GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved Friday new talks on a Gaza ceasefire, a day after the world’s top court ordered Israel to ensure urgent humanitarian aid reaches people in the Palestinian territory.
But despite a binding United Nations Security Council resolution this week demanding an “immediate ceasefire,” fighting continued Friday, including around hospitals.
Regional fallout from the conflict also flared, with Israel saying it killed a Hezbollah rocket commander in Lebanon, and several Hezbollah fighters killed in Syria strikes that a war monitor blamed on Israel.
Netanyahu’s office said new talks on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release will take place in Doha and Cairo “in the coming days... with guidelines for moving forward in the negotiations,” days after they appeared stalled.
In its order, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague said: “Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine, but... famine is setting in.”
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, posted on X that the ruling was “a stark reminder that the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is man made + worsening.”
The court had ruled in January that Israel must facilitate “urgently needed” humanitarian aid to Gaza and prevent genocidal acts, but Israel rejected the case brought by South Africa.
The latest binding ICJ ruling, which has little means of enforcement, came as Israel’s military said Friday it was continuing operations in Al-Shifa Hospital, the territory’s largest, for a 12th day.
Throughout the coastal territory, dozens of people were killed overnight, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said.
Among the dead were 12 people killed in a home in the southern city of Rafah, which has been regularly bombed ahead of a mooted Israeli ground operation there.
Men worked under the light of mobile phones to free people trapped under debris after an air strike, AFPTV images showed.
The ICJ ordered Israel to “take all necessary and effective measures to ensure, without delay” the supply “of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance.”
The war began with Hamas’s October 7 attack that resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign to destroy Hamas has killed at least 32,623 people, mostly women and children, Gaza’s health ministry says.
Large parts of the territory have been reduced to rubble, and most of Gaza’s population are now sheltering in Rafah.
On Monday the UN Security Council demanded an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza, the release of hostages held by militants, and “ensuring humanitarian access.”
Member states are obliged to abide by such resolutions, but the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) charity said nothing has changed on the ground.
Aid groups say only a fraction of the supplies required have been allowed in since October, when Israel placed Gaza under near-total siege.
Israel has blamed shortages on the Palestinian side, namely a lack of capacity to distribute aid, with humanitarians saying not enough trucks are allowed in to make deliveries.
With limited ground access, several nations have staged airdrops, and a sea corridor from Cyprus has delivered its first food aid.
The UN says Gaza’s health system is collapsing “due to ongoing hostilities and access constraints.”
Israel’s military accuses Hamas and the Islamic Jihad of hiding inside medical facilities, using patients, staff and displaced people for cover — charges the militants have denied.
On Friday the army said it was “continuing precise operation activities in Shifa Hospital” where it began a raid early last week.
Troops first raided Al-Shifa in November, before Israel in January announced it had “completed the dismantling” of Hamas’s command structure in northern Gaza. Palestinian militants and commanders had since returned to Al-Shifa, the army said.
Netanyahu has said troops “are holding the northern Gaza Strip” and also the southern city of Khan Yunis, amid heavy fighting.
“We have bisected the Strip and we are preparing to enter Rafah,” he said Thursday.
Netanyahu is under domestic pressure over his failure to bring home all of the hostages seized by militants on October 7. Israel says about 130 captives remain in Gaza, including 34 presumed dead.
About 200 militants have been killed during the latest Al-Shifa operation, the military said.
Near Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Yunis, troops carried out “targeted raids on terrorist infrastructure,” killing dozens in combat backed by air support, the army said Thursday.
Israeli tanks and armored vehicles have massed around another Khan Yunis health facility, the Nasser Hospital, the Gaza health ministry said.
An analysis of satellite images shows heavily damaged areas around the Nasser and Al-Amal hospitals.
Since the Gaza war began, Israel has increased its strikes in Syria, targeting army positions and Iran-backed forces including Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, a key Hamas ally.
A Britain-based war monitor said Israeli air strikes Friday in north Syria killed at least 42 people, six from Hezbollah and 36 Syrian soldiers.
And Israel’s military said it killed Ali Abdel Hassan Naim, deputy commander of Hezbollah’s rocket unit, in an air strike in south Lebanon Friday.
US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators have tried to secure a truce in Gaza, but those talks had appeared deadlocked more than halfway through the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Tensions have risen between Netanyahu and Washington, which provides billions of dollars in military aid but has grown increasingly vocal about the war’s impact on civilians.
Washington has also raised the issue of Gaza’s post-war rule. It has suggested a future role for the Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
On Thursday, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas approved the new government of prime minister Mohammed Mustafa, who said his cabinet will work on “visions to reunify the institutions, including assuming responsibility for Gaza.”
Hamas forcibly took Gaza from Abbas’s government in 2007.
Netanyahu says Israel must have “security responsibility” in Gaza, and has rejected calls for a Palestinian state.
Israel’s Netanyahu approves new Gaza ceasefire talks
https://arab.news/nvaev
Israel’s Netanyahu approves new Gaza ceasefire talks
- Regional fallout from the conflict also flared, with Israel saying it killed a Hezbollah rocket commander in Lebanon, and several Hezbollah fighters killed in Syria strikes
- Netanyahu’s office said new talks on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release will take place in Doha and Cairo “in the coming days... with guidelines for moving forward in the negotiations“
Morocco ‘water highway’ averts crisis in big cities but doubts over sustainability
- Morocco is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on tapping northern rivers to supply water to parched cities farther south
KENITRA: Morocco is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on tapping northern rivers to supply water to parched cities farther south but experts question the sustainability of the project in the face of climate change.
The North African kingdom has spent $728 million so far on what it dubs a “water highway” to redirect the surplus flow of the Sebou River to meet the drinking water needs of capital Rabat and economic hub Casablanca, according to official figures.
In the future, it plans to tap other northern rivers to extend the project to the southern city of Marrakech.
Officials say the project has been a success in heading off the immediate threat to the water supply of the country’s most populous region.
“Transferring surplus water from the Sebou basin in the north allowed us to prevent about 12 million people from running out of water,” said senior agriculture ministry official Mahjoub Lahrache.
In late 2023, the capital Rabat and its surrounding region came perilously close to running out of water when the main reservoir supplying the city ran dry.
Morocco has long suffered from extreme disparities in rainfall between the Atlas mountain ranges and the semi-arid and desert regions farther south.
“Fifty-three percent of rainfall occurs in just seven percent of the national territory,” Water Minister Nizar Baraka told AFP.
In the past, rainfall in the Atlas ranges has created sufficient surplus flow on most northern rivers for them to reach the ocean even in the driest months of the year.
It is those surpluses that the “water highway” project seeks to tap.
A diversion dam has been built in the city of Kenitra, just inland from the Atlantic coast, to hold back the flow of the Sebou River before it enters the ocean.
The water is then treated and transported along a 67-kilometer (42-mile) underground canal to supply residents of Rabat and Casablanca.
Inaugurated last August, the “water highway” had supplied more than 700 million cubic meters (24.7 billion cubic feet) of drinking water to the two urban areas by early March, according to official figures.
But experts question how long the Sebou and other northern rivers will continue to generate water surpluses that can be tapped.
The kingdom already suffers from significant water stress after six straight years of drought.
Annual water supply has dropped from an average of 18 billion cubic meters in the 1980s to just five billion today, according to official figures.
Despite heavy rains in the northwest in early March, Morocco remains in the grip of drought with rainfall 75 percent below historical averages.
The dry spell has been “the longest in the country’s history,” the water minister said, noting that previous dry cycles typically lasted three years at most.
Rising temperatures — up 1.8 degrees Celsius last year alone — have intensified evaporation.
Experts say that climate change is likely to see further reductions in rainfall, concentrated in the very areas from which the “water highway” is designed to tap surplus flows.
“Future scenarios indicate that northern water basins will be significantly more affected by climate change than those in the south over the next 60 years,” said water and climate researcher Nabil El Mocayd.
“What is considered surplus today may no longer exist in the future due to this growing deficit,” he added, referencing a 2020 study in which he recommended scaling back the “water highway.”
Demand for water for irrigation also remains high in Morocco, where the farm sector employs nearly a third of the workforce.
Researcher Abderrahim Handouf said more needed to be done to help farmers adopt water-efficient irrigation techniques.
Handouf said the “water highway” was “an effective solution in the absence of alternatives” but warned that climate challenges will inevitably “create problems even in the north.”
“We must remain cautious,” he said, calling for greater investment in desalination plants to provide drinking water to the big cities.
Iran rejects direct negotiations with US in response to Trump’s letter
- unday’s remarks from President Masoud Pezeshkian represented the first official acknowledgment of how Iran responded to Trump’s letter
- It also suggests that tensions may further rise between Tehran and Washington
DUBAI:Iran’s president said Sunday that Tehran had rejected direct negotiations with the United States in response to a letter from President Donald Trump over its rapidly advancing nuclear program.
The remarks from President Masoud Pezeshkian represented the first official acknowledgment of how Iran responded to Trump’s letter. It also suggests that tensions may further rise between Tehran and Washington.
Pezeshkian said: “Although the possibility of direct negotiations between the two sides has been rejected in this response, it has been emphasized that the path for indirect negotiations remains open.”
It’s unclear, however, whether Trump would accept indirect negotiations. Indirect negotiations for years since Trump initially withdrew America from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018 have been unsuccessful.
Trump’s overture comes as both Israel and the United States have warned they will never let Iran acquire a nuclear weapon, leading to fears of a military confrontation as Tehran enriches uranium at near weapons-grade levels — something only done by atomic-armed nations.
Iran has long maintained its program is for peaceful purposes, even as its officials increasingly threaten to pursue the bomb as tensions are high with the US over its sanctions and after the collapse of a ceasefire in Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Since Trump returned to the White House, his administration has consistently said that Iran must be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons. A report in February, however, by the UN’s nuclear watchdog said Iran has accelerated its production of near weapons-grade uranium.
Netanyahu says military pressure on Hamas working, ‘cracks’ emerging in negotiations
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel’s intensified military pressure on Hamas in Gaza has been effective
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel’s intensified military pressure on Hamas in Gaza has been effective, stressing the Palestinian group must lay down its arms.
“We are negotiating under fire... We can see cracks beginning to appear” in what the group demanded in its negotiations, Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting.
Netanyahu’s remarks came as mediators — Egypt, Qatar, and the United States — continued efforts to broker a ceasefire and secure the release of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza.
A senior Hamas official stated on Saturday that the group had approved a new ceasefire proposal put forward by mediators and urged Israel to support it.
Netanyahu’s office confirmed receipt of the proposal and said Israel had submitted a counterproposal.
However, the details of the latest mediation efforts remain undisclosed.
On Sunday, Netanyahu rejected claims Israel was not interested in discussing a deal that would secure the release of hostages still held in Gaza, but insisted Hamas must surrender its weapons.
“We are willing. Hamas must lay down its arms... Its leaders will be allowed to leave” from Gaza, he said.
He said that Israel would ensure overall security in Gaza and “enable the implementation of the Trump plan — the voluntary migration plan.”
Days after taking office, US President Donald Trump had announced a plan that would relocate Gaza’s more than two million inhabitants to neighboring Egypt and Jordan.
His announcement was slammed by much of the international community.
A fragile truce that had provided weeks of relative calm in the Gaza Strip collapsed on March 18 when Israel resumed its aerial bombardment and ground offensive in the Palestinian territory.
On Sunday, an Israeli air strike killed at least eight people in Gaza’s Khan Yunis area, including five children, the territory’s civil defense agency reported.
Sudan’s paramilitary RSF chief says war with army is not over
- Hemedti conceded in an audio message on Telegram that his forces left the capital last week as the army consolidated its gains
CAIRO: The leader of the Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo said on Sunday that his forces would return stronger to the capital Khartoum.
It was Dagalo’s first comment since the RSF were pushed back from most parts of Khartoum by the Sudanese army during a devastating war that has lasted two-years.
Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, conceded in an audio message on Telegram that his forces left the capital last week as the army consolidated its gains.
Gaza’s bakeries could shut down within a week under Israel’s blockade of all food and supplies
- Aid groups are trying to stretch out what little supplies they have as Israel’s blockade of all food, medicine, fuel and other supplies into Gaza enters its fifth week
- Palestinians are crowding free kitchens for prepared meals, amid fears of a catastrophic rise in hunger
DEIR AL-BALAH: Gaza’s bakeries will run out of flour for bread within a week, the UN says. Agencies have cut food distributions to families in half. Markets are empty of most vegetables. Many aid workers cannot move around because of Israeli bombardment.
For four weeks, Israel has shut off all sources of food, fuel, medicine and other supplies for the Gaza Strip’s population of more than 2 million Palestinians. It’s the longest blockade yet of Israel’s 17-month-old campaign against Hamas, with no sign of it ending.
Aid workers are stretching out the supplies they have but warn of a catastrophic surge in severe hunger and malnutrition. Eventually, food will run out completely if the flow of aid is not restored, because the war has destroyed almost all local food production in Gaza.
“We depend entirely on this aid box,” said Shorouq Shamlakh, a mother of three collecting her family’s monthly box of food from a UN distribution center in Jabaliya in northern Gaza. She and her children reduce their meals to make it last a month, she said. “If this closes, who else will provide us with food?”
The World Food Program said Thursday that its flour for bakeries is only enough to keep producing bread for 800,000 people a day until Tuesday and that its overall food supplies will last a maximum of two weeks. As a “last resort” once all other food is exhausted, it has emergency stocks of fortified nutritional biscuits for 415,000 people.
Fuel and medicine will last weeks longer before hitting zero. Hospitals are rationing antibiotics and painkillers. Aid groups are shifting limited fuel supplies between multiple needs, all indispensable — trucks to move aid, bakeries to make bread, wells and desalination plants to produce water, hospitals to keep machines running.
“We have to make impossible choices. Everything is needed,” said Clémence Lagouardat, the Gaza response leader for Oxfam International, speaking from Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza at a briefing Wednesday. “It’s extremely hard to prioritize.”
Compounding the problems, Israel resumed its military campaign on March 18 with bombardment that has killed hundreds of Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to health officials. It has hit humanitarian facilities, the UN says. New evacuation orders have forced more than 140,000 Palestinians to move yet again.
But Israel has not resumed the system for aid groups to notify the military of their movements to ensure they were not hit by bombardment, multiple aid workers said. As a result, various groups have stopped water deliveries, nutrition for malnourished children and other programs because it’s not safe for teams to move.
COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of coordinating aid, said the system was halted during the ceasefire. Now it is implemented in some areas “in accordance with policy and operational assessments ... based on the situation on the ground,” COGAT said, without elaborating.
Rising prices leave food unaffordable
During the 42 days of ceasefire that began in mid-January, aid groups rushed in significant amounts of aid. Food also streamed into commercial markets.
But nothing has entered Gaza since Israel cut off that flow on March 2. Israel says the siege and renewed military campaign aim to force Hamas to accept changes in their agreed-on ceasefire deal and release more hostages.
Fresh produce is now rare in Gaza’s markets. Meat, chicken, potatoes, yogurt, eggs and fruits are completely gone, Palestinians say.
Prices for everything else have skyrocketed out of reach for many Palestinians. A kilo (2 pounds) of onions can cost the equivalent of $14, a kilo of tomatoes goes for $6, if they can be found. Cooking gas prices have spiraled as much as 30-fold, so families are back to scrounging for wood to make fires.
“It’s totally insane,” said Abeer Al-Aker, a teacher and mother of three in Gaza City. “No food, no services. … I believe that the famine has started again. ”
Families depend even more on aid
At the distribution center in Jabaliya, Rema Megat sorted through the food ration box for her family of 10: rice, lentils, a few cans of sardines, a half kilo of sugar, two packets of powdered milk.
“It’s not enough to last a month,” she said. “This kilo of rice will be used up in one go.”
The UN has cut its distribution of food rations in half to redirect more supplies to bakeries and free kitchens producing prepared meals, said Olga Cherevko, spokesperson for the UN humanitarian agency, known as OCHA.
The number of prepared meals has grown 25 percent to 940,000 meals a day, she said, and bakeries are churning out more bread. But that burns through supplies faster.
Once flour runs out soon, “there will be no bread production happening in a large part of Gaza,” said Gavin Kelleher, with the Norwegian Refugee Council.
UNRWA, the main UN agency for Palestinians, only has a few thousand food parcels left and enough flour for a few days, said Sam Rose, the agency’s acting director in Gaza.
Gaza Soup Kitchen, one of the main public kitchens, can’t get any meat or much produce, so they serve rice with canned vegetables, co-founder Hani Almadhoun said.
“There are a lot more people showing up, and they’re more desperate. So people are fighting for food,” he said.
Israel shows no sign of lifting the siege
The United States pressured Israel to let aid into Gaza at the beginning of the war in October 2023, after Israel imposed a blockade of about two weeks. This time, it has supported Israel’s policy.
Rights groups have called it a “starvation policy” that could be a war crime.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told a news conference Monday that “Israel is acting in accordance with international law.”
He accused Hamas of stealing aid and said Israel is not required to let in supplies if it will be diverted to combatants.
He gave no indication of whether the siege could be lifted but said Gaza had enough supplies, pointing to the aid that flowed in during the ceasefire.
Hunger and hopelessness are growing
Because its teams can’t coordinate movements with the military, Save the Children suspended programs providing nutrition to malnourished children, said Rachael Cummings, the group’s humanitarian response leader in Gaza.
“We are expecting an increase in the rate of malnutrition,” she said. “Not only children — adolescent girls, pregnant women.”
During the ceasefire, Save the Children was able to bring some 4,000 malnourished infants and children back to normal weight, said Alexandra Saif, the group’s head of humanitarian policy.
About 300 malnourished patients a day were coming into its clinic in Deir Al-Balah, she said. The numbers have plunged — to zero on some days — because patients are too afraid of bombardment, she said.
The multiple crises are intertwined. Malnutrition leaves kids vulnerable to pneumonia, diarrhea and other diseases. Lack of clean water and crowded conditions only spread more illnesses. Hospitals overwhelmed with the wounded can’t use their limited supplies on other patients.
Aid workers say not only Palestinians, but their own staff have begun to fall into despair.
“The world has lost its compass,” UNRWA’s Rose said. “There’s just a feeling here that anything could happen, and it still wouldn’t be enough for the world to say, this is enough.”
