Israel’s war on Gaza updates: Israel blocked half of March food convoys, UN

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

• At least 14 people have been killed in an Israeli attack on al-Zawaida in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp, according to civil defence workers.
• UK Foreign Minister David Cameron said his country will not halt arms sales to Israel by UK companies.
• Amnesty International has slammed Cameron’s remarks, saying he failed to remove himself and other UK officials “from their current complicity in Israeli war crimes, apartheid and possible genocide”.
• An in-person meeting of Israeli and US officials on the planned operation in the southern city of Rafah will take place in a couple of weeks, the White House’s Jake Sullivan has said.
• The UN’s humanitarian office and its agency for Palestinian refugees have disputed Israel’s claim that more aid is getting into Gaza, saying half of March’s food convoys to the north were blocked.

After the Israeli army announced its withdrawal from Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Sunday, residents have been slowly returning to their old neighbourhoods to survey the destruction.

What they found was utter devastation.

Watch our video to find out more:

The US vice president says the Biden administration is working to bring back American captives held by Hamas in Gaza.

President Biden and “I are doing everything we can to reunite these hostages with their families, secure the release of all hostages, and bring home the remains of Americans Itay Chen, Gad Haggai, and Judy Weinstein,” Harris said in a post on X.

The post included pictures of her meeting the “loved ones” of the captives.

“We will not waver in our commitment to our fellow Americans and all those being held hostage in Gaza,” she added.

Months of exchanges of fire across the Lebanon-Israel border have taken their toll on Lebanese villages, enduring daily bombardment from Israeli warplanes, drones and artillery fire.

As the Lebanese group Hezbollah and the Israeli army continue to fight, about 90,000 Lebanese people have been displaced from their homes in the south of the country.

Watch our report to learn more:

Dozens of people have gathered to march in solidarity with Gaza in Ramallah, Wafa reports.

People marched in the streets of the city reciting chants denouncing Israeli “crimes and ongoing massacres” and called for an immediate end to the “genocide” in Gaza.

Organisers also called on people in other Palestinian cities to gather and rally in solidarity with people in Gaza on Tuesday, which marks the first day of Eid al-Fitr.

Since October 7, Israeli forces have made it increasingly difficult for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank to move about freely. Palestinian cities and villages have been cut off from one another, and people there have faced road closures, increased arrests, raids and an increase in settler attacks.

In a statement ahead of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Hamas congratulated Palestinians in Gaza for their strength and steadfastness as they mark six months of Israel’s assault on the enclave.

“We affirm that our people… in the West Bank, Jerusalem, in occupied [historic] Palestine, and in the displacement camps around the world, are standing in solidarity with us and our people in Gaza,” the group that governs the Strip said in a statement on Telegram.

“We congratulate the Arab and Islamic nations on the arrival of Eid al-Fitr,” it said, adding that it hoped genuine support would continue to grow for the Palestinian cause and for the objective of ending the Israeli occupation.

The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, is disputing claims by Israel and the US that aid into Gaza has been significantly increased.

“There has been no significant change in the volume of humanitarian supplies entering Gaza or improved access to the north,” UNRWA says in its daily situation report.

UNRWA, the main UN agency in Gaza, says 223 trucks had entered on Monday, fewer than half the 500 trucks it says are required daily.

Israel says 468 aid trucks moved into Gaza on Tuesday and 419 on Monday. Some trucks went into Gaza via land crossings with Israel.

But the UN claims many of the trucks are only half full, inflating the Israeli count.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says its ambulance teams transported the bodies of five slain Palestinians following an Israeli attack on a residential home in central Gaza’s al-Zawaida, in the Nuseirat refugee camp.

One injured person was also transferred in the ambulance, it said.

This comes shortly after an Israeli attack on a home in the al-Zawaida area killed at least 10 people, including several children.

Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) says Jordan’s security forces should end their violent harassment, arrests and ongoing detention of peaceful demonstrators protesting Israel’s assault on Gaza.

To minimise further civil strife, the Jordanian government should heed public demands and suspend its diplomatic ties and intelligence cooperation with Israel in light of the ongoing genocidal campaign in Gaza, says DAWN.

The protests “reflect public outrage not only at Israel’s ongoing atrocities in Gaza but their own government’s continued collaboration with Israel”, said Sarah Leah Whitson, the group’s executive director.

“The best thing Jordan can do from both moral and national security perspectives is to allow protesters to express their opinions and end collaboration with Israel.”

A big crowd of Christians for a Free Palestine are protesting in the US Senate cafeteria – pushing Congress to back a ceasefire, restore aid to UNRWA and end US military aid to Israel.

“Congress and their staff will not eat today”, they chanted, “until Gaza eats”.

“I want to loudly proclaim that my Christian faith calls me to challenge Christian Zionism and stand in solidarity with Palestine,” reverent Naomi Washington-Leapheart, a national leader with Christians for a Free Palestine, said in a news release.

About 50 activists were arrested, according to Capitol Police spokeswoman Brianna Burch

The group has published photos on its official Telegram channel showing recovery operations in the western and eastern Satar area of the Khan Younis Governate of the Gaza Strip, saying they found 13 bodies.

In some photos shared by the Civil Defence, deemed too graphic to share on this live page, bones are all that remains of some of the recovered bodies.

The Israeli army announced its withdrawal from Khan Younis on Sunday.

An in-person meeting of Israeli and US officials on the planned operation in the southern city of Rafah will take place in a couple of weeks, the White House’s Jake Sullivan has said.

Earlier we reported that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that conversations with Israel on Rafah are ongoing and that he is expected to meet with Israeli officials next week.

“We do not have a date for any Rafah operation. On the contrary, what we have is an ongoing conversation with Israel. The president has been very clear about our concerns about Israel’s ability to move civilians out of harm’s way,” he said.

Kristyan Benedict, Amnesty International UK’s crisis response manager, said it was “predictable that David Cameron still insists that there are no grounds for the UK to suspend arms transfers to Israel even after Israeli forces have killed thousands of civilians, including aid workers in Gaza.”

Earlier, we reported that Foreign Minister David Cameron said the UK will not halt arms sales to Israel by British companies.

“The foreign secretary ought to have told his counterparts in the US administration that the UK will immediately suspend arms transfers to Israel, including the supply of components for US-made F-35 bombers which are being used by Israeli forces in Gaza with such horrendous consequences for Palestinians,” Benedict said.

“This was yet another missed opportunity from David Cameron to move himself and other UK officials away from their current complicity in Israeli war crimes, apartheid and possible genocide.”

UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed has said, “For me, of great concern is that we have lost our moral compass on Gaza, as a humanity, as the international community.”

“We need to do something about that fast – we’re late,” Mohammed told a news conference. “There are thousands of children that continue to lose their lives, that live amputated. There are hundreds that we are waiting to come home, hostages.”

She did not detail the specific measures she is calling for, but UN chief Antonio Guterres has urged a humanitarian ceasefire and the release of captives held in Gaza.

Motasem Salah, director of the hospital’s Gaza Emergency Operations Centre, has told AFP that Gaza lacked the forensic experts needed to help identify the dead or determine what had happened to them. So they are relying on “the expertise of the WHO and OCHA [UN humanitarian office] delegation.”

They are trying “to identify the decomposed bodies and the body parts that were crushed” from wallets and documents, he said, as a digger went through the rubble and rescue workers pulled decomposed bodies from the sand and ruins.

Relatives were also there “to ascertain the fate of their sons, whether they have been killed, are missing, or have been displaced to the south,” said Amjad Aliwa, the head of al-Shifa’s emergency department.

He said they wanted to identify “their sons and ensure they receive a proper burial. However, we lack the necessary equipment, and time is not on our side. We must complete the job before the bodies decompose,” Aliwa said.

“Germany is complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and that must end.” — That’s Niccaruaga’s argument before the UN’s top court.

Germany says Nicaragua has a one-sided view of the war in Gaza.

So, what does this case mean for countries supplying Israel with weapons?

Watch Al Jazeera’s Inside Story to hear the debate:

Nine countries have carried out an airdrop of ready-to-eat meals, water and rice into Gaza, the UK Ministry of Defence has said.

Led by the Jordanian Armed Forces and coinciding with Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, hundreds of tonnes of aid were dropped into the besieged coastal enclave.

The US, Germany, France, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, the Netherlands and Egypt also took part, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) said.

Despite the increasing scale of these aid airdrops, humanitarian experts agree that the only effective way to provide the aid needed to stave off famine in north Gaza is via existing land routes.