[News] Middle East crisis: 16-year-old boy reportedly killed during Israeli raid near Ramallah – as it happened

[GL HERO SHIMA]

Summary of the day …

It is 5pm in Gaza, Beirut and Tel Aviv. Here are the headlines …

A 16-year-old boy has been shot and killed by Israeli security forces during an overnight raid in the al-Amari camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, according to reports. Palestinian news agency Wafa also reports that 55 Palestinians were detained overnight by Israeli security forces. The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society states that about 7,400 Palestinians have now been detained by Israel since 7 October.

US vice-president Kamala Harris called yesterday for an immediate six-week ceasefire. She said “people in Gaza are starving” and that the Israeli government must do more to increase the flow of aid. “The conditions are inhumane,” she added. “Our common humanity compels us to act”. Israel’s interior security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir responded on Monday morning by posting “It’s time to destroy Hamas, Kamala” to social media.

Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz is in Washington to meet Harris. An official from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party said Gantz did not have approval from the prime minister for his meetings, underscoring the widening crack within Israel’s wartime leadership nearly six months into the war.

Hamas has said it is pressing on with talks in Cairo aimed at securing a ceasefire in Gaza despite Israel’s decision not to attend. However, in Beirut a Hamas spokesperson called on Palestinians to “make every moment of Ramadan a confrontation.”

The deaths of more than 100 people when Israeli forces opened fire near an aid convoy in Gaza was a tragedy that should have been foreseen and could have been prevented, the World Food Programme director for Gaza has said. Matthew Hollingworth also said an aid corridor into northern Gaza was needed urgently to prevent a “man-made” famine there after Palestinians were starved of food at terrifying speed and scale.

In its latest operational briefing, Israel’s military claims to have apprehended suspected members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad who were attempting to flee “under the protection of the civilian po[CENSORED]tion”, and to have destroyed a cell who were firing rockets from Gaza into Israel. It claimed that over the past day, IDF troops killed 15 terrorists using sniper, tank, and aerial fire. The claims have not been independently verified.

At least 30,534 Palestinians have been killed and 71,920 injured by Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, according to the latest figures from the Hamas-led health ministry in the Palestinian territory. Over the same time period, in its latest briefing, the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) noted that at least 409 Palestinians have been reported killed, including 103 children, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.

Mohammad Shtayyeh, caretaker prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, has accused Israel of “systematic criminality” and said countries that support Israel should “feel ashamed”.

Family members of those still being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza have staged a silent march today in the Knesset in Jerusalem, demanding their release after 150 days in captivity.

Lebanese media reported Israeli airstrikes in the south of the country, near the UN-drawn blue line that separates Lebanon from Israel. Earlier Israeli media reported that one person had been killed and at least seven wounded by fire from inside Lebanon that crossed into Israel at Margaliot.

US envoy Amos Hochstein has been in Beirut, where he said that a limited war across Lebanon’s southern border would not be containable. In Geneva, Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, described military escalation in southern Lebanon as “extremely worrying”.

We are closing this live blog now. You can find all of our latest news on the Israel-Gaza war here, including this recent report from my colleague Harriet Sherwood.

Twin babies among 14 killed in Israeli airstrike on house in Rafah

Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting for Al Jazeera from Rafah, says “there has a clear increase in the Israeli military attacks in the past 24 hours.”

He told the news network that 17 Palestinians have been killed by an Israeli strike on Rafah that destroyed two residential houses, and that loud explosions can be heard coming from the city of Khan Younis.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/mar/04/middle-east-crisis-live-israel-gaza-kamala-harris-ceasefire-latest-news