Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 202

Israeli police have evacuated extremist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir from a building in West Jerusalem that was surrounded by protesters, including families of captives in besieged Gaza, TRT World reports.

Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported that hundreds of protesters gathered in the area near the building where far-right Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu and extremist rabbi Bentzi Gopstein accompanied Ben-Gvir.

The police evacuated the notorious minister from the scene after its officers secured him.

They prevented the protesters from reaching Ben-Gvir after they surrounded his car, chanting slogans of disapproval against him, including “Shame on you.”

The police used crowd dispersal means, including wastewater, according to the daily.

The Israeli military has released the latest video footage of its now daily attacks on southern Lebanon, reporting that jet fighters carried out overnight raids on targets in the vicinity of Maroun el-Ras and Markaba villages, Al Jazeera reports.

Grainy footage accompanying a post on social media showed buildings and other structures being destroyed in huge blasts following apparent missile attacks from the air.

Israeli artillery also shelled “several areas” in Lebanon to “remove a threat”, Israel’s military said, describing the targets as “terrorist infrastructures” of the Hezbollah movement.

Jody Armour, a law professor at the University of Southern California, says anti-Semitism should not be weaponised to silence “valid protests” against what “may plausibly be genocide”, Al Jazeera reports.

“We have lots of Jewish and Muslim and Palestinian and Catholic, like I am, Protestants, too, intergenerational, coming together,” Armour said.

“Everybody should hate anti-Semitism and fight anti-Semitism, but being opposed to Israel’s slaughter in Gaza that the UN has said may plausibly be genocide, does not mean that you’re anti-Semitic,” he said.

“We need to stop allowing people to weaponise anti-Semitism against real, valid protests.”

Palestinian Civil Defence teams have recovered 324 dead bodies at Nasser Hospital as of Wednesday, the UN humanitarian agency, OCHA, has said in its latest daily update, Al Jazeera reports.

OCHA cited Palestinian Civil Defence as saying women, elderly persons and patients were among the people found buried at the hospital, and noted, “only few were identified”.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk on Tuesday called for “independent, effective and transparent investigations” into the deaths.

“Hospitals are entitled to very special protection under international humanitarian law, and the intentional killing of civilians, detainees and others who are hors de combat is a war crime,” Turk said.

US-led coalition forces off the coast of Yemen shot down four drones and an anti-ship missile launched by Huthi rebels Wednesday, American authorities said, as the Iran-backed group’s attacks on Red Sea shipping continued, AFP reports.

US Central Command (Centcom) said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter, that just before noon Sanaa time (0900 GMT) a coalition vessel “successfully engaged one anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM)” launched from Houthi controlled areas of Yemen.

The missile was likely targeting the MV Yorktown, a US-flagged shipping vessel, Centcom said, adding there were no injuries or damage.

The Houthis, who control much of Yemen’s Red Sea coast, have launched dozens of missile and drone strikes targeting shipping since November, actions they say are in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

Centcom also said it had engaged and destroyed four drones launched by the Houthis shortly after the missile launch.

“It was determined that the ASBM and UAVs (drones) presented an imminent threat to US, coalition, and merchant vessels in the region,” Centcom said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has condemned pro-Palestinian student protests in US universities as “horrific”, saying the demonstrations “have to be stopped”, AFP reports.

“What’s happening in America’s college campuses is horrific,” Netanyahu said in a statement, echoing concerns voiced primarily by supporters of Israel over the safety of Israeli or Jewish students and faculty as the protests intensify.

“Anti-Semitic mobs have taken over leading universities,” claimed Netanyahu.

“They call for the annihilation of Israel. They attack Jewish students […] They attack Jewish faculty,” he said.

“It’s unconscionable. It has to be stopped,” he said.

He argued the “response of several university presidents was shameful” and said more needed to be done.

“What is important now is for all of us, all of us who […] cherish our values and our civilisation, to stand up together and to say, ‘enough is enough’,” Netanyahu said.

A lecturer at Columbia University Professor Bassam Khawaja has said that several faculty members are “really furious” over the arrest of more than 100 pro-Palestine protesters who gathered at the school’s campus in New York City. Al Jazeera reports.

Khawaja said that when the university president decided to call the police onto campus, despite the university senate’s objection, many faculty members were “furious”.

“One hundred of us came to and stood on the steps to protest this decision, [and] 54 members of the law school’s permanent faculty wrote to the president objecting to it,” he told Al Jazeera.

“So, there’s quite a bit of anger among the faculty,” he said.

“Anti-Semitism has no place on our campus […] we need to be clear that advocating for Palestinian rights is not itself anti-Semitic,” he added.

Israel has said it is “moving ahead” with its planned operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, despite international outcry over fears for the 1.5 million Palestinians sheltering there, AFP reports.

“Israel is moving ahead with our operation to target Hamas in Rafah,” government spokesman David Mencer told a press briefing.

“The four battalions which remain in Rafah cannot be shielded from Israel. They will be attacked.”

Mencer added that “two reserve brigades” had been mobilised “for defensive and tactical missions in Gaza” against the Palestinian movement.

Since Israel’s ground invasion began in Gaza on October 27, “at least 18 or 19 of Hamas’s 24 battalions” have been destroyed, he said.

Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai has faced a backlash after the premier of a Broadway musical she co-produced with former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, AFP reports.

The musical, titled “Suffs” and playing in New York since last week, depicts the American women’s suffrage campaign for the right to vote in the 20th century.

However, Yousafzai, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, has been condemned by some for partnering with Clinton, an outspoken supporter of Israel’s military offensive against Hamas that has killed over 34,000 Palestinians.

Pakistan has seen many pro-Palestinian protests since the fighting in Gaza began last October.

Whilst Clinton has backed a military campaign to remove Hamas and rejected demands for a ceasefire, she has also explicitly called for protections for Palestinian civilians.

Yousafzai has publically condemned the civilian casualties and called for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The New York Times reported the 26-year-old wore a red-and-black pin to the “Suffs” premier last Thursday, signifying her support for a ceasefire.

But author and academic Nida Kirmani said on X that Yousafzai’s decision to partner with Clinton was “maddening and heartbreaking at the same time. What an utter disappointment.”

Lahore-based academic and activist Dr Ammar Ali Jan said Yousufzai’s decision to associate with Clinton was an “endorsement” of a “grotesque history of imperial violence” due to the latter’s past.

Journalist Zarrar Khuhro termed her as a “tool of empire”.

President Joe Biden has demanded that new humanitarian aid be allowed to immediately reach Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as key US ally Israel fights Hamas there, AFP reports.

“We’re going to immediately secure that aid and surge it […] including food, medical supplies, clean water,” Biden said after signing a massive military aid bill for Israel and Ukraine, which also included $1 billion in humanitarian aid for Gaza.

“Israel must make sure all this aid reaches the Palestinians in Gaza without delay,” he said.

“This bill significantly — significantly — increases humanitarian assistance we’re sending to the innocent people of Gaza who are suffering badly,” Biden said.

“They’re suffering the consequences of this war that Hamas started, and we’ve been working intently for months to get as much aid to Gaza as possible,” he added.

Turkiye has accused the United States of having a policy of double standards on human rights, saying Washington’s annual rights report failed to reflect Israel’s assaults in Gaza.

According to Al Jazeera, Turkey’s foreign ministry said in a statement it was deeply concerned that the US report did not “duly reflect the ongoing inhumane attacks in Gaza”.

The report was prepared with “political motives, far from impartiality and objectivity”, it said, calling on Washington to cease its “double-standard policy on human rights”.

In its report, the US State Department said Israel’s war against Hamas had a “significant negative impact” on the human rights situation in Israel.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Turkiye will continue working for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the entrance of humanitarian aid into the besieged territory, Al Jazeera reports.

“The efforts of the Israeli administration to hide its atrocities and massacres committed in Gaza should not be allowed,” the Turkish president said during a joint conference with his German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is on an official visit to Ankara.

He added that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is putting the security of not only his own citizens but the entire region at risk just to prolong his political career.

A special rapporteur on human rights defenders for the United Nations Mary Lawlor has said that the protesters who were detained by Egyptian authorities in solidarity with the women of Gaza and Sudan should be released, Al Jazeera reports.

Human rights lawyer Mai El-Sadany said in a post on X that at least 16 are being questioned by Egyptian security services.

The Jamaican government has recognised the State of Palestine, Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith announced in a post on X.

“Jamaica continues to advocate for a two-state solution as the only viable option to resolve the longstanding conflict, guarantee the security of Israel and uphold the dignity and rights of Palestinians,” Johnson Smith said.

“By recognising the State of Palestine, Jamaica strengthens its advocacy towards a peaceful solution.”

Israel’s military has conducted all necessary preparations to take Rafah, which it deems the last Hamas bastion in the Gaza Strip, and can launch an operation the moment it gets government approval, a senior defence official told Reuters.

Israel has continued to pound Gaza with air strikes and artillery fire in its offensive against Hamas after the US Congress approved $13 billion in military aid, AFP reports.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the Senate’s approval of the aid package already passed by the House of Representatives sent a “strong message to all our enemies” in a post on social media platform X.

Fears are rising that Israel will soon launch an assault on Rafah, which it says is the “last” major Hamas stronghold, but aid groups warn any invasion would create an “apocalyptic situation”. Netanyahu, however, has insisted the assault on Rafah will go ahead.

Earlier today, hospital and security sources in Gaza reported Israeli air strikes in Rafah, as well as the central Nuseirat refugee camp.

An AFP correspondent and witnesses also reported heavy bombardment of several areas of northern Gaza during the night, while the Israeli military said its aircraft “struck over 50 targets” over the previous 24 hours.

The Israeli army has said it struck 40 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon as near-daily exchanges of fire rage on the border between the two countries, AFP reports.

“A short while ago, IDF (army) fighter jets and artillery struck approximately 40 Hezbollah terror targets” around Aita al-Shaab in southern Lebanon, including storage facilities and weaponry, the army said in a statement.

A World Food Programme (WFP) official has said the Gaza Strip could surpass famine thresholds of food insecurity, malnutrition and mortality in six weeks, Reuters reports.

“We are getting closer by the day to a famine situation,” said Gian Caro Cirri, Geneva director of the WFP.

“There is reasonable evidence that all three famine thresholds — food insecurity, malnutrition and mortality — will be passed in the next six weeks.”

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Iran and Pakistan, in a joint statement, have “strongly condemned the attack on the Consular Section of the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, which was an unacceptable violation of the sovereignty of Syria and undermined its stability and security”.

In a statement released by Pakistan’s foreign office (FO), the two countries “agreed that the attack was a violation of international law and the UN Charter, and was illegal under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961”.

“Recognising that the irresponsible act of the Israeli regime forces was a major escalation in an already volatile region, both sides called on the UN Security Council to prevent Israel regime from its adventurism in the region and its illegal acts attacking its neighbours and targeting foreign diplomatic facilities,” the statement read.

Iran has reduced its military footprint in Syria after a succession of strikes blamed on Israel, says a source close to Hezbollah and a war monitor, AFP reports.

Iran has provided military support to Syrian government forces through more than a decade of civil war but a series of strikes targeting its commanders in recent months has prompted a reshaping of its presence, the sources said.

“Iran withdrew its forces from southern Syria,” including both Quneitra and Daraa provinces, which abut the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, the source close to Hezbollah said.

But it still maintains a presence in other parts of the country, the source added.

US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel has described reports of mass graves at Gaza hospitals as “incredibly troubling” and said US officials asked the Israeli government for information, Al Jazeera reports.

Asked by a reporter if he believes the Israeli government is “a credible source” for information on the mass graves, Patel responded: “We do. We do.”

The European Union has backed a United Nations demand for an independent probe into the reported discovery of mass graves at two Gaza hospitals destroyed in Israeli sieges, AFP reports.

“This is something that forces us to call for an independent investigation of all the suspicions and all the circumstances, because indeed it creates the impression that there might have been violations of international human rights committed,” EU spokesman Peter Stano said.

“That’s why it’s important to have independent investigation and to ensure accountability.”

Hebron’s Ibrahimi mosque will be shuttered to Muslims today and tomorrow as Israeli forces reserve the complex for Jewish settlers marking Passover, Al Jazeera reports citing the Wafa news agency.

Israeli troops have ramped up restrictions and closed checkpoints leading to the religious site, which is known to Israeli Jews as the Tomb of the Patriarchs.

Access to the religious complex is a flashpoint issue in occupied Hebron, where some 700 Jewish settlers live, with Israeli forces closing it to Muslims for about 10 days each year coinciding with Jewish holidays, according to Wafa.

The Israeli military has carried out more than a dozen simultaneous air attacks on southern Lebanese towns, Al Jazeera reports citing Lebanon’s an-Nahar media.

The strikes have taken place near the southern towns of Ayta ash Shab, Ramyah, Jabal Blat, and Khallet Warda.

Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Marjayoun in southern Lebanon, said the strikes as part of a “pattern of sporadic escalation” along the border.