Israel’s war on Gaza updates: People desperate for aid as crisis worsens

This live page is now closed. You can follow our ongoing coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza here.

To learn more about Israel’s looming ground invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza, read our explainer here.

And you can always read more about the conflict here.

We will be closing this live page soon. Here’s a summary of the day’s main events:

• Israeli forces open fire at crowds looking to receive aid in northern Gaza.
• The WHO chief says Israeli attacks have put the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis “completely out of service”.
• Hezbollah claims several attacks on Israeli army positions in northern Israel as cross-border clashes continue.
• Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza, sparking outrage by Israeli leaders and praise from Palestinians.
• Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani says progress towards a truce in Gaza is slowing down.
• The US says it will veto a new draft UN Security Council resolution proposed by Algeria that calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the release of captives.
• Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi reiterates his country’s “categorical rejection of the displacement of Palestinians to Egypt in any shape or form”.

Loach stood next to a sign with the message, “Gaza – Stop the massacre”, during the red carpet ceremony of the annual British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards in London.

The image was posted by the UK news outlet The Telegraph and reposted by Loach’s and his production company’s X account with the caption, “CEASEFIRE NOW!!!”

Osaid Alser, a Gaza surgeon and medical resident at Texas Tech University, says he has never seen any military activity while working at several medical centres in Gaza since 2010, including at the al-Shifa and Nasser hospitals.

“When we talk about tunnels and all of that, I think this is Israeli propaganda that everybody should get used to at this point,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Anybody who has worked in any of these hospitals, they can easily say this is just nonsense. We never had our access limited to any area in these hospitals. We could go to literally any area in the hospital and nobody would say stop.”

Ghassan Daghlas, the acting governor of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, says 48 people from the Palestinian city have been killed by Israeli forces since the start of the war on Gaza.

Earlier, Israeli forces fatally shot Anas Jamil Dwaikat, a 26-year-old Palestinian police officer, at a checkpoint east of Nablus.

Daghlas said Israeli forces are also erecting gates and checkpoints around the towns and villages of the Nablus Governorate, turning it into a “big prison”.

“Settler violence and aggression have also noticeably increased after October 7, especially in villages south of the city of Nablus,” Daghlas told Al Jazeera.

He added that Nablus has been facing an “economic and political siege” by Israel, which intensified with the outbreak of the war on Gaza.

The Gaza Health Ministry has provided an update on the situation at the besieged Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis:

• More than 100 patients who could not be moved were crowded inside rooms and corridors of an old building at the facility without medical care following the arrest of 70 administrative and medical workers.
• With the help of the World Health Organization, 14 patients were evacuated from Nasser Hospital to other health facilities in the southern Gaza Strip, including five dialysis patients and three intensive care cases.
• Efforts are ongoing to pressure Israeli forces to allow the evacuation of all patients to save their lives amid the absence of the required medical capabilities to care for them after electrical and oxygen generators stopped working.

For weeks, we have been hearing from US media outlets about Biden’s growing frustration with Netanyahu.

Washington says it wants more aid to enter Gaza, but more Palestinians are going hungry by the day. The US keeps calling for minimising civilian casualties, but the Palestinian death toll keeps growing. The Biden administration repeatedly emphasises the two-state solution; Israeli leaders continue to explicitly say they oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Despite these apparent policy differences, US weapons have continued to flow to Israel to arm a military carrying out a suspected genocide in Gaza. At the same time, Biden is pushing to secure $14bn in additional aid for the US ally.

Washington is now threatening to block a draft UN Security Council resolution proposed by Algeria that would call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

A US veto against the ceasefire measure would be the latest indicator that the purported disagreements between Biden and Netanyahu have not prompted the US president to rethink his unwavering support for the war on Gaza.

Netanyahu is facing increasing Israeli anger for failing to bring captives home. The Israeli prime minister last year provoked months of mass protests against his push to weaken the powers of the judiciary.

He’s facing similar protests now, with thousands rallying nationwide on Saturday to demand new elections.

Can Netanyahu be toppled from what many say is his disastrous leadership? And is he continuing the war in Gaza to try and stay in power?

Watch our episode of Inside Story below:

Balakrishnan Rajagopal, the UN rapporteur on the right to housing, says he is “hoping for justice” as the ICJ starts hearings on Monday about Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land.

“Occupation is always illegal, no matter how long it has existed. Land theft and home demolitions are the main tools of converting occupation to annexation,” Rajagopal wrote in a social media post.

Yousef Al Otaiba, Abu Dhabi’s ambassador to Washington, has sounded the alarm on the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.

“An immediate ceasefire and urgent aid surge are needed to meet the mounting humanitarian calamity in Gaza,” Al Otaiba said in a statement shared on social media by the UAE’s embassy in the US.

“Half of the people are starving. The medical system has collapsed. Safe water is scarce. An impending Israeli offensive will displace millions.”

The UAE, a close ally of the US, has formal diplomatic ties and economic relations with Israel.

The former leader of the UK Labour Party says he will be voting for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza next week.

“I urge fellow MPs to wake up, think about what is happening in Gaza, and do the same,” Corbyn said in a post on X.

The Scottish National Party is set to table the motion to be debated in parliament on Wednesday.

The Palestinian group says the Israeli government’s symbolic vote to reject any international recognition of a Palestinian state underscores Israel’s “rogue” behaviour and abuse of international law and treaties.

Hamas added that Israel has been using peace talks for decades to buy time and further entrench its occupation and theft of Palestinian land.

Israeli policies must move the international community to reject Israel’s “manipulation” and violation of Palestinians’ right to self-determination, Hamas said.

The Israeli cabinet vote comes amid reports that some Western countries are considering recognising Palestine as a state in a push to end the broader conflict based on the two-state solution.

Today, there were more distressing images of people in the north waiting for humanitarian trucks to be allowed in while coming under fire from Israeli forces, forcing them to run and take cover from Israeli snipers.

And this has absolutely been repeated within the past few days as these people are in clear, desperate need [of] food.

The absence of humanitarian trucks … has forced people to find alternatives to food, including animal feed, while suffering from widespread diseases.

On the ground, Israel is intensifying its bombardment of Gaza and imposing more restrictions on aid delivery to the most affected parts of the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh has called on Norway, as chair of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, the international donor group for Palestine, to lead a European effort to recognise the State of Palestine, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reports.

Shtayyeh also told Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide that a Palestinian state would require full membership in the United Nations along with a resolution that contains a programme to end the Israeli occupation.

The Palestinian news agency said Shtayyeh had expressed his appreciation for Norway’s role in mediating the issue of Israel’s withholding of Palestinian tax funds.

Under current peace accords, Israel’s finance ministry collects taxes from Palestinians and makes monthly transfers to the PA.

Around a month after Hamas’s October 7 attacks, Israeli authorities decided to withhold funds earmarked for the Gaza Strip. In response, the PA refused to accept a partial transfer of money.

Norway has since agreed to act as an intermediary to help unfreeze the tax funds held by Israel.

The audibly scared but still composed six-year-old Palestinian girl tells a Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) operator in the recording that she is surrounded by her dead relatives in their car in northern Gaza as an Israeli tank approaches.

The PRCS had dispatched an ambulance to locate Hind but the girl and the two medics who were sent to rescue her were found dead after going missing for 12 days.

Israel’s war cabinet member Benny Gantz has said restrictions will be in place during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, for “security purposes only”.

“The security forces will finalise their recommendations in accordance with the latest situation assessments and will subsequently be presented to the political echelon for decision-making,” he posted on X.

Earlier, Israeli news outlet Channel 13 reported that Netanyahu had accepted a proposal by Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, to limit the number of Palestinians entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque during the holy month.

According to a UK government spokesperson, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen have agreed on the “importance of significantly more aid” reaching people who desperately need it in the Gaza Strip.

The two leaders also “expressed their deep concern about the loss of civilian life occurring there”, the statement said.

Protesters gathered earlier in the week outside the London residence of Sunak to denounce the Israeli attacks on Rafah and call on his government to demand a ceasefire.

An aerial shot showing the devastation of Gaza neighbourhoods from Israeli attacks has received more than 30 million views on X, according to the social media platform.

The photo, posted by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees yesterday, was captioned: “There are no words.”

Many Palestinian rights advocates commented on the post arguing that “genocide” is the only word that can describe the Israeli violence in Gaza.

Israel’s supporters also commented on the post to criticise UNRWA, which provides life-saving aid for Palestinians, and called for the release of Israeli captives in Gaza.

The US Campaign for Palestinian Rights has slammed the Biden administration’s plans to veto a UN Security Council resolution that would call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

“The US plans to veto a ceasefire AGAIN at the UN Security Council’s vote on Tuesday, so Israel can keep mass murdering Palestinians in Gaza. Our government is beyond evil,” USCPR said in a social media post.

Israeli forces have fatally shot a 26-year-old Palestinian man at the Beit Furik checkpoint, east of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian Health Ministry identified him as Anas Jamil Dwaikat. Security sources told Al Jazeera that Dwaikat was first severely injured and later succumbed to his wounds.

Earlier, the Israeli army killed two Palestinians in Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank.