Hamas chief accuses Israel of ‘sabotaging’ truce talks

Hamas’s Qatar-based chief Ismail Haniyeh accused Israel on Tuesday of sabotaging ceasefire talks after its raid on Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, which Israel alleges is being used for military purposes. The UN’s human rights chief earlier warned that Israel’s severe restrictions on aid into the Gaza Strip and its ongoing bombardment of the Palestinian territory could mean it is using starvation as a “method of war”.

SUMMARY

• Hamas‘s chief Ismail Haniyeh has accused Israel of attempting to “sabotage” ceasefire talks following its raid on Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital, which the Israeli army says is being used for military purposes.
• Twenty Palestinians were killed in the early hours of Tuesday in Israeli air strikes on Rafah and central parts of the Gaza Strip, Gaza health officials said.
• In a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, US President Joe Biden said he was deeply concerned about a planned ground offensive in Rafah and warned it would be a “mistake”. 
• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Saudi Arabia and Egypt this week to discuss efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and increase humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory, a State Department spokesperson said.
• At least 31,819 Palestinians, mostly women and children have been killed and 73,934 wounded since Israel started its offensive on Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave. Around 1,139 people were killed in the Hamas-led October 7 attacks and and about 253 people taken hostage, according to Israeli figures, with 132 still missing.
• US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will host Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant next week for a bilateral meeting at the US Defense Department, an American defense official revealed
• Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s former White House adviser and his son-in-law, praised the “very valuable” potential of Gaza’s “waterfront property,” suggesting that Israel should remove civilians while it “cleans up” the area.“It’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but I think from Israel’s perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up,” Kushner added. “But I don’t think that Israel has stated that they don’t want the people to move back there afterward, ” he said during an interview dated Feb. 15, posted earlier this month on the YouTube channel of the Middle East Initiative, a program of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
• At least 15 people were killed by an Israeli airstrike targeting a house in the al Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, Palestinian health officials said on Tuesday. 
• The United States said Tuesday that Israel should let the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA into Gaza, after he was denied entry.
  “Our belief is that they should be able to visit UNRWA’s field of operation, including in Gaza, and we’re going to continue to work with the government of Israel to rapidly approve all requested visas for UN and NGO workers,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters.
• In an interview with FRANCE 24, the executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) sounded the alarm about the situation facing children amid the war in Gaza. 
• 
  Catherine Russell said that an estimate of 13,450 children killed in the Palestinian territory since October 7, 2023 is “probably on the low end”. She noted that other children are trapped in the rubble or are wounded and often separated from their families. Russell also discussed the “incredibly dire” situation regarding hunger in Gaza.
• According to a UN-backed food security assessment, half of Gaza’s population is experiencing “catastrophic” hunger, with famine projected to hit the north “any time” between now and May without urgent intervention. 
• “This is very much a man-made problem,’ Russell told FRANCE 24. “All of us in the international community have to do better here and make sure that we can get aid in to these children.” She concluded: “We cannot have children starving to death [in Gaza], that is not acceptable”.
• Destroying Hamas in Rafah would require a ground incursion by Israeli forces, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday following a call by the White House to rethink strategy around the Gaza border city packed with displaced Palestinians.
• An Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip’s southern city of Rafah would result in major destruction and “atrocities” that have not been seen in the conflict, Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari said on Tuesday.
• Israel’s spy chief has left Doha but talks over a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release are continuing in the Qatari capital, a senior Qatari official said on Tuesday. Mossad chief David Barnea “has left Doha,” foreign ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari told a regular briefing, adding that “technical teams are meeting as we speak”.
• Israeli raids hit warehouses storing weapons for the Lebanese Hezbollah group in Syria on Tuesday, a war monitor said, as a Syrian military source said air defenses had intercepted several missiles.
  The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the latest strikes near the capital Damascus on Tuesday had destroyed weapons and ammunition, causing secondary explosions and fires.

FRANCE 24

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