Updates: Medical staff shot in Israel’s Jenin raid as Gaza ceasefire holds

Thank you for joining us.

Before you go, you can read about how Qatar’s prime minister hopes the Palestinian Authority will return to Gaza when the war ends, here.

You can also watch the moment Trump’s UN ambassador pick said Israel had a “biblical right” to the occupied West Bank, here.

But before leaving, let’s have a recap of the latest developments:

• At least 10 Palestinians have been killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli army raid on Jenin in the occupied West Bank.
• Elise Stefanik, US President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the ambassador to the United Nations, has told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Israel has a “biblical right” to the entire occupied West Bank.
• The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says 897 aid trucks entered Gaza on Tuesday.
• Gaza’s civil defence workers have recovered 120 decomposed bodies in two days.
• Four people were wounded in a suspected stabbing attack in Tel Aviv, according to reports in Israeli media.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz cited an Israeli police report that the border police forces operating in the Shu’fat refugee camp in occupied East Jerusalem fired at three Palestinians who threw stones.

The newspaper said one of the victims was a 12-year-old boy who was shot in the chest and taken to hospital while fully conscious.

The Shu’fat refugee camp was built by UNRWA in 1965 to provide housing for Palestinian refugees who were expelled from their homes in areas including Lydd, Ramla and Gaza during the 1948 establishment of Israel, known to Palestinians as the Nakba, or catastrophe.

The eastern half of Jerusalem, including the camp, was militarily occupied by Israel in 1967 and illegally annexed in a move unrecognised by international law.

Some 86 percent of occupied East Jerusalem is under the direct control of the Israeli government and settlers.

Palestinians returning to the sites of their former homes across the Gaza Strip have often been met with mountains of rubble where vibrant neighbourhoods once stood.

“We thought we’d find some place to live in or stay,” Manal Selim, a single mother of six, told the Associated Press of her return home to Rafah in southern Gaza. “The destruction is scary. It’s like an apocalypse.”

“This is my house. I built it brick by brick for 25 years,” she said, pulling torn garments from the home where she once worked as a hairdresser, and also lent dresses for use.

“We found nothing,” said Murad Miqdad, who found his home and electric appliance store in a three-storey building completely destroyed. “There’s nothing to pull out of the house, and if you were able to pull anything out, you still wouldn’t be able to use it.”

The Times of Israel is reporting that Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel has discussed legislation with Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Sharren Haskel, that would see Jerusalem send Russian-made weapons seized from Hezbollah in Lebanon to Kyiv.

The newspaper said Ukrainian Ambassador Yevgen Korniychuk had met with Haskel earlier today and that the Ukrainian Embassy had released a statement after the meeting in which it “expressed hope for a positive resolution of this matter”.

The Israeli intelligence agency, Shin Bet, says the suspect in the Tel Aviv stabbing attack was questioned by authorities while entering Israel over the weekend but was not seen as a potential threat, according to a reporter from The Times of Israel.

“Upon the subject’s entry into Israel, he underwent a security assessment that included his interrogation as well as additional checks, at the end of which it was decided that there was no information that established grounds to prevent his entry into Israel for security reasons,” Shin Bet says in response to a query from the publication.

Correspondent Emanuel Fabian reported that the suspected attacker was a 29-year-old Moroccan national who entered Israel on January 18 on a tourism visa.

Global credit rating agencies say that a ceasefire will reduce the strain on Israel’s public finances. Last year, major agencies such as Moody’s, S&P Global and Fitch all downgraded Israel’s credit rating for the first time.

“For Israel, effective implementation of the ceasefire agreement and additional progress towards a durable de-escalation of hostilities in Gaza would reduce downside risks to the sovereign’s credit strength,” said Moody’s analyst Christian Fang.

Amnesty International has raised concerns over the Metropolitan Police’s handling of last Saturday’s End the Genocide in Gaza protest in London, where dozens of demonstrators were arrested.

The demonstration saw thousands gather in London to express solidarity with Palestinians. However, police blocked plans to march from Portland Place to Whitehall, limiting protesters to a static demonstration.

More than 70 pro-Palestinian protesters were then arrested in Trafalgar Square on suspicion of breaching protest conditions.

The Metropolitan Police defended their actions, claiming there was a “coordinated effort” to breach restrictions imposed on the rally. However, protest organisers have vehemently denied this claim.

Kerry Moscogiuri, campaigns and communications director at Amnesty International UK, said: “In the run-up to the protest, we voiced concern about police imposing restrictions that risked unnecessary and disproportionate interference with demonstrators’ rights, which appeared to rely on legal powers that the High Court previously ruled to be unlawful but have been left in effect while awaiting an appeal”.

“There are now serious questions for the police to answer about their behaviour at Saturday’s protest and the lawful basis for the arrests of large numbers of peaceful demonstrators,” she said.

Julien Harneis, UN resident and humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, told a UN meeting that the use of a key port is down to just 25 percent of capacity due to a series of Israeli strikes on the country’s infrastructure amid fighting with the Houthis.

“[The] impact of air strikes on Hodeidah Harbour, particularly in the last weeks, is very important,” said Harneis, adding that four out of the five tugboats needed to escort large ships into the harbour had been sunk.

In a series of strikes in late December, Israeli planes struck the Hodeidah Port along with the Sanaa airport and several power stations.

Elise Stefanik, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the United States ambassador to the United Nations, refused to say whether she believed Palestinians have a right to self-determination.

However, she did say she agreed that Israel has a “biblical right” to the entire occupied West Bank.

Watch below to hear her comments:

Omar Shakir, director of Israel and Palestine affairs at the international watchdog group Human Rights Watch, has said that a ceasefire alone will not address the root causes of violence.

Human Rights Watch is one of several prominent human rights groups that have concluded in recent years that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians, something Palestinians themselves have long maintained.

“Ceasefire alone won’t end atrocities. Blockade must end, aid allowed fully in, electricity/water restored, hostages/detainees unlawfully held released, perpetrators held to account and root causes—apartheid—addressed,” said Shakir in a social media post.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has said that 897 aid trucks entered Gaza on Tuesday, as humanitarian assistance continues to surge into the Gaza Strip following months of Israeli restrictions.

This would mark a significant change in American policy, which, for a very long time, has been that there is a two-state solution in the Middle East between the Palestinians and the Israelis and that that should be established and put in place.

Effectively, Elise Stefanik [Trump’s pick to serve as US ambassador to the United Nations] is saying this is not the case here. She believes that the Israelis could take over all of the occupied West Bank.

Donald Trump did an interview in December when he was asked if there should be a two-state solution; he said he wasn’t sure what form any peace settlement in the Middle East would take even though he was on the record in 2020 saying that he supported a two-state solution.

So perhaps his view has changed and evolved, and now it’s reflected by his prospective UN ambassador.

Defense for Children International Palestine says that a 14-year-old boy named Ahmad Rashid Rushdi Jazar is among those killed by Israeli forces during raids across the occupied West Bank. The group says he was shot from a long distance, and that those trying to help him were also shot at.

“Israeli forces shot and killed Ahmad Rashid Rushdi Jazar, 14, near the Sebastia kindergarten in the northern occupied West Bank on Sunday,” the group said in a social media post.

“Soldiers shot Ahmad from more than 2,000 feet away, then fired toward his friends who tried to help him.”

As crews of emergency workers search through the mountains of rubble that cover Gaza, the remains of many people who could not be reached are being found across the Strip.

“We retrieved 120 decomposed bodies over the past two days. They’re completely decomposed with only skeletal remains,” civil defence member Haitham Hams told The Associated Press.