The government media office in Gaza says most of the 36 people killed in Friday’s Israeli army attack on a family home close to the Nuseirat refugee camp were children. The media office added that pregnant women were among the dead in the house, which was located in the west of the camp located in central Gaza.

“We hold the American administration, the international community and the [Israeli] occupation fully responsible for the escalation of these crimes and massacres against defenceless civilians,” the statement on Telegram said.

More strikes reported on Nuseirat camp

Dominic Allen, a representative for the UN Population Fund Palestine, recently visited the Emirati hospital in Rafah. Conditions at the facility’s maternity ward are deeply disturbing, he said, with a stark rise in malnourished newborns and stillborn deaths.

“The doctors are reporting that they no longer see normal-sized babies,” Allen told Al Jazeera. “What they do see though tragically is more stillborn babies and more neonatal deaths.”

Dr James Smith says Gaza’s health system collapsed in late October and it has not recovered since.

“That is because the supplies, resources, specialists and so on required have either not entered into Gaza or where such commodities or resources made available, it is impossible to work in a context of such extreme violence and insecurity,” said Smith, who used to work at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza until earlier this year.

He told Al Jazeera from London that “the hospital is barely able to cope”, adding that a colleague there sent him a recent message, in which he called the situation “catastrophic”. “They have very limited means to provide care to patients, while patients are presenting some of the most horrific trauma-related injuries and also non-trauma-related healthcare problems I have ever seen,” he said.

People, often children, show up multiple times a day with severe traumatic amputations with more than one limp and such injuries in normal circumstances require prolonged specialist care that is simply not available at the current time, Smith added.

A staff member of the international medical charity Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) has described the situation in northern Gaza, including the lack of food and medical supplies.

“The current situation in Gaza is catastrophic and words can’t describe it,” MSF nurse Loay Harb said, according to a post published by the organisation on X.

Harb, one of four staff members still working for MSF in the northern part of the enclave, said people have no water, flour, electricity and – at most times – no internet or mobile connection to communicate with the world.

Humanitarian organisations, including the UN, have repeatedly warned of the risk of famine in northern Gaza, an area that has not been reached by aid in weeks. Harb said the clinic where he worked could only treat patients with severe burns and wounds with basic healthcare.

“The current situation in Gaza is catastrophic and words can’t describe it.”

In rare contact with one of our staff members in northern #Gaza, MSF nurse Loay Harb describes the situation there, including the lack of food and the medical support he provides where he can. pic.twitter.com/7QPldoFavu

— MSF International (@MSF) March 16, 2024

The UN Palestinian refugee agency has said the situation in Gaza is “catastrophic” and “deteriorates by the minute”. “UNRWA teams work tirelessly & in extremely challenging conditions to assist families in dire need,” the agency said on X.

It also reiterated its call for an urgent ceasefire to be implemented across the Gaza Strip.

A Palestinian child has been filmed pleading to Egyptian soldiers for food after climbing an electricity pole to rise above the fence at Gaza’s southern border.

“I want to die now. We want to eat, we want to live. Why … There is no food to eat my brothers. We want to eat,” he pleaded, according to a video posted by a Palestinian activist on Instagram and verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad unit.

The UN Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, earlier warned that one in three children in Gaza are malnourished and that “famine is looming.”

Amid the rubble-strewn street of Beit Lahiya, where the local mosque lies in tatters, green shoots of recovery are giving hope to residents as they celebrate Ramadan. Resident Mahmoud Ahmad turned to growing his own vegetables in large vases placed on the doorstep of his war-battered home. “The challenge lies in the scarcity of ingredients to prepare a meal,” he told Al Jazeera.  “Creativity is essential as we attempt to make the most of what we have.”

Ahmad grows eggplants and tomato and uses basic ingredients like dried thyme and flour for baking. He says he finds solace in breaking the fast with his family but misses the sound of the call to prayer that used to accompany them before the war.

The first aid vessel to reach Gaza, operated by the Spanish charity Open Arms, has offloaded 200 tonnes of food aid to the besieged enclave, completing a first pilot project that could open the way for more assistance to come in via maritime corridors. US charity World Central Kitchen said “all cargo was offloaded and is being readied for distribution in Gaza”.

The group said earlier this week that a second shipment was being prepared in Cyprus and that thousands of tonnes of aid could reach Gaza each week going forward.

Humanitarian organisations have repeatedly called for Israel to open more land border crossings to let more humanitarian aid through, insisting that airdrops and maritime corridors are costly and inefficient ways of delivering assistance.

The second load of food aid is ready to depart by sea from Cyprus to Gaza, according to the island’s president, after the first aid shipment landed in the besieged Palestinian enclave overnight. “The first ship has started its return to Cyprus, and we are ready to dispatch the second ship,” Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides told journalists.

The second ship, with 240 tonnes of aid, is moored at Larnaca port awaiting a signal to sail.

US charity World Central Kitchen, which arranged the mission with the UAE and Spanish NGO Open Arms with support from the Cypriot government, said the new shipment included pallets of canned goods and bulk products.

Almost 200 tonnes of food arrived in the enclave late on Friday, the first shipment in a new maritime aid route.

Ahmed Abu Zeid, the spokesperson of the Egyptian foreign ministry, has said in a statement on Facebook that his country “appreciates and welcomes every effort aimed at alleviating the humanitarian suffering of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip”.

He thanked “all international and regional parties that contributed to facilitate the arrival of such aid across the maritime corridor”. Abu Zeid added that “Egypt continues to make all efforts to strengthen the delivery of urgent aid to the sector through the Rafah Crossing and through the air descent.”

He said Egypt is demanding “Israel to remove barriers and restrictions on the entry of aid through land ports, and calling on it to operate the rest of the crossings to bring in more aid to avoid the worsening of the humanitarian situation in Gaza”.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said local Palestinians associated with the Palestinian Authority (PA) should govern Gaza after the war because that is the most viable option, reports The Times of Israel.

Gallant, speaking at a security cabinet meeting on Friday, said there are four scenarios that could play out in Gaza after the war:

• Hamas continues to rule if Israel does not entirely defeat it
• Israel permanently occupies Gaza
• Gaza falls into chaos with no structured leadership
• Local Palestinians govern the Strip, taking their cue from PA-led Ramallah

The least detrimental of these scenarios, he said, is for the local Palestinians – who would be unaffiliated with Hamas – to lead the enclave.

However, Gallant’s comments drew backlash from several members of the security cabinet, including Transport Minister Miri Regev and Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who accused Gallant of effectively endorsing the PA, according to the Times of Israel.

Thousands of Israeli soldiers are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or other combat trauma, according to the head of the army’s mental health department. At least 1,000 of these soldiers have been diagnosed with “acute distress disorder”, department head Colonel Lucian Tatsa-Laur told Israeli newspaper TheMarker.

With the mental health decline, more and more soldiers are refusing to return to the battlefield after being granted temporary leave, a trend that is challenging army operations, said Tatsa-Laur.

“As a psychiatrist, I wish I had a magic wand that could make this whole period disappear,” he said.

The Israeli government is not serious about negotiating a truce in Gaza, but it is coming under pressure by a segment of the Israeli public and by the United States. However, maintaining the government coalition alive is more important to [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu than the American support.

The US is simply paving the way for Israel to continue its war, while at the same time speaking rhetorically about peace and democratic values. It is not clear what the US’s request for Israel to evacuate Rafah before a ground offensive entails. What if 2,000-3,000 Palestinians remain, is it OK to kill them?!

And how come that the American plan to evacuate and displace – again – over a million people is now passing for the rational thing to do?

The Israeli army has arrested at least 20 Palestinians in the West Bank, including former prisoners, in the past 24 hours, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society. The arrests took place in the governorates of Tulkarem, Hebron, Tubas, Bethlehem, Nablus, Jenin and Jerusalem.

Palestinian prisoner groups estimate 7,605 Palestinians have been arrested by the Israeli army since October 7.

A Bedouin Israeli man who entered Gaza in 2016 and allegedly joined Hamas has died in Israeli custody, according to the Times of Israel.

The 26-year-old man, Juma Ibrahim Abu Ghanima, who was arrested when he tried to cross back into Israel during the continuing war, was found unconscious in his Israeli prison cell and later confirmed dead by the hospital he was brought to, according to the report, which cites Israel’s Prison Service.

Abu Ghanima had been charged by Israel with joining Hamas, undergoing military training with the group, and carrying out surveillance operations during his time in Gaza.

Israel shoots suspected gunman dead after Hebron attack

Israel’s war on the occupied West Bank

Senior figures from Hamas and Yemen’s Houthi rebels held a rare meeting to discuss coordinating their actions against Israel, according to unnamed sources cited by the AFP news agency. The agency has now reported that the discussions revolved around the possibility of “expanding confrontations and encircling” Israel.

A Palestinian source requesting anonymity said those present discussed the “complementary role of Ansar Allah [the Houthis] alongside Palestinian factions, especially in the event of an Israeli offensive on Rafah”.

Houthi attacks on Red Sea ships since the start of the war have disrupted global trade in solidarity with the Palestinians.

The Houthis, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad group are all part of the Iran-backed “axis of resistance” hostile to Israel and the United States that also includes Lebanon’s Hezbollah and armed groups in Iraq.


_{The M/V Rubymar, a Belize-flagged, UK-owned bulk carrier is shown leaking oil in the Gulf of Aden after taking significant damage after an attack by Houthi rebels}




As seen in Gaza, Israel considers homes military structures...

Video shows home wrecked by Israeli air raid in Lebanon’s Tayr Harfa village

مشاهد توثق الدمار الذي خلفته غارة إسرائيلية على منزل في بلدة طير حرفا جنوبي #لبنان فجر اليوم #حرب_غزة #فيديو pic.twitter.com/rJm8cpaLDT

— الجزيرة فلسطين (@AJA_Palestine) March 16, 2024

Hezbollah claims hitting Israel’s Ramim barracks with Burkan missiles

Israel shells residential area in southern Lebanon’s Jebbayn area

_{Smoke billows from the area of an Israeli air strike on the southern Lebanese village of Marwahin near the border with Israel on Saturday}