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

US military officials said that its forces conducted another humanitarian assistance airdrop into northern Gaza on Tuesday along with Jordan's air force.

Reporting by Reuters

US national security advisor Jake Sullivan said that President Biden wouldn't support an Israeli military operation in Rafah that does not protect civilians.

Sullivan said the US believes the path to peace "does not lie in smashing into Rafah", and noted the White House has yet to see a credible plan for a military operation there.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel would press forward with its military campaign into Rafah.

"We will finish the job in Rafah while enabling the civilian population to get out of harm's way," Netanyahu said in a video address to a conference of the pro-Israel Aipac organisation in Washington DC.

Al Jazeera Arabic has recently aired footage showing a young Palestinian boy who was shot dead by Israeli forces in northern Gaza.

The footage was captured on 5 December, according to Al Jazeera, and the boy was identified as 15-year-old Mahmoud Hani al-Ajoori.

"What is this child's fault that he was shot," the father told the news channel, claiming that Israeli soldiers knew he was a child.

Ajoori's brother told Al Jazeera that he was shot in the head and neck.

"We call on the international community to look into this case, what was the reason behind his killing - a child aged 15 years old?"

The boy's mother said that the family had found him two days after he was shot, near the area of Fakhoora, which is in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.

"My son is innocent, what did he do for them to shoot him these two shots - he's 15 years old?" his mother said.

A shipment of humanitarian aid from Morocco for Palestinians in Gaza began entering the besieged enclave via a land route on Tuesday.

The aid travelled through the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel, marking the first time that crossing has been used for aid in five months of war, a Moroccan diplomatic source told Reuters.

The 40 tonnes of aid was being delivered by truck into northern Gaza along a route that the Rabat government has been able to secure, as it had established diplomatic relations with Israel, the source said.

The source told the news agency that the move shows Morocco's "connections in Israel serve the cause of peace and defend the rights of Palestinians".

Morocco was one of several Arab nations alongside the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain that normalised diplomatic relations with Israel under the agreement brokered by the Donald Trump administration.

In exchange for normalisation, the US recognised Moroccan sovereignty over the territory of Western Sahara, and last year Israel announced it was also recognising Rabat's sovereignty over the territory.

Aid sent into Gaza by air or by sea is no substitute for delivery by land which "remains the best way to get aid in at the scale that is needed", the UK's foreign secretary said on Tuesday.

"Israel must open more land routes, including in the north for longer and with fewer screening requirements," David Cameron told the House of Lords. 

Asked why he had been unable to persuade the Israeli government to open border crossings and provide access to trucks carrying aid, Cameron said he believed the UK was making a difference, citing what he said were the latest figures for daily crossings in Gaza.

In January, the number of trucks carrying aid that entered Gaza each day was 140 on average, dropping 97 in February and picking up this month to 162, he said.

Cameron also said that while other countries could help with getting aid into Gaza, Israel could "make the greatest difference".

"Some of the blockages and screening problems and all the rest of it are their responsibility," he said, pointing to 18 trucks dispatched from Jordan that were held at the Allenby Bridge for 18 days.

"That does seem to me the sort of thing we need to act on faster to get that aid into Israel."

He also said that Israel could maximise the delivery of aid by sea from Cyprus by opening the fully functioning Ashdod Port, and encouraged Israel to give out more visas to UN workers to speed up distribution once aid gets to Gaza. 

The first vessel carrying food to Gaza from Cyprus has departed, and aims to establish a new maritime aid corridor to the besieged enclave as the threat of starvation among Palestinians looms.

The delivery, organised by two Spanish NGOs, World Central Kitchen and Open Arms, includes nearly 200 tons of rice, flour, legumes, canned vegetables, and canned proteins. It is being pulled across the Mediterranean on a barge.

A second vessel is being prepared to make the same journey, Cypriot Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos told state radio. 

Open Arms and World Central Kitchen partnered with the United Arab Emirates to bring the first shipment into Gaza, according to the World Central Kitchen Founder, Jose Andres.

Read the full story by clicking here.

A group of faculty members at the University of Pennsylvania is suing the university in an attempt to stop the school from complying with a request from Congress to hand over all material, teaching or otherwise, related to pro-Palestinian activity and sentiments on campus.

The proactive lawsuit is the latest legal saga unfolding at universities in the US, which since 7 October have seen a crackdown on speech related to Palestine. It also comes after the presidents of Penn, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) were called in for a contentious congressional briefing in December over the large number of pro-Palestine rallies taking place on campus.

"The Committee is engaged in a partisan witch hunt by seeking syllabi, academic papers, and other material from Penn faculty of all ranks, with the search highlighting keywords like Jew, Israel, antisemitism, Palestine, Gaza, resistance, settler colonialism and diversity, equity and inclusion, to name most of their criteria," the Penn Faculty for Justice in Palestine (PFJP), a group of faculty, staff and graduate students, said in a statement shared with Middle East Eye.

To read the full story, click below.

Read more: 'Witch hunt': Penn faculty sue university over congressional probe into pro-Palestinian activity

Senior UN officials welcomed the opening of a maritime corridor from Cyprus to deliver additional aid to Gaza, but said it could not replace the delivery of humanitarian assistance by land.

"For aid delivery at scale, there is no meaningful substitute to the many land routes and entry points from Israel into Gaza," said UN humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza Sigrid Kaag and UN office for project services executive director Jorge Moreira da Silva.

"The maritime corridor brings, however, much needed additionality and is part of a sustained humanitarian response to provide aid as effectively as possible through all possible routes," they said, as reported by Reuters.

The US announced it would be building a temporary dock on Gaza's coast that would facilitate the delivery of aid into the besieged enclave. The UN has said that aid has been slow getting into Gaza due to Israeli delays, as the people in Gaza face a worsening humanitarian situation. More than 20 people have died from starvation so far.

A group of US senators, led by Bernie Sanders, Chris Van Hollen and Jeff Merkley, sent a letter to President Biden calling on him to use federal law to force Israel to stop restricting humanitarian aid to Gaza or lose US military aid.

The letter states that Israel's interference in US aid operations in Gaza is in violation of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.

“The United States should not provide military assistance to any country that interferes with US humanitarian assistance,” the senators wrote.

“Federal law is clear, and, given the urgency of the crisis in Gaza, and the repeated refusal of Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu to address US concerns on this issue, immediate action is necessary to secure a change in policy by his government.”

The French daily newspaper Liberation has come under fire for publishing a cartoon that mocks fasting Palestinians in Gaza searching for food.

The cartoon by artist Corinne Rey depicts an emaciated Palestinian man chasing after rats and cockroaches amid rubble and destroyed buildings. A woman in the cartoon slaps his hands and admonishes him, stating: "Not before sunset." 

It was shared on X on Monday, with the caption: "Ramadan in Gaza," referring to the Muslim holy month during which worshippers abstain from all forms of food and drink during the daylight hours.

Social media users slammed the illustration as “racist”, “dehumanising” and a “nauseating” example of public expression, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians face starvation due to Israel's prevention of aid into the war-battered enclave.

Read more: French newspaper criticised over cartoon mocking starving Palestinians

A Palestinian footballer was killed after an Israeli strike hit his home in Khan Younis, the Palestinian Football Association confirmed on Tuesday.

Muhammad Barakat, who has represented the Palestinian national team and the Ahli Gaza Football Club, was known as "The Legend of Khan Younis" due to his long association with the Khan Younis Youth Club, of which he was captain. A prolific goal scorer, the 39-year-old had a tally of 114 goals for the side he led.

He also played for the Jordanian club, Al-Wehdat, as well as Saudi Arabian club, Al-Shoala.

"The Palestinian sports movement continues to bid farewell to its sons and cadres, as a result of long decades of injustice and occupation, from which no components and sectors of life in Palestine were spared," the PFA said in a statement.

Read more: Palestinian footballer killed after family home bombed by Israel

A Turkish shipment of humanitarian aid stuck at Israel’s Ashdod port left for Gaza earlier this week, diplomatic sources and a UN spokesperson told Middle East Eye on Tuesday.

The shipment, donated to Unrwa, was blocked for nearly a month after some Israeli contractors stopped working with the UN agency following unproved allegations that 13 staff members participated in the 7 October attack. 

It contains 1,049 containers of supplies including flour, chickpeas, sugar and cooking oil, enough to cover the needs of 1.1 million people for a month.

Turkey agreed with Israeli authorities to end the stalemate by allowing the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) to deliver the shipment to war-torn Gaza in collaboration with Unrwa.

“What we can say for now is that the first batch of the wheat flour that has been stuck in the Israeli port for weeks on end has now reached Gaza,” an Unrwa spokesperson said. “We are working with WFP on releasing the rest.”

An Israeli source suggested that the shipments would continue as much as the aid organisation could deliver to Gaza.

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem has suspended a prominent Palestinian academic, after she said that it was time to "abolish Zionism". 

In an interview on Monday with Israel's Channel 12, Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a law professor, said: "It’s time to abolish Zionism. It can’t continue, it’s criminal. Only by abolishing Zionism can we continue."

"They will use any lie. They started with babies, they continued with rape, and they will continue with a million other lies. We stopped believing them, I hope the world stops believing them," she added, in reference to Israeli allegations of crimes committed by Hamas on 7 October.  

In October, Shalhoub-Kevorkian signed a letter accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza. At the time, the Hebrew University sent a formal letter to the academic suggesting that she should consider resigning. 

"As a proud Israeli, public, and Zionist institution, the Hebrew University strongly condemns Prof. Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s recent shocking and outrageous statements… To ensure a safe and conducive environment for our students on campus, the university has decided to suspend Prof. Shalhoub-Kevorkian from teaching activities, effective immediately,” the university said in a statement on Tuesday. 

Her suspension has been widely criticised online, with commentators accusing universities of cracking down on criticism of Israeli actions. 

Israel has killed more than 400 Palestinians as they wait for aid deliveries, with 11 aid seekers killed on Tuesday in Gaza City, said the government media office in Gaza.

Residents of Gaza City, north of the besieged enclave, were waiting for aid around the Kuwait roundabout when they were targeted by tanks positioned in the area.

At least 25 people were also wounded the attack, paramedics from al-Shifa Hospital told Al Jazeera.

The killings are the latest in a spate of attacks on civilians during attempted aid deliveries, even as the US pushes for more humanitarian assistance for the enclave. Over 100 Palestinians were killed and hundreds more wounded last week when Israeli forces fired at an aid convoy in Gaza City's al-Rasheed Street.

Read more: Israel has killed over 400 people waiting for aid in Gaza

A group of NGOs have announced they will sue Denmark over its arms exports to Israel, citing concerns that weapons were being used to commit serious crimes against civilians in Gaza.

Last month, a Dutch court ordered the Netherlands to block all exports of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel over concerns they were being used to violate international law in the enclave.

Amnesty International Denmark, Oxfam Denmark, ActionAid Denmark and Al-Haq said in a joint statement they would file a lawsuit against the foreign affairs ministry and the national police, which approves weapons sales in the country, in the next three weeks. 

"For five months we have been talking about a potential genocide in Gaza, but we have not seen politicians take action," Tim Whyte, secretary general of ActionAid Denmark, said in a statement.