Israeli response to cease-fire negotiations 'generally negative,' says Hamas: Day 166 of the Gaza war

This concludes our live coverage for today. Be sure to return tomorrow for our continued coverage of the war in Gaza.

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The Palestinian Authority said on Wednesday that three Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike on their vehicle in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, where the Israeli army confirmed it had "eliminated" an Islamic Jihad official and hit two other activists, reports AFP.

An "aircraft struck two important Islamic Jihad operatives aboard a vehicle," wrote the Israeli army in a statement. One of them, Ahmed Barakat, accused of a fatal attack on an Israeli living in a settlement near Jenin in May 2023, "was eliminated," and two other men who were planning "terrorist attacks" against Israel "were also hit," the army added.

Jenin, a town in the north of the West Bank and home to one of the most densely populated and impoverished refugee camps in the Palestinian territories, is a stronghold of groups engaged in armed struggle against Israel.

Israeli Army Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi said Wednesday during a visit to Gaza's al-Shifa hospital that the offensive on this infrastructure had "two objectives," namely "to hurt Hamas leaders" and "to put pressure on negotiations" for the release of hostages, according to Haaretz

"The arrest of senior officials is very, very important to put pressure on Hamas, but also to put pressure on the negotiations," said the soldier.

Halevi asserted that Hamas had turned the al-Shifa Hospital "into a command and control center" from which it had "resumed running the northern Gaza Strip."

Here is an update on the situation on the Lebanon-Israel border:

- Israeli military aircraft struck the town of Houla (Marjayoun), targeting a house. Several shops in a commercial center were destroyed near the main road, according to local residents. No casualties have been reported so far. Civil defense teams from the Risala Scout Association and Hezbollah's Health Authority are working to remove the rubble and open the road.

- Rockets were fired from Lebanon towards Israel, a security source told L’Orient Today.

- Hezbollah said it targeted the Israeli Marj site, opposite the Lebanese southern town of Markaba, at 6:05 pm.

- Israel bombed the town of Kfar Kila (Marjayoun), locals reported.

- Israeli warplanes struck a neighborhood in the town of Yaroun (Bint Jbeil), local residents reported.

On Wednesday, the Lebanese Ministry of Health published its latest assessment of clashes in southern Lebanon between Hezbollah and Israel, covering the period from Oct. 8, 2023 to March 20, 2024.  

Read the full story here.

The Amal movement, a close ally of Hezbollah, announced the death of its fighter Mohammad Qmeiha, born in 1988, from the southern town of Kfar Sir (Nabatieh) "while performing his national and jihadist duty defending Lebanon and the South." This raises the total number of Amal Movement members killed since Oct. 8 to 12. Qmeiha was killed in the previously reported Israeli strike on Qantara (Marjayoun).

Here is an update on Hezbollah’s attacks on northern Israel:

- At 5:40 pm the party’s fighters targeted the Israeli Zibdin site in the occupied Lebanese Shebaa Farms.

- At 5:35 Hezbollah attacked the Israeli Rwaisat al-Alam site in the occupied Lebanese hills of Kfar Shouba.

Here is an update on the situation in southern Lebanon:

- One man was killed, and another person was injured in an Israeli strike on a house in the town of Al-Qantara in the Marjayoun district, as reported by local residents to our correspondent.

- Israeli artillery shelling targeted the border town of Al-Abassieh in the Hasbaya district, according to local residents.

- Locals reported Israeli airstrikes targeting the town of Al-Ghandouriya in the Bint Jbeil district.

- Israeli artillery shelling targeted the outskirts of Kfar Hamam and Rashaya al-Foukhar (both located in the Hasbaya district), as reported by local residents.

Emergency surgeon Mads Gilbert, who worked at Gaza's al-Shifa Hospital during previous conflicts between Hamas and Israel, shared in an interview with Al-Jazeera details provided by his former colleagues at the medical complex after the latest Israeli raid, al-Jazeera reports.

"The medical staff were arrested and left for hours in the cold," the Norwegian doctor said in particular. "The Israeli army scanned their faces with a camera and took them away for what they described as "humiliating" interrogations," he added, quoted by Al Jazeera. "Some were forced to leave the hospital and taken to unknown locations. Others were moved south, half-naked," added Gilbert, adding that one doctor had been shot in the chest while following orders to leave the hospital.

Gilbert also stated that the Israeli army, in its "repeated attacks," makes no distinction "between combatants and medical personnel, patients and refugees." He added that, following Monday's raid, al-Shifa Hospital was once again out of service.

Saudi Arabia announced on Wednesday a $40 million donation to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), with which Israel is at loggerheads, reports AFP.

The funds will support UNRWA's "humanitarian aid efforts in the Gaza Strip," plagued by war between Israel and Hamas, providing "food to more than 250,000 people and tents to 20,000 families", according to a statement from King Salman's Center for Humanitarian Aid and Relief.

Jordan’s army announced new airdrop operations. The Jordanian army says it carried out six airdrop sessions of food aid over Gaza, together with allied countries’ air forces.

The operation was conducted with the participation of planes from the US, Egypt, Singapore and Germany, a statement said.

The Eilat-Ashkelon oil terminal, just south of the Eilat port area. (Credit: AFP)

Half of the workers at the Israeli port of Eilat are at risk of losing their jobs after the port suffered significant financial damage due to the Red Sea shipping lanes crisis, officials said on Wednesday, quoted by Reuters.

The port's management has announced plans to lay off half of its 120 employees. Dockworkers reacted with a demonstration on Wednesday.

Eilat is located on the northern tip of the Red Sea and was one of the first ports to be affected by shipping companies re-routing vessels to avoid attacks by Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen.

Smaller than Haifa and Ashdod, Eilat is a gateway for car imports and potash exports. As Jordan's only coastal access point to Aqaba, it also offers Israel a gateway to the Orient, bypassing the Suez Canal.

The situation in southern Lebanon since the morning:

- Shots were fired at shepherds who were a few dozen meters from homes in Wazzani (Hasbaya), the municipality's president told L'Orient Today. No injuries were reported, but some livestock were hit.

- Israeli artillery fire targeted the outskirts of Alma al-Shaab (Sour), according to local residents. 

The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has called on Israel to allow the UNRWA head into Gaza and to grant the necessary visas to UN and humanitarian staff.

“They are playing an indispensable role in bringing relief to the afflicted civilian population in Gaza,” he said on X.

On Wednesday, the US State Department said UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini and UN staff should be able to visit the agency’s fields of operation, including in Gaza.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that "2024 will be a year of war" while speaking at the annual work plan conference of the Ministry of Defense, according to Haaretz.

"The enlistment of all parts of the people and society is required – in order to ensure our qualitative and numerical advantage," alluding to the public debate surrounding exemptions received by ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students from mandatory army service.

"This is true militarily, security-wise, socially, and politically," the defense minister added.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has published a report documenting the statistics regarding Israeli attacks on healthcare infrastructure in Gaza between Oct. 7, 2023, and March 12, 2024.

The infographic posted on the official X account for WHO in occupied Palestinian territory says there have been 410 attacks targeting healthcare in Gaza which have resulted in 685 fatalities, 902 injuries, damage to 99 facilities, and affected 104 ambulances.

Two-fifths (38 percent) of attacks were in Gaza City, a quarter (23 percent) in North Gaza, and over a quarter (28 percent) in Khan Younis, the WHO says.

Donald Trump's son-in-law and former Senior Foreign Policy Adviser Jared Kushner praised the “very valuable” potential of Gaza’s “waterfront property” and suggested Israel should remove civilians while it “cleans up” the Strip, during an interview last month with Harvard University.

"But in addition to that, I would just bulldoze something in the Negev," a desert area of southern Israel, "I would try to move people in there," Kushner added. "I think that's a better option, so you can go in and finish the job."

Kushner's comments sparked a storm of online backlash. The Economist journalist Gregg Carlstrom wrote: "Kushner scores a hat trick [three goals in football] here with musings that would upset Palestinians (let's expel Gazans while we build some condos), Egyptians (maybe Sisi will take them), and Israelis (maybe we can stick them in the Negev) all at the same time."

👉 Read more here.

Ismail al-Thawabta, the director general of the government media office in Gaza, says that all 90 people that the Israeli army announced it killed in its Monday raid on al-Shifa Hospital were wounded patients and displaced persons taking shelter inside the medical complex, Reuters reports.

"The Israeli occupation army practices lying and deception in spreading its narrative as part of justifying its continuous and law-breaking crimes, which violate international law, international humanitarian law," al-Thawabta said.

The Israeli army said it detained more than 300 people, taken 160 back to Israel, and killed 90 gunmen during its attack on the hospital, which is the largest in northern Gaza. Reuters was unable to verify either account of the identities of those killed.

A Palestinian fisherman mends his nets on the beach, near a camp for displaced people in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on March 17, 2024. (Credit: Mohammed Abed/AFP)

Israeli soldiers deployed in the mountains. (Credit: @avichayadraee on X)

A new Israeli regional brigade, dubbed the "HaHarim" brigade (Hebrew for mountains), has been established on the Lebanese-Syrian border, announced Arabic-speaking Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee on X.

"As part of the adaptation of the operational response and following an assessment of the situation on the northern border, a new regional brigade has been formed on the Lebanese-Syrian border to defend the area of Jabal al-Sheikh [Mount Hermon] and Jabal al-Rous [Har Dov]."

"Har Dov" is the Hebrew name for the Shebaa Farms, a disputed territory located between Lebanon, Syria, and Israel, which the international community considers Syrian, which Israel has been occupying since 1967, and which Lebanon has laid claim to since 2000. Shebaa Farms is a clear example of a muddy Lebanese-Syrian borderline drawn up among colonial powers some 100 years ago.

👉 Read the full report here.

📚 Read about the complicated history of the Shebaa Farms here.

Armed and masked men from an array of clans and factions have started providing security for aid convoys in Gaza as Hamas tries to keep its clout in the enclave, Palestinian officials and Hamas sources say.

Video footage obtained by Reuters showed a convoy of trucks entering Gaza City with foreign aid overnight, watched by several men armed with AK-47 assault rifles and others wielding sticks.

With Israeli forces sworn to eliminate Hamas, it has become highly risky for anyone linked to the enclave's ruling party to emerge into the open to provide security for aid deliveries to desperate civilians, so other have stepped in to do so.

"Israel's plan to find some clans to collaborate with its pilot projects of finding an alternative to Hamas didn't succeed but it also showed that Palestinian resistance factions are the only ones who can run the show, in one way or another," said a Palestinian official who asked not to be named.

👉 Read the full report here.

United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Joanna Wronecka said yesterday that there is still a chance for diplomacy to prevent a widening of the conflict amid ongoing fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, on the Lebanese-Israeli border.

“With prevention and de-escalation at the top of our agenda, our collective focus, advocacy, and pressure must be foremost on urging the parties to restore the cessation of hostilities,” Wronecka told the UN Securty Council, during a briefing on the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701.

👉 Read the full report here.

The Israeli army claims it has killed 90 Palestinian fighters and interrogated 300 suspects at al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza since it began its offensive on the medical complex on Monday morning, Reuters reports.

Furthermore, according to the latest operational update, “an additional 160 suspects have been transferred to Israeli territory for further questioning.” Thousands of people were taking shelter at al-Shifa Hospital, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Among the hundreds detained was a team of Al Jazeera journalists, led by Ismail al-Ghoul. When al-Ghoul was released, he told Al Jazeera about what happened: The Israeli army started by destroying media equipment and arresting the journalists who were gathered in a room used by the media teams. The journalists were stripped of their clothes, al-Ghoul said, and placed in a room inside the medical compound where they were forced to lie on their stomachs with their eyes blindfolded and their hands tied for twelve hours before being taken in for interrogation. Israeli soldiers would open fire to scare them if there was any movement.

Britain's Foreign Secretary David Cameron says it is vital for there to be a pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas to enable the release of hostages in Gaza, but a lot of conditions first needed to be met for a lasting cease-fire.

Speaking to Reuters during a trip to Thailand, Cameron said attacks Hamas' attack on southern Israel and the taking of hostages was inhumane and that he believed the only way for the Palestinian people to have a future was with the militant group out of the picture.

Speaking of the six-week truce currently on the table in negotiations, he said "Crucially what we must try to do is to turn that pause into a permanent sustainable cease-fire."

Canada will halt future arms sales to Israel following a non-binding vote in its House of Commons, The Guardian reports. The foreign affairs minister, Melanie Joly, confirmed the decision with the Toronto Star yesterday, saying “It is a real thing."

A parliamentary motion, introduced by the New Democratic Party (NDP), was endorsed at the last minute by the leading Liberals after it made one significant adjustment. The original draft called on the government to "officially recognize the State of Palestine." Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's party amended the language so it would read instead that Canada will work "towards the establishment of the State of Palestine as part of a negotiated two-state solution."

The motion passed 204-117 with the support of Liberals, Bloc Québécois and the Green party.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is back in the region today, for his sixth visit since the start of Israel's war in Gaza. The White House says he's here to encourage progress in the cease-fire negotiations still underway this week between Israel and Hamas, and to arrange for more aid to enter Gaza.

The enclave has been under Israeli blockade since 2007 and since the war started, Israel has only allowed for two land crossings to be used to bring aid into Gaza. Seemingly unable to convince Israel to open another crossing, the US has instead carried out several aid airdropping operations, and the European Union facilitated a delivery of aid by sea from Cyprus.

Blinken will meet Saudi leaders in Jeddah and Egyptian leaders in Cairo to discuss the mediation brokered by Egypt and Qatar, and he said he would also "pursue conversations" on arrangements for governance, security, and redevelopment of post-conflict Gaza, Reuters reported.

We'll be following the news of these latest diplomatic attempts.

It was relatively calm last night at the Lebanese-Israeli border, similar to previous few days amid heavy rain and stormy weather. There was, however, one Hezbollah attack announced, which the party said took place at 9:40 p.m. against the Israeli position of "Marej" facing the Lebanese southern village of Markaba, in Marjayoun district. Hezbollah said the attack took place while an Israeli logistics team was trying to repair the position after its fighters had previously destroyed it.

Good morning! Thanks for joining us for another day of our live coverage of the Gaza war, and its repercussions in Lebanon and across the region.

🔴 Catch up on yesterday's live coverage here.

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