UNRWA’s chief says dismantling the agency is “short-sighted” and will “sow the seeds of hatred, resentment, and future conflict.” Israeli forces fire at Palestinians seeking aid and food in Gaza City and detain others in southern Gaza. For more information, log in to Mondoweiss Daily Headlines
Casualties
- 30,631+ killed* and at least 72,043 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
- 380+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem
- Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,147.
- 586 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 3,221 injured.**
*Gaza’s Ministry of Health confirmed this figure on its Telegram channel. Some rights groups put the death toll number closer to 35,000 when accounting for those presumed dead.
** This figure is released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.”
Key Developments
- Israeli forces shoot at Palestinians seeking food and aid near north Gaza’s Kuwaiti roundabout.
- Philippe Lazzarini says “UNRWA is facing a deliberate and concerted campaign to undermine its operations, and ultimately end them” by Israel in the Gaza Strip.
- Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan says“. In Gaza, the UN is a terror organization itself”.
- According to Gaza’s governmental Media Office, Israeli aggression on Gaza killed 13,430 Palestinian children since October.
- Footage appears of Israeli soldiers detaining Palestinians in Gaza City in humiliating conditions while they are stripped naked, blindfolded, and handcuffed.
- WHO chief says “Kamal Adwan Hospital is the only pediatrics hospital in the north of Gaza and is overwhelmed with patients”.
- WHO delivers 9,500 liters of fuel and essential medical supplies to each of Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals.
- Leaked audio of three hostages accidentally killed by Israeli forces in Gaza emboldens protests in Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem against Netanyahu.
- Haaretz says the report about the Israeli military spokesperson’s resignation by Channel 14 is “fake”.
- Spanish government imposes the first batch of sanctions on 12 illegal settlers in the occupied West Bank.
Israel’s Genocide War in Gaza Continues
Hamas’s top priority in the hostage deal is the Palestinian’s return to northern Gaza
Qatari and Egyptian mediators told Israeli negotiators during talks last week that Hamas is willing to decrease the number of Palestinian prisoners released as part of a hostage deal if Israel agrees to allow more Palestinian civilians to return to northern Gaza. Pressure continues to mount on Israel and Hamas to reach an agreement that includes the release of hostages and a humanitarian ceasefire as aid groups warn half a million Palestinians are at risk of famine. In the negotiations, Hamas presents allowing Palestinians to return to the northern part of the Strip as a humanitarian issue. Israel sees it as a political matter: if Palestinians are permitted to return to northern Gaza, it could strengthen Hamas as a governing body and make Israel’s goal of toppling it more difficult to achieve. Israel could also lose a point of leverage in the next phase of negotiations. More than one million Palestinians who lived in Gaza City and the northern parts of the enclave have been displaced by Israel’s military operation, some of them several times. The United States desperately wants a temporary ceasefire in Gaza and sees a deal for the hostages held by Hamas as the only way to get it.
Unlike Netanyahu, Israel’s Gantz gets White House reception, talks hostage deal, Gaza cease-fire
Israeli War cabinet minister Benny Gantz met in Washington with Vice President Kamala Harris and Jake Sullivan, US national security advisor, in separate meetings and is also set to meet with members of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. Today, Gantz will meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken before traveling to London. The distribution of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip will “be at the top of the agenda” during Gantz’s meeting with Blinken, State Department spokesperson Matt Miller told reporters. Blinken also raised the issue of aid access to Gaza in a call with Ron Dermer, Israel’s strategic affairs minister. After meeting with Gantz, Harris issued a statement saying she “expressed her deep concern about the humanitarian conditions in Gaza and the recent horrific tragedy around an aid convoy in northern Gaza.” The statement said that the two “discussed the urgency of achieving a hostage deal and welcomed Israel’s constructive approach to the hostage talks,” adding that they also “discussed the situation in Rafah and the need for a credible and implementable humanitarian plan before contemplating any major military operation there given the risks to civilians.”
U.S. Engages Netanyahu’s Rival
The Biden administration’s engagement with Israeli Centrist leader Benny Gantz, despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s explicit disapproval, marks a significant moment in U.S.-Israel relations. Netanyahu’s rebuke, highlighted by his remark, “There is only one prime minister,” underscores the tensions arising from Gantz’s unauthorized visit to the U.S. Despite lacking Netanyahu’s consent, Gantz proceeded with his trip, leading Netanyahu to instruct the Israeli Embassy in Washington to abstain from any involvement with Gantz’s activities. Gantz, a political adversary to Netanyahu, engaged with AIPAC’s executive board and is scheduled for discussions with top Biden administration officials, including Vice President Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. These meetings, aimed at reinforcing the U.S.-Israel alliance, signal a shift in the dynamics of U.S. support within Israeli politics, challenging Netanyahu’s leadership stance and possibly influencing internal political alignments. Gantz’s meetings coincide with the United States beginning a series of airdrops of aid to Gaza, days after dozens of Palestinians were killed while trying to obtain food from a convoy organized by Israel. On Saturday, the first batch of American aid included about 38,000 meals in southwestern Gaza, some of which also fell into the sea.
Ceasefire Talks Collapse Over Hostage List Dispute
Israel’s efforts toward a ceasefire with Hamas ahead of Ramadan have hit a snag, despite tentative approval of a proposal involving a hostage release. The deadlock came after Hamas did not provide the requested detailed list of hostages still alive, leading Israel to skip Gaza ceasefire talks in Cairo. Reports indicate that communication between negotiators and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has been stalled for over a week. The US, however, remains optimistic, with officials describing the ceasefire agreement as complex but achievable before Ramadan’s start on March 10. The proposed deal includes a phased release of hostages, prioritizing women, the elderly, and the sick in the initial six weeks. It also encompasses measures to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, such as increased aid and expanded crossings, while averting a large-scale Israeli military operation in Rafah. Despite these efforts, the proposal does not fully meet Hamas’s demands for a permanent war cessation and leaves the fate of many hostages uncertain, with further negotiations anticipated to address these issues.
BiBi Malware: Pro-Hamas Cyberattacks Target Israel
In recent days, Israel has experienced a surge in cyberattacks by pro-Hamas hackers deploying the BiBi malware, which involves four new variants capable of bypassing antivirus defenses. This malware, identified as a wiper-type designed to irreversibly erase and corrupt data, marks a significant escalation in cyber warfare tactics. Originating from a Hamas-associated hacker group at the onset of the conflict in October, these attacks have primarily targeted Israeli businesses with the intent of maximizing disruption by destroying data and operating systems, notably without any ransom demands.
Iran’s Elections: Diminishing Engagement in Theocratic Rule
The recent parliamentary elections in Iran have underscored a profound transformation in the electorate’s mood, with voter turnout plummeting to an unprecedented low of under 40% since the revolution in 1979. In the capital, Tehran, out of 10 million qualified voters, merely 2.4 million cast their ballots, setting a new record for disengagement in the era of Islamic governance.
A notable portion of the populace expressed their dissent through the submission of void ballots, ingeniously adorned with the names and emblems of football stars, outnumbering the votes secured by the most popular candidates. Official figures revealed that over 380,000 ballots were invalidated, surpassing the leading candidate’s tally of 340,000 votes.
The hardline faction’s failure to consolidate a unified candidate roster for Tehran significantly impacted the election outcome. The conservative bloc emerged overwhelmingly victorious, clinching all 30 seats, whereas the United Front for the Islamic Revolution, under the stewardship of ex-Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, managed to secure a solitary seat. Ghalibaf, positioned fourth after the count of two-thirds of the ballots, found himself in a contest with a proponent of the Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi group, infamous for its sanctioning of violence through religious edicts against those opposing Sharia law.
In an uncontested race, President Ebrahim Raisi secured a third term in the Assembly of Experts with an 82% vote share in South Khorasan. Discussions are underway about elevating figures like Mohammad Javad Zarif in a strategic maneuver to bolster the regime’s resilience and perpetuity.
Regardless of the possible scenarios whether it is succession or a leadership council, the ultimate power play will belong to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, so it can continue its expansionist foreign policies of trying a build a vital field that is reminiscent of the so-called Shiite Empire promised towards a super regional state by 2030, as proposed by the Expediency Discernment Council and approved by Khamenei.
Israel escalated its criticism of the U.N. Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) yesterday, saying that 450 of its employees were members of militant groups in Gaza, although it provided no evidence to support the accusation. The head of the agency, Phillippe Lazzarini, told a press conference last night that he “has never been informed” or received any evidence of Israel’s claims. He added that every year, UNRWA provides Israel and the Palestinian Authority with a list of its staff, and he has “never received the slightest concern about the staff that we have been employing.” Tia Goldenberg and Ravi Nessman report for AP News.
Qatari and Egyptian mediators told Israeli negotiators during talks last week that Hamas is willing to decrease the number of Palestinian prisoners released as part of a hostage deal if Israel agrees to allow more Palestinian civilians to return to northern Gaza, an Israeli official and a source with knowledge of the issue told Axios. Israeli negotiators were told by Qatari and Egyptian mediators that the return of Palestinians to northern Gaza is a top priority for Hamas, the Israeli official said, adding that they were surprised at how important the issue is. Hamas officials told al-Arabiya yesterday that they gave Egyptian mediators their response about the “ratio”, but Israeli officials claimed they have not received this information from Cairo.
A U.N. team has concluded there are “reasonable grounds to believe” sexual violence was committed during the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks. Following a 17-day visit to Israel, the U.N. Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten, reported yesterday that she and a team of experts had found “clear and convincing information” of rape and sexualized torture being committed against hostages seized during the Oct. 7 attacks, adding that the true extent of sexual violence could “take months or years to emerge and may never be fully known.” The team also visited Ramallah in the West Bank to hear concerns raised over the cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of Palestinians in detention by Israeli security forces and settlers, including in the form of sexual violence.
Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, has recalled its U.N. ambassador after what he said was an “attempt to silence” the U.N. report on sexual violence committed by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attacks. In a post on X, Katz said that U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres should have convened the U.N. Security Council to review the report’s findings or declare Hamas a terrorist organization. Amir Tal and Richard Roth report for CNN.
There is “no way to know the fate” of Israeli hostages held in Gaza until a ceasefire deal is in place, a member of Hamas’s political bureau told CNN yesterday. Israel believes 130 hostages remain in Gaza, 99 of whom are believed to be alive. “It is not possible to know any details about the fate of the Israeli prisoners because they are in different locations and with different factions, we do not know their fate under the bombardment and the starvation policy,” Hamas official Basem Naim said in Istanbul, adding, “Therefore we need a ceasefire to gather information.”
The number of children dying of dehydration and malnutrition in Gaza will “skyrocket” without a ceasefire,UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said yesterday. Elder called the deaths, which UNICEF said it is now witnessing inside Gaza, “entirely predictable,” “man-made,” and “preventable.” He said that while the levels of child malnutrition in southern Gaza are “unacceptable and dangerous,” the levels in the north are “roughly three times higher” due to lower levels of humanitarian assistance reaching northern parts of the strip. Elder said it is not too late to avert a full-blown crisis, but that the situation is “getting close to some kind of point of no return.” Tom Soufi Burridge reports for ABC News.
REGIONAL RESPONSE
Turkish police detained seven people, including a private detective, suspected of selling information to Israel’s Mossad intelligence service, Turkey’s intelligence agency today. The detective, who was a former public servant, allegedly gathered information on Middle Eastern companies and individuals in Turkey, placing tracking devices and engaging in surveillance, the agency said. Reuters reports.
| Damage to Internet Cables Beneath Red Sea Underscores Conflict Risk |
| Cables belonging to four major telecoms firms have been cut (CNN), affecting internet traffic, a Hong Kong telecoms company said. It was not immediately clear how they were damaged, but the area has been a site of conflict between Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen and the U.S. and partner efforts to target them. Yemen’s government has previously warned (AP) that the rebels could target the cables, though the Houthis have denied such plans. This In Brief by CFR’s Kali Robinson unpacks the relationship between Iran and the Houthis. Israel/Palestinian territories: A team of UN experts found information indicating that Hamas sexually assaulted (WaPo) some victims during its October 7 attacks on Israel, a UN report released yesterday said. The team found “clear and convincing information” that some women and children taken back to the Gaza Strip experienced rape and sexualized torture, and that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” that the violence may be ongoing. |
U.S. RESPONSE
On Sunday, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris called for an “immediate cease-fire” in Gaza. It was the Biden administration’s sharpest assessment yet of a conflict in which hostages are still being held and more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed. The United States’ role in supporting Israel is increasingly under scrutiny both at home and abroad.
The Editors of Foreign Policy This Week China’s role in the Middle East since the war in Gaza broke out has also raised many questions of a slightly different sort. The superpower impressed the world a year ago in brokering the Saudi-Iran peace deal, which in turn raised hopes it could chart a new course to de-escalation in the region. “China has not delivered that success,” writes Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center in “China Wants to Weaken, Not Replace, the U.S. in the Middle East.”
With 53 percent of its crude oil imports coming from the region, China has an intrinsic interest in maintaining regional stability, Sun writes. Despite this, while “China has long positioned itself as a customer and a client of Middle Eastern oil,” that role gives it power “without the burden for China to provide peace.” Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, describesChina’s foreign policy as oriented to the United States, with that country “its principal strategic challenge, and everything else pale in comparison.” For Alterman, inaction over the past five months highlights that “while China has indeed become a regional player in the Middle East, it is still playing a remarkably self-interested game.”
Both China and the United States could soon be faced with even bigger problems, with FP columnist Steven A. Cook assessing that “it is likely that there is going to be a war between Hezbollah and Israel within the next six to eight months.” Cook notes constraints on the two sides are breaking down—and that “there is no diplomatic solution to the zero-sum relationship between Hezbollah and Israel.” FP will continue to bring you expert analysis of this rapidly evolving situation as it unfolds. —The editors
Vice President Kamala Harris met yesterday with Israeli War Cabinet Member Benny Gantz and expressed “deep concern about the humanitarian conditions in Gaza” and the “horrific tragedy” of the aid convoy incident that left over 100 Palestinians dead. Harris “called on Hamas to accept the terms on the table” whereby the release of hostages would lead to an immediate six-week ceasefire and a surge of aid throughout Gaza and “welcomed Israel’s constructive approach to the hostage talks.” The two officials also “discussed the situation in Rafah and the need for a credible and implementable humanitarian plan before contemplating any major military operation,” and Harris urged Israel to take additional measures in cooperation with the United States and international partners to “increase the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza and ensure its safe distribution.”
Parts of Harris’s speech on Sunday about the need for an immediate six-week ceasefire as part of a hostage deal were toned down beforehand by national security officials, three current U.S. officials and a former U.S. official familiar with the speech told NBC News. The original draft of Harris’s speech, when it was sent to the National Security Council for review, was more critical of Israel regarding the dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and the need for increased aid, according to one of the current officials and the former official. Harris’s communications director called the claims “inaccurate.”
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby accused some Israeli cabinet members of blocking efforts to increase aid into Gaza. Speaking at a briefing with reporters, Kirby said, “There have been some obstacles to getting the aid in that are organic to the fact that we’re talking about a war zone, but also inorganic obstacles [have been] thrown up in some cases by some members of the Israeli cabinet that have made it hard to get that aid in.” Kirby did not name the cabinet members he was referring to.
The United States will continue to support Israel with military assistance, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said yesterday. “We continue to support Israel’s campaign to ensure that the attacks of October 7 cannot be repeated. We have provided military assistance to Israel because it is consistent with that goal [and] … with international humanitarian law.” Miller also said that there is more the Israeli government “can do and more that they should do” to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
IRAN-BACKED MILITANTS
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it struck a series of Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah sites in Southern Lebanon in response to an anti-tank missile attack this morning near Margaliot that killed a foreign national and wounded seven others. Separately, Hezbollah announced the deaths of three members killed “on the road to Jerusalem,” its term for operatives killed in Israeli strikes. Emanuel Fabian reports for the Times of Israel.
MILITARY CONFLICT WITH THE HOUTHIS
One of two anti-ship ballistic missiles fired by the Houthis at a container vessel in the Gulf of Aden hit the ship and caused “damage,” the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said today. Initial reports indicated no injuries and the Liberian-flagged, Swiss-owned container vessel did not request assistance and continued on its way, CENTCOM said, adding that its forces “conducted self-defense strikes against two anti-ship cruise missiles that presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and U.S. Navy ships in the region.”
In Netanyahu’s multidimensional crises, Circles are narrowing around Netanyahu.
Antoine Shalhat, a Palestinian journalist and political analyst.
Some of the points of disagreement that erupted between Israel and the United States against the backdrop of the administration of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conduct of the war on the Gaza Strip and his attempt not to be in line with the current US administration’s broad political lines related to the “day after”, are tempting many Israeli analysts to come up with scenarios related to the future of the war and its impact on the policy related to the Palestinian issue, and the horizon of Israeli-American relations alike. Read the full text here.