Middle East crisis live: UN agency says Israel blocking food aid to Gaza as starvation fears grow | Israel-Gaza war

News agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) have shared further details on the Israeli strike in Lebanon.

A Palestinian security source told AFP that a senior Hamas official had survived an Israeli assassination attempt in Lebanon, with rescuers reporting two civilians killed in the strike south of Beirut.

Israeli forces and Lebanese movement Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, have traded near-daily fire since war broke out on 7 October between Israel and the Palestinian militant group in the Gaza Strip. But the Israel-Lebanon violence has been largely contained to the border area, and Saturday’s strike was the second-farthest deadly attack from the frontier in four months of hostilities.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said Israeli forces struck a car in the coastal town of Jadra, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the border.

The Palestinian source, requesting anonymity for security concerns, said the strike “was a failed attempt to assassinate a senior official in the [Hamas] movement”.

An official with the Lebanese Risala Scout association, which operates rescue teams and is affiliated with the Hezbollah-allied Amal movement, told AFP that two civilians had been killed. The official identified them as a vegetable vendor and a Syrian man on a motorbike who both happened to be nearby.

An AFP photographer at the scene saw a damaged car and a charred motorcycle nearby, with bloodstains all over the site of the strike near the beach in Jadra.

There was no immediate comment from Israel.

Bethan McKernan

Also my colleague, the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent Bethan McKernan has written a news story on the dozens killed in Rafah airstrikes as a full-scale Israeli ground offensive looms. You can read the full piece here:

Airstrikes on the Gaza Strip’s southernmost town of Rafah have killed at least 28 people as more than a million civilians sheltering in the area brace for the possibility of a full-scale Israeli ground offensive on the territory’s last place of relative safety.

As Israeli forces have expanded ground operations steadily southwards in their war against Hamas over the past four months, Rafah – situated on the border with Egypt, and home before the war to about 280,000 people – has become the last refuge for more than half of the strip’s population of 2.3 million.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Friday that he had instructed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and defence ministry to draw up plans for troops to enter Rafah and evacuate civilians, leading to widespread panic in the overcrowded makeshift tent camps that now cover the area.

With two-thirds of Gaza already under evacuation orders, widespread destruction throughout the coastal strip and continuing fighting, it is unclear to where such a large number of people could safely be moved. An Egyptian official told the Guardian that under no circumstances would fleeing Palestinians be allowed to cross the border into the Sinai peninsula, and any attempt to relocate them to Egyptian soil would collapse the peace deal between Egypt and Israel.

Emine Sinmaz

My colleague, Emine Sinmaz in Jerusalem has shared the following report on the case of six-year-old Hind Rajab who was found dead on Saturday, 12 days after her cry for help:

“I’m so scared, please come,” were some of the last words six-year-old Hind Rajab said in a telephone call to rescuers after her family’s car came under fire in Gaza City.

Trapped in the vehicle and surrounded by her dead relatives, for three hours she pleaded with the Red Crescent to save her.

But the aid agency lost contact with the ambulance dispatched to her aid on 29 January and its crew and Hind remained missing.

Now Hind’s family has said that she was found dead inside the car in the Tel al-Hawa area of Gaza City on Saturday morning.

“Hind and everyone else in the car is martyred,” her grandfather, Baha Hamada, told Agence France-Presse. “[Family members] were able to reach the area because Israeli forces withdrew early at dawn today.”

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) added that it had located its bombed-out ambulance just metres away, and that its two paramedics, Yusuf Al-Zeino and Ahmed Al-Madhoun, had also been killed.

A food shipment for 1.1 million Palestinians is stuck at an Israeli port due to recent restrictions from Israeli authorities, says the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) as an estimated 25% of families in Gaza face catastrophic hunger.

The Associated Press (AP) report that UNRWA’s director, Philippe Lazzarini, said on Friday that a convoy of food donated by Turkey had been sitting for weeks in the Israeli port city of Ashdod. The agency said that the Israeli contractor they work with received a call from Israeli customs authorities “ordering them not to process any UNRWA goods”.

The restrictions deepened a crisis between Israel and UNRWA, whose operations have been threatened following Israeli accusations that some of its workers participated in the 7 October Hamas attack that triggered Israel’s war in Gaza. Those accusations have led major donor nations, including the US, Canada, Australia and the UK, to suspend funding to the UN organisation.

In an update to its X account, UNRWA said “1,049 containers of rice, flour, chickpeas, sugar and cooking oil are stuck as families in Gaza face hunger and starvation”. That is enough to feed 1.1 million people for one month, say AP.

The World Food Program warned Friday that Gaza could be plunged into famine as early as May.

Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister said the “need in Rafah is already unbelievable”, warning that an Israeli offensive on Rafah would be “a humanitarian catastrophe”.

In an update on her X account, Baerbock said: “The people of Gaza cannot disappear into thin air.”

She added: “Israel must defend itself against Hamas terror, but at the same time alleviate the suffering of the civilian population as much as possible. That’s why another ceasefire is needed so that the hostages can finally be released.”

Baerbock said she would discuss “the way” to a ceasefire “next week in Israel”.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) have accused Israeli forces of the ‘deliberate targeting’ of a PRCS ambulance that resulted in the death of two of its medics.

In a post to its X account, the PRCS shared a video showing the remains of a PRCS ambulance, that the humanitarian organisation says was destroyed deliberately by Israeli occupation forces.

The PRCS said two of its colleagues, Yusuf Al-Zeino and Ahmed Al-Madhoun, were just meters away from six-year-old Hind Rajab. The last time Hind Rajab had been seen was about two weeks ago when she was surrounded by dead relatives after becoming trapped in the vehicle as they tried to flee Gaza City as Israeli forces advanced.

The PRCS had frequently posted updates on its X account pleading for updates and information on Rajab. The BBC had also highlighted her story.

“Hind tragically lost her life alone after pleading with our teams for hours in a terrified and desperate voice, ‘Come take me.’ Rest in peace, Hind, and to the heroes of humanitarian work, Yusuf and Ahmed,” said the PRCS.

The latest figures from the Gaza health ministry, which is run by Hamas, said 117 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes and 152 were injured in the past 24 hours.

According to the statement, at least 28,064 Palestinians have been killed and 67,611 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October.

The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.

An Israeli strike about 60km inside Lebanon’s southern border on Saturday targeted a Palestinian figure close to Hamas but he survived, four security sources told Reuters.

Three other people were killed, including one Hezbollah fighter, the security sources said.

The strike was much deeper into Lebanese territory than the usual exchanges of fire between Hamas ally Hezbollah and the Israeli military, which have been mostly limited to the border region. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Israel’s army has deployed artificial intelligence-enabled military technology in combat for the first time in Gaza, raising fears about the use of autonomous weapons in modern warfare, reports AFP.

The army has hinted at what the new tech is being used for, with spokesperson Daniel Hagari saying last month that Israel’s forces were operating “above and underground simultaneously”.

A senior defence official told AFP the tech was destroying enemy drones and mapping Hamas’s vast tunnel network in Gaza.

The rising civilian death toll shows that much greater oversight is needed over the use of new forms of defence tech, Mary Wareham, an arms expert at Human Rights Watch, told AFP.

“Now we’re facing the worst possible situation of death and suffering that we’re seeing today – some of that is being brought about by the new tech,” she said.

More than 150 countries in December backed a UN resolution identifying “serious challenges and concerns” in new military tech, including “artificial intelligence and autonomy in weapons systems.”

More than 350 attacks have taken place against healthcare in Gaza since hostilities erupted, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday, stating that the “unrelenting war in Gaza hasn’t spared hospitals, their staff or the people sheltering there”.

A total of 645 people have died since 7 October and another 818 were injured as a result of these incidents, said WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic, his comments coming amid allegations that a nurse was shot and critically injured while inside an operating theatre at a hospital in Khan Younis.

“These attacks have affected 98 healthcare facilities, including 27 hospitals damaged out of 36, and affected 90 ambulances, including 50 which sustained damage,” Jasarevic told journalists in Geneva.

The latest WHO data also highlighted the growing number of attacks on healthcare in the occupied West Bank since the Gaza-Israel war erupted on 7 October. At least 364 attacks on healthcare have happened in the West Bank, resulting in 10 fatalities and 62 injuries, Jasarevic said. He noted that 44 health facilities had been affected, including 15 mobile clinics and 24 ambulances.

Speaking on Friday, Jasarevic said: “People in hospitals should always feel safe. Those should be safe havens where people come to get medical care and should not be afraid for their lives.”

“Health facilities are protected under international humanitarian law,” he added telling reporters that WHO has reminded involved parties of this again and again:

We keep repeating our appeal to all parties of the conflict to respect that health workers, ambulances, hospitals [and] patients should never be a target and should be protected.”

Jasarevic said that although WHO are monitoring the numbers of attacks, it does not have the capacity or mandate to know which weapons have been used or by who.

The Saudi foreign ministry has cautioned against the “extremely dangerous repercussions” of Israel “storming and targeting” the city of Rafah.

According to Al Jazeera, in a statement shared on X, the ministry said:

This continued violation of international law and international humanitarian law confirms the necessity of convening the UN security council urgently to prevent Israel from causing an imminent humanitarian catastrophe for which everyone who supports the aggression bears responsibility.”

Israeli occupation forces have continued their siege of the Nasser medical complex in Khan Younis for the 20th day and have reached its northern gate, reports Al Jazeera.

“The occupation forces have been besieging us for 20 days and we are suffering from a shortage of food and drink,” Nahidh Abu Tamiyya, the head of the surgical department told an Al Jazeera correspondent.

According to Wafa news agency, medical sources reported that two Palestinians have been killed by an Israeli sniper – one in front of the reception gate, and the other in the emergency department.

Al Jazeera say the same sources added that medical teams cannot move between the complex’s buildings due to the snipers, and stressed that the lives of 300 health personnel, 450 patients and wounded, and 10,000 displaced people inside the Nasser medical complex are threatened.

Hamas on Saturday warned that there could be “tens of thousands” of dead and injured if the Israeli military attacked Rafah, in the far south of the Gaza Strip reports AFP.

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week said he had ordered troops to prepare to go in to the city, crowded with displaced Palestinians. The announcement prompted concern from foreign governments including the US and aid agencies grappling with a growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza as a result of the war.

Hamas said in a statement that any military action would have catastrophic repercussion that “may lead to tens of thousands of martyrs and injured if Rafah … is invaded”.

The Palestinian militant group that controls the Gaza Strip said it would hold “the American administration, international community and the Israeli occupation” responsible if that happened.

The UN says about half of Gaza’s 2.4 million people are now sheltering in the city, with many sleeping outside in tents and makeshift shelters, and mounting concern about lack of food, water and sanitation.

On Friday, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said a major Israeli offensive in Rafah “can only lead to an additional layer of endless tragedy”.

Netanyahu has ordered military officials to draw up plans for “evacuating” Rafah alongside “destroying” Hamas fighters in the city.

AFP say witnesses reported new strikes on Rafah early Saturday, raising fears among Palestinians of a looming ground invasion.