Gaza live: Israel continues bombing central Gaza

Iran’s response to Israel’s attack on its consulate in Damascus has prompted talk of the Middle East being "on the brink".

The fevered policy and media discussions about what happens next risk pushing Gaza out of the frame, yet Palestinians have already been pushed over the brink by Israel’s genocidal assault since October and the question of the UK’s role remains live.

Earlier this month, I had the rather surreal experience of appearing on the BBC's Newsnight programme to discuss UK arms exports to Israel amid growing calls for an arms embargo.

Invited to be the "presenter’s friend", I appeared alongside Lord Kim Darroch, former UK ambassador to the US, and Bob Seely, Conservative MP for the Isle of Wight.

Darroch made the case for it being time to move beyond rhetoric to action and to stop supplying arms to Israel, given its reckless military strategy and the level of civilian harm in Gaza. Seely dismissed this as shallow gesture politics given what he called the "meaninglessly small" level of UK arms exports to Israel, calling instead for the UK to "double down on our relationship with Israel".

Why is an arms embargo on the table at this point? The killing of three white British men, former military personnel working as security providers for aid agencies, by Israel in its air strikes on World Central Kitchen vehicles was the prompt, followed by the publication of a letter by over 600 retired judges, lawyers and legal academics telling the government that it was obliged under international law to suspend the provision of weapons and weapons systems to the government of Israel.

Yet more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since October - and that is just the number of casualties that can be counted.

Their deaths at the hands of the Israeli state have not generated such a demand for action. Yet the UK’s rules are clear: the government will not allow arms exports where there is a clear risk they might be used in a serious violation of international humanitarian law. Foreign Secretary David Cameron’s platitudes aside, the UK government should already have halted arms sales under the terms of its own law and policy.

Read more: Halting UK arms sales to Israel would be more than symbolic - and it is right - Opinion by Anna Stavriankis

Suspected drone attack sirens were sounded north of Haifa along the Mediterranean Sea shortly after Israel said it killed two Hezbollah members. 

Sirens were alarmed in the coastal cities of Acre and Nahariya, as explosions were heard in the region, likely from air defence interceptions. 

There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. 

Qatar said on Tuesday there was no justification to end the presence of an office for Hamas in Doha while its mediation efforts continued in the Gaza war.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari added in a press conference that Qatar remained committed to mediation, but was reassessing its role in "frustration with attacks" on its efforts.

Ansari referred to "negative" comments made about Qatar's role by Israeli ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government. 

Reporting by MEE and Reuters 

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was quoted by media as saying on Tuesday that he does not believe the Palestinian group Hamas will leave Qatar, where some of its leadership is based, adding he had seen no such signs from Doha either.

Speaking to reporters on a return flight from Iraq, Erdogan also said the full capture of Gaza by Israel would "open the door" for further invasions of Palestinian territories, according to broadcaster Haberturk and other media outlets.

Reporting by Reuters

UN rights chief Volker Turk said on Tuesday that he was "horrified" by the destruction of the Nasser and al-Shifa hospitals in Gaza and reports of mass graves discovered there.

Turk, addressing a UN briefing via a spokesperson, also decried Israeli strikes on Gaza in recent days, which he said have killed mostly women and children.

He also repeated a warning against a full-scale incursion on Rafah, saying this could lead to "further atrocity crimes".

Reporting by Reuters

The families and supporters of Israeli captives held in Gaza organised a protest in Tel Aviv on Tuesday to mark 200 days since their capture by Hamas. 

The protesters gathered in Tel Aviv's HaBima Square where they painted their hands in red and raised them to the sky as a sign of protest, demanding their government secure their family members' release. 

The Palestinian government media office in Gaza has released figures showing the extent of Israel's devastating war on Gaza, now in its 200th day. 

Here are the key numbers:

• (3,025) Massacres committed by the Israeli army (a massacre refers to an attack that leads to the killing of at least three people)

• (41,183) People killed and missing

• (34,183) Deaths recorded by hospitals 

• (14,778) Children killed

• (30) Children died due to starvation and malnutrition

• (9,752) Women killed

• (485) Health professionals killed

• (67) Emergency responders killed

• (140) Journalists killed

• (7,000) Missing, 70 percent of whom are children and women

• (77,143) Wounded

• (17,000) Children lost one or both parents 

• (11,000) Wounded and need urgent travel to receive life-saving treatment

• (10,000) Cancer patients facing the risk of death

• (5,000) Total number of people detained

• (310) Health professionals detained

• (20) Journalists detained

• (2,000,000) Internally displaced

• (700,000) Diagnosed with infectious diseases as a result of displacement

• (181) Government offices destroyed

• (103) Schools and universities completely destroyed

• (309) Schools and universities partially damaged

• (239) Mosques completely destroyed 

• (317) Mosques partially damaged

• (3) Churches targeted and damaged 

• (86,000) Housing units completely destroyed 

• (294,000) Housing units partially damaged and made uninhabitable

• (75,000) Tonnes of explosives dropped by the Israeli army

• (32) Hospitals put out of service 

• (53) Health centres put out of service 

• (160) Health institutions targeted 

• (126) Ambulances destroyed

• (206) Archaeological and heritage sites destroyed

Harvard University has suspended the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee after months of administrative repression, harassment and intimidation from right-wing politicians and donors, the group said in a statement sent to Middle East Eye.

"For months, we have been disproportionately targeted by the administration on the grounds of technicalities that we tried to observe vigilantly in the interest of protecting student safety," the statement on Monday read.

Harvard PSC said on 6 March that they had been retroactively placed on probation since 1 March, for a February event that it had not officially sponsored.

The student group was subsequently suspended this week because it held a rally in solidarity with the Columbia students and in protest against student repression with group that were not official student organisations.
The group said that Harvard University has demonstrated time and again that Palestine remains the exception to free speech. 

"After standing idly by as pro-Palestine students faced physical and cyber harassment, death threats and rape threats, and racist doxxing, Harvard has now decided to dismantle the only official student group dedicated to the task of representing the Palestinian cause," the group said.

"As the death toll in Gaza rises with each day of the ongoing genocide, our right to protest this violence only becomes more important. It is shameful - but not surprising - that an institution that is actively invested in Israel’s blatant violence against Palestinians, one that hesitates to even recognize the existence of Palestinians in its official communications, has taken the extra step to erase the only official student group dedicated to solidarity with the people of Palestine."

Read more: Harvard suspends Palestine Solidarity Committee after months of 'harassment' 

Israeli forces have killed at least 32 Palestinians and wounded 59 more over the past 24 hours in three "massacres", according to the Palestinian health ministry. 

This brings the Palestinian death toll in over six months to more than 34,183, with at least 77,143 wounded and an estimated 7,000 missing and presumed dead.

More than 70 percent of the victims are children and women, according to health officials.

European Union sanctions announced following Iran's attack against Israel are "regrettable" because the country was acting in self-defence, Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian posted on X on Tuesday.

Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles on Israel in what it said was retaliation against a suspected Israeli bombing of its embassy compound in Damascus.

On Monday, EU foreign ministers agreed in principle to expand sanctions on Iran by agreeing to extend restrictive measures on Tehran's weapons exports of any drone or missile to Iranian proxies and Russia.

"It is regrettable to see the EU deciding quickly to apply more unlawful restrictions against Iran just because Iran exercised its right to self-defence in the face of Israel’s reckless aggression," Amirabdollahian said on X, before calling on the EU to apply sanctions on Israel instead.

More work will need to follow in Brussels to approve a legal framework before the expansion of the sanctions can take effect.

Reporting by Reuters

Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man early Tuesday during a raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jericho. 

Shadi Issa Jalayta, 44, was shot dead in the chest, the Palestinian health ministry said. 

Hamas rejected what it called "false accusations" made by the US that it "moved the goal post" and changed its demands in the ceasefire negotiations.

In a press release, the Palestinian group said the American statement bore "no relation to reality" and accused Washington of being a "full partner in the war of extermination against our people". 

The group added that its demands have been "clear from day one" and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government are the ones obstructing the deal.

"The demands of Hamas and the resistance have been clear from day one, and they are the same as those presented last March and were welcomed by all parties and mediators.

"The demands represent the national position of our people and their interests in the necessity of a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of the occupation forces, and the return of the displaced to their places of residence in all areas of the Gaza Strip, intensifying relief and starting reconstruction." 

Good morning Middle East Eye readers,

As the war on Gaza entered its 200th day, the Israeli army heavily bombed the northernmost towns of the Palestinian enclave late on Monday and into Tuesday. 

Artillery shelling rocked Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia and Jabalia with clashes heard across the area, according to local media. 

Hamas said its fighters sniped an Israeli soldier in Beit Hanoun amid the renewed fighting.

In Gaza City, local media reported several people were killed and wounded in strikes across different neighbourhoods. 

Shelling was also reported overnight in the central and southern areas of the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli navy opened fire at the beaches of Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat and Zawaida in central Gaza, Wafa news agency reported. 

Good evening Middle East Eye readers,

Gaza's health ministry said that 54 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on the enclave in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 34,151 since 7 October.

Additionally, 77,084 people have been wounded since the start of the war.

At least 8,425 Palestinians have been arrested by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank since 7 October, according to Palestinian prisoner groups.

In other developments:

• Three people were lightly wounded following a car-ramming and attempted shooting attack in Jerusalem, Israeli police say.
• The World Food Programme said it was able to deliver fuel ad wheat flour to bakeries in northern Gaza "so they can begin production again after 170 days of being inoperable".
• Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to follow Israeli army intelligence chief Aharon Haliva's footsteps and resign over the failures of 7 October.
• As many as 50 people have been arrested on the campus of Yale University in the US for "aggravated trespassing" over their participation in a protest camp against the Gaza war.
• Gaza's civil defence agency said that health workers had recovered about 200 bodies within the past three days. These individuals were said to have been killed and buried by Israeli forces at a hospital in Khan Younis.
• Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the US is investigatig allegations of human rights abuses by Israel during its operations against Hamas in Gaza.
• Google fired over two dozen employees who protested last week against the company's cloud computing contract with the Israeli government.

Columbia University has deactivated the swipe card of a pro-Israel professor accused of harassing pro-Palestinian students amid rising tensions between the two camps on campus.

“They are not letting me on main campus,” Israel-born Shai Davidai, an assistant professor at Columbia Business School, told pro-Israel supporters clustered outside the school’s campus on Monday.

Pro-Israel Columbia professor accused of harassment prevented from accessing main campus

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“Everybody, my card has been deactivated,” Davidai yelled to supporters gathered outside the campus gates. “I am a professor here, I have a right to be everywhere on campus.”

Davidai, who teaches, “decision making & negotiations, leadership & organizational behavior”, according to his biography on Columbia Business School’s website, has been accused of harassing pro-Palestinian students.

“Under the guise of fighting antisemitism, he uses his Twitter and Instagram accounts to incite harassment and violence against [pro-Palestine students of color],” an online petition demanding Columbia fire Davidai, alleges.

According to the petition, which has garnered almost 11,000 signatures, Shai claims that any opposition towards him is "antisemitic" and engages in “doxing” or publishing private or public information about students to punish them for their political views.

"The issue is not with Shai’s individual political beliefs, the issue is how he uses personal social media accounts to target, harass, and bully students, including Palestinian students who have lost family members in Gaza,” the petition said.