A woman searches through the rubble of a collapsed building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on April 24, 2024 following Israeli air strikes overnight. (Credit: Mohammed Abed/AFP)
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Catch up on yesterday’s LIVE coverage of Day 200 of the Gaza war here.
An Israeli airstrike killed a woman and her 10-year-old niece, and wounded four other of her nieces and nephews and their grandparents in Hanine (Bint Jbeil). The attack also demolished the two-story home they were in. Earlier the same day, Hezbollah fired drones farther south into Israel than most strikes since Oct. 8 in retaliation for the killing of two of its fighters yesterday, one of which Israel claimed was a senior member of the party’s “air defense” unit. The strike, part of Israel’s attempts to dent Hezbollah’s aerial capabilities in the wake of attacks on its drones, followed party officials’ boasting of their drone interception capabilities the day after downing another Israeli Hermes 450 unmanned aerial vehicle.
Lebanon’s caretaker Justice Minister proposed deporting Syrians held in Lebanese prisons, among government solutions to overcrowding. “If the Syrian authorities agree to take them back, the story ends,” Khoury said, noting that General Security acting director Elias Baissari was assigned to liaise with Syria. Judicial congestion has left some 86 percent of incarcerated people in Lebanon awaiting trial in detention centers that have reached twice their intake capacity, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said last August. Lebanese prisons are condemned by international watchdogs and prisoners’ relatives as horrific, squalid, conducive to disease and prone to use torture. Caretaker Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi last October blamed Syrians for 30 percent of crimes committed in Lebanon, without backing the figure, amid a steady stream of anti-Syrian rhetoric from officials — rekindled over the past weeks in restrictive measures and plans for deportation shortly after the killing and abduction to Syria of Lebanese Forces official Pascal Sleiman.
Year-on-year inflation returned to double-digits for the first time since June 2020 according to the Central Administration of Statistics’ Consumer Price Index (CPI). Prices increased 1.72 percent between February and March, contributing to the 70.36 percent increase to the CPI from March 2023. The drop from the 123.21 percent yearly inflation recorded in February is likely the result of a spike in lira-denominated prices last March following the local currency’s nadir on the parallel market — from which it recovered in the wake of central bank interventions and commercial banks’ suspension of an open-ended strike.
At least 34,183 people have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, according to the latest figures from the enclave’s Health Ministry. Northern Gaza residents told Reuters they faced a “night of horror” reminiscent of the early days of the war, with unrelenting overnight Israeli bombardment after Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on Israel. The Wall Street Journal reported that the US, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt were preparing to coordinate an evacuation of Rafah ahead of the ground invasion long touted by Israel despite international warnings. The report followed a US State Department spokesperson saying there would be ”no way to conduct an operation in Rafah that would not lead to inordinate civilian harm.” The United Nations Palestine Refugee Agency (UNRWA) said that the rate of aid deliveries to Gaza fell well below what the enclave needed despite Israeli promises to facilitate humanitarian relief after stringent Israeli restrictions and months of war left Palestinians starving to death and facing an encroaching famine.
In case you missed it, here’s our must-read story from yesterday: “Are municipalities' restrictions against Syrians legal?”
Compiled by Abbas Mahfouz