Middle East crisis: Israel says Iran won’t get off ‘scot-free’ after missile attack – as it happened

Israeli protesters have again been attempting to disrupt the supply of humanitarian aid into Gaza at the Kerem Shalom border crossing.

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16 Apr 202406.31 EDT

Charlotte Higgins

Charlotte Higgins, the Guardian’s chief culture writer, is in Venice

The artists and curators of the Israeli national pavilion at the Venice Biennale have announced their decision not to open until “a ceasefire and hostage release agreement is reached” in the conflict in Gaza, on the opening preview day of the largest and most prominent global gathering in the art world.

A sign on the front of the Israel pavilion in the Giardini, or public gardens, in Venice, one of the main venues for the Biennale, conveyed the team’s decision – while the pavilion itself is guarded by three armed Italian military personnel.

The presence of Israel at the Biennale – which this year features 88 national participations as well as the large, central curated exhibition – had been widely criticised.

In the Giardini, the Israeli artist Ruth Patir’s video work, Keening, was visible through the glass frontage of the modernist pavilion. But the rest of the fertility-themed exhibition, titled (M)otherland, “awaits inside for the moment when hearts can once again be open to art”, according to the organisers.

Patir said: “As an artist and educator, I firmly object to cultural boycott, but I have a significant difficulty in presenting a project that speaks about the vulnerability of life in a time of unfathomed disregard for it.”

Palestinian artists are represented at the Venice Biennale in the main centrally curated exhibition as well as through a “collateral event” – an affiliated exhibition titled South West Bank, which is also showing artists from beyond the region.

One of the artists showing in South West Bank, Dima Srouji, said: “A ceasefire and the release of hostages may mean business as usual for the Israeli pavilion, but for the rest of us it is a continuation of 75 years of occupation and the status quo of apartheid. We are fighting for our liberation, not only a ceasefire in 2024.”

Read more here: Artists refuse to open Israel pavilion at Venice Biennale until ceasefire is reached

Israel’s military has announced that it has been conducting a drill to prepare for an increase in military activity in the north of the country.

The Jerusalem Post reported that as part of the drill “both combat and cyber and technology forces deployed throughout the North, on every separate front, to simulate readiness for an all-out hybrid digital and kinetic war.”

Since 7 October Israel and anti-Israeli forces including Hezbollah have repeatedly exchanged fire across the UN-drawn blue line that separates Lebanon and Israel. Israel also occupies land in the north it seized from Syria in 1967.

Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 33,843 Palestinians and wounded 76,575 since 7 October according to the health ministry there.

Reuters reports the ministry, which is led by Hamas, stated there had been 46 Palestinians killed and 110 injured in the past 24 hours.

It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.

Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that Israel continues its aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip, killing “a score” of Palestinians. It reports strikes have taken place in multiple locations, writing:

Medical sources said that the Israeli warplanes targeted Al-Fakhoura mosque west of the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, causing several causalities. The airstrike also caused a massive destruction to the neighboring areas and homes.

In the centre of the Gaza Strip, intense artillery and missile shelling continues on the Nuseirat camp for the sixth day in a row, resulting in the at least five casualties and significant property damage.

Meanwhile, the occupation aircraft bombed multiple homes in Al-Mughraqa and the neighboring city of Al-Zahraa. The occupation artillery also fired a number of shells in the western area of Deir al-Balah.

Moath al-Kahlout, reporting from Jabalia for Al Jazeera, states that one person has been killed and eleven injured in the Israeli strike on the Al-Fakhoura mosque, saying it is one of 600 mosques destroyed in Gaza so far by Israel’s military action there. They write for the news network:

Israeli forces continue to surround Beit Hanoon’s al-Shawa school where hundreds of Palestinians are sheltering. Israeli troops are using microphones to order people to evacuate. Communications with the school have been lost now and we don’t know what’s going on with the people there or what the Israelis will do with them.

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The claims have not been independently verified by the Guardian.

US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen has said the US would continue to use sanctions and work with allies to counter the influence of Iran, warning that as escalation of instability in the Middle East would cause economic damage.

She said it was incumbent on all the nations attending IMF-World Bank meetings to end the suffering of the Palestinian people, but that Iran’s actions threaten stability in the Middle East and could cause economic spillovers.

She reiterated that the US Treasury has targeted over 500 individuals and entities the US claims is connected to terrorism by Iran and its proxies since 2021.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) and its partners in Gaza have warned again of a looming public health disaster in Gaza, saying that Palestinians are being forced to risk their lives to access what little healthcare is still available inside the territory.

Israel has subjected Gaza to six months of aerial bombardments while it also mounts a ground offensive. Dr Seema Jilani, senior health technical adviser for emergencies, said:

No hospitals in Gaza are fully functioning any longer. IRC staff and partners in Gaza continue to witness devastation in the health facilities that are left. Patients as young as four-months-old are dying from preventable or easily treatable diseases like pneumonia and gastroenteritis.

Many patients arrive either dead on arrival or too sick to warrant resuscitation due to delaying their care. When people do reach health facilities, labs are not functional, and mass casualties take priority for triage. So patients with infectious diseases may not get seen for weeks at a time because trauma patients are admitted so frequently.

With Gaza’s health system decimated by Israel, diseases once easily controlled are now spreading, and children, especially malnourished children, are the most susceptible. Projections suggest that the spread of cholera, measles, polio, and meningococcal meningitis pose a mortal threat.

Respiratory infections and other endemic infectious diseases are now widespread due to exposure, overcrowding in shelters, lack of access to proper sanitation facilities, and inability to access treatment.

Israel has been dropping leaflets on Gaza to tell residents that the area north of the Wadi Gaza is a “dangerous combat zone” and that they should stay away.

Huge swathes of the population have already been displaced to the south of the Gaza Strip where they are living in poor conditions in makeshift tent camps.

Over the last couple of days images have shown people using the coastal road to move back north to try to discover what is left of their homes.

A UN report yesterday said satellite imagery showed that Israel had destroyed over 3,000 buildings in a 1km “buffer zone” Israel was constructing next to the border wall.

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Reuters has a quick snap that Egypt’s foreign minister Sameh Shoukry is to head to Turkey at the weekend to discuss the regional situation, including Gaza.

Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that there have been Israeli military raids in the occupied West Bank in the town of Arraba, south of Jenin, and in the Balata camp, east of Nablus. Israel has occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 1967.