Israel’s war on Gaza updates: New mass grave found at al-Shifa Hospital

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We will be closing this live page soon. Here’s a quick recap from today:

• Palestinian doctors said they have discovered another mass grave in the vicinity of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, recently besieged by Israeli soldiers. At least 10 bodies have been recovered so far.
• Israel’s army chief has said Iran’s weekend attack “will be met with a response” shortly after Israel’s war cabinet convened to discuss how to respond.
• At least two more Palestinians have been killed in the village of Aqraba, southeast of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, in the latest of a series of attacks carried out by Israeli settlers.
• Fighters with the Lebanese Hezbollah group detonated an explosive device after Israeli soldiers “crossed the border”, wounding four troops.
• The Israeli army has renewed warnings for Palestinians not to return to Gaza’s north a day after its forces opened fire on desperate civilians trying to return home.

Demonstrators blocked San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge on Monday, completely halting traffic for hours as part of a coordinated day of action against Israel’s war on Gaza.

Aerial footage on Monday morning showed stationary traffic in one direction on the famous bridge while lanes in the other direction were empty, with police present.

Similar protests were held across the United States and around the world after the group A15 Action called for coordinating a “multi-city blockade… in solidarity with Palestine.”

The group said on its website that “in each city, we will identify and blockade major choke points in the economy, focusing on points of production and circulation with the aim of causing the most economic impact”.

Protesters blocked roads on Monday in Philadelphia and shut down highway traffic heading into Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, forcing some passengers to make their way on foot to catch their flights.

Protests were also planned in Canada, Italy, South Korea, Colombia and Belgium, while the X account for A15 posted photos of demonstrations in Greece, Spain and Australia.

Husam Zumlot, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, has posted a picture of Palestinians in central Gaza returning to their homes in northern Gaza alongside the text: “We will return. We will rebuild. We will never surrender our rights”.

We will return.
We will rebuild.
We will never surrender our rights. #Gaza #Palestine 🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/EiBNTujLcI

— Husam Zomlot (@hzomlot) April 15, 2024

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi says Iran closed its nuclear facilities on Sunday over “security considerations” and that while they reopened on Monday, he has kept IAEA inspectors away “until we see that the situation is completely calm”.

“We are going to resume tomorrow [on Tuesday],” Grossi told reporters in New York. “This has not had an impact on our inspection activity.”

When asked about the possibility of an Israel strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, Grossi said, “We are always concerned about this possibility”, and urged “extreme restraint”.

“We do not seek to expand the war, but we will cut off every hand that attacks our country,” the spokesman for the Iranian army has posted in Arabic on X.

“Any aggression from Israel or its supporters will be met with a stronger response than before”.

Motasem Salah, the director of the Gaza Emergency Operations Centre, says 10 bodies have been recovered so far from a mass grave discovered earlier on Monday at Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital.

The hospital was recently raided and besieged by Israeli soldiers, who withdrew from the area earlier this month.

“Work has resumed inside the al-Shifa Medical Complex to search for and identify mass graves as well as the bodies that have been buried in these graves,” Salah said.

Despite a lack of forensic experts and adequate equipment, search parties have resorted to using shovels and their hands to try and dig out the bodies of believed-to-be patients who were receiving treatment at the hospital.

“We are determined to reveal these crimes that have been committed against civilians in the al-Shifa Hospital. We have until now recovered 10 bodies that were buried in front of the main entrance of the al-Shifa Medical Complex, near the surgery unit,” Salah told reporters.

“Some of these bodies are decomposed, while others are body parts. Many of them were women and children,” he added.

Army Chief Herzi Halevi thanked the US, UK and French forces for supporting Israel during Iran’s air attack.

“The [Israeli army], together with the United States Central Command, the British and French Armed Forces and other partners operated together in real-time in the air, on the ground and at sea,” he said in a video address.

“Iran’s attack has created new opportunities for cooperation in the Middle East,” he added.

Portugal’s Prime Minister Luis Montenegro says his country is not ready to recognise a Palestinian state without a concerted European Union approach.

Montenegro said his government would wait for the EU and the UN to work out a common position on the issue before advancing.

“We don’t go as far as other governments do with regards to recognising the state of Palestine,” he told a joint news conference in Madrid, as he stood alongside his Spanish counterpart Pedro Sanchez.

“We believe that this understanding should be built on a multilateral basis within the European Union and the United Nations.”

His comments come after Spain’s Sanchez repeated his plan to recognise Palestinian statehood in the coming months, either with other nations or alone.

Israeli forces say fighter jets struck Hezbollah compounds in the areas of Meiss el-Jabal and Tayr Harfa in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah and Israel have been trading fire since October 8, the day after Hamas’s attack and the start of Israel’s subsequent war on Gaza.

The Israeli government is under pressure not to retaliate but says it is weighing its options.

What could they be? And what would a direct confrontation between the regional rivals mean for an already volatile Middle East?

The Israeli prime minister says Iran threatens world peace and the international community must resist it together.

“The international community must continue to stand united in resisting this Iranian aggression, which threatens world peace,” he said in a statement released by his office on X.

Netanyahu also said US House of Representatives Majority Leader Steve Scalise called him on Monday evening to express support “for any decision that Israel makes in light of the Iranian attack” and to inform the prime minister of “his initiative to advance in Congress, in the coming days, a series of measures against Iran and for Israel”.

Hamas political official Ezzat El-Reshiq says a permanent ceasefire is the only guarantee the Palestinian people have against Israel’s ongoing “massacres”.

The group will “not compromise” on the demands of a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, and the unhindered return of all displaced families to their homes, El-Reshiq said.

“The occupation wants a temporary agreement to evacuate its hostages, only to resume its genocidal war afterwards,” he added.

After more than six months of its assault, Israel still “has not, and will not, achieve victory”, El-Reshiq said.