Middle East crisis: Israel intensifies strikes on southern Gaza as eight killed in fighting on Lebanese border – as it happened

It has gone 5pm in Gaza, Tel Aviv and Beirut, and 6pm in Sana’a. We will be closing this blog soon, but you can stay up to date on the Guardian’s Middle East coverage here.

Here is a recap of the latest developments:

• The southern Gaza Strip came under intense Israeli bombardment overnight, despite international pressure for an immediate ceasefire in the Palestinian territory where famine is looming. According to AFP, a fireball lit up the night sky in the southern city of Rafah, while the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said early on Wednesday that 66 people had been killed overnight, including three in Israeli airstrikes in and around Rafah.

• The sound of explosions was also heard and smoke was seen rising in Gaza City in the north, reported AFP, where Israeli troops have been attacking the city’s largest hospital for more than a week.

• Israeli forces surrounded two hospitals in Khan Younis, where the health ministry said 12 people, including some children, were killed in an Israeli strike on a camp for the displaced. The Palestinian Red Crescent warned that thousands were trapped in the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis and said “their lives are in danger”.

• Hezbollah said it launched dozens of rockets at Kiryet Shmona, an Israeli town over the border in response to deadly Israeli strikes on the village of Hebbariyeh in southern Lebanon a day earlier. Rescue services in Israel said that a 25-year-old man was killed and one person was injured when a direct hit sparked a fire in an industrial park in Kiryat Shmona.

• An Israeli airstrike after midnight on Tuesday hit an office of the Islamic Emergency and Relief Corps killing seven volunteers, according to the Lebanese Ambulance Association. The Israeli military said it had struck a military building and killed a member of Lebanon’s al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Group, and several other militants. It said the man was involved in attacks against Israel.

• 11 Palestinian civilians were killed and others were injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting a house of the Dhair family in the city of Rafah on Wednesday, reported the Palestinian news agency Wafa. It also said that an Israeli fighter jet targeted another house in the same city, resulting in several injuries to its residents.

• Wafa also reported that two people were critically injured when Israeli tanks stationed near the Kuwait roundabout area in Gaza City, north of the Strip, “opened a barrage of gunfire towards a group of civilians while they were waiting for humanitarian aid” on Wednesday.

• Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant said he told the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, that “only a decisive victory will bring to an end of this war”. Gallant, whose Washington talks went ahead despite Israel’s cancellation of separate US talks on the planned Rafah offensive, added that Israel would not cease operating in Gaza until the return of all the hostages.

• Hamas has asked donor countries to stop their airdrops after 12 people drowned trying to recover parachuted food aid from the sea off Gaza’s Mediterranean coast. In a statement on Tuesday evening, Hamas called for “an immediate end to airdrop operations” and “the immediate and rapid opening of land crossings”. Hamas and the Swiss-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor also said another six people were killed in stampedes trying to get aid.

• At least 32,490 Palestinians have been killed and 74,889 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, according to the latest figures from the Gaza health ministry. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.

• Hamas’s top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said the UN resolution calling for a Gaza ceasefire showed that Israel faces “an unprecedented [level of] political isolation” and was “losing its political cover” at the security council. He spoke at a news conference in Tehran after talks with officials in Iran.

• The Israeli prime minister’s handling of relations with the Biden administration, which led the US on Monday to decline to veto a ceasefire resolution at the UN security council, was greeted by sharp criticism by Israeli commentators. After the US abstention, prominent columnists across the Israeli media condemned Benjamin Netanyahu’s growing friction with the US president, Joe Biden.

• The Biden administration’s policy on Gaza has been widely criticised as being in disarray as the defence secretary described the situation as a “humanitarian catastrophe” the day after the state department declared Israel to be in compliance with international humanitarian law.

• Three Palestinians were killed during an arrest raid in Jenin overnight and Wednesday morning, according to the Times of Israel which cites information from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). According to the report, the IDF said it carried out a drone strike in the occupied West Bank city, killing two Palestinian gunmen. It also said a Palestinian was killed by Israeli fire during the raid, after explosive devices were thrown at troops, who opened fire on the man. The Guardian has been unable to independently verify the reports.

• Israel is preparing for a Rafah ground operation in mid April or early May, according to the Times of Israel, which cited a report from the Arabic language Al-Akhbar daily newspaper. The report is attributed to Egyptian sources who have been in contact with IDF officials, quoted by Al-Akhbar. According to the Egyptian sources, the Rafah ground operation would last between four and eight weeks and would be accompanied by an evacuation of the civilian population in Rafah.

• A spokesperson for the UN child welfare agency warned on Tuesday that the mental suffering of Gaza’s children is so deep that some hope to die quickly to escape the “nightmare”. “The unspeakable is regularly said in Gaza now,” said Unicef spokesperson James Elder, who is in the territory. After meeting young people on Monday, he told AFP that several teenagers said they were “so desperate for this nightmare to end that they hoped to be killed”.

• Al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis was “taken out of service”, said the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) in a statement on Tuesday. It said that the hospital “stopped working completely after the occupation forces forced the hospital’s crews and the wounded to evacuate it and closed its entrances with dirt barriers”.

• Parliamentary pressure is building on the UK government to ban arms sales to Israel. A letter signed by more than 130 parliamentarians to the foreign secretary, David Cameron, highlights action taken by other countries, most recently Canada, which last week announced it would halt all arms exports to Israel.

• The UK is facing legal action over its pause in funding for Unrwa, after Israel’s allegations that 12 staff at the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees were involved in the 7 October attacks against Israel. London-based law firm Bindmans has sent a pre-action letter, the first stage in a legal claim, on behalf of a British-Palestinian man whose family are in Gaza and reliant on humanitarian aid provided by Unwra.

The Palestinian news agency Wafa is reporting that 11 civilians were killed and others were injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting a house of the Dhair family in the city of Rafah on Wednesday.

It also said that an Israeli fighter jet targeted a house belonging to the al-Hamayda family in Rafah, resulting in several injuries to its residents.

Wafa claim that Israeli tanks stationed near the Kuwait roundabout area in Gaza City, north of the Strip, “opened a barrage of gunfire towards a group of civilians while they were waiting for humanitarian aid”, which critically injured two people.

The news agency also said that Israeli forces had raided al-Nasser hospital in the city of Khan Younis, south of the Gaza Strip. Wafa writes: “[Israeli forces] detained a number of medical personnel and displaced persons who sought refugee inside the hospital. The soldiers also ordered a number of civilians to evacuate the hospital.”

So deep is the mental suffering of Gaza’s children that some hope to die quickly to escape the “nightmare”, a spokesperson for the UN child welfare agency said on Tuesday, reports AFP.

“The unspeakable is regularly said in Gaza now,” said Unicef spokesperson James Elder, who is in the territory.

After meeting young people on Monday, he told AFP that several teenagers said they were “so desperate for this nightmare to end that they hoped to be killed”.

The latest figures from the Gaza health ministry, which is run by Hamas, said 76 Palestinians were killed and 102 injured in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours.

According to the statement, at least 32,490 Palestinians have been killed and 74,889 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October.

The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.

27 Mar 202406.00 EDT

UK facing legal action over its pause in funding for Unrwa

Haroon Siddique

The UK is facing legal action over its pause in funding for Unrwa, after Israel’s allegations that 12 staff at the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees were involved in the 7 October attacks against Israel.

London-based law firm Bindmans has sent a pre-action letter, the first stage in a legal claim, on behalf of a British-Palestinian man whose family are in Gaza and reliant on humanitarian aid provided by Unwra.

The legal challenge alleges that the UK’s decision to suspend funding made on 27 January was taken without due consideration of evidence, of international obligations, or of Foreign Office decision-making frameworks.

The complaint further says that the government’s decision may make it complicit in Israel’s allegedbreaches of the Genocide Convention.

The foreign secretary has been given until Tuesday to announce the restoration of Unrwa funding – a step already taken by the EU, Sweden and Canada – or face a court case.

Alice Hardy, partner at Bindmans, said:

The UK government’s strategy for international development sets out four priorities, including to: ‘provide life-saving humanitarian assistance and work to prevent the worst forms of human suffering’.

Given the catastrophic situation in Gaza, including an impending, man-made famine, the ongoing decision to cease funding to Unwra is not only morally wrong but flies in the face of that strategy.”

Describing the UK’s decision as “illogical” and “unconscionable” Jonathan Purcell, senior public affairs officer at the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), which is supporting the complaint, said:

The government knows that Unwra is the only effective means to deliver humanitarian aid, and it ought to know that it hasn’t given sufficient reason on how, or why, it decided to cut funding.”

The UK and many other UN member states suspended funding despite Unwra having terminated the appointments of the 12 members of staff who were the subject of the allegations. A US intelligence assessment has cast doubt on the allegations, which Israel has provided scant evidence in support of.

The Associated Press (AP) has some additional reporting on the Israeli airstrike in Lebanon and retailiatory rocket launches by Hezbollah that we reported on earlier (see 08:33 GMT).

According to the AP, the Israeli airstrike after midnight on Tuesday hit an office of the Islamic Emergency and Relief Corps, according to the Lebanese Ambulance Association. It was one of the deadliest single attacks since violence erupted along the border, said the news agency.

The paramedics association listed the names of seven volunteers who were killed in the strike. It said the strike was “a flagrant violation of humanitarian work”.

Hebbariye resident Ali Noureddine told the AP that the seven dead were pulled out from the rubble before sunrise on Wednesday.

The Israeli military said it struck a military building in Hebbariye and killed a member of Lebanon’s al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Group, and several other militants. It said the man was involved in attacks against Israel.

According to the AP, hours later, Hezbollah said it retaliated against the airstrike by firing dozens of rockets on Wednesday morning on the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona and a military base there.

Rescue services in Israel said that a 25-year-old man was killed and one person was injured when a direct hit sparked a fire in an industrial park in Kiryat Shmona. The AP reported that footage from the scene showed thick black smoke pouring out of a building.

About 30 rockets were launched from Lebanon toward northern Israel, according to the Israeli military.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) have released a statement announcing that the PRCS al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis has been “taken out of service”.

It adds that the hospital “stopped working completely after the occupation forces forced the hospital’s crews and the wounded to evacuate it and closed its entrances with dirt barriers”.

In the statement posted on social media, the PRCS said Israeli forces had “resumed their siege of the hospital amid violent bombardement and the firing of smoke bombs and fire towards the hospital”. The national humanitarian organisation said that this had led to the killing of two people including a colleague, Ameer Abu Aisha.

The PRCS society shared the following in its post on X:

PRCS expresses its disappointment that al-Amal hospital was taken out of service after the international community failed to provide the necessary protection for its staff, patients, and displaced persons.

The hospital was besieged for more than 40 days and shelled several times before the occupation forces resumed its siege again and forced everyone in it to leave, leaving the hospital destroyed.

The same fate befell PRCS’ al-Quds hospital in Gaza City, which was taken out of service several months ago.”

Lebanon’s Hezbollah said it launched dozens of rockets at Kiryet Shmona, an Israeli town over the border, early on Wednesday in response to deadly Israeli strikes on the village of Hebbariyeh in southern Lebanon a day earlier, reports Reuters.

Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have been trading fire across the border since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in Gaza. Both sides have said they do not want all-out war and are open to a diplomatic process but strikes, have picked up this week after a lull in cross-border shelling.

At least seven people were killed in the Israeli strikes on Hebbariyeh, two Lebanese security sources told Reuters. The Israeli strikes appeared to be aimed at the Islamist group’s emergency and relief centre in the village, the sources said.

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There was no immediate reaction from Israel to the reported Hezbollah strikes on Wednesday or detail of any casualties or damage, say Reuters.

Hezbollah earlier on Wednesday condemned the strikes on Habbariyeh. Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon had already killed more than a half dozen medical personnel and rescue workers, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

On Tuesday, Israeli airstrikes near two towns in northeast Lebanon killed three Hezbollah militants, the group posted on Telegram. Israel confirmed those strikes.

27 Mar 202404.11 EDT

MPs and peers sign letter urging UK government to ban arms sales to Israel

Patrick Wintour

Parliamentary pressure is building on the UK government to ban arms sales to Israel, amid signs that Israel intends to ignore the UN security council resolution passed this week calling on all sides to commit to a ceasefire.

A letter signed by more than 130 parliamentarians to the foreign secretary, David Cameron, highlights action taken by other countries, most recently Canada, which last week announced it would halt all arms exports to Israel.

Ministers are already facing calls from the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, to publish the legal advice to ministers on whether there is a serious risk Israel is breaching international humanitarian law, something that would normally trigger a suspension of UK arms sales.

The letter, coordinated by the Labour MP Zarah Sultana, was signed by 107 MPs and 27 peers including the former Labour Middle East minister Peter Hain, the Scottish National party’s Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn, the former shadow minister Jess Phillips, the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and the Conservative peer Nosheena Mobarik.

You can read more of Patrick Wintour’s piece here:

Hamas has asked donor countries to stop their airdrops after 12 people drowned trying to recover parachuted food aid from the sea off Gaza’s Mediterranean coast, reports AFP.

In a statement on Tuesday evening, Hamas called for “an immediate end to airdrop operations” and “the immediate and rapid opening of land crossings”.

Hamas and the Swiss-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor also said another six people were killed in stampedes trying to get aid.

“People are dying just to get a can of tuna,” Gaza resident Mohamad al-Sabaawi told AFP, holding a can in his hand after a scramble over an aid package.

Hamas has also demanded that Israel allow more aid trucks to enter the territory, which the UN has warned is on the brink of a “manmade famine” after nearly six months of fighting.

The UN children’s fund, Unicef, said vastly more aid must be rushed into Gaza by road rather than by air or sea to avert an “imminent famine”.

Unicef spokesperson James Elder said the necessary help was “a matter of kilometres away” in aid-filled trucks waiting across Gaza’s southern border with Egypt.

The US national security council said in a statement it would continue trying to get aid in by road, but also said it would continue airdrops, reports AFP.

AFPTV footage showed crowds rushing towards aid packages on Tuesday being dropped by parachute from planes sent by Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Germany.

The southern Gaza Strip came under intense Israeli bombardment overnight, despite international pressure for an immediate ceasefire in the Palestinian territory where famine is looming.

A report by the news agency, Agence France-Presse (AFP), said that a fireball had lit up the night sky in the southern city of Rafah, the last remaining urban centre in Gaza not to have been attacked by Israeli ground forces. About 1.5 million people are crammed in the area, many having fled south towards the border with Egypt.

According to AFP, the sound of explosions was also heard and smoke was seen rising in Gaza City in the north, where Israeli troops have been attacking the city’s largest hospital for more than a week.

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Israeli forces have also surrounded two hospitals in Khan Younis, where the health ministry said 12 people, including some children, were killed in an Israeli strike on a camp for the displaced.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said early on Wednesday that 66 people had been killed overnight, including three killed in Israeli airstrikes in and around Rafah.

According to AFP, the Palestinian Red Crescent warned that thousands were trapped in the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis and “their lives are in danger”.

The fighting went on unabated two days after the UN security council passed its first resolution calling for an “immediate ceasefire” and urging the release of the roughly 130 hostages Israel says remain in Gaza, including 34 captives who are presumed dead.

It has just gone 9am in Gaza and Tel Aviv. This is our latest Guardian live blog on the Israel-Gaza war and the wider Middle East crisis.

The southern Gaza Strip came under intense Israeli bombardment overnight, despite international pressure for an immediate ceasefire in the Palestinian territory where famine is looming.

A report by the news agency, Agence France-Presse (AFP), said that a fireball had lit up the night sky in the southern city of Rafah, the last remaining urban centre in Gaza not to have been attacked by Israeli ground forces.

According to AFP, the sound of explosions was also heard and smoke was seen rising in Gaza City in the north, where Israeli troops have been attacking the city’s largest hospital for more than a week.

Israeli forces have also surrounded two hospitals in Khan Younis, where the health ministry said 12 people, including some children, were killed in an Israeli strike on a camp for the displaced.

More on that in a moment but first, here is a summary of the latest developments:

• Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant said he told the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, that “only a decisive victory will bring to an end of this war”. Gallant, whose Washington talks went ahead despite Israel’s cancellation of separate US talks on the planned Rafah offensive, added that Israel would not cease operating in Gaza until the return of all the hostages.

• The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said early Wednesday that 66 people had been killed overnight, including three killed in Israeli airstrikes in and around Rafah.

• Israel has recalled its negotiating team from Qatar, ending immediate attempts to negotiate a ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said: “Israel will not cave to Hamas’s delusional demands”, after Hamas rejected the latest deal offer. Netanyahu’s office said the Hamas position was “clear proof it is not interested in continuing talks, and a sad testament to the damage caused by the UN security council resolution”.

• Late on Monday, Hamas had said Israel was not responding to its core demands of a “comprehensive ceasefire, an withdrawal from the [Gaza] strip, the return of displaced people and a real prisoner exchange”.

• Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz said Hamas had been emboldened to reject a deal by the UN security council vote, and had been sent the message: “You don’t have to hurry” because international pressure was being bought to bear on Israel.

• The Biden administration’s policy on Gaza has been widely criticised as being in disarray with the defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, describing the situation as a “humanitarian catastrophe” the day after the state department declared Israel to be in compliance with international humanitarian law. “Gaza is suffering a humanitarian catastrophe and the situation is getting even worse,” Austin told Gallant in remarks in front of the press on Tuesday, calling for a significant expansion in aid deliveries by land. On the same day, the state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, insisted the US had no reason to dispute Israeli assurances that it was complying with humanitarian law in Gaza.

• Twelve people drowned at a Gaza beach trying to recover airdropped crates of aid that fell in water after their parachutes malfunctioned, Palestinian health authorities have said. Video of Monday’s airdrop showed crowds running towards the beach, in Beit Lahiya in north Gaza, as crates with parachutes floated down, then people standing deep in water and bodies being pulled on to the sand.

• The UN humanitarian office urged Israel on Tuesday to revoke an apparent ban on food aid to north Gaza by agency Unrwa, saying people there were facing a “cruel death by famine”.

• At least seven people were killed in an Israeli strike in Southern Lebanon, two security sources told Reuters early on Wednesday. The strike on Nabatieh appeared to target a Hezbollah emergency and relief centre in Hebbariyeh village in southern Lebanon, the sources said. On Tuesday, Israeli airstrikes near two towns in north-east Lebanon killed three Hezbollah militants, the group posted on Telegram. Israel confirmed the strikes.

• Netanyahu has been heavily criticised inside Israel for his handling of crucial relations with the US after it declined to veto a ceasefire resolution at the UN security council. In the Hebrew-language newspaper Ma’ariv, Ben Caspit described the approach of the Israeli prime minister as “delusional”, “madness” and “terrifying”. The lead editorial in the left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz described Netanyahu as “Israel’s agent of destruction” who “has become a burden for Israel”.

• A released Israeli hostage recounted sexual assault at gunpoint during her captivity in Gaza, in the first such personal account. Amit Soussana, 40, was taken hostage on 7 October from kibbutz Kfar Aza, and told the New York Times she was attacked about two weeks later by the man guarding her after washing in the bathroom. The Times said her account was consistent with what she told two doctors and a social worker shortly after she was freed on 30 November. Soussana said she had decided to speak out now to raise awareness about the plight of the hostages still in Gaza. At least three released hostages have spoken publicly about incidents of sexual abuse against fellow captives.

• A planned cabinet discussion in Israel on a proposed bill to extend compulsory military service to ultra-Orthodox students has been postponed at the last minute.

• At least 32,414 Palestinians have now been killed in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, the Hamas-led Gaza health ministry said on Tuesday. On 7 October, Hamas killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify all casualty figures being issued during the conflict.

• Parliamentary pressure is building on the UK government to ban arms sales to Israel. A letter signed by more than 130 parliamentarians to the foreign secretary, David Cameron, highlights action taken by other countries, most recently Canada, which last week announced it would halt all arms exports to Israel.