Live: Israel kills more than 430 Palestinians on Tuesday

The Israeli army on Wednesday decided to grant legal status on the illegal Israeli Adoraim settlement south of the Palestinian city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli Channel 14 reported.

The settlement, illegal under international law, was built eight years ago. The report said the government will recognise it by the end of 2025.

The report added that the settlement is witnessing "significant growth" and is currently home to 26 families.

The Israeli army on Tuesday acknowledged for the first time that its soldiers may have used human shields in their operations in Gaza, according to a report by CNN.

The Israeli army is currently investigating these claims after it found that there is "reasonable suspicion" its soldiers used civilians in its military operations. 

“In several cases, the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division opened investigations after reasonable suspicion arose regarding the use of Palestinians for military missions during the operations,” the Israeli army told CNN.

“Those investigations are still ongoing, and accordingly, other details cannot be provided at this time,” it added.

Hamas on Wednesday hailed Yemen's Houthis after they announced that they would resume their attacks on Israeli shipping as their deadline for Israel to stop blocking aid deliveries into Gaza expired.

"It is a true commitment of support for our Palestinian people and their resistance, and it exerts real pressure to break the unjust siege on Gaza," Hamas said in a statement.

The Israeli army on Wednesday raided Dhahiriya town in southern Hebron, Al Jazeera Arabic reported. 

Medical sources have confirmed that the death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 48,515, the majority of whom are children and women, since the start of the war on Gaza on 7 October 2023.

They added that the number of wounded people has risen to 111,941. 

In the last 24 hours, 12 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed and 14 wounded by Israeli fire.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) called on Israel on Wednesday to stop using humanitarian aid as a tool of war.

In a statement published on X, the international organisation condemned the occupation's blockade, which deprives “people of basic services and critical supplies, including access to water by cutting electricity supply on March 9.

“Using humanitarian needs as a bargaining chip amounts to collective punishment and must be stopped,” the post reads.

#Gaza: Doctors Without Borders condemns the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip, depriving people of essential services like water and electricity.

Using humanitarian needs as a bargaining chip amounts to collective punishment and must be stopped.https://t.co/uuqJUBPmzD

— Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (@MSF_canada) March 11, 2025

Displaced Palestinians take shelter in a tent camp set up at Palestine Stadium, which was damaged during the Israeli offensive, in Gaza City. 

Lynn Boylan, an Irish member of the European Parliament, has demanded action from European Parliament President Roberta Metsola after she was refused entry, along with fellow lawmaker Rima Hassan, to Israel and Palestine for an official mission last month.

Speaking during during a European Parliament session on Monday, Boylan said Israeli authorities confiscated the phones of the two MEPs as well as two other European Parliament officials when their flight landed at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv on 24 February.

Boylan, who is the chair of the EU delegation on relations with Palestine, said she was travelling on an Irish diplomatic passport on the visit.

"While detained by the Israeli authorities, our electronic devices were confiscated for over ninety minutes. Our passports, including an Irish diplomatic passport were confiscated and not returned to us until we arrived back in Brussels," Boylan said.

The delegation had intended to travel to Palestine and spend a number of days there following their work in Israel.

Today I raised the fact that Israel prevented the EU Parliaments official mission to Palestine from taking place and confiscated the phones of 2 MEPs and 2 officials for 90 mins. pic.twitter.com/il3z2DBoLS

— Lynn Boylan 🍷📖🐾 (@LNBDublin) March 10, 2025

The delegation holds regular meetings with Palestinian and international groups on EU-Palestinian relations and on political, economic and social and human rights developments in Palestine.

Another Palestinian man has been killed by Israeli gunfire in the Khuza’a area in Khan Yunis, Al Jazeera is reporting. 

Earlier this morning, one person was killed in the southern city of Rafah as a result of Israeli gunfire.

Despite a continuing ceasefire in Gaza, Israeli forces have repeatedly violated the truce, and hundreds of violations since the ceasefire came into effect on 19 January have been recorded by Gaza’s media office. 

The Israeli military set up a military checkpoint at the eastern entrance to the town of Beit Fajjar, south of Bethlehem, on Wednesday morning, Wafa news agency is reporting.

The eastern entrance to the town has been closed by Israeli forces with an iron gate since 7 October 2023 and only opened once since then, for a few hours, ten days ago.

A Palestinian man, Hamdan Qashta, was just confirmed killed after being critically injured by Israeli army gunfire in Rafah, southern Gaza, Quds News is reporting. 

The Israeli military has committed numerous violations of the ceasefire in Gaza over the past 24 hours, killing at least nine Palestinians in separate attacks.

The Israeli military has demolished a house in occupied West Bank city of Qalqilya, which belongs to the family of Ali Khalil, a Palestinian man who was killed along with eight others in Israeli drone attacks in the occupied West Bank last year, Al Quds news is reporting.

According to The Times of Israel, the Israeli military accuses Khalil of shooting and killing an Israeli civilian in Qalqilya in June of last year.

Israeli authorities regularly demolish family homes of Palestinians accused of carrying out attacks on Israeli citizens in what rights groups call a policy of “collective punishment” that may amount to war crimes.

Last night, Israeli occupation authorities demolished the family home of Ali Khalil, a fallen Palestinian, in Qalqilia, in a reprisal measure against his entire family. pic.twitter.com/P65w3NDMXl

— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) March 12, 2025

Good morning MEE readers, 

Here are some of key developments from the last few hours:

• • The death toll from attacks on Gaza City on Tuesday rose to eight. The victims included a Palestinian girl who was shot and killed near Deir el-Balah

  • Israeli forces have opened fire in the southern and eastern areas of Rafah, as Israeli gunboats stationed off the coast of Gaza are shelling areas in the north of Gaza

  • The Houthis said they would resume attacks on “any Israeli vessel” passing through the Red and Arabian Seas, the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden, and that assaults would continue until Israel’s blockade on Gaza is lifted

  • Israeli police raided the popular Education Bookstore in occupied East Jerusalem for the second time in a month, briefly detained the shop’s co-owner and confiscated more than 100 books, including titles by Noam Chomsky, Ilan Pappe and Rashid Khalidi

Our live blog will shortly be closing until tomorrow morning.

Here are the day's key developments:

• A senior Hamas official has said that a new round of negotiations on the Gaza ceasefire started in Doha on Tuesday, while an Israeli delegation has also arrived in the Qatari capital. The US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to join Egyptian and Qatari mediators,
• Israeli media said Israel aims to implement the plan proposed by  Witkoff and extend the ceasefire for 60 days,
• The Yemen’s Houthis said the group will restart their attacks immediately on any ship with links to Israel sailing through the Red Sea, after Israel had passed a deadline of four days set by the group calling for a lift of the Gaza aid blockade or resumption of naval attacks,
• Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said his country will never bring the war to an end unless Hamas is completely disarmed, describing Hamas’s military position in Gaza as “unacceptable”,
• The White House said the Trump administration will not tolerate individuals who are supporting “terrorists”, accusing Palestinian Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, who was recently detained, of distributing pro-Hamas documents,
• Five Lebanese captives, who were been detained by Israel, have been released and arrived in their homeland on Tuesday, according to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency,
• The United States announced it is mediating talks between Lebanon and Israel to resolve outstanding disputes, including the release of Lebanese detainees and land border disputes,
• Senior Labour MP Emily Thornberry has called upon British ministers to take action after Israeli deputy minister Sharren Haskel secretly filmed their private conversation without her "knowledge or consent", and shared it online,
• An Israeli air strike carried out in southern Lebanon has killed Hezbollah’s chief of its southern aerial defence unit, Hassan Abbas Izz al-Din.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad said it commends the Houthi’s announcement to restart their attacks on vessels with links to Israel passing through the Red Sea.

“The decision represents a bold step aimed at pressuring the entity [Israel] and its sponsors to reopen the crossings and allow aid into the besieged Gaza Strip,” the statement reads.

Last week, the Houthis gave Israel a deadline of four days to lift their blockade of Gaza and allow aid in or it will resume its attacks.