EXPLANER
Efforts for a truce agreement continue amid a worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Here’s how things are going on Wednesday, February 7, 2024:
Humanitarian crisis in Gaza
- At least 107 Palestinians were killed and 143 others injured between Monday and Tuesday, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. This brings the Palestinian death toll in Gaza to 27,585 as of Tuesday.
- Local sources reported on Tuesday that six civilians were killed in Israeli shelling targeting their vehicle in the Khirbat al-Adas neighborhood of the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, the news agency reported. Palestinian Wafa.
- The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said on Tuesday that the al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis, under siege by Israel for two weeks, was subjected to heavy shelling and continuous shooting, which caused shrapnel in the hospital.
- The UN humanitarian agency OCHA reported that starting in January, the ability of humanitarian aid missions to access people in dire need in Gaza deteriorated. Of the 61 missions planned in northern Gaza, 10 were facilitated by Israel and 34 were denied access.
- As of Saturday, UNRWA estimates that around 75 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, more than half of whom are children, are displaced.
Regional tensions and diplomacy
- The Saudi Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying it would not maintain diplomatic relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognized on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
- The US Central Command (CENTCOM) published on X that the Houthis had fired six anti-ship ballistic missiles towards the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. No one was injured and only minor damage was reported.
- The US House of Representatives on Tuesday rejected a Republican-led bill to provide $17.6 billion in aid to Israel, as part of a broader bipartisan bill. .
- On Tuesday, Qatar Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani said Hamas had given a “broadly positive” response to a proposed truce agreement with Israel, as the group Palestinian reiterated its demand to end the Israeli assault on Gaza.
- US President Joe Biden told reporters on Tuesday that Hamas’ response to a proposed truce in Gaza “seems a little over the top” but that negotiations would continue.
- More than 20 members of the European Parliament and politicians wrote to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) on Tuesday, saying that Israel’s participation in the Eurovision song contest “whitewashes a regime that is carrying out ethnic cleansing in Palestine and commits war crimes and genocide.”
- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel to negotiate what the State Department called a “lasting end” to the war on Gaza. He had already visited Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt on his fifth regional tour since October last year.
Occupied West Bank
- An Israeli convoy of military vehicles and bulldozers stormed the town of Jenin in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday evening.
- The Israeli army also stormed the town of Tulkarem, imposing a siege on the Nur Shams camp while bulldozers destroyed nearby infrastructure.
- Israeli forces shot dead Mahmoud Soud Titi, an 18-year-old Palestinian, at the Beit Furik checkpoint east of Nablus on Tuesday after he allegedly attempted a stabbing attack, Wafa reported.
- Israeli authorities demolished a retaining wall in the town of Bani Naim, east of Hebron, on Tuesday, Wafa reported.