Israel-Palestine live: Unicef says over 13,000 children killed in Gaza

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

"The government has allocated 400 million kronor to UNRWA for the year 2024. Today’s decision concerns a first payment of 200 million kronor,” the Swedish government said in a statement.

The decision came after Sweden, along with several other countries, suspended funding to the aid agency after Israel alleged that around a dozen of its employees were involved in the 7 October Hamas led attack. 

Sweden added that Unrwa had agreed to "allow controls, independent audits, to strengthen internal supervision and extra controls of personnel". 
 

Good morning Middle East Eye readers.

Israeli forces have continued to target densely populated areas in Rafah and central Gaza overnight and this morning.

Here are some of the latest updates.

•  Israeli military claims to have killed "30 fighters in the last 24 hours" including in Khan Younis and throughout the rest of Gaza.
• Dozens of women and civilians have been killed in Israeli air strikes according to the Wafa news agency. In Khan Younis alone, 23 Palestinians were killed.
• Israeli forces carried out a night time raid in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm. Bulldozers were used in the raids, according to reports. 
• The US Centcom said that they have intercepted a "large-scale" Houthi attack in the area, shooting 15 drones which they said posed an “imminent threat".
   

Good evening Middle East Eye readers,

Israeli forces have killed at least 78 Palestinians and wounded 104 more over the past 24 hours in eight "massacres", according to the Palestinian health ministry. 

This brings the Palestinian death toll in over five months to more than 30,878, with over 72,400 wounded and at least 7,000 missing, believed to be dead and buried under rubble.

Israeli forces have killed 370 paramedics working for the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) since the start of the war in October.

In other developments:

• US President Joe Biden said on Friday that achieving a ceasefire agreement in Gaza by the beginning of Ramadan on Sunday was "looking tough."
• Israeli forces have killed an average of 63 Palestinian women in Gaza each day since 7 October, including 37 mothers, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa). 
• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she expected a maritime aid corridor to start operating between Cyprus and Gaza over this weekend.
• Israel is to be allowed to compete in the Eurovision song contest after changing the lyrics in its entry that referenced the 7 October killings by Hamas.
• At least two Palestinians were killed and one other wounded after a faulty aid drop in Gaza City on Friday. 
• A painting of Arthur Balfour - the former British prime minister and foreign secretary - has been spray painted and torn apart by pro-Palestine activists. 
• A Pentagon spokesperson said on Friday that the construction of a temporary port, which the United States intends to establish to accelerate aid delivery to Gaza, will require “several weeks” for planning and implementation.

US President Joe Biden said on Friday that achieving a ceasefire agreement in Gaza by the beginning of Ramadan on Sunday was "looking tough."

Biden, during a conversation with reporters following a visit to a family's home near Philadelphia, also said he was concerned over the violence in East Jerusalem in the absence of a ceasefire.

Canada is set to officially reinstate its funding to the UN Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa), announced International Aid Minister Ahmed Hussen in a Friday statement, though a specific timeline was not provided.

"Canada will be lifting its temporary pause on funding to [Unrwa]," Hussen said in a statement. "Unrwa plays a vital role in Gaza."

On 26 January, Canada declared a temporary halt to its contributions, following accusations from Israel that certain staff members of the agency had participated in the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October.

A Pentagon spokesperson said on Friday that the construction of a temporary port, which the United States intends to establish to accelerate aid delivery to Gaza, will require “several weeks” for planning and implementation.

Additionally, they mentioned that the US has set a goal to supply people in Gaza with 2 million meals daily.

The process could engage up to 1,000 US military personnel, although there will be no deployment of US troops on the ground, according to the Pentagon. It mentioned that the US is collaborating on the specifics with allied countries in the Middle East.

US President Joe Biden also announced on Friday that Israel would be responsible for securing the temporary port under construction along Gaza’s Mediterranean shoreline.

On Friday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the responsibility lies with Hamas to consent to a ceasefire.

This cessation of hostilities would facilitate the delivery of more humanitarian assistance into Gaza and set the stage for discussions regarding an "enduring resolution" to the ongoing war, he said.

"The ball is in their court. We're working intensely on it, and we'll see what they do," Blinken said ahead of a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.

Four Israelis have been wounded after an explosive device was detonated near Homesh, an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank, on Friday.

According to Israeli media, security officers were in pursuit of a shooter who had opened fire on a military site in the settlement, south of Jenin. During the chase, an explosive device was activated. 

Israeli forces are currently searching for the perpetrator, according to the army. 

The number of people killed by a faulty aid air drop in Gaza City has now risen to five. 

The casualties occurred following a botched attempt to drop humanitarian assistance from a plane, which ended up landing in a residential area in Sheikh Radwan, northwest of Gaza City. 

The Palestinian media office in Gaza said the air drop resulted in "five martyrs and several injuries, despite our prior statement that these operations are useless and not the best way to bring in aid". 

"We demand the opening of land crossings to bring in thousands of tons of aid immediately and urgently to prevent the worsening of the situation."

The media office added that the air drops had taken on a "propaganda character rather than humanitarian", and that the method was posing a threat to the lives of Palestinians. 

A painting of Arthur Balfour - the former British prime minister and foreign secretary - has been spray painted and torn apart by pro-Palestine activists. 

Palestine Action posted a video on Friday of the portrait being damaged at Trinity College in Cambrige, where Balfour had once studied. 

The Balfour Declaration, written in 1917 by the-then UK foreign secretary, stated that Britain pledged to facilitate the establishment of a "national home for the Jews in the land of Palestine".

The declaration was seen as a catalyst for the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe), when more than 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes to make way for the state of Israel. 

In a column for Middle East Eye, Faisal Hanif, a media analyst at the Centre for Media Monitoring, argues that British media is favouring Israeli narratives during the ongoing conflict. 

He writes: "In the first month of the war on Gaza, the media used terms such as “slaughter”, “massacres” and “atrocities” to describe the killing of Israelis around 11 times more often than they did to describe the killing of Palestinians.

This is among the findings of a new report analysing coverage of the war on Gaza from the Centre for Media Monitoring, which looks at representations of Muslims in British media. The report comes as the death toll in Gaza soars past 30,000.

Journalists at the BBC last year wrote a letter highlighting what they described as bias in the broadcaster’s coverage of the war - and they certainly have a point. 

Still, some pro-Israel advocates remain dissatisfied, suggesting that certain terms should be exclusive to the 7 October Hamas attacks. In one example cited in the centre’s report, a Conservative politician accused a mainstream British journalist of using “emotive language” when he called the killing of Palestinians in Gaza a “slaughter”.

Indeed, an analysis of British media coverage shows a widespread failure to represent Palestinian voices and concerns, with almost three-quarters of attributions across broadcast television favouring an Israeli source or viewpoint."

You can read the full column below. 

Opinion: How British media favours the Israeli narrative

The UN's leading expert on torture has said she is investigating allegations of torture and mistreatment of Palestinian detainees in Israel.

"I'm looking into that as we speak and carrying out a fact-finding investigation," Alice Jill Edwards, the UN special rapporteur on torture, told Reuters on Friday. 

"I'm calling on ... Hamas, the state of Palestine, Israel to put their torture tools down, to really have a focus on peace and a prospect of living side-by-side as neighbours in the future."

The UN human rights office said it had received several reports of mass detention, ill-treatment and enforced disappearance of Palestinians in northern Gaza by the Israeli military. It has also recorded the arrests of thousands in the occupied West Bank.

Edwards said she also raised allegations of mass murders and mutilations of hostages and sexual violence against them with the Palestinian Authority's mission in Geneva.

At least two Palestinians were killed and one other wounded after a faulty aid drop in Gaza City on Friday. 

The casualties occurred following a botched attempt to drop humanitarian assistance from a plane, which ended up landing in a residential area in Sheikh Radwan, northwest of Gaza City, according to Al-Jazeera. 

"People were waiting for the drops when they noticed they were coming in fast. So a group of people took cover in a construction site," an eyewitness told Al-Jazeera.

"One of the packages fell atop the site, causing it to collapse, killing and wounding people inside. I rushed to help the people inside when I realised my cousin was among them. He is now dead."

Read more: Faulty aid drop kills at least two Palestinians in Gaza City

When I heard Home Secretary James Cleverly recently urging the UK’s pro-Palestine protests to stop, saying they had “made their point”, I half-expected the government to follow by announcing its support for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. 

After all, if the government had truly “gotten the point” of these regular marches - which is to stop Israel’s relentless killing of Palestinian men, women and children in Gaza, with the death toll already exceeding 30,000 - then that would be the inevitable result. 

Cleverly’s dismissal of the millions of people who have marched in a bid to save a shred of the world’s humanity was evident when he questioned their “value” or what they were “seeking to achieve”. These comments are tone deaf, as if British residents were giving up their weekends for foolhardy antics, rather than calling to protect newborn babies who are starving in Gaza. 

For those attending the marches, the value is clear. The protests are a way to demand change and hold power to account, with more than two-thirds of the British public supporting a ceasefire that their government refuses to back. 

The value also comes from raising awareness and building solidarity among diverse, disparate and previously disconnected communities. Such connections are priceless in the long-term struggle for Palestinian human rights and freedoms. Is that why our government is trying to suppress them? 

Not only are the pro-Palestine protests continuing, they are increasingly mobilising efforts to shift government policy in the UK. Just last week, anti-establishment politician George Galloway won a Rochdale by-election that was dominated by the issue of Gaza.

The government, clearly rattled, is now resorting to the classic defence of demonising its opposition as hateful and violent. Islamophobia in the UK government is nothing new, with politicians exploiting the “Muslim menace” card whenever it suits them electorally.

Read more: Why the UK is demonising pro-Palestine protesters - By Layla Maghribi

A group of Egyptian women held a rare pro-Palestine march in Cairo on Friday to mark International Women's Day.

The small crowd chanted in solidarity with Palestinian women under Israeli bombardment and criticised the government for being a "party to the siege" on Gaza.

"From Cairo, we send a thousand greetings to the brave women of Palestine," they chanted.

"Open the Rafah crossing now."

The small march was quickly dispersed by police, according to local reports.