Following the UN Security Council ceasefire resolution, Israel continued its attacks on Gaza hospitals, killing 76 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, in southern Lebanon, Israel killed 7 Lebanese people during cross-border fighting.
- 32,490 + killed* and at least 74,889 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
- 449+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.**
- Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,139.
- 594 Israeli soldiers have been 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 estimate the death toll to be much higher when accounting for those presumed dead.
** The death toll in the West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. According to the PA’s Ministry of Health on March 17, this is the latest figure.
*** This figure is released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.”
- 76 Palestinians killed and 102 wounded in 8 massacres committed by Israeli forces across the Gaza Strip, says Palestinian health ministry.
- Israeli forces raid Nasser Hospital, force medical staff and displaced Palestinians to evacuate.
- Lebanon: 7 Lebanese killed in Israeli airstrikes on Habaryeh in southern Lebanon.
- One man killed in Kiryat Shmona as Hezbollah fires dozens of rockets on northern occupied Palestine.
- West Bank: Israeli forces arrest 20 Palestinians, raising number of Palestinians detained since October 7 to 7,820.
- One Palestinian, aged 20, killed by Israeli forces during a raid on Jenin in the northern West Bank. Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades announces in a statement that its fighters confronted the raiding Israeli forces in Jenin and Qabatiya, west of Jenin. Local sources report one Israeli vehicle was targeted with an explosive device.
- Israeli Broadcasting Corporation: Negotiations with Hamas continue through intermediates with differences over the return of displaced Palestinians to the northern Gaza Strip.
- Pentagon says that Israel will play a role in ensuring the security of the U.S.-built shore dock in Gaza.
- UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini says that the agency has enough funds to operate until next May.
- Jordanian security forces arrest several protesters against the Gaza war near the Israeli embassy in Amman.
Biden’s Policy on Gaza Have Had Mixed Backlash, Is His Position on Israel Shifting?
Headlines:
- President Biden’s rating on the Middle East situation has dipped from 32% to 27% among U.S. adults since November. Lower approval among Democrats accounts for most of the decline.
- The U.S. abstention appears to have had damaging ripple effects on the U.S.-Israel relationship, with Israel cancelling a delegation to the U.S. and pulling out of hostage talks in the aftermath.
- Biden faces bipartisan backlash over UNSC ceasefire vote.
- President Biden is facing blowback from pro-Israel lawmakers in both parties for allowing the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution calling for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages
- Biden administration’s Gaza strategy panned as ‘mess’ amid clashing goals
- Strain of aiming to influence Israel’s actions without leverage and avoiding starvation is showing, say analysts.
- The US just stood up to Israel at the United Nations. But Biden isn’t doing enough.
- U.S. Attempts to Clarify Status of Israel’s Compliance With Biden’s Demands on International Law
- Hamas Hails Biden’s ‘Clear Changes’ on Israel Policy
- Trump seeks to capitalize on Biden’s frustration with Israel’s Netanyahu
- Former President Donald Trump sent shockwaves through the Jewish American community and Washington when he said Jews who vote Democrat “hate Israel.”
- It’s not the first time Trump has dabbled in what critics say are anti-Semitic tropes, but the extreme rhetoric reflects how Trump is trying to drive a wedge between Jewish American voters and Democrats.
- Biden’s betrayal of Israel is now complete. The administration’s abstention on a biased ceasefire resolution was a sellout of Western civilization.
- Top US Officials Warn Israel’s Gallant Against Invading Rafah
- Amid U.S.-Israeli strains, Pentagon pushes for a new approach in Gaza
- The Biden administration fears a major military offensive in Rafah will worsen what’s already a grave humanitarian crisis in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
- Biden, interrupted by Gaza Protesters, Says They ‘Have a Point’
- After his event in North Carolina was disrupted by demonstrators, the president said that “we need to get a lot more care into Gaza.”
- Biden Criticized As Hamas Declares Israel’s ‘Isolation’ in Tehran
- The Interlocking Political Fates of Biden and Netanyahu
- Is the Israeli American ‘special relationship’ in danger, or are the two leaders merely playing a game of political survival?
- Don’t Believe the Hype—– Biden’s Policy Hasn’t Changed. The decision to let a UN cease-fire resolution pass has been hailed as a dramatic turning point. It isn’t
- State Dept. human rights staffer quits over Biden’s Gaza policy. The protest resignation is the latest sign of dissent brewing in some quarters of government
- Ben Gvir: Biden prefers to align with Sinwar and Tlaib than with Netanyahu
- Far-right national security minister tells NYT the US president is ‘enormously mistaken’ in his attempts to ‘impose restrictions on Israel’
- After the U.S. said on Monday Israel has not been found to be in violation of international law, the State Dept. clarified that ‘no conclusive determination’ has been made regarding Israel’s compliance with U.S. or international law when using U.S. supplied weapons in Gaza
- Biden’s UN betrayal of Israel is a victory for Hamas .The terrorists were certain that the West would save them from defeat in Gaza. The administration has now confirmed that they were right.
- Is Biden’s Position on Israel Shifting? Hamas Thinks So
- US rejects Netanyahu’s claim that UN vote hurt hostage talks. State Department calls.Netanyahu comments ‘unfair’ and says Hamas’ rejection of agreement proposed in Qatar negotiations preceded the vote on the Security Council cease-fire resolution, which the US failed to veto.
- Netanyahu’s walls are caving in. Mr. Netanyahu’s multiple battles fall into two categories: keeping his increasingly fragile government in place and fighting a war he has already lost in the court of public opinion and possibly on the ground in Gaza if measured by the prime minister’s war goals.
- Majority in U.S. Now Disapprove of Israeli Action in Gaza. Approval has dropped from 50% to 36% since November. After narrowly backing Israel’s military action in Gaza in November, Americans now oppose the campaign by a solid margin. Fifty-five percent currently disapprove of Israel’s actions, while 36% approve. The main date points of the survey are:
- The latest results are from a March 1-20 survey. The Israel-Hamas war has continued for five months and has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians and over 1,000 Israelis. Major parts of Gaza have been destroyed, complicating efforts to deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians still living there. The United Nations and international community, including the Biden administration, have called for a cease-fire, but the two warring sides have been unable to agree.
- The poll was completed before the U.N. Security Council on Monday passed a resolution calling for a cease-fire during Ramadan. The measure passed because the United States abstained rather than vetoing the resolution. The U.S. had previously vetoed other resolutions calling for a cease-fire.
- Seventy-four percent of U.S. adults say they are following news of the Israeli-Hamas situation closely, similar to the 72% Gallup measured in November. One-third of Americans (34%) say they are following the situation “very closely.”
- Disapproval of Israel’s military action is similar regardless of how much attention Americans are paying to the conflict. However, those paying less attention are more likely than their counterparts to have no opinion on the matter, resulting in lower approval than seen among people paying greater attention.
- New Gallup polling shows that US popular support for Israel’s military action in Gaza has flipped on its head, with most Americans (55%) now disapproving. Super-majorities of both Democrats (75%) and Independents (60%) now disapprove of Israel’s actions.
See the full survey here
Draft UN Report Finds Israel Has Met Threshold for Genocide
“Israel’s genocide on the Palestinians in Gaza is an escalatory stage of a long-standing settler-colonial process of erasure.”
The United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday published a draft report that found “reasonable grounds to believe” that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, a move that came on the same day as the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in the ongoing war.
The advance unedited version of the report—entitled Anatomy of a Genocide—concludes that Israel’s far-right government and military “have intentionally distorted jus in bello principles, subverting their protective functions, in an attempt to legitimize genocidal violence against the Palestinian people.”
“The overwhelming nature and scale of Israel’s assault on Gaza and the destructive conditions of life it has inflicted reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group,” the draft report states, enumerating Israeli actions that violate Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide: “Killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to group members; and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
Read the full text here
How I am Surviving the Genocide Against my People
As I walk through the streets of Rafah today, all I see is fear. The fear of life and the fear of death. We are living in fear every moment of the day. We now also fear that we will never have our lives back.
In this war, who am I? To the world, it seems I am just a number. A person who is counted on a list of people displaced, people injured or people hungry and thirsty. And if the next bomb is for me, I will be another number to add to the number of people killed in the genocide, and then I will be forgotten. Read the full text here
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