Hmm, I knew it would take weeks at least, but months. The time to act is last month.
UK’s Cameron says maritime corridor will ‘take months’ to set up
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron says the planned maritime corridor to bring aid into Gaza “will take months to stand up” in its entirety. While he welcomed the US-led plan, he called for aid to immediately be let into the Israeli port of Ashdod, north of the Gaza Strip.
“Ships could go today from Cyprus to Ashdod with aid,” Cameron told the BBC. He added that “Britain will play a part in the pre-screening” of aid in Cyprus, and “we can play a part if necessary in the provision of the aid and its delivery.”
Humanitarian groups have repeatedly said the delivery of aid via air or sea routes is inefficient and costly, insisting that the usage of land crossings is the most effective way.
Israel’s blockade on Gaza has a 17-years long history
Since October 9, Israel’s reinforced blockade of the Gaza Strip has included stopping or restricting food, electricity and fuel supplies as well as commercial goods.
Yet, a blockade has been imposed on the movement of goods and people in and out of Gaza since 2007, virtually isolating the tiny coastal enclave from the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory and the world. This land, sea and air blockade limited the number and specified categories of people and goods allowed in and out through the Israeli-controlled crossings.
This wreaked havoc in economic and productive sectors affected by Israeli import and export restrictions, with hundreds of factories closing and thousands of workers laid off following raw material shortages and ongoing fuel and electricity crises.
Critics of a plan to establish a maritime corridor to supply Gaza with humanitarian aid via the Mediterranean Sea, spearheaded by the US and EU, say it strengthens the blockade rather than contribute to its lifting and to the permanent opening of new crossings into the besieged Strip.
Palestinians condemn US aid pier plan
As we’ve been reporting, the US plan to build a temporary port off Gaza’s coast to step up the delivery of aid has been criticised as an attempt to divert attention from Israel’s consistent blocking of assistance to the enclave despite UN warnings of a looming famine.
Commenting on Biden’s announcement, Gaza residents said what they urgently needed was for the US to stop providing Israel with weapons.
“Instead of telling us they will build a port to help us, stop [providing] the weapons they fire at us,” Hassan Maslah, a displaced Palestinian from Khan Younis, now sheltering in Rafah, told Reuters.
“All these American weapons are killing our kids and killing us wherever we go. We don’t need aid from them. We need them to stop the killing, stop the death,” he said.
All agreements in place for ‘trial run’ of temporary pier
There is effectively going to be a temporary pier, probably built by the US Army, as they’re the quickest at doing things of this nature. The boat will dock there. Then, the aid is going to be reloaded onto smaller boats to be taken to Gaza, and from there, they’ll load it up on trucks.
All of this has to run smoothly because they don’t just want to do one boat a day. They’re going to want to do multiple.
So, this is all a trial run but all of these agreements are now in place, they’ve just got to make it work. How quickly that pier will be built by the US remains to be seen.
The houthis are not going to back down with this kind of support
Yemen’s Sanaa stages mass demonstration in support of Gaza
Local media and activists have shared videos and photos of a mass demonstration held in support of Gaza in al-Sabeen Square of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. The protesters raised slogans condemning the Western position on Israel’s war on the Palestinian territory.
Watch aerial scenes from the Houthi-affiliated Al Masirah channel below:
أوان فارغة في مظاهرة بالعاصمة الأردنية عمان تنديدا بالحصار الذي تفرضه قوات الاحتلال الإسرائيلي على قطاع غزة#حرب_غزة #فيديو pic.twitter.com/WoqweqWl2h
— الجزيرة فلسطين (@AJA_Palestine) March 8, 2024
Hundreds of protesters march in Baghdad in solidarity with Gaza
Reporting from the protest in the Iraqi capital, Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud Abdelwahed said demonstrators took to the streets to condemn the “genocide” in Gaza and call for an immediate ceasefire in advance of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan that starts next week.
One of the protesters said that “it hurts that this demonstration and prayers are all what we can do, but boycotting is a weapon of resistance that all Arab countries should use to support Gaza”.Another demonstrator lamented, “It’s a stigma that the international community is watching and accepting the massacre of innocent civilians”.
“This must stop now,” he said.
It was inevitable, didn't expect it so soon though. But it makes sense with people crowding for Aid drops.
Five people reported dead by airdropped aid after parachute failure
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Rafah, says there are reports of at least five people being crushed to death after being hit by aid packages airdropped to Gaza. The parachute that was used to airdrop the aid did not open, causing the boxes to fall on people who were gathering in large numbers to collect the aid, the correspondent said.
Two people were killed on the spot while three were severely injured and later died at Kamal Adwan Hospital, according to initial reports.
“This is the tragedy people are experiencing in the north of Gaza. Not only are they confronted with the lack of food and medical supplies, but as they wait for packages of food they are either targeted by the Israeli military or killed by a non-functional parachute,” Mahmoud said.
UAE says joint mission with Egypt drops 231 tonnes of aid on Gaza
The United Arab Emirates says, in collaboration with the Egyptian Air Forces, it has dropped 62 tonnes of food and medical aid on northern Gaza in the mission’s fifth air drop session.
The total aid dropped since the launch of the joint mission has reached 231 tonnes, a statement on X said.
“It will continue for several weeks and embodies the high level of joint Emirati-Egyptian coordination to support the residents of Gaza,” it added.
231 tonnes, that's 8 to 12 trucks of aid...
Here is the video 😭pic.twitter.com/DWekxbTdxq
— Lord Rxŋ (@Rx_605) March 8, 2024
Some 60,000 pregnant women in Gaza face malnutrition, dehydration: Health Ministry
March 8 is International Women’s Day and Gaza’s Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra has provided an update on the challenges facing women in the Gaza Strip. Al-Qudra said about 5,000 women were still giving birth every month in the territory, in conditions that he said were “harsh, unsafe and unhealthy”.
About 60,000 women, meanwhile, were going through their pregnancies without proper health care and suffering dehydration and malnutrition. “We call on women’s institutions around the world to stand alongside Palestinian women and demand an end to Israeli aggression,” he said.
UNRWA on Women’s Day: 63 women being killed each day in Gaza
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees has issued a reminder about the plight of Palestinian women in Gaza on Women’s Day. For every day the war continues, the agency says, an average of 63 women are killed.
Famine is looming in #GazaStrip📍 #Women & children are paying the highest price:
🛑 Mothers often go without food to feed families
🛑 95% of pregnant & breastfeeding women in north #Gaza face severe food poverty
🛑 Nearly 9 in 10 women find it harder to access food than men
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) March 8, 2024
‘I yearn for the girl I used to be’: Gaza women tell their stories
Four displaced women in Gaza’s Deir el-Balah have spoken to Al Jazeera about their lives during Israel’s war on their enclave.
Children rescued from Gaza rubble in aftermath of overnight Israeli strike
In central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah, an Israeli strike on an apartment block has left residents dead and wounded. Rescue efforts, aided by a bulldozer, have uncovered tragic scenes with some survivors found amid the rubble, while others, including entire families, have perished.
The aftermath of Israeli strikes on Deir el-Balah
Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital documents its first case of child starving to death
Israeli military carries out mass arrest campaign in Khan Younis
Palestinians in Gaza have had to endure an intense bombing campaign in the northern parts, the central area and the city of Khan Younis, where the military headquarters and armoured vehicles of the Israeli military are still based.
In Khan Younis, the Israeli military is surrounding residential buildings and conducting mass arrests and aggressive searches from building to building in search of Hamas fighters. A statement released by the Israeli military says they’ve arrested almost 250 people they describe as Hamas associates.
But maybe the worst events to happen overnight were repeated air strikes in Deir el-Balah. A residential building full of displaced people was attacked in the city, with at least 11 people killed so far, with more still under the rubble and multiple other injuries reported. The injured were taken to al-Aqsa Hospital.
The aftermath of Israeli strikes in Rafah
Two dead, one wounded in bombing of Gaza City
Death toll increases to 30,878 in Gaza: Ministry
The Health Ministry in Gaza says that 78 people have been killed in eight Israeli attacks on Palestinians in the last 24 hours, increasing the total number of deaths in the enclave since October 7 to 30,878. The statement on Telegram added that 104 people had been injured by the Israeli army over the past day, raising the total number wounded to 72,402.
“A number of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, as the occupation prevents ambulance and civil defence crews from reaching them,” the ministry added.
UN rights chief says Israeli settlements surging to record levels
Since the Gaza war began, Israel has dramatically expanded its illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, bringing them to “shocking new levels”, said the UN’s human rights chief, Volker Turk. By transferring more of Israel’s population to the occupied territory, the settlements amount to a war crime, Turk said, and risk destroying chances for a future Palestinian state.
The UN official’s remarks come after Israel’s settlement-planning authority greenlit permits on Wednesday for nearly 3,500 new illegal settlement housing units, a step the US said was “disappointing” and “counterproductive” to peace.
‘Shocking new levels’: 603 Israeli settler attacks in occupied West Bank
The latest UN figures show there have been at least 603 attacks by illegal Israeli settlers on Palestinians since October 7. A total of 1,222 Palestinians from 19 herding communities have been displaced as a direct result of settler violence, a UN report says.
The UN documented at least nine Palestinians killed by settlers using firearms, with a further 396 killed by Israeli forces, and two killed by either Israeli troops or settlers. Since October 7, at least 592 people, including 282 children, have been displaced in the occupied West Bank after their homes were demolished.
“The West Bank is already in crisis,” said Volker Turk, UN high commissioner for human rights. “Yet settler violence and settlement-related violations have reached shocking new levels, and risk eliminating any practical possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian state.”
Israeli military carries out arrests in towns in Nablus and Ramallah
The Israeli military has arrested three citizens in two towns in Nablus governorate, the Wafa news agency reports. Israeli forces arrested two men in the western neighbourhood of the town of Beita, south of Nablus, while a third man was arrested in the village of Urif, south of Nablus.
The Israeli military has also arrested a Palestinian from the town of Beitunia, west of Ramallah, Wafa reports.
Israeli troops storm Hebron, carry out detentions: Wafa
Israeli forces have raided neighbourhoods in the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank and detained several Palestinians, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa says. Troops arrested a Palestinian in the town of Yatta south of Hebron after searching his house, according to security sources quoted by the news agency.
Israeli forces also beat a civilian before detaining him for several hours as they stormed the town of Dura, southwest of Hebron.
They also detained three members of a family – father, mother and son – at a military checkpoint at the entrance of the Jaber neighborhood in southern Hebron for several hours before releasing them.
Raids and detentions were also reported since Thursday in Bethlehem and Qalqilya.
Israeli forces arrest man in town of Urif, erect barriers at Al-Aqsa Mosque
Local media are reporting that Israeli forces have stormed the town of Urif, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, and arrested a freed Palestinian prisoner.
Our Al Jazeera Arabic colleagues are also reporting that Israeli forces have erected iron barriers at the Lion’s Gate in the vicinity of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem to prevent people from attending Friday prayers there.
Raids and arrests have been reported elsewhere in the occupied West Bank in the following locations:
Israelis will be allowed to visit Al-Aqsa during Ramadan: Report
Israel’s police forces say that Israelis will be allowed to visit Al-Aqsa Mosque compound during the first week of Ramadan. The statement quoted by The Associated Press news agency raised concerns about the access for Palestinians to the revered site during the holy month.
The authorities in Israel say they will work to maintain freedom of worship for Muslims at Al-Aqsa Mosque compound during Ramadan, set to begin next week, while maintaining security and safety needs. Earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the same number of people as last year would be allowed to enter Al-Aqsa Mosque for prayers during the first week of Ramadan.
Israeli forces beat, arrest worshippers around Al-Aqsa Mosque: Report
Israeli forces have attacked and beaten worshippers at the Lions Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem, the official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, reports. Troops prevented worshippers from entering Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, to perform prayers and arrested two of them, according to Wafa, which quoted witnesses.
Soldiers reportedly set up checkpoints around the area after the incident. Wafa said Israeli forces continue to impose strict military measures at the gates of Al-Aqsa Mosque and in the Old City ahead of the holy month of Ramadan, which begins next week.
Raids and in some cases detentions have also been reported in the West Bank cities of Nablus, Hebron, Bethlehem, Ramallah and Qalqilya overnight and in the morning.
Four soldiers wounded near Israeli settlement
What we understand is this incident at Homesh happened at an illegal settlement, an outpost that is now occupied by settlers.
The Israeli government dismantled this settlement and destroyed all the houses there in 2005. What we’ve been seeing consistently for many years now – and it has ratcheted up since the war began on October 7 – are settlers coming and trying to reoccupy these areas. Homesh is between Nablus and just south of Jenin.
In the hours since the incident, there have been at least four more shooting incidents at checkpoints around Nablus. There have been no casualties reported, but we have heard Israeli positions have been fired on by gunmen.
Of the incident that took place where these four Israeli soldiers were injured, one is now in critical condition.
Israeli soldiers are seen in Balata, a Palestinian refugee camp in Nablus, occupied West Bank
Protesters gather outside the White House for State of the Union address, demanding Gaza ceasefire
Protesters have gathered outside the White House in Washington, DC, demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, as they mark US President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. Advocacy group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), has said that the speech is Biden’s “best and perhaps last chance” to announce concrete steps the US is taking to curb Israel’s war on Gaza.
Israel welcomes the inauguration of the maritime corridor from Cyprus to the Gaza Strip. The Cypriot initiative will allow the increase of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, after security checks are carried out in accordance with Israeli standards.
Israel will continue to… pic.twitter.com/T68hLQB0mY
— Lior Haiat 🇮🇱🎗️ (@LiorHaiat) March 8, 2024
Temporary pier ‘not a solution’, International Rescue Committee says
UN’s Sigrid Kaag says ‘little willingness’ from Israel for more aid crossings
“Domestic sensitivities” in Israel, such as demonstrations, are stopping the Israeli government from opening additional crossings to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, according to Sigrid Kaag, the United Nations’ senior coordinator for humanitarian aid and reconstruction in Gaza.
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday after a closed-door UN Security Council meeting, Kaag said that she told the Council that the aim should be to “flood the market in Gaza with humanitarian goods as well as re-energise the private sector”.
“At the moment, the Israeli cabinet has not taken a decision to open additional crossings. It’s fairly factual. And we need more of those. It’s been made very clear to me from the outset that there is little willingness,” she said.
Bernie Sanders lauds Gaza humanitarian port, slams Israel for blocking aid
Bernie Sanders has welcomed Biden’s decision to establish a port to deliver aid to Gaza and called it a “necessary step”. But in a statement, he lamented the fact that American taxpayers are having to “pay even more to build a port to get aid into starving people, because Israel won’t let it be driven safely and efficiently across the border”.
“Despite months of increasingly urgent requests from the very highest officials in the US government, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his extreme, right-wing government have refused to let in sufficient humanitarian aid,” he said.
UN envoy says sanctions, arms embargo only way to stop Gaza ‘genocide’
Posting on X, Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, has said an “arms embargo and economic sanctions on Israel are the only way to stop the genocide in Gaza”.
Albanese was responding to a post by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres highlighting his meeting with family members of victims in Gaza, some of whom had “lost over a hundred relatives”.
Arms embargo and economic sanctions on Israel are the only way to stop the genocide in Gaza. #CeasefireNow https://t.co/8QJTvBbbEs
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) March 8, 2024
Airdrops, temporary seaport ‘not realistic’ solutions: MAP
Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) says “airdrops, temporary seaports and the like are not realistic or lasting solutions to stave off looming famine and sustain life in Gaza” after Biden announced a plan to build a temporary pier off Gaza’s coast to deliver aid.
“Five months on, it is long past time for the US, the UK and others to use their substantial weight to ensure that their ally Israel immediately reopens land crossings into Gaza,” MAP CEO Melanie Ward told Al Jazeera.
“Only an immediate and lasting ceasefire will allow us to deliver the massive humanitarian response that is required after five months of Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment and siege of the people of Gaza.”
Von der Leyen says Cyprus maritime corridor to open this weekend
While on her visit to Cyprus, the EU chief said a sea corridor from Cyprus to Gaza will likely open this weekend, after a pilot shipment takes place today. “We are here because the Palestinians in Gaza need our help and the humanitarian situation there is very tragic,” said Ursula von der Leyen, adding that the sea passageway could be a “radical change” for aid access.
The US plans to help build a temporary pier in Gaza to receive the Gaza-bound sea shipments, President Biden announced on Thursday night.
However, the UN and aid groups say sea deliveries are not nearly as efficient as truck shipments, and have urged Israeli authorities to stop blocking aid trucks from crossing into Gaza.
US says temporary port for Gaza aid to take ‘several weeks’
A temporary port the United States is seeking to build to speed up aid to Gaza will take “several weeks” in planning and execution. The process may involve 1,000 US troops but none will be put on the ground, the Pentagon says. Washington is working through the details with partner nations in the Middle East.
However, experts have criticised the move as an attempt to divert attention from hundreds of thousands of starving Palestinians, and Israel’s consistent blocking of assistance to the long-besieged enclave.
Doctors worry US aid plan will fail to reach Gaza in time
Director of Al-Nasr hospital calls aid delivery ‘dust in the eyes’
Mustafa al-Kahlout, Director of Al Nassr Pediatric Hospital in Gaza City, says the little aid that has so far trickled into Gaza is “dust in the eyes”, as the quantities delivered by trucks and airdrops are insufficient to address even the most basic needs of the population.
“The aid is only formal,” al-Kahlout told Al Jazeera, adding that a US plan to deliver aid through a temporary pier off the coast of Gaza could be another grand gesture that makes little difference on the ground, similarly to the airdrops that delivered the equivalent of just a few trucks of aid.
As for the plan announced by aid in his State of the Union speech on Thursday, “one must judge from when and how much aid will arrive,” al-Kahlout said.
UNRWA calls for ‘efficient’ aid delivery into Gaza through crossings
UNRWA Director of Communications Juliette Touma says “There is an easier and cheaper way to bring in much-needed supplies into the Gaza Strip” after airdropped aid accidentally killed five people. “That is via the road including sending more trucks from Israel into the Gaza Strip,”
Touma told Al Jazeera. “It shouldn’t be this difficult. There are several crossing points that connect Israel to the Gaza Strip and this is what we used before the war started. “When there is a political will there is a way,” she said, adding so far, desperately needed supplies have not been cleared fast enough and “there needs to be much more” going into the strip.
A ceasefire is “long overdue”, Touma added, warning several parts of Gaza are at risk of famine.
Children in Gaza ‘do not have time to wait’ for US aid pier
Children in Gaza are dying from starvation and disease and cannot wait for the time it will take to build a temporary pier off the coast, or for airdropped aid to reach them, Save the Children says. “Children in Gaza cannot wait to eat. They are already dying from malnutrition and saving their lives is a matter of hours or days – not weeks,” Jason Lee, country director for the occupied territory, said in a statement to Al Jazeera.
“There is already a tried and tested system in place to effectively coordinate aid, but trucks of food and medicines that could save lives are waiting at crossings while children are starving just miles away,” Lee added.
“Airdrops, with no on-the-ground coordination of who it reaches, and maritime corridors like the one announced yesterday are no solutions to keep children alive. Neither are substitutes for unimpeded humanitarian assistance via the established land routes.”
Alternative methods of aid delivery are costly, inefficient, and “a distraction from the critical solution to save the lives of children and families in Gaza”, he said, calling for an immediate ceasefire.
US aid policy on Gaza ‘absurd’ given military support for Israel
UN seeks fact-finding mission on torture of Palestinians in Israel
The UN special rapporteur on torture requested an investigation in Israel to take a deeper look at mounting evidence that the army is abusing Palestinian detainees. Alice Jill Edwards said she received allegations of torture and ill-treatment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and war-ravaged Gaza.
“I’m calling on … Hamas, the state of Palestine, Israel to put their torture tools down, to really have a focus on peace and a prospect of living side-by-side as neighbours in the future,” she said.
Thousands have been detained – and are mostly held in administrative detention by Israel – across the occupied West Bank since the start of the war, and there have been many enforced disappearances of Palestinians in Gaza, especially the north.
The Special Rapporteur on torture, @DrAliceJEdwards, presented the @UN Human Rights Council with 2 reports on
-prisons ➡️https://t.co/WlqDuwM5qD
-her recent visit to #Ukraine ➡️https://t.co/Aj8YxY0kp3
Before presenting these #HRC55 reports, she asked a question to all States⤵️ pic.twitter.com/SrFTpInK5t
— United Nations Human Rights Council | 📍#HRC57 (@UN_HRC) March 8, 2024
More deflections, propaganda, distractions, aka Hasbara
US, UK and France call for UNSC meeting over sex crimes claims: Reports
Israel’s Foreign Ministry says the US, Britain and France have submitted a request for a UN Security Council emergency meeting over the findings of a UN report on the alleged sexual crimes in the October 7 attack, according to the Israeli media. Reports said that the move comes after a request from Foreign Minister Israel Katz, and the members of the UNSC also wish to meet with Premila Patten, the UN special representative on sexual violence in conflicts and the author of the report.
Katz had recalled the country’s UN ambassador for consultations earlier in the week over alleged attempts by the organisation to keep quiet on the report in question. Israel’s foreign minister also slammed UN chief Antonio Guterres over the report, saying that he “brought the organisation to the lowest level”.
Israelis bring legal action against UNRWA
A legal case brought by Israelis, including family members of captives held in Gaza, alleges the US branch of the UN’s Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) is complicit in aiding “terrorism”. The court complaint claims Hamas and other Palestinians are “financed and aided” by UNRWA and its US-based non-profit organisation during the October 7 attack on southern Israel.
UN Watch, a Geneva-based body that monitors the UN based on its charter, filed the complaint.
“Defendant UNRWA USA has been and is fully aware that UNRWA works with and for Hamas, providing operational and financial support for their activities, and UNRWA USA aids, abets, and provides material support for those activities under the guise of humanitarian assistance,” it said.
Israel says it wants to dismantle UNRWA, the main organisation getting aid to besieged Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, over claims some employees participated in the October 7 attacks.
Israel decries ‘political persecution’ after Columbia University investigates prof
An Israeli professor at Columbia University in New York says the prestigious school is probing him for his pro-Israeli activities, prompting a backlash from the Israeli government. Shai Davidai, a professor who identifies himself as a “Zionist” on his online profile, said the “investigation into my advocacy for the Jewish and Israeli students, faculty and staff at the university” amounts to “a clear act of retaliation and an attempt to silence me”.
He said in a statement that he’s fighting “student organisations that have turned this campus into a hostile environment by openly celebrating terrorism and promoting violence against Israel and Jews”.
Eylon Levy, the Israeli government spokesman, said, “We are at the point where Jews are being politically persecuted in the West.”
A free speech row with legal implications has erupted in major American universities since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza.
We are at the point where Jews are being politically persecuted in the West. I don't have another way to describe what is happening to @ShaiDavidai. https://t.co/y6M68F7xqw
— Eylon Levy (@EylonALevy) March 8, 2024
US officials meet with UN rapporteur on sexual violence report
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