EXPLANER
Israel and Hamas are moving toward a new ceasefire as pressure mounts against the planned Israeli offensive in Rafah.
Here’s how things are going on Wednesday February 14, 2024:
Humanitarian crisis in Gaza
- Israel and Hamas are moving toward a new truce and prisoner release deal, an Egyptian and Western official told the AP news agency, as negotiations continue in Cairo amid an imminent Israeli offensive in Rafah .
- The release of Palestinian prisoners is now the “main gap” as truce negotiations continue, according to Israeli and US officials who spoke to Israeli newspaper Walla.
- On Tuesday, Israeli tanks shelled parts of Rafah for the second night in a row, sparking a wave of panic, residents said.
- Dozens of people were killed in nighttime attacks on Monday. On Tuesday, two journalists, including an Arab correspondent for Tel Aviv Tribune, were targeted by an Israeli drone. Tel Aviv Tribune’s Ismail Abu Omar’s right leg had to be amputated after the strike. A photojournalist working with him was also injured in the attack.
- Facing threats of an Israeli ground attack, hundreds of displaced families began leaving the region – now home to around 1.4 million people.
- “More than half of Gaza’s population – more than a million people – are crowded into Rafah, facing death: they have little to eat, virtually no access to medical care, nowhere to sleep, nowhere where to go safely,” the UN said. said Chief Martin Griffiths.
Regional tensions and diplomacy
- The South African government said on Tuesday it had filed an urgent request to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to determine whether Israeli military operations targeting Rafah in southern Gaza constitute a violation of interim measures that the court ordered. handed down last month in the genocide case. against Israel.
- The US Senate passed an emergency spending package that would provide $60 billion in military aid to Ukraine and $14.1 billion to Israel, replenish US weapons systems and provide food, water and other humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza.
- The Church of England said in a statement that Israel’s way of waging its war on Gaza “cannot be morally justified.”
- Separately, a group of nine independent United Nations human rights experts issued a statement calling on governments to protect the right to peaceful protest in solidarity with the people of Gaza.
- And protesters in Providencia, in Chile’s Santiago province, demanded an end to Israeli aggression against Gaza and a severance of relations with Israel, according to local media.
Occupied West Bank
- The Israeli army arrested three men during raids on the town of Qalqilya in the occupied West Bank, the Wafa news agency reported. A man was also arrested in the town of Ni’lin, west of Ramallah, according to local media.
- According to the publication, around 7,000 Palestinians have been detained in the West Bank since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza.
- Israeli forces also attacked the city of Ramallah and parked their vehicles near the Palestinian medical complex, Wafa said.