[News] In State of the Union address, US president tells Israeli leadership protecting civilians in Gaza ‘has to be a priority’

[GL HERO SHIMA]

UK support for the marine aid corridor to Gaza has involved assistance with planning and surveying, Downing Street has said, according to the Press Association (PA).

A Number 10 spokesperson said:

We will and have been supporting it. We have supported the US in planning for the pontoon, including by sending marine surveyors and will now be working with partners to operationalise our maritime aid corridor from Cyprus.

We continue to be very clear that we need to go much further, not enough aid is getting into Gaza, and we continue to push them to take further action, to do more to protect civilians, to abide by international humanitarian law and allow more aid in and to protect foreign aid workers and to facilitate humanitarian operations.

We continue to impress the importance of this in our conversations and as you’ve seen today we are also taking action with our allies to get more vital aid in.”

UK involvement in the maritime corridor is not expected to involve a deployment of British personnel to Gaza, added the PA.

Israeli army says its troops fired at Palestinians who 'posed threat' near aid convoy

Israel’s army said on Friday its initial probe into an incident that the Palestinian health authorities said left more than 100 Palestinians dead as crowds rushed an aid convoy, found troops “fired precisely” at approaching suspects, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

World leaders had called for an investigation into the incident on 29 February when the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said Israeli forces opened fire on people scrambling for food from a truck convoy. The Israeli military said at the time that a “stampede” occurred when thousands of people surrounded the convoy.

Releasing its initial findings on Friday, the military said in a statement that the “command review” found that “troops did not fire at the humanitarian convoy”. It added, however, that they “did fire at a number of suspects who approached the nearby forces and posed a threat to them”.

The health ministry in Gaza, in an updated toll issued on Friday, said 120 people were killed in the 29 February incident and at least 750 others were injured. It has previously alleged they were shot by Israeli forces.

Witnesses said thousands of people had rushed towards aid trucks in Gaza City early that morning, and that soldiers “fired at the crowd as people came too close to the tanks.”

A UN team that visited Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital the day after the incident reported seeing “a large number of gunshot wounds” among dozens of Palestinian patients.

In its statement on Friday, the military said about 12,000 Palestinians had gathered around the aid trucks and began taking the supplies, reports AFP.

“During the course of the looting, incidents of significant harm to civilians occurred from the stampede and people being run over by the trucks,” the army said.

At that time, “dozens of Gazans advanced towards nearby IDF troops, up to several metres from them, and thereby posed a real threat to the forces at that point,” it said.

The military said troops “fired cautionary fire in order to distance the suspects,” and after they continued to advance, “the troops fired precisely toward a number of suspects to remove the threat.”

A Hamas official told AFP that ceasefire negotiations were not over, on Friday.

“The mediators informed Hamas that efforts will continue to reach an agreement,” the official told AFP, requesting not to be named as he was not authorised to speak on the matter.

Israeli war cabinet member Gadi Eisenkot said Hamas was under “very serious pressure” from mediators to make a “counter-offer”. “Then it will be possible to advance it and take a position,” he said.

US president Joe Biden had urged Hamas to accept a ceasefire plan with Israel before Ramadan, but Hamas negotiators left talks with mediators in Egypt to consult with the movement’s leadership in Qatar.

According to AFP, Hamas’s delegation voiced dissatisfaction with Israeli responses so far before leaving Cairo, although US ambassador to Israel Jack Lew denied the talks had “broken down”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/mar/08/middle-east-crisis-live-updates-israel-gaza-palestine-hamas-war-state-of-the-union-biden