Middle East latest: Israeli strikes kill at least 85 Palestinians in Gaza, hospitals say
Israeli airstrikes overnight into Thursday struck several homes in the Gaza Strip and killed at least 85 Palestinians, according to local health officials. Among those pulled alive from the ruble was a month-old baby girl, but her parents and brother were killed.
Hamas fired three rockets at Israel on Thursday without causing casualties. It was the first such attack since Israel resumed heavy bombardment of Gaza on Tuesday, shattering the ceasefire that had halted the 17-month war. The Israeli military is again enforcing a blockade on northern Gaza, including Gaza City, and its forces have moved to retake a strategic corridor dividing north from south.
In Israel, hundreds of people demonstrated outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem to protest his handling of the hostage crisis and his plan to fire the country’s head of internal security.
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Here’s the latest:
UN confirms employee killed in Gaza was a Bulgarian national
Marin Valev Marinov, 51, was a member of the U.N. Office for Project Services, which carries out infrastructure and development projects around the world. The U.N. agency issued a statement Thursday confirming Marinov was “hit by an explosion” in Gaza, while five wounded U.N. staff remain hospitalized.
Marinov was “supporting the delivery of life-saving aid to the civilian population” in Gaza and was one of at least 280 U.N. personnel killed there since the war began, the statement said. A “seasoned mariner and vessel Master,” he had previously worked as a U.N. maritime inspector in Yemen and for the U.N. humanitarian office.
The United Nations has not said who was behind Wednesday’s strike on a U.N. guesthouse. Israel has denied responsibility, but there were no reports of rocket attacks by Hamas that day.
The head of the U.N. Office for Project Services said strikes exploded near the compound on Monday and hit it directly on Tuesday and again on Wednesday. He said the agency had contacted the Israeli military after the first strike.
Trump administration reiterates support for Israel after Hamas rocket fire
“The president made it very clear to Hamas that if they did not release all of the hostages there would be all hell to pay,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday.
“And unfortunately Hamas chose to play games in the media with lives. This situation, let’s not forget, is completely the fault of Hamas. When they launched that brutal attack on Israel on October 7th,” Leavitt said. “And the president has made it very clear that he wants all of those hostages to come home. And he fully supports Israel and the IDF and the actions that they’ve taken in recent days.”
The U.S. and Israeli demand for Hamas to release more hostages before negotiations on ending the war could proceed was not part of the ceasefire agreement in January.
Freed Israeli hostage Eli Sharabi asks: Where was the UN, the Red Cross, the world?
Sharabi told the U.N. Security Council he was beaten, chained and starved in Gaza for 491 days: “If you stand for humanity – prove it” and bring back the hostages.
He said that while the council talked about humanitarian aid, he saw Hamas militants carrying and eating dozens of stolen boxes of humanitarian aid with U.N. emblems, while the hostages starved.
When Sharabi was released on Feb. 8, he said he weighed 44 kilograms (97 pounds) — less than the weight of his youngest daughter who was killed along with his wife and older daughter in Hamas’ surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
He told the U.N.’s most powerful body that six weeks after his release he came to speak for 24-year-old Alon Ohel, a fellow hostage whom he left behind in the tunnel, and all others including his older brother Yossi who was killed but whose body remains in Gaza. “Bring them all home. Now!” he said.
Hamas is believed to hold around two dozen living hostages and the bodies of others.
UK foreign secretary says Israel’s total blockade of Gaza is likely breaking international law
Britain’s top diplomat, Foreign Secretary David Lammy, told the House of Commons “it’s difficult to see how denying humanitarian assistance to a civilian population can be compatible with international humanitarian law.”
Although he said it’s for courts not governments to decide, Lammy said it was “appalling and unacceptable” for Israel to block aid and electricity to Gaza.
He said Israel’s actions “reinforce” the U.K. decision last year to suspend some arms exports to the country.
Earlier this week Lammy said Israel had broken international law, but later reverted to the government’s longstanding position that Israel’s actions are “at clear risk” of breaching the law.
Israel orders Palestinians out of more areas in central Gaza after rockets fired
The evacuation order covers Bani Suheila near the southern city of Khan Younis. Israel’s military said it would operate there in response to rocket fire by Hamas.
Thursday’s order expands on a new Israeli-imposed buffer zone along Gaza’s northern and eastern borders.
Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, said a day earlier that the military would soon order Palestinians to evacuate from combat zones.
A month-old girl is pulled from the rubble in Gaza after an Israeli airstrike killed her parents
As rescuers dug through the remains of a collapsed apartment building in Gaza’s Khan Younis on Thursday, they could hear the cries of a baby from underneath the rubble.
Suddenly, calls of “God is great” rang out. A man sprinted away from the wreckage carrying a living infant swaddled in a blanket and handed her to a waiting ambulance crew. The baby girl stirred fitfully as paramedics checked her over.
“When we asked people, they said she is a month old and she has been under the rubble, since dawn,” said Hazen Attar, a civil defense first responder. “She had been screaming and then falling silent from time to time until we were able to get her out a short while ago, and thank God she is safe.”
The girl was identified as Ella Osama Abu Dagga. She had been born 25 days earlier, in the midst of a tenuous ceasefire that many Palestinians in Gaza had hoped would mark the end of a war.
The girl’s parents and brother were killed in the overnight Israeli airstrike, along with another family that included a father and his seven children. Only her grandparents survived.
Israeli police clash with demonstrators on second day of anti-government protests
Hundreds of Israelis gathered outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem on Thursday to protest his handling of the hostage crisis and his plan to fire the country’s head of internal security.
Police used a water canon to disperse the crowd after protestors tried to break through police barricades, and scuffles erupted. Several demonstrators were thrown to the ground by police officers – including an opposition legislator, according to Israeli media reports.
On Wednesday, a mass march and demonstration outside the Israeli parliament continued into the late evening hours and ended with several arrests.
The protests come amid a renewed Israeli offensive in Gaza and ahead of a planned vote by the government to dismiss the head of internal security, a move that many view as undermining the balance of powers in Israel.
Israeli military intercepts first rockets launched from Gaza since Israel’s renewed offensive
Three rockets launched at Israel from the Gaza Strip on Thursday set off sirens across the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. Hamas claimed the attack, which appeared to be the first out of Gaza since Israel ended a ceasefire with a surprise bombardment of the territory on Tuesday.
The Israeli military said it intercepted one of the rockets, and two others fell in open areas. There were no reports of injuries.
Earlier on Thursday, a missile launched toward Israel by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi was intercepted before it reached Israeli airspace.
Iran’s Supreme Leader condemns Israeli strikes on Yemen and Gaza
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called the strikes on Yemen a “crime” that “should be prevented.”
In a message marking the Iranian New Year, he said Muslim nations must unite to resist the “Zionist Regime,” referring to Israel. He called the U.S. an accomplice in the resumption of Israel’s strikes on Gaza and said the strikes by Israel have been carried out by “the U.S. permission, or support and green light.”
In a separate message, President Masoud Pezeshkian urged for domestic integrity, improving relation with neighbouring nations and other nations in the world.
New airstrikes kill at least 58, hospitals say
The death toll from new Israeli strikes on Gaza has climbed to 58, according to hospitals in the territory.
Multiple homes were targeted in the middle of the night late Wednesday and early Thursday. The latest total of those killed was according to three hospitals in different parts of the territory.
The strikes hit houses in the cities of Khan Younis and Rafah in southern Gaza and the northern town of Beit Lahiya, they said.
The European Hospital in the southern city of Rafah said 26 people, mostly women and children, were killed in strikes on two family homes overnight. One of the strikes killed a father and his seven children, it said.
The Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis received the bodies of seven people killed overnight in an attack on a home. In northern Gaza, the Indonesian Hospital said it had received the bodies of seven people killed in a strike on a home in Beit Lahiya, a town near the border.
Israeli military says it intercepted missile launched by Houthi rebels
The Israeli military said it intercepted a missile launched by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels early Thursday before it reached Israeli airspace, as air raid sirens and exploding interceptors were heard in Jerusalem. No injuries were reported.
It was the second such attack since the United States began a new campaign of airstrikes against the rebels earlier this week.