Israel-Palestine live: Netanyahu rejects Hamas ceasefire proposal, vows ‘total victory’

Israel executed a 13-year-old boy, Nahed Barbakh, in Khan Younis when he went outside with a white flag. 

His brother Ramiz, 20, rushed to rescue him and was also gunned down by Israeli forces.

This marks one of several similar tragedies where Israel has killed Palestinian civilians holding white flags, which is considered a war crime. 

At least 26,083 Palestinians have been killed and 64,487 wounded by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip since 7 October, the Palestinian Health Ministry said on Friday.

It added that at least 183 people have been killed and 377 injured in the past 24 hours.

Demonstrators, including families of captives in Gaza, are blocking the Kerem Shalom crossing for the third day in an attempt to prevent humanitarian aid trucks from entering the Gaza Strip.

Danny Elgert, whose brother Itzik is being held captive by Hamas in Gaza, told the Israeli daily that "it doesn't make sense" to let the aid trucks into the Strip given that the country is bombing it.

Against the background of a crisis in relations between South Africa following the accusations of genocide and Israel, the country's national airlines El Al intends to cancel the two direct weekly flights to the city of Johannesburg starting in April.

A group of White House staffers is calling on others to boycott a party being hosted by chief of staff Jeff Zients to send a message to the Biden administration that it needs to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

The call highlights the internal divisions inside the Biden administration over the US president's approach to Israel's war in Gaza, which has killed nearly 26,000 Palestinians - many of whom are women and children.

"If you are an administration staffer and agree that both Israelis and Palestinians have the right to live with equal rights, safety, peace, and human dignity, stay home and do not attend this party," the staffers wrote in an email shared with Middle East Eye.

"If you cannot stay home, we ask you to wear green in solidarity with this movement to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire. Peace and safety for all across the Middle East is essential."

Earlier this month, Axios reported that a "morale-booster" party was being hosted off campus by Zients for hundreds of Biden staffers "to celebrate their last three years - and steel the team for the final sprint ahead of the election". 

Read more: White House staffers spurn 'morale-booster' party and call for ceasefire

Chinese officials have asked their Iranian counterparts to help rein in attacks on ships in the Red Sea by the Iran-backed Houthis, or risk harming business relations with Beijing, four Iranian sources and a diplomat familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.

The discussions about the attacks and trade between China and Iran took place at several recent meetings in Beijing and Tehran, the Iranian sources told Reuters, declining to provide details about when they took place or who attended.

"Basically, China says: 'If our interests are harmed in any way, it will impact our business with Tehran. So tell the Houthis to show restraint'," said one Iranian official briefed on the talks, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

It is too early to say whether the loss of 21 Israeli soldiers in one day in central Gaza's Maghazi refugee camp will turn out to be a pivotal moment of the war in Gaza.

There are, certainly, precedents. One is the loss of 73 soldiers when two helicopters collided over Northern Galilee in 1997. That was the starting point of a protest movement which led to the withdrawal from Lebanon three years later.

But the loss at Maghazi of soldiers who were mostly reservists could certainly add to the growing war fatigue of the Israeli public, who are increasingly at a loss to understand what the war on Gaza is achieving.

While a majority continue to back the war, they are not buying the army’s claims that 17 out of Hamas’s 24 battalions have “collapsed”, that one-third of the Palestinian movement’s fighters have been killed, and that the Israeli military controls 60 percent of the territory in the Gaza Strip.

The soldiers at Magazi were mining houses for demolition in an area under army control. “Control” is becoming a relative concept, as Hamas’s hit-and-run strikes prove only too clearly.

Read more: A coalition against Netanyahu's forever war is growing in Israel

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is set to deliver on Friday its ruling on the provisional measures requested by South Africa in its genocide case against Israel.

The court is not expected to provide a final ruling on whether Israel is guilty of committing genocide in its war on the Gaza but instead will be ruling on the nine provisional measures requested by South Africa in its case.

Amongst the measures called for by South Africa are for Israel to:

• Immediately suspend its military operations in and against Gaza.

• Ensure its armed units take no steps in furtherance of military operations.

• Take all reasonable measures within its power to prevent genocide.

• Prevent its armed forces from engaging in direct and public incitement to commit genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, attempt to commit genocide, or complicity in genocide.

• Take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts within the scope of Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

For more information on what you can expect tomorrow, click below.

What to expect from Friday's ICJ ruling on South Africa's genocide case against Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “right-wing government” is “starving the Palestinian people”, says US Senator Bernie Sanders.

“On top of its indiscriminate bombardment, Israel is imposing onerous restrictions to block the delivery of essential humanitarian aid. The US must use all of its leverage to end this horrific war,” Sanders wrote on X.

Good morning readers of Middle East Eye,

We are on day 112 of the Israeli war on Gaza and the Palestinian death toll in the besieged strip stands at almost 26,000, the vast majority women and children.

In its latest update the Palestinian Health Ministry has said that  at least 64,110 have been wounded in attacks by the Israeli military.

More than 8,000 missing who are believed to be dead and buried under rubble.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is set to deliver on Friday its ruling on the provisional measures requested by South Africa in its genocide case against Israel.

The court is not expected to provide a final ruling on whether Israel is guilty of committing genocide in its war on the Gaza but instead will be ruling on the nine provisional measures requested by South Africa in its case.

Here are the major developments from the last few hours: 

• An Israeli air attack on a house in the al-Hassayna neighbourhood of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza has killed at least 11 people
• Heavy fighting is under way in the vicinity of the Al-Aqsa, Nasser, al-Amal and Al Kheir hospitals in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, the UN report
• At least 200 people killed and 370 injured in 24-hour period between Wednesday and Thursday afternoon, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry
• The US lauded Qatar’s “integral, irreplaceable” mediation efforts in the Gaza conflict after Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu allegedly called Doha’s role in negotiations “problematic”