Middle East crisis: World Health Organization accuses Israel of impeding aid delivery in Gaza – as it happened

14 Feb 202410.14 EST

Top UK rabbi opposes invasion of Rafah

Harriet Sherwood

A leading British rabbi has publicly opposed an Israeli military offensive in Rafah, saying it is “impossible to remain silent”.

Jonathan Wittenberg, the senior rabbi of Britain’s Masorti community, said in a statement:

These words are written out of deep concern about Israel’s actions and potential actions in Rafah, making it impossible to remain silent.

The calculated barbarity and strategic cruelty of Hamas’s military, and the presence of its forces in tunnels beneath Rafah, are beyond doubt …

But over a million Palestinian civilians, many already in flight from the north of Gaza, are now trapped with nowhere to go. In countless references, Judaism has, throughout its history, stressed our duty to refugees and the helpless. How can we be unmoved by their grief and unbearable suffering? ….

I write out of horror at what may ensue and its potential consequences in unimaginable suffering. I write out of dread at the future hatred this is likely to engender, and out of fear that these actions may haunt us, and the good name of Israel and the Jewish People, for generations.”

It has just gone 5pm in Gaza City, Tel Aviv and Beirut, and 6pm in Damascus.

Here is a recap of the latest developments:

• The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday that Gaza’s hospitals are ‘completely overwhelmed’ and accused Israel of impeding its aid-delivery missions in Gaza. Speaking to reporters in Geneva via video link from Rafah in southern Gaza, Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO’s representative for the occupied Palestinian territories said that fewer than half of its requested aid-delivery missions in Gaza have been approved by Israel.

• “Military operations in Rafah could lead to a slaughter in Gaza” and a “humanitarian operation at death’s door”, warned the UN. Martin Griffiths, the UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, said the scenario “we have long dreaded is unraveling at alarming speed” and “our humanitarian response is in tatters”.

• Israeli intelligence chief David Barnea met CIA director William Burns in Cairo on Tuesday for talks on a Qatari-brokered plan to halt fighting in Gaza. The negotiations, which also involved Qatar’s prime minister and Egyptian officials, are part of an intensifying effort to secure a ceasefire before Israel proceeds with a ground incursion into the southern city of Rafah, where more than half of the territory’s population has fled.

• A Hamas source told news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) that a delegation was heading to Cairo to meet Egyptian and Qatari mediators, after Israeli negotiators held talks with the mediators on Tuesday.

• Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, an outspoken critic of Israel’s conduct of the Gaza war, was also due in Cairo on Wednesday for talks with president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, says AFP.

• Ireland and Spain’s prime ministers have written and implored EU chiefs to take action over the “deteriorating” situation in Gaza a day after the taoiseach claimed Israel had become “blinded by rage”. In a highly unusual move, Leo Varadkar and Pedro Sánchez wrote to the European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen. They asked the commission to “urgently review whether Israel is complying with its obligations to respect human rights in Gaza”.

• Israel is in breach of international law as the occupying power if it fails to provide food and water to the people of Gaza, the UK foreign secretary, Lord Cameron, told peers on Tuesday in his clearest warning yet over Israel’s conduct. He also said it was simply not possible for people in Rafah to leave as proposed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), remarks that suggest the UK would not endorse any Israeli plan to mount a full-scale attack on the area.

• WHO director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has said that he is “alarmed by what is reportedly happening at Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza.” “Nasser is the backbone of the health system in southern Gaza. It must be protected. Humanitarian access must be allowed,” he said.

• Displaced Palestinians have begun evacuating Nasser hospital complex in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis after weeks of being isolated by fighting. Videos seen by the Associated Press showed dozens of Palestinians carrying sacks of their belongings and making their way out of the Nasser hospital complex, while a doctor wearing green hospital scrubs walked ahead of the crowd, some of whom were carrying white flags.

• Nasser hospital and the surrounding are has ‘turned into a battle zone’, reports Al Jazeera journalist Hani Mahmoud in Rafah, southern Gaza. In an update on Wednesday morning, Mahmoud said the situation in Nasser hospital was becoming “more and more risky” for medical staff and hundreds of displaced people sheltering there. He reported a lack of fuel, medical supplies and oxygen at the hospital, plus “a sewage flood as the facility is without electricity”.

• “There is sometimes even no space to walk” in Rafah, Médecins Sans Frontières project coordinator in Gaza, Lisa Macheiner said describing the unfolding situation and attacks in the area. Macheiner also spoke of the “lack of access to food … water … sanitation … healthcare” and said “there is a huge need for primary healthcare for follow up of patients, who had surgeries, multiple surgeries” and of people suffering with infected wounds. The medical humanitarian organisation has called on the government of Israel to halt any offensive on Rafah.

• Israeli air attacks have been reported across Gaza, including in the southern part of the strip, by Al Jazeera correspondents. They said artillery shelling had hit the centre of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza and Israeli warplanes had carried out repeated raids on the southern neighbourhoods of Gaza City.

• About 100 representatives of hostages flew to The Hague on Wednesday to file a “crimes against humanity” complaint at the international criminal court (ICC) against Hamas, reports AFP. The ICC is the world’s only independent court set up to probe the gravest offences including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

• 103 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes and 145 were injured in the past 24 hours, said the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.

• An Israeli woman was killed and eight others were injured in a suspected Hezbollah attack, according to Israeli military and medical officials reports The Times of Israel. Safed’s municipality also said rockets hit the base, as well as the city’s industrial zone and an area near Ziv hospital. There has been no immediate claim for the attack.

• Israeli military jets began carrying out a widespread wave of strikes in Lebanese territory on Wednesday, the IDF spokesperson, Daniel Hagari said.

• The UN secretary general, António Guterres said he was ‘deeply troubled’ by the number of journalists killed in the Gaza conflict. Reporting on an Israeli drone attack in Muraj, north of Rafah that allegedly targeted two journalists, Al Jazeera said the attack had resulted in its Arabic correspondent Ismail Abu Omar having to have his leg amputated, and had also seriously injured photojournalist Ahmed Matar. Guterres condemned the attack.

• At least 18 Palestinians were arrested overnight in the occupied West Bank, including two women from Jericho, reports Al Jazeera. It cites the Palestinian Prisoners Society and the Palestinian commission of detainees and ex-detainees affairs which said detentions also took place in Hebron, Qalqilya, Nablus, East Jerusalem and Ramallah. It put the total number of arrests after 7 October at 7,020 and called it “one of the most prominent tools of collective punishment”.

• Militants from the Islamic State (IS) group attacked military barracks in central Syria this week, killing nine soldiers, an opposition war monitor said. The Syrian army and officials have not confirmed the attack, reports AP. IS claimed responsibility for the attack on Monday near the town of Al-Sukhna, saying its fighters also seized weapons abandoned by fleeing soldiers and set fire to the barracks. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three Syrian troops were wounded in addition to the nine killed in Al-Sukhna.

• US Central Command (Centcom) said its forces launched a strike on Tuesday on a missile in a Houthi-controlled part of Yemen. It said the cruise missile was about to be fired at ships in the Red Sea.

• Protesters denouncing Israel’s offensive in Gaza disrupted a foreign policy debate in Sweden’s parliament on Wednesday, as the country’s foreign minister reiterated support for Israel’s right to self-defence against Hamas. Security guards escorted a woman out of the public gallery after she shouted that Israel “was committing genocide”, as foreign minister Tobias Billstrom presented the government’s foreign policy declaration to parliament.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) have shared an audio update from its project coordinator in Gaza, Lisa Macheiner describing the unfolding situation in Rafah.

She said:

We do see people start to move, to take the little belongings they have left to try to get to a safer place. They don’t know any more what to do and they just feel unsafe and terrified about what is going to happen next. ‘Where is it safe?’, ‘where should we go?’ – and there is no answer to that and it really leads to a feeling of despair.”

“It’s quite sad to see how empty people’s eyes are despite all the resilience that people have here,” said Macheiner. She described the attacks she had witnessed in Rafah:

There have been attacks here in Rafah yesterday [11 February] and also during the night. From Khan Younis, we could hear a lot of heavy explosions. Our windows and doors were shaking throughout the whole night. It was very, very noisy. People don’t feel safe. Children are terrified. They are distressed and it’s been going on for months now and people are exhausted.”

She said there are “hundreds of thousands of people everywhere” and that there is “no space any more”. “There is no space to move in a car. There is sometimes even no space to walk,” she added.

Macheiner also spoke of the “lack of access to food … water … sanitation … healthcare” and said “there is a huge need for primary healthcare for follow up of patients, who had surgeries, multiple surgeries” and of people suffering with infected wounds.

The medical humanitarian organisation called on the government of Israel to halt any offensive on Rafah.

Israeli air attacks have been reported across Gaza, including in the southern part of the strip, by Al Jazeera correspondents.

They said artillery shelling had hit the centre of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza and Israeli warplanes had carried out repeated raids on the southern neighbourhoods of Gaza City.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday that fewer than half of its requested aid-delivery missions in Gaza have been approved by Israel, stressing the need to reach and resupply devastated hospitals across the territory, reports AFP.

“Hospitals are completely overwhelmed and overflowing and undersupplied,” said Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO’s representative for the occupied Palestinian territories.

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Speaking to reporters in Geneva via video link from Rafah in southern Gaza, he described how patients were frequently undergoing unnecessary amputations of limbs that could have been saved under ordinary circumstances.

Since November, only 40% of the missions WHO had requested to deliver aid to northern Gaza had been facilitated, he said. “Since January, that figure is much lower.”

Only 45% of requested missions in southern Gaza had meanwhile been made possible, he said. “These missions have been denied, impeded or postponed,” he said, describing the situation as “absurd”.

“Even when there is no ceasefire, humanitarian corridors should exist so WHO, UN and their partners can do their job” he said, calling it a “shrinking humanitarian space”.

Peeperkorn also warned that “military activities in ... these densely populated areas would be of course an unfathomable catastrophe”. It “would even further expand the humanitarian disaster beyond imagination,” he said.

US Central Command has issued a summary of its activities yesterday.

“US forces will continue to take actions that protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for U.S. navy and merchant vessels,” it said.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, has said that he is “alarmed by what is reportedly happening at Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza.”

“Nasser is the backbone of the health system in southern Gaza. It must be protected. Humanitarian access must be allowed,” he said.

Israeli military jets have begun carrying out a widespread wave of strikes in Lebanese territory, the Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, has said.

14 Feb 202407.09 EST

Lisa O'Carroll

Ireland and Spain’s prime ministers have written and implored EU chiefs to take action over the “deteriorating” situation in Gaza a day after the taoiseach claimed Israel had become “blinded by rage”.

In a highly unusual move, Leo Varadkar and Pedro Sánchez have written to the European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen.

“We are deeply concerned at the deteriorating situation in Israel and in Gaza, especially the impact the ongoing conflict is having on innocent Palestinians, especially children and women.”

“The expanded Israeli military operation in the Rafah area poses a grave and imminent threat that the international community must urgently confront.”

In a three page letter they list a litany of urgent measures they want to see including an immediate ceasefire and access to humanitarian aid.

It then asked the commission to do an immediate assessment “of whether Israel is complying with its obligations, including under the EU/Israel Association Agreement, which makes respect for human rights and democratic principles an essential element of the relationship; and if it considers that it is in breach, that it proposes appropriate measures to the Council to consider.”

This it says is “against the background of the risk of an even greater humanitarian catastrophe posed by the imminent threat of Israeli military operations in Rafah, and given what has occurred, and continues to occur in Gaza since October 2023, including widespread concern about possible breaches of IHL and international human rights law by Israel”.

Protesters denouncing Israel’s offensive in Gaza disrupted a foreign policy debate in Sweden’s parliament on Wednesday, as the country’s foreign minister reiterated support for Israel’s right to self-defence against Hamas, reports AFP.

According to AFP, security guards escorted a woman out of the public gallery after she shouted that Israel “was committing genocide”, as foreign minister Tobias Billstrom presented the government’s foreign policy declaration to parliament.

“Sweden supports Israel’s legitimate right to defend itself against Hamas in accordance with international law,” Billstrom said before being interrupted. He added that “in light of the catastrophic situation in Gaza, the government believes that a ceasefire is necessary for humanitarian reasons.”

Protesters started to chant as members of parliament began debating the country’s support for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

During his policy declaration, Billstrom also said that Sweden’s number one priority would be “support for Ukraine” in its fight against Russia.

“Sweden will continue to support Ukraine as long as needed – politically, humanitarian, militarily and economically,” Billstrom said.

Police told AFP that six people were detained by security guards, and one of those had then been arrested suspected of “violent resistance.”

A small group of protesters also gathered outside the parliament.

In late January, Sweden paused payments to UNRWA after Israeli allegations that some staff members at the agency had taken part in the 7 October attack by Hamas.

Martin Griffiths, the UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, said the scenario “we have long dreaded is unraveling at alarming speed”.

In a post to X, Griffiths wrote that military operations in Rafah could lead to a “slaughter in Gaza”. He said:

“Today, I’m sounding the alarm once again: Military operations in Rafah could lead to a slaughter in Gaza. They could also leave an already fragile humanitarian operation at death’s door.”

In a statement, Griffiths said “no amount of dedication and goodwill is enough to keep millions of people alive, fed and protected – while the bombs are falling and the aid is choked off”. He finished by saying “our humanitarian response is in tatters”.

Ireland and Spain have requested the EU commission to “urgently review whether Israel is complying with its obligations to respect human rights”.

Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez announced the update on X. He added: “We also recall the horror of 7 October, and call for the release of all hostages and an immediate ceasefire that can facilitate access for urgently needed humanitarian supplies.”

It comes after taoiseach Leo Varadkar said on Tuesday that Israel is not listening to “any country in the world”, including the US, and has become “blinded by rage”.

According to the Irish Times, Varadkar told the Dáil during Leaders’ Questions, that Israel was going to make the situation “much worse for their own security” in the long-term by “going down the path they’re going”. He also warned of a “serious risk of a massacre” occurring in Rafah if a ground assault were to occur.

Palestinians have begun evacuating the main hospital in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, according to videos shared by medics on Wednesday reports AP. Weeks of heavy fighting had isolated the medical facility and claimed the lives of several people inside it.

The war between Israel and Hamas, now in its fifth month, has devastated Gaza’s health sector, with less than half of its hospitals even partially functioning as scores of people are killed and wounded in daily bombardments. Israel accuses the militants of using hospitals and other civilian buildings as cover.

Videos seen by AP showed dozens of Palestinians carrying sacks of their belongings and making their way out of the Nasser hospital complex, while a doctor wearing green hospital scrubs walked ahead of the crowd, some of whom were carrying white flags.

The Israeli military ordered the evacuation of the hospital and surrounding areas last month. But as in previous instances, medics said patients were unable to safely leave or be relocated, and thousands of people displaced by fighting elsewhere remained there. Palestinians say nowhere is safe in the besieged territory, as Israel continues to carry out strikes in all parts of it.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said last week that Israeli snipers on surrounding buildings were preventing people from entering or leaving the hospital. It said 10 people had been killed inside the complex over the past week, including three shot and killed on Tuesday.

About 300 medical staff were treating 450 patients, including people wounded in strikes, said the ministry. It said 10,000 displaced people were sheltering in the facility and that Israel had ordered the evacuation of the displaced people but said the medics and patients could stay.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

An Israeli woman was killed and eight others were injured in a suspected Hezbollah attack, Israeli military and medical officials said.

The Times of Israel cites the Israel Defense Forces as saying that some of the rockets had hit the northern command headquarters base in the city of Safed, which is about 13 kilometers (8 miles) from the Lebanese border.

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There has been no immediate claim for the attack but the Times of Israel say it was “it was believed to have been carried out by the Hezbollah terror group”.

“Numerous launches were identified crossing from Lebanon into the areas of Netua, Menara, and into an IDF base in northern Israel,” Israeli military said, adding that it was striking the launch sites.

Safed’s municipality also said rockets hit the base, as well as the city’s industrial zone and an area near Ziv hospital.

According to the Times of Israel, medics found the body of the woman who was killed as they scanned buildings that were hit by the rocket fire. Ziv hospital said eight injured people were brought to the emergency room after the rocket attacks on the city, including one person in a serious condition and another in a moderate condition. Six others were being treated for light injuries.

At least 18 Palestinians were arrested overnight in the occupied West Bank, including two women from Jericho, reports Al Jazeera.

It cites the Palestinian Prisoners Society and the Palestinian commission of detainees and ex-detainees affairs which said detentions also took place in Hebron, Qalqilya, Nablus, East Jerusalem and Ramallah. It put the total number of arrests after 7 October at 7,020.

Arrests are “one of the most prominent tools of collective punishment”, the groups said in a statement on Telegram, reports Al Jazeera.