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Attacks continue in Gaza amid ICJ hearings, where China and Iran are expected to speak on Thursday.
Here’s how things are going on Thursday February 22, 2024:
Fighting and humanitarian crisis
- Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has condemned an Israeli tank strike on a Gaza shelter housing relatives of its staff, during which two women were killed and six others injured, including five women and children.
- At least three people were killed and others injured by Israeli air attacks overnight on Rafah in southern Gaza, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported.
- The Reuters news agency said new satellite images show an area that sources said was being prepared by Egypt, near the border with Gaza, and which could accommodate Palestinians in case an Israeli offensive on Rafah would cause a massive movement of refugees across the border.
- Sirens were heard in the Israeli Red Sea port city of Eilat, warning of possible aerial threats, according to local reports.
- Medical staff at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis work in unbearable conditions due to Israeli attacks on the facility. They requested that the hospital be restored to full functional capacity rather than being evacuated so they could continue to help patients.
- According to the latest data from the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, only four trucks carrying vital humanitarian aid entered Gaza on Wednesday. Aid agencies say hundreds of trucks are needed every day due to a shortage of food and other essentials.
Regional tensions and diplomacy
- The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said it carried out four “self-defense strikes” on Wednesday against seven Houthi mobile anti-ship cruise missiles and a mobile anti-ship ballistic missile launcher in Yemen.
- US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Yemen’s Houthis are “behaving like a terrorist organization”, adding that their attacks on transport ships “endanger an already fragile humanitarian situation” and “do nothing to help the Palestinians.”
- Separately, Hezbollah said it launched 13 attacks against Israel on Wednesday, targeting several Israeli bases and firing rockets at the Israeli towns of Metula and Matzuva. This comes after Israel bombed deep into southern Lebanon.
- China and Iran will be the first of 12 countries to speak on Thursday at ICJ hearings on Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
- Brazil has criticized the “paralysis” of the UN Security Council (UNSC) over the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, at the opening of a G20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro.
Violence in the occupied West Bank
- Israeli settlers attacked the village of Asira al-Qibliya, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, injuring a Palestinian as they threw stones and tried to set fire to a house, Wafa reported.
- Israeli forces killed a Palestinian child in the town of Azzun, east of the city of Qalqilya, Wafa reported.
- OCHA said 100 children were among 394 Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank since October 7.
