Israel-Palestine live: US vice president calls for ‘immediate’ six-week ceasefire

A new report from the BBC says it can't confirm the claim by Israel's military that it killed 10,000 Hamas fighters in its war on Gaza.

BBC said it reached out to Israel's military for details regarding how it came to that figure, but did not receive a response. The news agency further reported that there is an inconsistency in terms of the public statements from Israel about how many fighters have been killed.

After reviewing all 280 videos posted to the Israeli military's YouTube channel from 7 October up to 27 February, BBC Verify, an evidence-gathering unit at the BBC, found "very few contained visual evidence of fighters being killed".

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza has said that the death toll is at least 30,035, and the ministry has previously said that around 70 percent of those killed are women and children. AT least 7,000 are missing.

And Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin on Thursday morning said that more than 25,000 Palestinian women and children have been killed by Israel since 7 October. If that figure is compared with the total death toll from the health ministry, it would mean that more than 80 percent of all deaths have been women and children.

Colombia's President Gustavo Petro announced on X that the country would be suspending weapons purchases from Israel, citing Thursday's killing of more than 100 Palestinians in northern Gaza.

"Asking for food, more than 100 Palestinians were killed by Netanyahu. This is called genocide and is reminiscent of the Holocaust even if the world powers do not like to recognise it," Petro said.

"The world must block Netanyahu. Colombia suspends all purchases of weapons from Israel."

US President Joe Biden spoke with the leaders of Egypt and Qatar about the ongoing negotiations to secure the release of Hamas hostages and a six-week pause in fighting, the White House said.

The White House also said that Biden discussed the incident in which Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinians waiting for food aid in northern Gaza, killing more than 100 according to the health ministry. Biden described it as a "tragic and alarming incident", according to the White House.

This, however, differs from what the president said earlier in which he stated there were "competing versions" of what took place.

After the Palestinian health ministry reported that Israeli troops killed more than 100 people waiting for food aid in northern Gaza on Thursday, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said Israeli forces "acted excellently against a Gazan mob that tried to harm them".

He further called on Israel to stop transferring aid to Gaza.

"Today it was proven that the transfer of humanitarian aid to Gaza is not only madness while our abductees are being held in the Strip under substandard conditions, but also endangers the Israeli soldiers," he said.

Very little aid has reached Gaza over the past few weeks, and a convoy of food aid reached northern Gaza on Wednesday for the first time in a month. Rights groups have accused Israel of blocking aid from entering the enclave.

At a congressional hearing on Thursday, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said more than 25,000 Palestinian women and children had been killed by Israel since 7 October.

The remarks were in response to a question posed by Congressman Ro Khanna. The figure appears to be significantly higher than the death toll provided by the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza.

The overall death count has just surpassed 30,000, while at least 7,000 are still missing, according to the health ministry.

While it has not given a full breakdown, over the past several weeks the health ministry has said that roughly 70 percent of the deaths are women and children.

Given what Austin said, more than 80 percent of those killed in Gaza are women and children.

Two Israeli settlers have been killed by a gunman near the illegal settlement of Eli in the occupied West Bank, south of the Palestinian city of Nablus.

The Times of Israel, citing Israeli Army Radio, said the attacker had also been killed.

According to the Israeli army, the Israelis killed were men in their twenties and forties.

Israel's Channel 12 said up to three attackers may have been involved.

US President Joe Biden appears to be backtracking on his earlier statement suggesting a truce agreement to halt the war on Gaza was imminent.

The Democrat leader, one of Israel's biggest political backers, now says that a ceasefire before Monday was not likely, according to the AFP news agency.

Speaking on NBC's Late Night with Seth Myers on Monday, Biden said: "Ramadan is coming up, and there’s been an agreement by the Israelis that they would not engage in activities during Ramadan, as well, in order to give us time to get all the hostages out."

A leaked proposal, reported by Al Jazeera and Reuters, included a temporary pause in fighting, a partial prisoner swap, a gradual and restricted return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza, the entry of 500 aid trucks, and the repair of hospitals and bakeries destroyed by Israel.

Hamas, however, poured cold water over the statement. Osama Hamdan, a senior official in the group, said that the leaked draft was being promoted for "propaganda" purposes. 

In his latest article for Middle East Eye, Palestinian-American academic Joseph Massad talks about the long history of anti-Zionism amongst Jewish groups.

European and American Jewish anti-Zionist activists have been a key part of protests against Israel's bombardment of Gaza.

Massad writes: In November, Jewish activists occupied the Statue of Liberty, demanding an immediate ceasefire and chanting "Not in our name". The ongoing protests since 7 October 2023 confirm what pro-Israel groups have feared for the past two decades: that support for Israel is dwindling among American Jews.

Read more: Jewish opposition to Israel is as old as Zionism itself

Fares Afana, head of the ambulance service at Gaza's Kamal Adwan Hospital, said medics found “dozens or hundreds” of bodies lying on the ground once they reached the scene.

He said some wounded had to be carried to hospitals on donkey carts as there were not enough ambulances to take all the dead and wounded.

Ahmad, a 31-year-old who only gave his first name, told Middle East Eye that aid trucks reached the street at 4am, and that Israeli forces fired at people trying to reach the convoy. Ahmad was shot in the arm and the leg.

“The shooting was indiscriminate, people shot in the head, in the foot, in the stomach,” he said. “One man was martyred, then run over by the tank.”

His accounts contradicts the Israeli claim that Palestinians were killed in a crush while looting trucks.

Read more: Israeli 'massacre' kills over 100 Palestinians seeking food in Gaza City

Hunger has been a defining feature of the war in Gaza after Israel shut off food and electricity supplies to the besieged region in October 2023.

A fraction of the aid needed enters Gaza and there have already been confirmed cases of death as a result of starvation.

But despite this desperation, the amount of aid going into Gaza continues to decrease, with Unrwa saying that there was a 50 percent reduction in aid entering the territory in February compared to the month before.

The @UNRWA distribution center in #Rafah has an effective system in place to distribute flour to hundreds of thousands of people, but supplies are dwindling.

Hunger is widespread. A sustained & safe system to bring flour into #Gaza is urgently needed to save lives. pic.twitter.com/fArIv76AS8

— Natalie Boucly (@natboucly) February 29, 2024

At least 104 Palestinians have been confirmed killed and more than 760 wounded from the early morning Israeli massace in northern Gaza, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

The UK government is facing pressure from a coalition of rights groups to explain how it knows that British-made weapons have not been delivered to Israel since the 7 October attacks, Middle East Eye can exclusively reveal.

Scrutiny from the groups comes as Israel is poised to assault Rafah, where an estimated 1.5 million Palestinians have sought shelter, and days after UN experts warned that the transfer of weapons to Israel for use in Gaza is "likely to violate international humanitarian law" and must stop immediately.

The UK government has said that it has not provided lethal or military equipment to Israel since the Hamas-led attacks and subsequent Israeli assault on Gaza.

But in an affidavit filed at the High Court by the Department for Business and Trade in January, the government identified 28 current licences and 28 pending applications for the export of equipment "most likely to be used by the [Israeli army] in offensive operations in Gaza".

Read more: UK's public position on Israel arms exports 'at odds' with internal reviews

The Israeli army has issued a statement concerning the massacre its forces are accused of commuting in northern Gaza in which at least 77 Palestinians were killed while they were waiting for humanitarian aid.

The Israeli army called starving Palestinians waiting for food aid around humanitarian trucks a "violent gathering" which made its soldiers feel "unsafe", the Israeli daily Haaretz reported.

Israeli soldiers then proceeded to indiscriminately open fire on hungry Palestinians, killing dozens and wounding hundreds. 

Much of Gaza's population is on the brink of famine as a result of the Israeli blockade according to the UN and other humanitarian organisations.

At least 30,035 people have been killed and 70,457 wounded by Israeli attacks in Gaza since 7 October, according to the latest update by the Palestinian health ministry. 

The Palestinian health ministry has updated the death toll of Palestinians killed while waiting for food aid to 77, with countless others injured.

There are also separate unconfirmed reports that the death toll might be as high as 150.

Palestinians hungry and looking for food were killed and at least 1,000 others wounded in an "Israeli massacre in northern Gaza", the Quds News Network reported. 

"Israeli tanks shelled thousands of hungry civilians, who were waiting for flour at Al Rasheed Street. Israeli snipers continue to target everyone approaching the victims in some locations," it added in a post online.