Israeli military says it is conducting ground activity in northern Gaza
The Israeli military said on Thursday it had begun conducting ground activities in the northern Gaza Strip, along the coastal route in the area of Beit Lahia, reports Reuters.
The military resumed aerial strikes on targets in Gaza on Tuesday and launched ground operations on Wednesday, in effect ending a ceasefire with Hamas that had held since January.
Key events
At least 85 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes across Gaza, health authorities say
At least 85 Palestinians were killed and dozens injured in Israeli airstrikes across Gaza on Thursday after Israel resumed its bombing campaign and ground operations in the territory, Gaza’s health ministry said, according to Reuters.
A day after launching a new ground campaign in central Gaza, the Israeli military said on Thursday it had begun conducting ground operations in the north of the territory, along the coastal route in the area of Beit Lahia.
Palestinian militant group Hamas, which had not yet retaliated during the first 48 hours of the renewed Israeli assault, said its fighters fired rockets into Israel. The Israeli military said sirens sounded in the centre of the country after projectiles were launched from Gaza.
Palestinian medics said Israeli strikes targeted several houses in northern and southern areas of the Gaza Strip. Asked for comment by Reuters, the Israeli military said it was looking into the reports.
The military has resumed its air assaults on Gaza since Tuesday and launched ground operations on Wednesday, in effect abandoning a ceasefire with Hamas that had held since January.
It said on Thursday that its forces had been engaged for the past 24 hours in what it described as a targeted ground operation to expand a buffer zone separating the northern and southern halves of Gaza, known as the Netzarim corridor.
Israel ordered residents to stay away from the Salahuddin road, the main north-south route, and said they should travel along the coast instead, reports Reuters.
Hamas said the Israeli ground operation and the incursion into the Netzarim corridor were a “new and dangerous violation” of the two-month-old ceasefire agreement. In a statement, it reaffirmed its commitment to the ceasefire deal and called on mediators to “assume their responsibilities”.
A temporary first phase of the ceasefire ended at the start of this month. Hamas wants to move to an agreed second phase, under which Israel would be required to negotiate an end to the war and withdrawal of its troops, and Israeli hostages held in Gaza would be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
Israel has offered only a temporary extension of the truce, cut off all supplies to Gaza and says it is restarting its military campaign to force Hamas to free remaining hostages.
British national injured in Israeli attack on Gaza on Wednesday, says UK foreign secretary
David Lammy has confirmed that a British national was injured in an Israeli attack on a UN compound in Gaza on Wednesday, as he said recent attacks had been an “appalling loss of life”, reports the PA news agency.
The UK foreign secretary told MPs:
Yesterday morning a UN compound in Gaza was hit, I can confirm to the house that a British national was among the wounded.
Our priority is supporting them and their family at this time.”
Lammy added that the attacks on Gaza on Tuesday night had caused the largest Palestinian death toll on a single day since the war began.
He said:
A number of Hamas figures were reportedly killed, but it’s been reported that over 400 Palestinians were killed in missile strikes and artillery barrages. The majority of them were women and children.
This appears to have been the deadliest single day for Palestinians since the war began. This is an appalling loss of life, and we mourn the loss of every civilian.”
UK foreign secretary David Lammy said it is “difficult to see” how Israel’s denial of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza “can be compatible with international humanitarian law”, reports the PA news agency.
Lammy said the Israeli government announced on 2 March that it would block all further aid deliveries until Hamas agreed to its terms on a ceasefire.
He told the Commons:
For weeks now supplies of basic goods and electricity have been blocked, leaving over half a million civilians once again cut off from clean drinking water and sparking a 200% surge in the price of some basic food stuffs; a boon to those criminals who use violence to control supplies.
As I told the house on Monday, this is appalling and unacceptable. Ultimately, of course, these are matters for the courts not governments to determine, but it’s difficult to see how denying humanitarian assistance to a civilian population can be compatible with international humanitarian law.
Though it’s important to say I could have been a little clearer in the house on Monday, our position remains that Israel’s actions in Gaza are a clear risk of breaching international humanitarian law.”
Gaza civil defence says 504 killed since Israel resumed strikes
Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Thursday that 504 people had been killed since Israel resumed intense strikes on the Palestinian territory, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“The total number of martyrs since the resumption of the aggression at dawn on Tuesday until noon today is 504 martyrs, including more than 190 children,” the agency’s spokesperson Mahmud Bassal said in a statement.
Hamas armed wing says it fired rockets against Tel Aviv
Hamas’s armed wing claimed an attack with a barrage of rockets against Tel Aviv, in central Israel, on Thursday.
The group said the attack was in response to “the Zionist massacres against civilians”, reports Reuters.
Three projectiles were identified crossing from southern Gaza into Israel, the Israeli military said. “The IAF successfully intercepted one projectile and two additional projectiles fell in an open area,” it added.
Qatar and Egypt, key mediators between Israel and Hamas, said on Thursday there was a need to boost joint efforts to implement the three phases of the Gaza ceasefire deal, a Qatari statement said, after Israel resumed military operations in the territory.
Qatar’s prime minister and foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani spoke with Egyptian foreign minister Badr Abdelatty in a phone call to discuss coordination efforts and the latest developments in Gaza, the statement added, according to Reuters.
Israeli military says it is conducting ground activity in northern Gaza
The Israeli military said on Thursday it had begun conducting ground activities in the northern Gaza Strip, along the coastal route in the area of Beit Lahia, reports Reuters.
The military resumed aerial strikes on targets in Gaza on Tuesday and launched ground operations on Wednesday, in effect ending a ceasefire with Hamas that had held since January.
Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said on Thursday that a recent letter sent by US president Donald Trump calling for new nuclear talks was “actually more of a threat”, and that Tehran would respond soon, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Araghchi told Iranian state television that while the letter purported to offer up opportunities, it was “actually more of a threat”, adding that Iran was now studying its contents and would respond “in the coming days”.
On 7 March, Trump said he had written to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calling for negotiations and warning of possible military action if Iran refused. Khamenei said the US invitation to talks was aimed at deceiving world public opinion by portraying the United States as ready to negotiate and Iran as unwilling.
Iran’s foreign ministry has said it will conduct a “thorough assessment” before responding to the letter which was delivered by a senior the United Arab Emirates diplomat on 12 March, reports AFP. Araghchi said the response “will be sent through the appropriate channels”, without elaborating.
On Wednesday, US news website Axios, citing a US official and other sources, reported that the letter included a “two-month deadline for reaching a new nuclear deal”.
Trump, who returned to the White House for a second term in January, has reinstated his “maximum pressure” policy of sanctions against Iran, mirroring his approach during his first term. At the time, Trump unilaterally withdrew from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, and reimposed sweeping economic sanctions.
Tehran adhered to the 2015 deal for a year after Washington’s withdrawal, but then began rolling back its own commitments. There were brief efforts to revive the agreement under the Joe Biden administration but these went nowhere, according to AFP.
Tehran has repeatedly ruled out direct talks with Washington while US sanctions remain in place.
On Thursday, Araghchi reiterated that Iran “definitely will not negotiate directly while facing pressure, threats, and increased sanctions”.
Israeli strikes on Gaza kill at least 58 Palestinians and add to soaring child death toll
Jason Burke
At least 58 Palestinians have been killed and many more injured in a third successive night of Israeli strikes across Gaza, according to medical officials at hospitals in the strip.
The death toll is expected to rise, as further casualties are dug from rubble in the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Younis and the northern town of Beit Lahiya.
The timing of the strikes in the new Israeli offensive, which began on Tuesday, appears to have increased the proportion of women and children among the victims, with many sleeping when missiles strike.
A first wave of airstrikes on Tuesday shattered a two-month pause in hostilities and killed more than 400, according to the health ministry in Gaza, in what may have been the single bloodiest day of the 18-month conflict. The dead included 183 children and 94 women, Palestinian officials said.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the most recent overnight strikes. Israeli media have reported that the new air offensive is aimed at senior political and military Hamas officials, and have identified some killed.
Lt Col Nadav Shoshani, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Wednesday that Israel had attacked “dozens of terror targets and terrorists in Gaza, including Hamas commanders, to weaken their military and governmental capabilities and remove threats to Israel”.
Israel has also issued new warnings to Palestinians to evacuate areas in the north and east of Gaza to avoid being trapped by any fighting and has reoccupied the key Netzarim corridor, a strategic strip of land in the centre of the territory that divides it into northern and southern halves.
Germany reopened its embassy in Syria on Thursday, marking a revival of diplomatic ties under a new leadership in Damascus that is facing humanitarian and security problems as it tries to rebuild the country after the fall of Bashar al-Assad.
German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock oversaw the official resumption of operations at the embassy during a visit to the Syrian capital, officials from her delegation said, according to Reuters.
Germany is home to a large Syrian population after an influx of refugees in the last decade, and has sought to send a message of cautious engagement with the new rulers while also urging respect for minorities’ rights.
The embassy has a small political team on the ground and will continue to expand its presence in line with the situation locally, the officials said.
Due to security concerns and limited space, visa and consular matters would continue to be handled from Beirut in neighbouring Lebanon, they added.
Baerbock first met Syria’s new de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa at the start of the year.
German officials said they could play more of a role in stabilising the country when located locally, adding that staff posted to Syria would develop diplomatic contacts and push for an inclusive political transition, reports Reuters.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Thursday that recent deadly US strikes on the Tehran-backed Houthis in Yemen was a “crime that must be stopped”.
“This attack on the people of Yemen, on Yemeni civilians, is also a crime that must be stopped,” said Khamenei according to a video published on his website, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Five staff killed in Gaza in past few days, says Unrwa chief
Five staff members of the United Nations Palestinian relief agency, Unrwa, have been killed in the past few days, the agency’s commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini said on Thursday.
“In the past few days another five Unrwa staff have been confirmed killed, bringing the death toll to 284. They were teachers, doctors and nurses: serving the most vulnerable,” he said in a statement posted on X.
In his social media post on Thursday, Lazzarini said that the agency are “fearing the worst is yet to come given the ongoing ground invasion separating the north from the south”. He added that “Israeli forces bombardment continues from air and sea for the third day”.
He described Palestinians, who face evacuation orders again after having previously been displaced, as being treated as “pinballs” since the start of the war.
Lazzarini wrote:
For nearly three weeks now, the Israeli authorities continue to ban the entry of any humanitarian aid or basic commercial supplies.
Under our daily watch, people in Gaza are again and again going through their worst nightmare. An endless unleashing of the most inhumane ordeals.
No time left, we need now:
– A renewal of the ceasefire
– A dignified release of all the hostages in Gaza
– An unimpeded flow of humanitarian aid and commercial supplies.”
