Thank you for following our LIVE coverage of day 114 of the Israel-Hamas war. We will be back tomorrow with more news updates.
Three people lost their lives in the locality of Marwahine (Sour district), after the Israeli strike at midday, according to residents quoted by our correspondent.
Sunday's meeting in Paris between senior American, Egyptian, Qatari and Israeli officials on a ceasefire in Gaza was "constructive," said the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, adding that there were "still differences" between the parties.
The heads of Mossad and Shin Bet were present for Israel, according to the statement.
They "will continue to discuss this week in other meetings," the text added.
The civil defense teams of the Islamic Message Scouts removed the rubble of the house that was targeted in the airstrike on the town of Marwahine this afternoon, according to our correspondent in the south.
Security sources say the airstrike on the town resulted in injuries.
The central civil defense operations room of the Islamic Message Scouts Association issued the following statement:
"The Civil Defense members of the Islamic Message Scouts Association participated in rescue operations and debris removal after the Israeli airstrike on the town of [Dhaira]. Some of the injuries were transferred to area hospitals."
An attack that killed three American servicemen was not on Jordanian soil but in Syria, a spokesperson for Jordan's government said today, according to Reuters.
Norway, one of the major donors to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), will maintain its funding despite suspicions that some of its employees were involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, it announced today according to AFP.
"Norway has decided to continue its funding," its foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, announced in a statement.
"While I share the concern about the very serious allegations concerning some UNRWA staff, I urge other donors to reflect on the broader consequences of reducing UNRWA's funding at this time of extreme humanitarian distress," he added.
"We should not collectively punish millions of people," the minister continued.
Israel accused several UNRWA employees on Friday of involvement in the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
Biden says attack on US forces that killed three US service members was carried out by "radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq," according to Reuters.
Trucks carrying humanitarian aid from Israel to the southern Gaza Strip were forced to turn back today after demonstrations calling for the release of Israeli hostages, AFP reported.
"Around 200 demonstrators" gathered around the Kerem Shalom crossing, according to Cogat, the Israeli Defense Ministry body that coordinates the army's civilian activities in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The army said in a statement today that the perimeter of the crossing was now a "closed military zone."
The demonstrators demanded that no aid should reach Gaza until the hostages had been released. Some of the demonstrators have relatives still being held hostage, as one of them told AFP.
Palestinian children play in front of rubble at a makeshift camp housing displaced Palestinians in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip on Jan. 28, 2024, amid Israel-Hamas war.
(Credit: AFP)
Six Israeli shells targeted an area between the towns of Alma al-Shaab and Dhaira, as well as the outskirts of Boustan and Umm el-Tout (Sour district), according to residents quoted by our correspondent.
The White House said today that there was no change in its Israel policy, after NBC News reported the United States was discussing using weapon sales to Israel as leverage to convince the Israeli government to scale back its military assault in Gaza, according to Reuters.
Latest update of the security situation in southern Lebanon
• A woman in her home was lightly injured due to shattered glass by an Israeli airstrike targeting Dhaira (Sour district), according to preliminary information obtained by L'Orient Today's correspondent in the south. Local residents mentioned that the woman had refused to flee her house in the upper side of Dhaira. The information also indicates the destruction of several homes by Israeli strikes, including the targeting of an entire neighborhood in the upper side of Dhaira.
• Rockets were launched from southern Lebanon towards Israel, as reported by security sources. Haaretz said that aerial infiltration alarms sounded in the village of Katzrin (northern Israel), near the Lebanese town of Kfar Shuba (Hasbaya district).
• A security source and residents reported that Israeli artillery shelled the towns of Houla and Markaba (Marjayoun district), with shells falling between the houses.
Latest update on the security situation in southern Lebanon (past hour)
• Rockets were launched from south Lebanon towards northern Israel, according to security sources. Rocket alarms were activated in northern Israel in Zar'it, Arab al-Aramshe, Shomera and other towns, as reported by Haaretz.
• Israel carried out an air raid on Dhaira (Sour district), targeting homes, according to local residents. Ambulances are en route to the affected sites.
• Israel targeted the outskirts of Maroun al-Ras (Bint Jbeil district), as reported by eyewitnesses.
• Israel shelled Labbouneh, south Naqoura (Sour district), according to local residents.
• Hezbollah claimed responsibility for targeting a deployment of Israeli soldiers in the vicinity of the Hounin barracks in northern Israel, close to the Lebanese town of Houla (Marjayoun district), at 3:30 p.m.
• Israeli artillery shelled the outskirts of Tal al-Nahas, northern Kfar Kila (Marjayoun district), with three shells, as reported by local residents.
• In another statement, Hezbollah claimed to have targeted Israeli soldiers at 2:50 p.m. in the Israeli site of Tal Shaar, facing the Lebanese town of Aita al-Shaab (Bint Jbeil district).
The head of the US Central Intelligence Agency as well as top Egyptian, Qatari and Israeli officials were communicating in Paris today to seek a ceasefire in Gaza, officials close to the participants said, according to AFP.
France announced today that it would not be making any further payments to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in the first half of 2024, following accusations on Friday that employees may have been involved in the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, according to AFP.
Turkey is concerned by the decision of some countries to suspend funding for the United Nations agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and urges them to reconsider their move, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said today, according to Reuters.
According to a report by NBC news, the Biden administration is considering "using weaponry sales to Israel as leverage to convince the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to heed longstanding US calls to scale back its military assault in the Gaza Strip."
The report states that although the Pentagon has been reviewing Israeli weaponry requests, no decisions have been made. Sources reportedly said that the US is discussing slowing or pausing the delivery "of certain weapons."
Contrastingly, the report also stated that, according to officials, "administration officials have also discussed offering the Israeli government more of the weapons it has requested as an incentive to take some steps that the US has requested."
The international community needs to decide to make international humanitarian law "applicable to everyone," Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said today, when asked about the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on the case against Israel, according to Reuters.
“More than half a million Palestinians in Khan Younis have received orders [from the Israeli army] to evacuate their homes, hospitals and health centers,” Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad al-Maliki wrote on X, denouncing the "cruel expansion of forced displacement" of Palestinians towards southern Gaza.
Earlier in the day, Avichay Adraee, an Arabic-speaking spokesperson for the Israeli army, called on residents of Khan Younis to "immediately move to the al-Mawasi humanitarian zone via the sea route" and to leave Khan Younis for their “security.”
The town of Khan Younis has been the scene of fierce fighting for several days.
Here's an update on the security situation in southern Lebanon in the last hour:
*Hezbollah reported that its fighters targeted a deployment of Israeli soldiers in the Ramim base and its surroundings at 2 p.m. Ramim is an Israeli site established in the town of Hounin, located in northern Israel along the border with Lebanon near the town of Kiryat Shmona. A security source had earlier informed L’Orient Today that missiles were launched from southern Lebanon towards Israeli positions. According to Haaretz, the Israeli army detected four launches into open areas around Margaliot in northern Israel, located near Kiryat Shmona.
*Israeli artillery shelling targeted the towns of Markaba and Wadi Saluki (Marjayoun district), according to local residents.
*A security source reported that several missiles were launched towards Israel from southern Lebanon.
*Israeli artillery shelling targeted a house in the town of Dhaira (Sour district). According to residents, there were no injuries.
"UNRWA is the lifeline for over 2m Palestinians facing starvation in Gaza. It shouldn’t be collectively punished upon allegations against 12 persons out of its 13000 staff," Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi writes on X, urging countries that have suspended funding to the organization to reverse their decision.
An Israeli commander has announced that the Kerem Shalom border crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip has been declared a "closed military zone," Haaretz reports.
In recent days, demonstrators in Israel have repeatedly tried to prevent the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, demanding the release of hostages still in the hands of Hamas before any aid is delivered to the enclave.
Rockets were launched from southern Lebanon towards Israeli positions, a security source tells our correspondent. According to Haaretz, alarm sirens sounded in Kiryat Shmona , in northern Israel, opposite the village of Houla (Marjayoun).
Britain’s Defense Ministry says it shot down a Houthi drone as it attempted to attack the HMS Diamond warship.
Yemen’s Houthi group has launched drones and missiles at shipping in the Red Sea since Nov. 19 in response to Israel’s military operations in Gaza. Click here for more.
"Israeli military and intelligence officials have concluded that a significant number of the weapons used by Hamas in the Oct. 7 attacks and the war in Gaza came from an unlikely source: the Israeli army itself," the New York Times reports in an article published today. More details here.
“Over half a million Palestinians in Khan Younis were instructed by the occupying forces to evacuate their homes, including hospitals and health centers, in a cruel expansion and deepening of forced displacement from southern regions,” the Palestinian Foreign Ministry says in a post on X.
A UN expert has warned that countries defunding the UN agency for Palestinian refugees are breaching a court order to provide effective aid in Gaza and could be violating the international genocide convention, AFP reports.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, warned that the decision to pause funding to UNRWA "overtly defies" the order by the International Court of Justice to allow effective humanitarian assistance" to reach Gazans. More details here.
Image: Displaced Palestinians receive food aid at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) center in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Jan. 28, 2024. (Credit: AFP)
The Gaza Health Ministry is asking for safe passage for wounded requiring neurosurgery from the al-Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis to the nearby Jordanian field hospital.
"We demand that a safe passage be provided to transport the wounded requiring neurosurgery from al-Nasser medical complex to the nearby Jordanian field hospital," Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesman for the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, said.
"Donors, do not starve children for the sins of a few individual aid workers," Jan Egeland, the secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, has pleaded on the social media platform X as a growing list of countries suspend funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in light of allegations of several UNRWA members' involvement in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
"UNRWA’s lifesaving aid in Gaza threatened by donors recklessly suspending aid. UNRWA has rightly terminated the contracts of those alleged to violate our neutrality principle. Donors, do not starve children for the sins of a few individual aid workers," Egeland wrote.
The United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Finland, Australia and Canada have all decided to suspend their funding of UNRWA.
The situation in south Lebanon over the past hour:
* Artillery fire hit the outskirts of Jibbayn and Tayr Harfa, as well as the area around Yarine, in the Sour district, according to local residents. Five shells fell on these areas, according to the same sources.
* Residents of Kfar Kila (Marjayoun district) reported machine-gun fire on the village.
* In a statement shared on its Telegram channel, Hezbollah claimed responsibility for a missile strike launched at 12.33 p.m., targeting a group of soldiers at the Israeli position of "Birket Richa," opposite the Lebanese towns of Marwahine and Boustan (Sour district).
* An Israeli fighter jet bombed the village of Marwahine in the Sour district.
The disaster management unit in Sour, which is responsible for displaced persons from villages in southern Lebanon hit by Israel strikes since Oct. 8, has temporarily closed its doors since Friday, in protest of repeated assaults on its staff, the organization has announced.
The conflict between Hezbollah and the Israeli army in southern Lebanon, which erupted after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel and in the wake of Israel's bloody retaliation in Gaza, has displaced more than 80,000 people living in border villages, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration. The Sour region has welcomed a third of those displaced.
For more details on this incident, click here.
Families are laying their children to rest in a collective grave within the courtyard of al-Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Al Jazeera reports.
Video footage obtained by the news outlet shows approximately 30 bodies lined up at the hospital as grieving families perform funeral prayers and inter their loved ones in a makeshift cemetery constructed by residents within the hospital premises.
The inability to access external cemeteries due to continuous Israeli attacks has compelled them to resort to this alternative, Al Jazeera reports.
The Wall Street Journal, citing multiple unnamed US officials, reports that as the conflict in Gaza enters its fourth month, the Israeli military has managed to damage or make inoperable an estimated 20-40 percent of the extensive network of tunnels constructed by Hamas beneath the enclave.
Attempts to clear the tunnels using methods such as flooding have raised concerns about the potential impact on Gaza's freshwater supplies and above-ground infrastructure.
WSJ cites the same unnamed sources as saying additional troops would be required for Israel to address the remaining tunnels, which also serve as hiding places for Hamas leaders and captives. Click here for more.
Here's an update on the security situation in southern Lebanon in the last hour:
*Israel targeted the outskirts of the southern towns of Zibqin and Majdal Zoun (both located in the Sour district), according to eyewitnesses and local residents.
*The outskirts of Houla (Marjayoun district) were targeted by Israeli airstrikes. According to residents, the strikes hit several houses and damaged cars. A shell fell on a cemetery, damaging tombs. During the airstrike on Houla, a missile from an Israeli warplane fell but did not explode.
*Israel targeted the area between Jibbayn and Chihine (Sour district).
*Israeli artillery targeted the outskirts of Um al-Tut (Sour district).
*Artillery shelling also targeted the area between Um al-Tut and Chihine (both located in the Sour district), according to eyewitnesses.
*Israeli machine gun fire targeted the Labbouneh area south of Naqoura (Sour district), according to local residents.
After UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged countries that had suspended funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) to "at least guarantee" the continuation of its operations, Israel's ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, accused Guterres of choosing to ignore "evidence" of UNRWA'a involvement in "incitement and terrorism," Haaretz reports.
The agency, at the heart of humanitarian aid in Gaza, announced on Friday that it had fired several employees accused of involvement in the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas in Israel, on the basis of information from Israeli authorities.
Israeli security forces are preventing protesters from blocking the entry of humanitarian aid trucks into the Gaza Strip via the Karem Shalom crossing, Haaretz reports. A video was posted by the Israeli news outlet shows the forces pushing back protesters as humanitarian trucks pass through on their way to Gaza.
Earlier, we reported that the Israeli organization "Tzav 9," which opposes the entry of aid into Gaza prior to the release of Hamas-held hostages, had blocked the road leading to the Kerem Shalom border crossing between Israel and the Palestinian enclave.
The Israeli organization "Tzav 9," which is opposed to aid entering Gaza before Israeli hostages are released, has blocked the road leading to the Kerem Shalom border crossing between Israel and the Palestinian enclave, Haaretz reports. Similar sit-ins have taken place almost daily in recent days.
The organization claims that no aid should enter Gaza until the hostages are freed and that the trucks entering Gaza are giving Hamas "oxygen and breathing space … to continue fighting against us." The protest comes after Israeli security officials said they would not allow aid trucks to be blocked at the Kerem Shalom crossing following Friday's ICJ verdict.
Negotiations on an agreement for the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas are progressing, the AP reports, citing two senior administration officials who spoke to the news agency on condition of anonymity.
Under the emerging terms of the agreement, which is not yet finalized, the release would take place in two phases. First, a pause in the fighting would allow Hamas to release some of the remaining hostages: women, the elderly and the wounded. Then, during the first 30 days of the pause, Israel and Hamas would work out the details of a second phase in which Israeli soldiers and other civilians would be freed.
The emerging agreement also reportedly calls for Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.
In Gaza, 165 people have been killed and 290 injured in the last 24 hours, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-governed enclave.
Since the start of the war, the death toll has risen to 26,422, with 65,087 injured.
In the Gaza Strip, violent clashes took place overnight, including mortar attacks on Israeli tanks claimed by the armed branches of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, AFP reports.
Rockets were also fired at southern Israel, and fighting broke out in several districts of Gaza City and in the north of the enclave.
At least 129 people were killed by Israeli strikes overnight, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which describes the health crisis in the territory as "catastrophic."
Last night, pre-dawn this morning, was relatively calm in south Lebanon, according to security sources:
- Shortly after 9 p.m., artillery bombardments took place on the outskirts of Majdel Zoun (Marjayoun) and Zebqine (Sour).
- Around 9.30 p.m., rockets were fired from Lebanon towards northern Israel.
- Between 9:30 p.m. and 10 p.m., artillery bombardments targeted the outskirts of Chihine, Tayr Harfa, Yarine, Jibbayn and Aita al-Shaab (Sour), and Majdal Zoun (Marjayoun). Ten shells were observed.
- After 10 p.m., calm prevailed, with no further military operations until early this morning.
Artillery shells had already fallen earlier on the village of Tayr Harfa as well as on Majdel Zoun (Sour district), according to local residents.
Southern Lebanon: At dawn today, an Israeli missile fired from a drone targeted a supermarket at a crossroads in Tayr Harfa (Sour dsitrict). Several businesses, including a café and a hairdressing salon opposite the supermarket, were damaged by the strike, according to local residents.
UN chief Antonio Guterres has called on donor states to guarantee the flow of aid to Gaza after several halted funding to UNRWA, the agency for Palestinians, over claims some of its staff participated in the Oct. 7 attacks, AFP reports.
"While I understand their concerns — I was myself horrified by these accusations — I strongly appeal to the governments that have suspended their contributions to, at least, guarantee the continuity of UNRWA's operations," Guterres said in a statement late yesterday. More details here.
Good morning,
We're here again today with live updates from day 114 of the Israel-Hamas war.
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