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Efforts to bring more desperately needed aid to war-torn Gaza intensified on Friday, with the United States and Europe focused on opening a sea route, highlighting growing dissatisfaction in the West with Israel’s actions in the war. I made it.
A senior European Union official said a charity ship would head to Gaza as a trial run for a new humanitarian maritime corridor. Ursula von der Leyen came to speak in Cyprus and inspect preparations to send further aid by sea to Gaza.
Just hours earlier, President Joe Biden announced that the U.S. military would set up a temporary pier on Gaza’s Mediterranean coast. He unveiled the plan in his State of the Union address to Congress last week, after approving U.S. military airlift support to Gaza.
The plan follows Hamas’ Thursday announcement that negotiations over a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the release of more Israeli hostages will resume next week, with a mediator expected to resume negotiations before the start of Islam’s holy month of Ramadan. Hopes that the US will be able to broker a ceasefire are fading. It is scheduled to begin at sundown on Sunday.
After more than five months of war, much of Gaza is in ruins, and international pressure is on to force Israel and Hamas to reach an agreement to stop fighting and release the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas. Pressure is mounting.
Israel’s near-total blockade of Gaza and fighting have made it nearly impossible for aid to reach much of the strip, aid groups say. Many of the estimated 300,000 people still living in northern Gaza are forced to eat animal feed to survive.
Israel launched the offensive after Hamas-led militants attacked across the border on October 7, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250 others. A temporary ceasefire in November saw the release of more than 100 hostages in exchange for 240 imprisoned Palestinians. by Israel.
The number of Palestinians killed exceeded 30,800. This is according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its statistics, but says women and children account for about two-thirds of all casualties.
the current:
— After months of warnings that Israel’s siege was causing famine, children began dying in Gaza.
— President Joe Biden has ordered the U.S. military to set up a temporary aid port in Gaza, which is under threat of starvation.
— Analysis: Yemen’s Houthi rebels’ first deadly attack on a ship raises risks for a turbulent Middle East
— Major NGOs condemn Israel’s suspension of visa renewals for aid workers in Gaza and the West Bank
– Violence in the Middle East and the growing threat from the Islamic State group in Afghanistan are putting pressure on the United States and its allies.
— For more AP coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.
Here’s the latest information:
Israeli investigators said troops shot at some people surrounding a Gaza aid convoy last week as they advanced towards them.
JERUSALEM – The Israeli military said Friday that Israeli troops shot at some of the crowd advancing towards them in an investigation into last week’s bloody incident over an aid convoy that killed 118 Palestinians in northern Gaza. announced that it had been found out.
Israeli officials initially said only that their troops fired warning shots into the crowd.
On February 29, many people met a convoy of trucks delivering aid to war-torn areas before dawn and began scrambling to get food. Witnesses said Israeli forces opened fire on them.
The military said Friday that about 12,000 people gathered around trucks heading to distribution centers and began robbing them of food aid.
A military investigation into the incident found that troops did not fire at the convoy itself, but “fired at a number of suspects who approached nearby troops and posed a threat,” the military said in a statement.
The military said many of the casualties were caused by crowds fighting for food and people hit by aid trucks.
The United Nations said last week that a U.N. team that visited Shifa Hospital in Gaza City reported “numerous gunshot wounds” among the more than 200 people who had been treated for injuries there last week.
The director of Al Awda Hospital said that 80% of the 176 injured people brought to the hospital had gunshot wounds. The European Union called for an international investigation into the killing.
The violence surrounding the convoy highlighted the desperate need for aid to reach the largely isolated region of northern Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of people remain despite widespread devastation from the war between Israel and Hamas. .
In response to the convoy’s misfortune, the United States began airlifting food to the region and announced plans to build a pier to transport aid by sea.
Israel attacks across Gaza, killing 78 people in past 24 hours, Gaza Health Ministry announced
DEIR AL BARAH, Gaza Strip — The Gaza Strip Health Ministry announced Friday that 78 people were killed and 104 others injured in Israeli airstrikes in different parts of the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours.
The latest figures bring the total number of deaths in the Gaza Strip to 30,878 since the Israeli-Hamas war began five months ago, the ministry said. The total number of injured increased to 72,402. The ministry did not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally, but said 72% were women and children.
The United Nations Palestine Refugee Agency, known by the acronym UNRWA, has announced that around 9,000 women have been killed in Gaza in the past five months.
Israel launched air, sea, and ground attacks in the Gaza Strip in response to Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, in which the militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted about 250 others.
“Women in Gaza continue to endure the consequences of this brutal war,” UNRWA said in a post to X on International Women’s Day. According to the agency, many of those killed were mothers who left behind families.
The agency said some women were giving birth without basic medical assistance. The report said many people lack sanitary products and privacy and live in extremely unsanitary living conditions.
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