Live Blog Update| Israel's genocide in Gaza
This is an entry from: Israel-Palestine live: Unicef says over 13,000 children killed in Gaza

Evening recap

9 March 2024 23:12 GMT

Good evening Middle East Eye readers.

MEE's live coverage from Gaza will shortly be closing for the evening.

Here are today's main developments.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health announced on Saturday that the death toll in Gaza since the start of the war on 7 October had now reached 30,960. The ministry announced that 72,524 people had been wounded in the same timeframe. 

Some 82 Palestinians had been killed and 122 wounded in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.

At least five people were killed, four from the same family, and nine wounded in an Israeli strike on a house in southern Lebanon, the country's official National News Agency reported.

Elsewhere on Saturday, an Israeli air strike on Gaza's Nuseirat camp killed at least 10 Palestinians. A search and rescue operation was underway to retrieve bodies from under a collapsed residential tower. 

The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency is at "risk of death" after a string of donors suspended their funding, Unrwa chief Philippe Lazzarini said. "The agency is at risk of death, it is risking dismantlement," Lazzarini told Swiss broadcaster RTS in an interview aired on Saturday.

Sweden stated on Saturday that it would be resuming aid to Unrwa with an initial sum of $20m after receiving assurances of extra checks on its spending and personnel.

Other developments on Saturday included:

  • Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Ankara "firmly backs" Palestinian group Hamas. "No one can make us qualify Hamas as a terrorist organisation," he said in a speech in Istanbul.
     
  • Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said he would push Spain's Congress of Deputies to recognise a Palestinian state before the end of his mandate in 2027. "We will do it because of moral conviction, because it's a just cause, but also because it is the only way that two states - Israel and Palestine - can live together and co-exist in peace and security," Sanchez said.
     
  • Hundreds of Palestinian protesters in Umm al-Fahem city took to the streets to call for an end to the war on Gaza. The city, southwest of Nazareth, hosts the second-largest community of Palestinians inside Israel. The demonstration was one of the few that had taken place since the start of the war due to Israel's crackdown on protesters. 
     
  • The US military and coalition forces downed at least 28 drones over the Red Sea on Saturday, the US Central Command said in a statement.