Dozens killed in Gaza strikes, drownings as negotiations 'at dead end'

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At least seven people were killed in an Israeli strike on Nabatieh in Southern Lebanon, two security sources told Reuters early on Wednesday.

The strike appeared to be targeted at the Islamic Group's emergency and relief centre in Hebbariyeh village in Southern Lebanon, the sources said.

On Tuesday, Israeli air strikes near two towns in northeast Lebanon killed three Hezbollah militants, the group posted on Telegram and Israel confirmed the strikes.

Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan refused on Tuesday to confirm or deny Israeli claims that they killed the deputy commander of Hamas's armed wing, saying he had no evidence of this.

“Everyone knows since day one, the Israelis have been saying they want to target Qassam Brigades and other commanders. However, in the absence of an official statement confirming the martyrdom, one cannot confirm such information,” Hamdan, who is based in Beirut, told Al Jazeera.

“This information is not usually shared inside the movement. The safety and whereabouts of the commanders is not something exchanged internally. The information published by the enemy is not deemed confirmed. It could very well be part of the psychological war being waged by the occupation against the Palestinian people,” he added.

An Israeli strike on Tuesday hit a displacement camp in southern Gaza, killing at least 12 people including children, Gaza's health ministry said.

The ministry in a statement reported "12 martyrs including children in an air strike that hit a tent for displaced people" in the coastal Al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Yunis city.

Al-Mawasi, on the besieged Gaza Strip's Mediterranean coast, is now home to thousands of Palestinians displaced by nearly six months of war who shelter in makeshift tents.

Many of them were displaced from the area of Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital, the territory's largest which has been targeted in an ongoing Israeli attack since March 18.

Twelve people drowned trying to reach aid dropped by plane off a Gaza beach, Palestinian health authorities said on Tuesday, amid growing fears of famine nearly six months into Israel's indiscriminate war.

Video of the airdrop obtained by Reuters showed crowds of people running towards the beach, in Beit Lahia in north Gaza, as crates with parachutes floated down, then people standing deep in water and bodies being pulled onto the sand.

In Washington, the Pentagon said three of the 18 bundles of airdropped aid into Gaza on Monday had parachute malfunctions and fell into the water, but could not confirm if anyone was killed trying to reach the aid.

It was the latest in a string of incidents involving deaths during aid deliveries in the crowded Palestinian enclave where some people are foraging for weeds to eat and baking barely edible bread from animal feed.

A piece of paper retrieved from Monday's airdrop said in Arabic written over an American flag that the aid was from the United States.

The video showed the apparently lifeless body of a bearded young man being hauled onto the beach, the eyes open but unmoving, and another man trying to revive him with chest compressions as somebody said, "It's over."

"He swam to get food for his children and he was martyred," said a man standing on the beach who did not give his name.

"They should deliver aid through the (overland) crossings. Why are they doing this to us?"

Aid agencies say only about a fifth of required supplies are entering Gaza as Israel persists with a brutal  air and ground offensive that has shattered the enclave, pushing parts of it into famine already.

They say deliveries by air or sea directly onto Gaza's beaches are no substitute for increased supplies coming in by land via Israel or Egypt.

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin told his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant Tuesday that civilian casualties in Gaza are "too high" and suggested alternatives to a major Israeli attack on the territory's south.

A separate Israeli delegation was supposed to visit Washington to discuss US concerns over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plans to launch an assault on the southern city of Rafah, where most of Gaza's population have been displaced following months of relentless and indiscriminate Israeli bombardment.

But Israel scrapped that visit after the United States abstained in a Monday vote on a UN Security Council resolution that called for a Gaza ceasefire, allowing it to pass.

"In Gaza today, the number of civilian casualties is far too high, and the amount of humanitarian aid is far too low," Austin said at the beginning of the meeting.

A senior Pentagon official told reporters after the meeting Austin had discussed his hopes that negotiations would "soon produce the release of all hostages."

Israel's indiscriminate military campaign has killed at least 32,414 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's health ministry.

Roughly 130 Israelis are still believed to be held in Gaza after they were seized in the surprise Hamas attack on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people.

The United States has backed Israel with both military and diplomatic support, but has voiced frustration with Netanyahu as the civilian death toll in the Gaza Strip mounts and the humanitarian situation worsens.

The Pentagon official told reporters Austin had acknowledged the need to dismantle Hamas's Rafah battalions but claimed that the allies had a "moral imperative" and "shared strategic interest" in safeguarding civilians.

"The secretary expressed our goal to help Israel find an alternative to a full-scale and perhaps premature military operation that could endanger the over one million civilians that are sheltering and Rafah," he said.

"And to do that, there's a requirement to ensure that those civilians can depart, can do so safely and can have their humanitarian needs met as they make their way to other parts of Gaza."

He said Gallant had expressed his "commitment to address those issues."

The official did not detail the alternatives to invasion suggested by Austin, but pointed to the need for increased humanitarian aid and said a maritime humanitarian corridor was expected to be up and running within weeks.

He said around 200 aid trucks were getting into Gaza each day, up from around 100 in February.

The official was asked if Austin was confident that the Rafah operation would not go forward until further discussion with the United States but declined to answer.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees has enough funds to keep operating until at least the end of May, its chief told Swiss media on Tuesday.

UNRWA, which coordinates nearly all aid to Gaza, has been in crisis since Israel made unverified claims that about a dozen of its 13,000 Gaza employees were involved in the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

This led many donor nations, including the United States, to abruptly suspend funding to the agency, threatening its efforts to deliver desperately-needed aid in Gaza, where the UN has warned of an impending famine.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini had warned last month that the funding crunch was so great the organisation might not be able to operate beyond March.

But after a number of countries recently resumed or increased their funding, including Spain, Canada and Australia, Lazzarini told Switzerland's Keystone-ATS news agency Tuesday that "the situation today is less dramatic".

"But we are still working from one month to the next," he said, adding that now "we have funding until the end of May".

The Israeli army said Tuesday that it had killed Marwan Issa, deputy leader of the armed wing of Hamas, in a strike earlier this month.

"Marwan Issa was eliminated in a precise strike two weeks ago by the air force based on intelligence from the Shin Bet," the Israeli internal security agency, army spokesman Daniel Hagari told a press conference.

The White House said on March 18 that Issa had been killed, but Israel had not confirmed his death until now.

Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles surrounded a hospital in Gaza's Khan Yunis Tuesday, witnesses said, as the Palestinian Red Crescent reported another facility was "out of service" due to military operations.

Witnesses at Nasser Hospital, where thousands of displaced Palestinians have sought refuge from Israel's indiscriminate attacks, told AFP that shots were fired at the sprawling complex in the southern city of Khan Yunis, but no raid was as yet taking place.

Gaza's health ministry said Israeli troops were shooting and firing "shells and (conducting) violent raids in its surroundings in preparation for its storming".

"Thousands of displaced people are still inside the hospital," the ministry said. "They do not have sufficient quantities of drinking water, food and infant formula, and their lives are in danger."

The Israeli army did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.

For the past nine days, Israeli troops have attacking Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital, the territory's biggest. They claim to have killed 170 Palestinian militants there and arrested hundreds of others, but civilians trapped inside say they are being targeted.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said on Tuesday that Al-Amal Hospital, near Nasser in Khan Yunis, was "out of service" after Israeli forces evacuated it and blocked the entrance.

The medical organisation said in a statement that "the international community failed to provide the necessary protection" for staff, patients and displaced Gazans sheltering at Al-Amal.

The Red Crescent said one patient and one of its volunteers were killed Sunday by Israeli fire.

The Israeli military, which on Monday claimed to have killed about 20 fighters around Al-Amal Hospital, did not comment on the Red Crescent's statement.

 The United Nations food agency said on Tuesday that shipments of animal feed to sustain milk-producing cows were blocked at the border into Gaza for months as Israel continued its indiscriminate war in the besieged Palestinian enclave.

The barley intended for farmers and herders mostly in northern Gaza would have been "enough to produce milk for all the children in Gaza for over a month," said AbdulHakim Elwaer, Assistant Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization.

"We had trucks from December of animal fodder and we had difficulties," Elwaer said.

The blockade had now been lifted but the shipments had not yet entered Gaza, he said.

Elwaer did not name which authority had refused the aid but inspections at the Rafah crossing into Gaza are carried out by Israel. Israel's COGAT, a defence ministry agency tasked with coordinating aid into Gaza, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The supplies sat near the border for two months after receiving initial approval by Israel.

The war has created a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians left homeless by Israeli bombardments and food, drinking water and medicines scarce. United Nations agencies say a famine is imminent.

The United States will continue dropping essential aid from the air into the Gaza Strip, the White House said Tuesday after Hamas called for them to end following fatal drownings and stampedes.

"Air drops are one of the many ways that we are helping to provide desperately-needed aid to Palestinians in Gaza, and we will continue to do so," a spokesman for the National Security Council told reporters, after Hamas-led authorites said that 18 people had died, 12 of them by drowning, while trying to recover dropped food supplies.

France's defence minister on Tuesday denied allegations from investigative journalists that France supplied components for ammunition used by the Israeli army in its Gaza campaign.

Marseille-based firm Eurolinks had sold Israel M27 links, metal pieces used to join rifle cartridges into ammunition belts for machine guns, investigative websites Disclose and Marsactu wrote.

Such ammunition "could have been used against civilians in the Gaza strip," they claimed.

The investigative outlets' reporting was supported by photos of the links which they said were taken on October 23, weeks after Hamas's surprise October 7 attack on Israel and the start of Israel's indiscriminate war on Gaza.

But Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu told reporters in Paris that Eurolinks' license to export to Israeli firm IMI Systems "only covers re-export to third countries" rather than use by the Israeli army.

Left-wingers have called for France to follow Canada's example and stop all arms exports to Israel.

MP Mathilde Panot, a leader of the France Unbowed (LFI) opposition party, described the exports as a "massive scandal", accusing Lecornu of "lying" in a recent parliamentary hearing.

The minister told the National Assembly lower house's defence committee last month that France's policy on arms for Israel was "irreproachable", with recent deliveries covering items like "ball bearings, glass, cooling systems" and sensors.

"In general, these are arms planned to be re-exported from Israel to other customers," he added at the time.

Lecornu said he had ordered civil servants to be "even stricter" in examining exports to Israel since October 7.

France did issue licenses for parts for Israel's "Iron Dome" missile defence system, he acknowledged.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Tuesday threatened to break off diplomatic ties with Israel if the country doesn't comply with a UN Security Council resolution that calls for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

Petro made the announcement on X, formerly known as Twitter. On Monday, he published another message in which he celebrated the resolution’s approval and urged other nations to suspend ties with Israel if it doesn't cease its military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Israel's foreign ministry replied to Petro's threat on Tuesday with a post, which said the Middle Eastern nation will "continue to protect its people and will not give in to any pressures and threats".

The foreign ministry accused Petro of being a "supporter of Hamas terrorists" who massacred children and women during a 7 October attack on Israel, and said that Petro's stance is a "disgrace to the Colombian people".

The confrontation on X signals a growing deterioration in the relations between both nations, which have gone from being military and commercial partners, to becoming bitter ideological rivals.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad's armed wing says it has shelled an Israeli position around the Al-Shifa Hopsital in Gaza City, The New Arab's Arabic edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reports.

The Al-Quds Brigades say they used mortars.

Hamas has targeted an Israeli personnel carrier with an Al-Yassin 105 anti-armour missile on Al-Rashid Street in Gaza, The New Arab's Arabic edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reports.

Israel has recalled its negotiators from Qatar's capital Doha after deeming mediation talks on a Gaza truce "at a dead end" due to Hamas demands, a senior Israeli official says.

The official, who is close to the Mossad spymaster heading up the talks, accused Hamas's Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar of sabotaging the diplomacy "as part of a wider effort to inflame this war over Ramadan".

(Reuters)

Jordanian King Abdullah II discussed Gaza with UN head António Guterres yesterday.

The king "stressed the need for immediate and urgent action by the international community to mitigate the humanitarian catastrophe" in the Palestinian enclave, Jordan's Royal Hashemite Court said in a statement.

King Abdullah said Amman was working to deliver assistance to Gaza by all means available, and was cooperating with other countries and international organisations to boost the humanitarian response.

"Discussions also addressed the need to continue supporting UNRWA to enable it to provide its humanitarian services in accordance with its UN mandate, especially in light of the deteriorating conditions in Gaza," the Royal Hashemite Court added.

King Abdullah expressed support for an "immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza", allowing residents of the strip to return to their homes.

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) slams the "systematic dismantling" of Gaza's healthcare system after Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis was left out of service.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), which operates the facility, says Israel forced hospital staff and injured people to evacuate, and used dirt barriers to close its entrances.

"There are now 24 non-functioning hospitals in #Gaza," MAP posts on X.

"We condemn the systematic dismantling of the healthcare system and stand in solidarity with PRCS."

🚨The Israeli military has forced patients and @PalestineRCS teams to evacuate Al Amal Hospital leaving it out of service.

There are now 24 non-functioning hospitals in #Gaza.

We condemn the systematic dismantling of the healthcare system and stand in solidarity with PRCS
(1/2)

— Medical Aid for Palestinians (@MedicalAidPal) March 26, 2024

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin told his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant on Tuesday that civilian casualties in Gaza are "too high", and said the two would talk about alternatives to a major Israeli operation in the territory's south.

A separate Israeli delegation was supposed to visit Washington to discuss US concerns over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plans to launch an assault on the southern city of Rafah, where much of Gaza's population has sought refuge.

But Israel scrapped that visit after the United States abstained in a Monday vote on a UN Security Council resolution that called for a Gaza ceasefire, allowing it to pass.

"In Gaza today, the number of civilian casualties is far too high, and the amount of humanitarian aid is far too low," Austin said at the beginning of the meeting, adding that it would include discussion of alternatives for targeting Hamas in Rafah.

Gallant meanwhile said they would talk about "developments in Gaza and the means to achieve our goals: the destruction of Hamas organisation and bringing back the Israeli hostages".

The head of a Lebanese Sunni political and militant group that has joined the Shia armed group Hezbollah in its fight against Israel on Lebanon's border said on Tuesday that the hostilities have helped strengthen cooperation between the two groups.

The secretary-general of Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Group, Sheikh Mohammed Takkoush said his faction decided to join the fighting along the Lebanon-Israel border because of Israel's crushing offensive on the Gaza Strip and its strikes against Lebanese towns and villages killing civilians, including journalists, since the Gaza war started.

"We decided to join [the battle] as a national, religious and moral duty. We did that to defend our land and villages," Takkoush told The Associated Press at his group’s headquarters in Beirut.

"We also did so in support of our brothers in Gaza," where he said Israel was committing an “open massacre."

Takkoush said he believed Israel has ambitions to seize more territory "not only in Palestine but in Lebanon too".

The Islamic Group is one of Lebanon’s main Sunni factions but has kept a low profile politically over the years. It has one member in Lebanon’s 128-seat legislature. Elections within the group in 2022 brought its leadership closer to Hamas.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock says international organisations must be able to deliver aid to Gaza without hindrance, adding that the situation there was hellish for civilians struggling to meet their most vital daily needs.

"The humanitarian situation in Gaza is hell," Baerbock says while on a trip to the Middle East, during which she met with Israeli and Palestinian officials.

"International organisations must be able to provide vital aid unhindered," she says in Tel Aviv, adding that Germany had increased its funding to the World Food Programme by an additional €10 million ($10.8 million).

(Reuters)

UNRWA has sufficient funds to run its operations until the end of May after many donors paused their funding over Israeli claims that some staff took part in Hamas's 7 October attack, the agency's head says.

"What I can say today is that we can run our operation until the end of May, whereas a month ago I had just the visibility for the next week or two weeks," UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini tells Reuters in Geneva.

"But that shows also how bad the financial situation of the organisation is."

(Reuters)

Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis is out of service after Israel forced staff and injured people to leave, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says.

Israeli forces used dirt barriers to close the entrances to the PRCS-operated facility, the humanitarian group adds on X.

The organisation "expresses its disappointment" that Al-Amal was "taken out of service after the international community failed to provide the necessary protection for its staff, patients, and displaced persons".

"The hospital was besieged for more than 40 days and shelled several times before the occupation forces resumed its siege again and forced everyone in it to leave, leaving the hospital destroyed," PRCS says.

PRCS’s Al-Amal Hospital is Out of Service

The Palestine Red Crescent Society announces that the PRCS’s Al-Amal Hospital in the city of Khan Yunis has been taken out of service and has stopped working completely after the Occupation forces forced the hospital’s crews and the… pic.twitter.com/i7zbwYnhrk

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) March 26, 2024

The situation in war-ravaged Gaza is so desperate that teenagers are now saying they hope to be swiftly killed to escape the "nightmare", a spokesman for the UN children's agency says.

"The unspeakable is regularly said in Gaza," says James Elder, spokesman for the United Nations children's agency UNICEF.

Speaking to journalists in Geneva via video message from Rafah in southern Gaza, he says the agency had on Monday held a meeting with adolescents.

Several said they were "so desperate for this nightmare to end that they hoped to be killed", he says.

A United Nations expert told the global body's Human Rights Council on Tuesday that she believed Israel's military campaign in Gaza since 7 October amounted to genocide and called on countries to immediately impose sanctions and an arms embargo.

"I find that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide against Palestinians as a group in Gaza has been met," Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, told the UN rights body in Geneva.

Israel, which did not attend the session, rejected her findings.

"Instead of seeking the truth, this special rapporteur tries to fit weak arguments to her distorted and obscene inversion of reality," its diplomatic mission in Geneva said, claiming that its war was against Hamas and not Palestinian civilians.

(Reuters)

UN humanitarian office OCHA calls for Israel to revoke an apparent ban on food deliveries to northern Gaza from UNRWA, saying people there were facing a "cruel death by famine".

Israel said on Monday it would stop working with UNRWA in Gaza, accusing the aid agency of perpetuating conflict.

The agency said Israel told it that it would no longer approve its food convoys to north Gaza. Four such requests were denied since 21 March, it said.

"The decision must be revoked," OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke tells a UN briefing in Geneva.

"You cannot claim to adhere to these international provisions of law when you block UNRWA food convoys."

(Reuters)

Amnesty International UK has unofficially "renamed" the London street leading up to the Israeli embassy to the UK.

Amnesty UK campaigns manager Kristyan Benedict posts to social media a picture of a sign reading "Genocide Avenue" and bearing the rights group's logo.

"Israeli embassy, London. We've renamed your street (again)," Benedict says.

He adds that the move was the work of Amnesty UK and that "our friends" at Palestinian rights group Al-Haq "joined us for media interviews and photos".

In March 2022, Benedict posted a similar message saying the Israeli embassy's street had been renamed, attaching a photo of a sign reading "Apartheid Avenue" and "No Palestinians allowed".

Israeli Embassy, London. We’ve renamed your street (again) pic.twitter.com/UpvcScTPlh

— kristyan benedict (@KreaseChan) March 26, 2024

British journalist Owen Jones, who has railed against Israel's war on Gaza, says "everything we warned about has happened".

"They will never forgive us for being right about Gaza," the columnist for the Guardian newspaper posts on X.

"Like Iraq – except this is a graver crime – the apologists were completely wrong, and we were vindicated in the worst possible way: with mass death.

"They'll never forgive us for it."

They will never forgive us for being right about Gaza.

Everything we warned about has happened.

Like Iraq - except this is a graver crime - the apologists were completely wrong, and we were vindicated in the worst possible way: with mass death.

They’ll never forgive us for it

— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) March 26, 2024

Twelve people have drowned trying to reach aid dropped by plane off a Gaza beach, Palestinian health authorities said on Tuesday, amid growing fears of famine nearly six months into Israel's war on the enclave.

Video of the air drop obtained by Reuters showed crowds of people running towards the beach, in Beit Lahia in north Gaza, as crates with parachutes floated down, then people standing deep in water and bodies being pulled onto the sand.

The video showed the apparently lifeless body of a bearded young man being hauled onto the beach, the eyes open but unmoving, and another man trying to revive him with chest compressions as somebody said: "It's over."

"He swam to get food for his children and he was martyred," said a man standing on the beach who did not give his name.

"They should deliver aid through the [overland] crossings. Why are they doing this to us?"

Aid agencies say only about a fifth of required supplies are entering Gaza as Israel ploughs on with an air and ground offensive.

They say deliveries by air or sea directly onto Gaza's beaches are no substitute for increased supplies coming in by land via Israel or Egypt.

A piece of paper retrieved from Monday's air drop said in Arabic written over an American flag that the aid was from the United States.

(Reuters)

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said its goodbyes on Monday to a 23-year-old colleague killed after being targeted by Israeli forces.

The humanitarian group posts on X that Ameer Abu Aysha was killed on Sunday as he performed his humanitarian duty at Khan Younis's Al-Amal Hospital.

"He was laid to rest in his hometown in Deir Al-Balah city" in central Gaza, PRCS adds.

Mediator Qatar said on Tuesday that talks between Hamas and Israel on a Gaza truce and hostage exchange are continuing, despite the warring parties trading blame over the lack of headway.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said the talks were "ongoing", adding there had not been "any development that would lead to thinking that one of the teams has pulled out of the negotiations".

Qatar, with the United States and Egypt, has been engaged in weeks of behind-the-scenes talks in a bid to secure a truce in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinians held by Israel.

Since the UN Security Council adopted a resolution on Monday demanding an "immediate ceasefire" for Ramadan leading to a "lasting" truce, Hamas and Israel have traded blame for their failure to agree a deal.

Ansari told a Doha news conference that Qatar welcomed the UN resolution, which he said had not had "any immediate effect on the talks".

The Qatari official said he could not comment specifically on the presence of Israeli technical teams in Doha but said "regardless of the comings and goings of these teams, the meetings are still ongoing here in Doha and I can confirm that part of the negotiating teams are still here in Doha conducting negotiations as we speak."

Yemen's Houthi rebels say on Tuesday that they have mounted six attacks on ships with drones and missiles in the last 72 hours in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.

The Houthis attacked the Maersk Saratoga, APL Detroit, Huang Pu and Pretty Lady after identifying them as either US or British, according to a statement from the group's military spokesperson Yahya Saree.

Saree adds that the group also attacked two US destroyers in the Red Sea as well as Israel's city of Eilat.

It is not immediately clear which, if any, of the targets were struck by the drones or missiles.

(Reuters)

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, on a visit to Iran on Tuesday, says Israel is experiencing "unprecedented political isolation", a day after the UN Security Council called for a ceasefire in the Gaza war.

"Although this resolution came late and there may be some gaps that need to be filled, the resolution itself indicates that the Israeli occupation is experiencing unprecedented political isolation," Haniyeh tells a news conference in Tehran.

He adds that Israel is "losing political cover and protection even in the Security Council" and "the US is unable to impose its will on the international community".

Haniyeh is accompanied by Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, who makes no comment during the press conference.

A small Mossad team is returning to Israel from the Qatari capital Doha for consultations on developments in the talks on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage releases, a source briefed on the discussions tells Reuters.

(Reuters)

Hamas called for an end to aid airdrops into Gaza Tuesday after it said 12 people drowned and six were killed in stampedes trying to reach the food packages.

"We call for an immediate end to airdrop operations… and we demand the immediate and rapid opening of land crossings to allow humanitarian aid to reach our Palestinian people," the group said.

Israel's war on Gaza has so far killed 32,414 people, the enclave's health ministry says in an update on Tuesday.

The ministry says Israeli forces carried out eight massacres against the families of Gaza with 81 dead and 93 injured arriving to hospitals during the previous 24 hours.

United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths, who recently pushed for more humanitarian access to Gaza, plans to step down at the end of June for health reasons, a UN spokesperson said on Monday.

Griffiths is a British diplomat who has headed the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) since 2021.

Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for UN Secretary-General António Guterres, did not disclose the nature of Griffiths' health concerns.

"He advocated tirelessly for life-saving aid to reach those most in need and for the resources needed to do so," Haq said in a statement.

"A skilled diplomat and mediator, he has played a key role in leading the humanitarian response of United Nations and partners and negotiating solutions to some of the most intractable crises."

Israeli airstrikes killed dozens of Palestinians at both ends of the Gaza Strip overnight, hitting the area around Al-Shifa Hospital in the north and Rafah on the southern edge where more than a million people have sought shelter.

In the north, where intense fighting has raged for more than a week around Al-Shifa, members of the Haseera family told Reuters dozens had been killed in a strike that wiped out a family compound near Gaza's biggest hospital.

"A new massacre against the families of Abu Suhail Abu Haseera, his children and grandchildren, totalling around 30 people," family member Abu Ali Abu Haseera said in a text message to Reuters.

Reuters journalists were not able to reach the area around Al Shifa, which Israeli forces stormed on 18 March.

In the south, where more than half of Gaza's 2.3 million people are sheltering in Rafah against the border fence with Egypt, health authorities said 18 people including eight children were killed in a strike on the Abu Nqaira family home.

Blankets and children's clothes were strewn amid the rubble on Tuesday morning, where relatives picked through the debris to retrieve belongings. Outside, a pillar of reinforced concrete had crushed a burnt-out car. Family members wept over corpses laid out at a nearby hospital morgue.

(Reuters)

Seven people have drowned in the Mediterranean trying to reach aid airdropped into Gaza, the enclave's health ministry said on Tuesday.

Six people were also injured in Monday's airdrop, the ministry said.

Hamas said a total of 18 people have now been killed in drownings or stampedes since aid airdrops to the starving north of the besieged territory began.

Gaza ceasefire and hostage release talks are moving ahead and Israel's Mossad officials remain in Doha for discussions, a source briefed on the talks told Reuters on Tuesday.

(Reuters)

Participants in the UK's national pro-Palestine march will assemble at Russell Square in London on Saturday.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, one of the rally's organisers, has said protesters will be "demanding over government calls for #CeasefireNOW to #StopGazaGenocide".

"Join us," the group added on X, formerly Twitter.

🚨NEW LOCATION INFO - National March for Palestine - Saturday 30 March, 12 noon
📍 Assemble Russell Square, London

We will be marching again in London on 30 March, demanding our government call for #CeasefireNOW to #StopGazaGenocide. Join us.#FreePalestine pic.twitter.com/eg0Whm87x7

— PSC (@PSCupdates) March 25, 2024

Dozens of Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles surrounded on Tuesday Gaza's Nasser Hospital, where thousands of displaced people have sought refuge from the war, witnesses said.

Witnesses told AFP that shots were being fired at the sprawling complex in the southern city of Khan Younis, but no raid was as yet taking place.

Gaza's health ministry said Israeli troops were shooting and firing "shells and [conducting] violent raids in its surroundings in preparation for its storming".

"Thousands of displaced people are still inside the hospital," the ministry said.

"They do not have sufficient quantities of drinking water, food and infant formula, and their lives are in danger."

The Israeli army did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.

China on Tuesday said it welcomed a UN Security Council call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza five months into the war, urging swift "action" to implement the resolution's calls to halt fighting over the final weeks of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

After more than five months of war, the UN Security Council for the first time on Monday demanded an immediate ceasefire in Gaza after Israel's ally the United States, which vetoed previous drafts, abstained.

All 14 other members voted in favour of the resolution, which calls for the truce to lead to a "lasting, sustainable ceasefire" and demands that Hamas and other militants free hostages seized in their 7 October attack.

Beijing on Tuesday said it "welcomes" the move, noting the "conflict in Gaza is still raging, causing a serious humanitarian crisis".

"The United Nations Security Council's resolutions are binding, and we demand that the parties fulfill their obligations under the Charter of the United Nations and take due action as required by the resolutions," foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a regular briefing.

"We expect countries with significant influence to play an active role in supporting the implementation of the resolution."

China, he said, "will continue to work with all parties to bring an early end to the fighting in Gaza, alleviate the humanitarian situation and promote the implementation of a two-state solution".

Israel accused Hamas on Tuesday of posing "delusional" demands in indirect negotiations on a Gaza truce, saying in a statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office that these showed the group was not interested in a deal.

In the Qatari- and Egyptian-mediated talks, Hamas has sought to parlay any ceasefire into an end to the war and withdrawal of Israeli forces. Israel rules this out.

(Reuters)

A veteran Israeli minister who joined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's emergency unity government after the outbreak of the Gaza war said on Monday he had resigned after not being included in the highest-level war cabinet.

Gideon Saar joined the unity government along with several other members of the opposition to help manage the war.

Saar's departure, along with another of his allies, is not expected to affect the stability of Netanyahu's government, which still controls a clear majority in parliament.

Saar was once a rival to Netanyahu in the right-wing Likud party before joining a more centrist bloc led by former military chief Benny Gantz. Together they entered the emergency government. Gantz became a member of the small-forum, decision-making war cabinet while Saar was left out.

"I can't carry the responsibility if I do not have, in my judgment, a real possibility to influence the direction of policy. I simply do not see any benefit in this," Saar said in broadcast remarks.

His resignation did not come as a surprise, as Saar had broken up the alliance with Gantz earlier this month.

(Reuters)

Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was in Tehran on Tuesday for talks with Iranian officials, state media reported, a day after the UN Security Council called for a ceasefire in the Gaza war.

"Hamas bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh, during his trip to Tehran on Tuesday, will meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian," Iran's official IRNA news agency said, adding that he will also meet with other senior officials.

It is the second visit the Hamas leader has made to Tehran since the Gaza war broke out.

Haniyeh's last visit was in early November when he met Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as other officials.

Medical Aid for Palestinians calls for a permanent ceasefire in comments made after the UN Security Council passed its resolution on Gaza.

"We must now see… a permanent #ceasefire implemented," the humanitarian group posts on X, formerly Twitter.

The British charity also urges the "safe and unfettered delivery of aid" into the strip, an "end to the systematic dismantling of the healthcare system" and "accountability for violations of international law".

Israel's brutal war on Gaza has so far killed more than 32,300 people.

We must now see:
🔴 a permanent #ceasefire implemented,
🔴the safe and unfettered delivery of aid into #Gaza,
🔴an end to the systematic dismantling of the healthcare system,
🔴 and accountability for violations of international law. (2/2)

— Medical Aid for Palestinians (@MedicalAidPal) March 25, 2024

A UN rights expert on Monday said there were "reasonable grounds" to determine that Israel has committed several acts of "genocide" in its war in Gaza, also warning of "ethnic cleansing".

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, said there were clear indications that Israel had violated three of the five acts listed under the UN Genocide Convention.

"The overwhelming nature and scale of Israel's assault on Gaza and the destructive conditions of life it has inflicted reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group," she said in a report, which was immediately rejected by Israel as an "obscene inversion of reality".

Albanese, an independent expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but who does not speak on behalf of the United Nations, said she had found "reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of... acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza has been met".

The report, entitled "Anatomy of a Genocide", listed those acts as: "killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to the group's members; and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part".

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin will meet with Israel's minister of defence on Tuesday and discuss ways to defeat Hamas other than conducting a ground invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, the Pentagon said, at a time of rising tensions between the two countries.

Major General Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, told reporters Monday that Austin's planned morning meeting with Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant is still on, even though Israel abruptly cancelled the visit of a high-level delegation to Washington this week.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cancelled the visit in protest over Monday's UN Security Council decision calling for an immediate ceasefire. The US abstained, deciding not to use its veto power, and the resolution passed 14–0.

"There are ways to go about addressing the threat of Hamas, while also taking into account civilian safety. A lot of those are from lessons, our own lessons, conducting operations in urban environments," Ryder said.

"I would expect the conversations to cover those kinds of things."