe malnutrition can be deadly or leave young children with permanent cognitive & physical damage.
For children in Gaza, every minute counts in safely accessing nutrition, water, medical care & protection from bullets & bombs. This requires a humanitarian ceasefire NOW.
Here are some of the latest images to come out of Rafah, where an estimated 1.5 million people are sheltering:
Gaza’s health ministry says that 15 children have died from malnutrition and dehydration at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza City.
Palestinian authorities say, however, that Israeli forces carried out a massacre, opening fire on a crowd of people who had gathered in the hope that food would be distributed.
“The IDF has concluded an initial review of the unfortunate incident where Gazan civilians were trampled to death and injured as they charged to the aid convoy,” IDF spokesperson R Adm Daniel Hagari said on Sunday.
The review, he said, which gathered information from commanders and forces in the field, determined that no strike was carried out towards the aid convoy.
Hagari said:
The majority of Palestinians were killed or injured as a result of the stampede.
Following the warning shots fired to disperse the stampede and after our forces had started retreating, several looters approached our forces and posed an immediate threat to them. According to the initial review, the soldiers responded toward several individuals.
This account stands in stark contrast to that of Gaza health officials, who said last week that at least 112 people were killed and 280 injured after Israeli forces opened fire on the aid distribution point.
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said it was an “ugly massacre conducted by the Israeli occupation army on people who waited for aid trucks at the Nabulsi roundabout”.
France’s foreign ministry said “the fire by Israeli soldiers against civilians trying to access food is unjustifiable”.
A senior Hamas official told AFP that if Israel were to meet its demands - which include a military withdrawal from Gaza and stepped-up humanitarian aid - this would “pave the way for an agreement within the next 24-48 hours”.
Envoys from the US, Qatar and Hamas have reportedly already arrived in Cairo, as all sides have been scrambling to agree a truce before Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month that begins on March 10/11.
The delegation is being led by Hamas’ deputy chief in Gaza, Khalil Al-Hayya, a senior official told the outlet.
A Palestinian official familiar with the truce talks told Reuters that they were not yet close to finalising a deal, when asked if one was imminent.
An Israeli delegation is also expected to arrive in Cairo, the Egyptian capital, to take part in the talks.
US officials have claimed that Israel has provisionally accepted a six-week phased hostage and ceasefire deal which would begin with the release of wounded, elderly and female hostages, but it was unclear on Saturday whether Hamas would accept it.
At least 30,410 Palestinians have been killed and 71,700 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
Most of the casualties have been women and children, the ministry has said, and thousands more bodies are likely to remain uncounted under rubble across Gaza.
The health ministry in the Gaza strip said at least 90 Palestinians had been killed by Israel in the past 24 hours, including 14 family members whose house in the southern Rafah refugee camp had been hit.
The Israeli military said on Sunday it intensified operations in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, with the air force and artillery hitting about 50 targets within six minutes, it said, in an attempt to “intensify operational achievements in the area”.
“During the strikes, the troops destroyed terrorist infrastructure and eliminated Hamas terrorists who were operating from civilian facilities in urban areas,” it said.
A Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo, the Egyptian capital, on Sunday to hold ceasefire talks on Gaza, a senior official told Reuters, after talks took place in Doha, the Qatari capital, on Saturday.
The delegation is being led by Hamas’ deputy chief in Gaza, Khalil Al-Hayya, the official said.
Israel is reported to be close to accepting a six-week ceasefire proposal for Gaza, a senior Biden administration official told several US news outlets on Saturday. The official said there was a “framework deal” and Israel had “more or less accepted” a ceasefire to allow for the release of Hamas-held hostages in Gaza and to allow aid into the territory that has been devastated by four months of bombardment, killing more than 30,000 people. However, the official said a “defined category of vulnerable hostages” had not yet been agreed – a sticking point to an agreement.
In the Red Sea, the US military confirmed on Saturday that the UK-owned vessel Rubymar had sunk after being struck by an anti-ship ballistic missile fired by Yemeni Houthi militants on 18 February.
“The approximately 21,000 metric tons of ammonium phosphate sulfate fertilizer that the vessel was carrying presents an environmental risk in the Red Sea,” US Central Command said.
In other developments:
Israeli forces struck tents housing displaced Palestinians near a hospital in Rafah, killing 11 people and injuring dozens on Saturday, according to Gaza’s health officials. A paramedic was among those killed and children were also injured in the strikes, which occurred near the Emirati maternity hospital, a spokesperson for the Gaza health ministry said.
The US air force began airdrops of aid over Gaza on Saturday in a joint operation with Jordan in a last-resort attempt to get food into the besieged strip as mass starvation looms. US and Jordanian planes dropped 38,000 meals in the first of a series of airdrops that US President Joe Biden announced on Friday, US officials said.
Israeli forces arrested 14 members of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), the organisation said. In a tweet on Saturday, it said: “PRCS expresses deep concern for the safety of its detained teams, whose fate remains unknown, and calls on the international community to urgently intervene to pressure the Israeli occupation authorities to immediately release our detained colleagues.”
The US vice-president, Kamala Harris, will meet with Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz on Monday, a White House official told Reuters. The meeting was expected to cover topics including reducing Palestinian casualties, securing a temporary ceasefire, hostage release and an increase in aid flow.
