- At least 75 Palestinians are killed in Israeli attacks in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza with bodies on streets and rescue crews being targeted, the civil defence agency says.
- Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem declares “divine victory” in first speech since ceasefire with Israel came into effect.
- The head of the intensive care unit in the Kamal Adwan hospital has been killed in an Israeli attack on the besieged northern Gaza.
- Israel’s genocide in Gaza has killed at least 44,363 Palestinians and wounded 105,070 since October 7, 2023. At least 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks that day, and more than 200 were taken captive.
- In Lebanon, at least 3,961 people have been killed and 16,520 wounded in Israeli attacks since the war on Gaza began.
Eight killed in another Gaza City attack
Eight people have been killed and several were wounded in an Israeli attack on the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood.Earlier, our reporters on the ground said Israel’s army was firing artillery in central Gaza City’s as-Saftawi area.
Gaza hunger: ‘Dreadful struggle for survival’
Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, expressed concern about the levels of hunger even in areas of central Gaza where aid agencies have teams on the ground.“I was particularly alarmed by the prevalence of hunger,” Sunghay told a Geneva press briefing. “Acquiring basic necessities has become a daily, dreadful struggle for survival.”
Sunghay said the UN has been unable to take any aid to northern Gaza, where he said an estimated 70,000 people remain following “repeated impediments or rejections of humanitarian convoys by the Israeli authorities”.
Sunghay visited camps for people recently displaced from parts of northern Gaza. They were living in horrendous conditions with severe food shortages and poor sanitation, he said.
“It is so obvious that massive humanitarian aid needs to come in – and it is not. It is so important the Israeli authorities make this happen,” he said.
Hamas decries Beit Lahiya attacks that killed 75 Palestinians
Hamas condemned Israel’s “brutal crime” after Israeli forces launched attacks on two residential homes in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya, killing at least 75 people and wounding dozens more.The group said the attacks killed mostly women and children and said medical teams are unable to operate and reach the affected sites as they are still barred from entering the besieged and battered north.
The homes targeted earlier belonged to the Ahmed and al-Baba families, Hamas said. It called on the international community to intervene to break the siege and allow the entry of much-needed humanitarian aid to the north, where famine looms.
Israeli forces have besieged the area for more than 50 days as they step up a deadly ground and aerial assault. Israeli soldiers have been “targeting civilians, medical workers, hospitals, and civilian infrastructures”, Hamas said.
Muslim charities face discrimination as Palestinians are desperate for aid
As the people of Gaza face famine and the continued bombing of their homes by Israel, numerous Muslim charities and organisations are desperately trying to help keep Palestinians alive.
However, many of these groups have found over the past year that the banks they rely on to help get this aid to the people of Gaza do not want to work with charities run by Muslims – especially if they are focused on Gaza. This has become referred to as “Muslim while banking”.
“We used to joke when we started our company that we had 99 problems and payments wasn’t one of them, and that quickly changed,” says Amany Killawi, co-founder of LaunchGood, a crowdfunding platform for Muslims. “I do feel there’s additional scrutiny on Muslim organisations.”
Three Palestinians killed in Gaza bread stampede
Two children and a woman were crushed to death as a crowd of Palestinians pushed to get bread at a bakery in the Gaza Strip during a worsening food crisis in the war-ravaged territory.The bodies of two girls aged 13 and 17 and the 50-year-old woman were taken to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, where a doctor confirmed they died from suffocation because of crowding at the al-Banna bakery.
Osama Abu Laban, the father of one of the girls, wailed over the loss of her life outside the hospital.
“She went to buy bread and she barely managed to get a loaf of bread before being swept away by the crowd of women. They brought her out a lifeless body,” he said.
The flow of food allowed into Gaza by Israel has fallen to nearly its lowest level of almost 14-month-old war for the past two months.
UN and aid officials say hunger and desperation are growing among Gaza’s population, almost all of which relies on humanitarian aid to survive.
Gaza media office sounds alarm over ‘catastrophic levels of hunger’
Gaza’s Government Media Office says hunger and suffering among Palestinians in the besieged enclave have reached “catastrophic” levels, and called on the World Food Programme (WFP) to “uphold its duty” and resume the distribution of much-needed flour.For 420 days, it said, the Israeli army has relied on hunger as a tool against people in Gaza, particularly women and children. It has maintained its crippling siege on the Strip and prevented the entry of humanitarian aid by sealing shut vital border crossings.
Earlier, the WFP warned all bakeries in central Gaza shut down because of severe supply shortages.
In its statement, the media office decried the “utter failure” of humanitarian agencies and NGOs in Gaza, saying organisations such as the WFP have “refused” to supply flour to families who lined up at bakeries across Gaza.
It called on the international community to facilitate the distribution of flour and aid.
Hamas delegation to arrive in Cairo on Saturday, official says
A Hamas delegation will arrive in Cairo on Saturday for talks with Egyptian officials, the group’s senior official Basem Naim says.The visit comes days after the United States said it would begin new efforts with mediators Qatar, Egypt and Turkey to revive Gaza ceasefire talks.
Dutch prosecutors push to block F-35 exports to Israel
The chief prosecutor of the Dutch Supreme Court requested approval of a Court of Appeals decision to stop exporting F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel.The Netherlands’s Supreme Court said the decision by the Court of Appeals on February 12, which halted the export of F-35 parts over concerns Israel is using them to violate international law, must now be approved.
Citing international agreements to which the Netherlands is a party, Attorney-General Paul Vlas argued the export of military materials should be banned if there is a clear risk of misuse. The Supreme Court’s decision is expected soon.
More from Gaza’s civil defence agency on Israeli attacks
Since the start of the Israeli military incursion in northern Gaza on October 5, at least 2,700 people Palestinians have been killed, civil defence agency spokesperson Mahmoud Basal says.He described the situation in northern Gaza as a “catastrophe and genocide with no one there to provide relief to the civilians”.
Basal said the Israeli army targets any person in northern Gaza, even people filling water containers or looking for food or firewood.
‘Families obliterated’: Death toll in Beit Lahiya rises to 75
We earlier reported on an Israeli attack that struck a residential building in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya.Gaza’s civil defence spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal says there has been another attack, and the death from both now stands at 75.
In a statement, Bassal said it is difficult to know what is happening on the ground in the besieged and battered north, where Israeli forces are pressing ahead with a brutal ground and aerial assault.
“Entire families are being obliterated in northern Gaza and we do not know anything about them. There are many who survive attacks under the rubble and there are no civil defence workers there to help,” he said.
Bassal added there are an estimated 10,000 wounded individuals in northern Gaza who have sustained wounds over the past 50 days when Israel’s renewed assault on the area began.
US Muslim group denounces Israel’s killing of Gaza doctor
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) condemned the Israeli murder of a leading doctor in Gaza.Dr Ahmad al-Kahlout, head of the Intensive Care Unit at Kamal Adwan Hospital, was killed by Israeli forces while on his way to the hospital. The Israeli quadcopter that killed the doctor was reportedly hovering above the hospital and nearby areas in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya.
“On this International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, we call on the world community to take concrete actions to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Each day, more Palestinians – like Dr Ahmad al-Kahlout – are slaughtered in Israel’s US-backed campaign of systematic and intentional mass destruction, manufactured starvation and ethnic cleansing.
“The Biden administration’s support for and complicity with this genocide will be remembered on this day for generations to come.”
Europe’s responses to Ukraine, Gaza wars reflect double standard
The outgoing EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell acknowledged criticism of the EU’s “double standards” in its inconsistent stance on the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, saying this notion spread widely in the countries of the Global South.Borrell evaluated his five-year tenure and reflected on Gaza and other issues days before he is succeeded by former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas.
He said the bloc has not managed to be consistent and effective in the Middle East, saying after October 7, 2023, “we were unable to speak with one voice or act effectively enough to help obtain a ceasefire, secure the release of the hostages, and ensure respect for international law and the decisions of the Security Council, the United Nations General Assembly, and the International Court of Justice in the region.
”Borrell said the EU’s “deep divisions” on this issue have largely prevented it from influencing the course of events, despite the growing number of civilian casualties.