Israel’s war on Gaza updates: 23 killed in air strikes on food-aid workers

The live page is now closed. You can continue to follow our coverage of the war in Gaza here.

And you can find more news, features and videos on the conflict here.

We will be closing this live page soon. Here is a recap of today’s main events:

• Israeli air strikes have targeted tribal aid distribution workers in Gaza City’s Kuwait Roundabout, killing at least 23 people.
• At least 15 Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli bombing of a house in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
• Canadian FM Melanie Joly says the country will implement a non-binding resolution passed by Canadian lawmakers that calls for an end to “the further authorization and transfer of arms exports to Israel to ensure compliance with Canada’s arms export regime and increase efforts to stop the illegal trade of arms, including to Hamas”.
• Prime Minister Netanyahu says he made “supremely clear” to US President Biden that Israel is “determined to complete the elimination” of the Hamas battalions in Rafah, southern Gaza.

Footage shared online, and verified by Al Jazeera, shows those injured in the attack injured people being brought al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah.

At least 15 people were killed in the attack, according to Palestinian health officials.

The aspiring journalist who has gathered a social media following covering Israel’s war on Gaza, Lama Abu Jamous, shares her first visit to her destroyed house after she was displaced.

Watch below:

An online influencing operation using fake social media accounts has targeted the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which cited a new report from a disinformation watchdog.

Fake Reporter, an Israeli group that studies online disinformation, found that the accounts echoed Israeli government accusations about links between the UN agency and Hamas, spreading them in comments on social media websites.

As described by Haaretz, the report – released in Hebrew – said the influencing campaign relied on a network of hundreds of social media accounts, as well as three newly created “news websites”, to promote pro-Israel narratives.

But in recent weeks, the influence campaign has focused its efforts on UNRWA, an agency that supports Palestinian refugees.

You can read more of this story here.

On Telegram, the Lebanese group says it fired artillery shells at the al-Marj site.

It said that “a hostile logistical team was rebuilding and fortifying it after the resistance had destroyed it earlier”.

These attacks, and Israeli response strikes on Lebanese territory, have been continuous since the outbreak of Israel’s war on Gaza.

Israeli officials have threatened full-scale war in Lebanon if Hezbollah does not cease its attacks as recently as today.

Earlier, Israeli opposition politician Avigdor Lieberman called on the Israeli “war cabinet, the chief of staff and the general of the northern command to come to their senses and transfer the war to the enemy’s territory”.

Less than half of the planned aid missions into northern Gaza were allowed in by Israeli authorities so far in March, the United Nations says.

“That’s 11 out of 24 missions. The rest were either denied or postponed,” Farhan Haq, the deputy spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said.

“Convoys are frequently turned back even after long waits at the Gaza checkpoint. They also run the risk of aid being taken by desperate people, either at the checkpoint or along the difficult route north.

“The only way to prevent this is to ensure that enough aid can be delivered on a reliable basis. We need the Israeli military to guarantee safe, sustained and unhindered aid across Gaza, and to open up all possible entry points into Gaza,” said Haq.

Here are some pieces we published on the war in the past 24 hours:

• Feature: How Israeli settlers are expanding illegal outposts amid Gaza war
• News: Pro-Israel online influencing operation targeting UNRWA
• Opinion: Play in Israel, just don’t pretend you didn’t know
• Watch: Professor Jeffrey Sachs: ‘US is complicit in Israeli genocide’
• Explainer: Famine expected in Gaza between now and May – What to know

You can find more of our coverage on Al Jazeera’s dedicated Israel’s war on Gaza page.

Gaza faces famine as Israel’s assault continues using mostly Western-supplied weapons.

It’s killed almost 32,000 people and wounded 74,000. People now face starvation and disease. International pressure has been little more than words.

What can stop Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu and his government’s genocidal war? How much time is left for the people of Gaza?

In comments to the Toronto Star, Canadian FM Melanie Joly said the country will implement a non-binding resolution passed by Canadian lawmakers that calls for an end to “the further authorization and transfer of arms exports to Israel to ensure compliance with Canada’s arms export regime and increase efforts to stop the illegal trade of arms, including to Hamas”.

“It’s a real thing,” Joly told the Toronto Star, when asked about the move.

The Canadian Parliament said that its decision comes within the framework of Ottawa’s support for the ceasefire in Gaza, the release of detainees, the two-state solution and support for the decisions of the International Court of Justice in the case filed by South Africa against Israel on charges of genocide.

In response, Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz has said on X that this move “undermines Israel’s right to self-defense”.

“History will judge Canada’s current action harshly. Israel will continue to fight until Hamas is destroyed and all hostages are returned home,” his post said.

Gaza’s ruling entity Hamas has said in a statement that Israel’s attack on the Kuwaiti roundabout in the south of Gaza City is “further evidence” of the Israeli government’s “sadism”.

“Our Palestinian people, their tribes and all their forces will move forward united to block this criminal enemy and his terrorist replacement plans,” it added.

“At the same time, we call on the international community and all international and regional bodies to live up to their legal and moral responsibilities to curb this … enemy, which is intent on killing our people, whether through barbaric bombing or the weapon of starvation that it applies in full view of the entire world.”

In the past hour, there has been a surge in attacks on the people of northern Gaza City. Israeli fighter jets targeted the Kuwait roundabout, the main food distribution site for the area.

A group of Palestinians responsible for aid supplies and deliveries was hit. These are local “popular committees” formed to coordinate various tribes in the humanitarian relief effort in northern Gaza, after complete chaos broke out because of the lack of food over the past few weeks.

They were working to ensure the safe distribution of desperately needed aid to UN centres. At least 23 were killed.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken highlighted Gaza’s deteriorating food situation where hundreds of thousands of people face famine.

“According to the most respected measure of these things, 100 percent of the population in Gaza is at severe levels of acute food insecurity. That’s the first time an entire population has been so classified,” said Blinken during an official visit to the Philippines.

“We also see, according to the United Nations, 100 percent the totality of the population is in need of humanitarian assistance. Compare that to Sudan; about 80 percent of the population there is in need of humanitarian assistance; Afghanistan, about 70 percent.”

The Israeli army has alleged that it also apprehended some 300 people during its operations at the largest hospital in the coastal enclave.

“The forces apprehended dozens of prominent Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists at the Shifa Hospital, involved in directing terrorist activities in Judea and Samaria, and operatives in the Rocket Unit of Islamic Jihad,” it said in a post on X.

The Israeli army on Monday launched a new attack on al-Shifa, raiding and opening fire on the facility where thousands are taking shelter.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent and local Palestinian sources say that at least 23 people were killed in the Israeli army’s attack on the Kuwaiti roundabout in the south of Gaza City.

The attack was directed at a tribal committee coordinating the distribution of aid in Gaza City, and our correspondent says they were at a location belonging to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), deemed “safe” from attack.

The bank has called for “urgent action” to deal with the hunger crisis in Gaza.

“We join the international community in calling for immediate, free, and unimpeded access of medical supplies, food and life-essential services through all available means at speed and scale to the people of Gaza,” it said in a statement.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent in the Gaza Strip says that five people are dead, including at least one child, and others wounded after the Israeli army bombed a car in front of an office of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees in the central Gaza refuge camp.

The Palestinian Shehab news agency reports that the target of the raid was Nuseirat Police Director Mahmoud Al-Bayoumi, who died in the attack along with the other occupants of the car.