Here’s how things stand on Wednesday, March 14, 2024:
Fighting and humanitarian crisis
- An Israeli strike on a United Nations aid distribution centre in Rafah killed five Palestinians and injured 22 people on Wednesday.
- The facility is one of the last operating food distribution centres in the enclave, and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is now calling for an independent inquiry.
- Separately, on Thursday morning, Israeli forces killed at least nine Palestinians and wounded dozens more in attacks throughout Gaza, including six aid seekers in northern Gaza City, Wafa news agency reported.
Regional tensions
- The United States military said it destroyed a missile and four drones in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen on Wednesday, according to the US Central Command, the latest in a series of repeated attempts to fend off attacks launched by Yemen’s Houthi armed group.
- Separately, an appeals court in Italy has refused to send a suspected Palestinian fighter to Israel, saying he risked “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” if he was extradited, the Reuters news agency reported.
- Agnes Callamard, the secretary-general of Amnesty International, slammed the global community for pretending as if the crisis in Gaza was of a humanitarian nature without acknowledging that it had been engineered by Israel.
- Delta Air Lines has announced that it will resume direct flights to Israel starting from June 6, becoming the second US airline after United to reverse suspensions put in place in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks and Israel’s war on Gaza.
- South Africa’s foreign minister has said her country’s citizens who fight in the Israeli armed forces or alongside them in Gaza will be arrested when they return home, deepening the rift between the nations after South Africa accused Israel of genocide at the United Nations’ top court.
- The United Kingdom announced on Wednesday a new definition of extremism in response to a spike in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic incidents in the country following Hamas’s October 7 attacks and Israel’s war on Gaza.
Violence in the occupied West Bank
- Two Palestinian men have been arrested in a town near occupied East Jerusalem, according to the Wafa news agency, as the Israeli military continued its raids and attacks across the West Bank.
- The men arrested in the town of Abu Dis included Muhammad Rabie, a spokesperson for the Fatah movement in Jerusalem, Wafa reported.
- The father of a Palestinian boy who was shot and killed while playing with fireworks said Israeli forces have imposed conditions on the return of his body.
