Time is not on Hamas’s side: US’ Witkoff

In a statement, Witkoff accused Hamas of making “entirely impractical” demands and stalling a deal to release an American-Israeli captive in exchange for an extension of the Gaza ceasefire.

“Hamas is making a very bad bet that time is on its side. It is not,” a statement from the Witkoff’s office and the US National Security Council said.

“Hamas is well aware of the deadline, and should know that we will respond accordingly if that deadline passes,” it said, adding that Trump had already vowed
Hamas would “pay a severe price” for not freeing captives.

That's not negotiating, that's issuing threats while making concessions to Israel, ripping up the agreed upon ceasefire agreement to appease Netanyahu.

Main events on March 14th

UN warns of escalating Israeli settler violence in occupied West Bank

Violent attacks by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank are escalating, according to the latest UN update from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Two Palestinians were injured, more than 1,400 sheep and goats were stolen or killed, and more than 380 olive and fruit trees were vandalised in 16 Israeli settler attacks carried out between March 4 and 10, according to OCHA’s latest update.

In one attack, Israeli settlers, dressed in what appeared to be military uniforms, descended on Palestinian worshippers while they prayed at a mosque in Khirbet Tana, Nablus. In an attack on Friday, Israeli settlers set fire to two homes leaving two Palestinian families, among them a baby and a toddler, homeless..

The UN update also notes that attacks by Israeli settlers on the Ras Ein al Auja Bedouin community have increased sharply since January 2024, documenting a total of 110 incidents.

The Bedouin community is surrounded by illegal Israeli settlements and is regularly targeted in raids on livestock or critical water infrastructure.

US officials could be brought before the ICC for obstruction of justice

US officials taking part in attacks on the ICC in defence of Israel are obstructing justice and could face charges in the future, former UN Human Rights Official Craig Mokhiber says.

Mokhiber told Al Jazeera that both Biden and Trump administrations had allowed Israel to act with impunity on Gaza and Palestine, with the Trump administration going so far as to arrest people in the US “simply for criticising an oppressive foreign regime, Israel because it’s committing genocide and apartheid”.

The arrest of Mahmoud Khalil was emblematic of a broader attack on human rights, he said, adding that these developments should be seen within the context of attacks by the US on international institutions for protecting and promoting human rights.

“The Trump administration has already attacked the ICC which is a crime under international law, equivalent to obstructing justice, over which the ICC itself has jurisdiction and could prosecute US officials and Israeli officials for its obstruction of justice.”

Israeli strike on southern Lebanon kills one person

A Lebanese citizen has been killed in an Israeli air strike on a vehicle in the town of Borj al-Mloukin, Lebanon’s Health Ministry says.

The vehicle targeted by an Israeli drone had two occupants, according to the state-run National News Agency.

The Israeli army, meanwhile, said it targeted a Hezbollah operative in the attack in the Kfar Kila municipality.

A fragile ceasefire has been in place in Lebanon since November, ending more than a year of cross-border warfare between Israel and Hezbollah, which escalated into a full-scale conflict in September.

Lebanese authorities have reported nearly 1,100 Israeli violations of the truce, including the deaths of at least 85 people and injuries to more than 280.

Hamas condemns US, Europe decision to block Al-Aqsa TV

Hamas has condemned a joint European American decision to block Al-Aqsa TV via satellite channel, calling it an “attempt to block the Palestinian narrative”.

“The unjust decision represents a direct targeting of free Palestinian media that conveys our people’s suffering and the crimes of the occupation,” the group said in a statement. “We consider this step a blatant violation of media freedom and our people’s legitimate right to convey their voice to the world.”

Israeli blockade forces shutdown of water distribution in Rafah

The Rafah Municipality in southern Gaza announced that fuel supplies to all water wells in the city have been halted due to the continued Israeli blockade and the closure of crossings.

The municipality warned of the disastrous consequences of the well shutdown, which threatens the lives of thousands and exacerbates the health and environmental crisis.

“We are facing an uncontainable humanitarian disaster due to the cessation of water wells in the city,” it added.

Growing despair in besieged Gaza amid shortages of much-needed food and fuel

The Israeli decision to ban the entry of the humanitarian aid has plunged the Gaza Strip into a new wave of desperation. People right now have been forced to depend on alternative, negative coping mechanisms, including the reduction of the meals they have on a daily basis.

Meanwhile, the Gaza Government Media Office has said that the Gaza Strip is on the brink of collapse. In an official statement, it said the vast majority of Gaza’s municipalities have stopped waste collection due to the fuel shortages, alongside also with street clearing and the removal of rubble.

It has been a predictable outcome of the ongoing Israeli ban on the entry of much-needed fuel and food, and the crisis now is escalating. Families right now are struggling to afford the meal to break their fast during Ramadan, another sign of a crisis that has no end in sight.

Israel cutting Gaza’s access to water amounts to ‘acts of genocide’: HRW

Israel’s “deliberate” curtailing of Gaza’s access to water amounts to “acts of genocide”, according to Niku Jafarnia, a researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW).

In a December report, HRW found that Israeli authorities had deprived people in the besieged Strip from accessing water through a variety of means, Jafarnia said.

“Not only [by] attacking desalination facilities but also by cutting off water through the pipelines that go into Gaza from Israel, by cutting off fuel or restricting access to fuel, and by also destroying and attacking wastewater facility plants,” the researcher told Al Jazeera, speaking from Beirut, Lebanon.

“It’s also a matter of not allowing any repair materials that are required in order to actually reconstruct and repair a lot of the water infrastructure and attacking a warehouse that belonged to the water municipality which stored … millions of dollars of repair equipment.”

These different actions, Jafarnia added, “amounted to acts of genocide in that Israeli authorities were deliberately depriving people of access to water, which is ultimately deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the population of Gaza, which is … one of the acts contained within the Genocide Convention”.

More from Human Rights Watch’s Niku Jafarnia

Israel’s ongoing blockade of aid into Gaza may lead to a situation in which “people are going to not have any access to any water in the coming days unless fuel is allowed in”, Jafarnia says.

“I don’t have enough words to describe how bad things are right now,” she told Al Jazeera.

Wells have started shutting down, and desalination plants have completely stopped after the cutoff of electricity and the blocking of fuel, Jafarnia said.

“There’s still currently some water coming in through … two of the three lines that come in from Israel. And yet even those Israeli authorities have threatened to cut off,” she said.

The HRW researcher said diplomatic measures have thus far been ineffective and “what we need to see is a stopping of arms and funding to Israeli authorities and to Israeli forces”.

“There’s legal implications for the fact that Israeli authorities are committing acts of genocide, and yet all these Western countries, so many of them, are still contributing funds and arms to Israel,” Jafarnia said.

Witnesses say Israeli drones target two vehicles in Beit Lahiya

At least nine Palestinians have been confirmed killed in a recent Israeli attack on Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza. We understand that among those who were killed were three Palestinian photographers.

We managed to gather firsthand accounts from eyewitnesses in Beit Lahiya who confirmed that the Israeli drones targeted two vehicles that the victims were travelling in as they were trying to document the humanitarian relief effort in Beit Lahiya.

It’s worth noting that since the implementation of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement, different charitable and humanitarian organisations started to ramp up their efforts in order to provide humanitarian support for Palestinians, specifically during the holy month of Ramadan.

Palestinians, including those who are working in the humanitarian field alongside local journalists, have been trying to document what’s going on in Gaza, specifically for families who are trying to cope with the aggravating humanitarian crisis.

The attack has triggered a huge swathe of condemnation, but it has not been the first one.

Here in the southern part of Gaza, we have seen Israeli drones hovering above while in Rafah city we have got confirmation from eyewitnesses that they have been exposed to Israeli attacks in the past 24 hours.

_{Mourning in northern Gaza after deadly Israeli air attack on Beit Lahiya}

More about Israeli attack on Beit Lahiya

As we’ve been reporting, at least nine Palestinians have been killed and others wounded in an Israeli air attack on northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya.

The attack reportedly targeted a relief team that was accompanied by journalists and photographers. At least three local journalists were among the dead, according to Palestinian media.

The Palestinian Journalists’ Protection Center said in a statement that Israel killed “three journalists in an airstrike on a media team documenting relief efforts in northern Gaza”.

“The journalists were documenting humanitarian relief efforts for those affected by Israel’s genocidal war,” the statement added, according to Anadolu.

In a statement, the Israeli military said it struck “two terrorists … operating a drone that posed a threat” to Israeli soldiers in the area of Beit Lahiya.

“Later, a number of additional terrorists collected the drone operating equipment and entered a vehicle. The [Israeli military] struck the terrorists,” it added, without providing any evidence about its claims.

Gaza’s death toll rises

The Health Ministry in Gaza has just released its latest report on the number of people killed and wounded by Israel’s war on the territory.

In a statement, it said a total of 19 killed – seven newly killed, 12 bodies recovered – were recorded and 26 wounded people arrived in hospitals during the past 48 hours.

This brought the confirmed number of people killed in Israeli attacks since October 7 to at least 48,543, with 111,981 others wounded, the ministry added.

Many victims remain under the rubble, while the Government Media Office in Gaza has put the death toll at more than 61,000, saying thousands of people missing under the rubble are now presumed dead.

Three Palestinians, including child, killed by Israel in north and central Gaza

Three Palestinians, including a child, were killed by Israeli gunfire and drone strikes this evening in the town of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip and in the village of Juhor ad-Dik in central Gaza.

The child, Yamen al-Hamlawi, succumbed to a gunshot wound to the head while a woman was wounded by a bullet to the back in Beit Lahiya, Wafa reported.

Two other civilians were killed and several others injured in an Israeli drone strike targeting a group of people in Juhor ad-Dik.

Elsewhere, in Rafah, a man was wounded by Israeli gunfire while near the Hamza Mosque in the Khirbet al-Adas area, north of the city.

Additionally, eight people were wounded when a bomb dropped by an Israeli drone exploded in a tent in the Shakoush area, northwest of Rafah.

As we reported earlier, nine Palestinians, including three journalists, were killed in an Israeli air strike targeting a group of civilians in Beit Lahiya.

Israel kills 150 Palestinians since start of truce: Gaza media office

A statement by the Government Media Office says 40 people have been killed in the past two weeks.

The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect on January 19.

PIJ slams Israeli attack on Beit Lahiya as ‘war crime’

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) has called the attack that killed nine people “a heinous massacre”, adding that journalists and relief workers were among the dead.

“This is a flagrant war crime that reflects the extent of [Israel’s] criminality and disregard for all human values,” it said in a statement issued on Telegram.

It added: “This brutal crime comes within the context of a systematic escalation that reveals the occupation’s true intentions to continue its aggression and renounce all agreements reached.”

What’s happening in the occupied West Bank?

Wide-scale Israeli raids across the occupied West Bank are continuing. Here is what we have reported this morning:

Israeli air raids now ‘routine’ in the occupied West Bank

Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has documented at least 69 air raids in the occupied West Bank since October 7, 2023, killing 261 people, including at least 41 minors.

The report, which included multiple testimonies from Palestinians, said there had been a marked increase in violence, with Israel now frequently bombing refugee camps and cities in the northern occupied West Bank.

In comparison, 14 people had been killed by air raids in the occupied West Bank over the previous 18 years, it said.

The report said some attacks have involved fighter jets, in the first such use since the second Intifada.


_{Nur Shams camp in the occupied West Bank on March 5, 2025}

Israeli forces set fire to homes in Jenin refugee camp

Israeli forces have set fire to several homes in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, Wafa reports.

According to Wafa’s correspondent, Israeli forces also destroyed infrastructure near Jenin Government Hospital, having blocked the main roads of the camp with dirt barricades.

Today marks the 54th consecutive day of Israeli assaults on the city of Jenin and its refugee camp, Wafa said.

Since the start of the offensive on January 21, Israeli forces have demolished about 120 homes in the refugee camp, and 20,000 residents have been forcibly displaced.

The assault has killed 34 Palestinians and injured dozens.

Israeli settlers attack shepherds in occupied West Bank village

A Palestinian shepherd has been injured in an attack by Israeli settlers in the Masafer Yatta area in the occupied West Bank, Wafa reports, quoting local sources.

Osama Makhamra, a local activist, reported that the settlers assaulted the shepherd, Awad Ibrahim Awad, causing him multiple wounds, including fractures, the agency said. He was subsequently transported to hospital for treatment.

Makhamra said the settlers attacked other shepherds as well.

Israeli settler attacks in the West Bank have seen an uptick since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023.

Trump announces launch of US strikes on Yemen

In a statement on his social media platform, Truth Social, the US president says the US military has launched a “decisive and powerful military action” against the Houthis in Yemen.

“They have waged an unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence, and terrorism against American, and other ships, aircraft, and drones,” Trump said.

He said Houthi rebels have been targeting US ships, aircraft, soldiers and allies.

“The Houthi attack on American vessels will not be tolerated,” the president said.

“We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective,” Trump added.

His post comes moments after Houthi-linked media outlets in Yemen announced strikes carried out by the US without giving details.

The Houthis said they will attack any Israeli ship that violates the group’s ban on Israeli ships passing through the Red and Arabian seas, the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden.

The leader of the Houthis said the group was resuming its naval operations against Israel because the country did not lift a blockade of aid into Gaza within a four-day deadline set by the group.

US strikes against Yemen’s Houthis could last weeks, official says

An unfolding US military campaign of strikes against Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis could last days and maybe weeks, a US official told the Reuters news agency, speaking on condition of anonymity.

President Donald Trump announced the start of the operation earlier on Saturday, warning the Houthi attacks against Red Sea shipping needed to stop or “hell will rain down upon you”.


Trump tells Iran to stop supporting Houthis ‘immediately’

The statement on Truth Social comes as the US president announces military strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.

Trump said: “To Iran: Support for the Houthi terrorists must end IMMEDIATELY! Do NOT threaten the American People, their President, who has received one of the largest mandates in Presidential History, or Worldwide shipping lanes.”

“If you do, BEWARE, because America will hold you fully accountable and, we won’t be nice about it!” he added.

The Houthi health ministry said on X that nine people were killed and nine wounded in US strikes on the Houthi-held capital.

Captives’ families vow to prevent Netanyahu from ‘derailing’ agreement

The Israeli captives’ families declared they would not allow Netanyahu to “derail the agreement with Hamas or turn Gaza’s tunnels into graves” for their relatives.

In a statement on Saturday, they called for demonstrations in front of the Israeli Defence Ministry in Tel Aviv.

“In the place where Netanyahu threatens to launch a new war, violating agreements and sacrificing the hostages, we will continue to send a clear message tonight: we will not allow you to turn Gaza’s tunnels into graves for our children,” they stated.

The families stressed the “demand for the return of the hostages all at once”.

Israel estimates that 59 captives are still held in Gaza, with at least 22 of them alive.


_{Family members and friends of Israelis held captive set up tents around the Defence Ministry in Tel Aviv as they demand their release on March 11, 2025}

Very big gap among Gaza ceasefire negotiating parties

Things appear to be in limbo because each of the three parties is firmly standing its ground.

Hamas has offered to release one Israeli captive who holds dual citizenship, along with the bodies of four captives. Israel has its own proposal, while the US envoy Steve Witkoff has proposed something more aligned with Netanyahu’s position – but certainly neither here nor there.

The statement issued by Witkoff also offers a bit of a threat to Hamas – that it must answer before the deadline set by US President Donald Trump, a deadline that has not been disclosed. It also appeared to offer some insight by saying Hamas was being unrealistic, almost obstinate in the negotiations – which perhaps points to Hamas offering its own vision of what the day after the war will look like.

Hamas insists that the end of the war must be discussed, not just the particulars of an agreement or a bridging proposal.

So there’s still a very big gap.

Meanwhile, some Israeli media reports suggest that Netanyahu may be proposing to the Israeli cabinet this evening steps to further escalate and apply even more pressure, perhaps even militarily, on Hamas to get them to accept the Witkoff proposal.

Israel prepared to resume Gaza ceasefire talks: PM’s office

Israel is prepared to continue Gaza ceasefire talks based on the mediators’ response to a US proposal, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.

According to the statement, the proposal would see 11 living captives and half the dead captives released “immediately”.

According to Israeli media, 24 captives are believed to be alive in Gaza and 35 captives are confirmed dead.

Main events on March 15th