Calls to allow more aid into Gaza have grown louder as health officials report 20 people in total have so far died from malnutrition and dehydration.
Here’s how things stand on Thursday, March 7, 2024:
Fighting and humanitarian crisis
- On Thursday, at least five people were killed in an Israeli bombing of a mosque in Jabalia al-Balad, northern Gaza.
- A 15-year-old and a 72-year-old man have died in northern Gaza as a result of malnutrition and dehydration, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
- Up to 300,000 Palestinians are believed to remain in northern Gaza after Israel ordered the evacuation of the entire region, including Gaza City, in October. Many have been reduced to eating animal fodder to survive.
- The United Nations says one in six children below the age of two in the north suffers from acute malnutrition.
- Calls to allow more aid into the Gaza Strip have grown louder as health officials report that 20 people in total have now died from malnutrition and dehydration.
Regional tensions and diplomacy
- China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi branded Israel’s war on Gaza a “tragedy for humanity and a disgrace for civilisation” and reiterated calls for an immediate ceasefire.
- Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, said on Wednesday the bloc will examine whether Israel is complying with the human rights obligations stipulated in their trade deal.
- A spokesperson for the US State Department said obstacles to a truce deal between Israel and Hamas were “not insurmountable” and that an agreement could still be reached before Ramadan.
- A court in Canada’s Quebec province issued a temporary ban on pro-Palestinian protests within 50 metres of a synagogue and four other Jewish community buildings in the city of Montreal, according to media reports on Wednesday.
Violence in the occupied West Bank
- Israeli forces continued raids across the occupied West Bank on Thursday, arresting at least nine people in the city of Tubas and the town of Tammun.
- An Israeli settlement planning authority has pushed forward permits for 3,500 new illegal settlement housing units in the occupied West Bank. Settlements are considered illegal under international laws.