Israel’s war on Gaza updates: Israel yet to back up UNRWA claims – report

Thank you for joining us for updates on everything related to Israel’s war on Gaza. Please check our homepage for the latest news.

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

• An independent review of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) noted Israel has not presented evidence to support its claims that UNRWA staff were members of “terrorist” groups.
• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said his country is looking into allegations of human rights abuses by Israel in its assault on Gaza.
• Major General Aharon Haliva, the head of Israel’s military intelligence, has resigned, citing the failure to stop Hamas’s deadly attacks on southern Israel on October 7.
• Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh has blamed Israel for stalling ceasefire efforts, saying it refuses to agree to a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
• Gaza’s civil defence said it has recovered 283 bodies so far from mass graves discovered near the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis after Israel’s withdrawal from the southern city.

US President Joe Biden has met with US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and two other prominent liberal lawmakers opposed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Gaza bombing campaign.

The meeting came as Biden’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza has divided Democrats, fraying Biden’s coalition of voters ahead of November’s presidential election.

Biden was seen walking into the Oval Office with Ocasio-Cortez as well as Senators Bernie Sanders and Ed Markey after returning from an Earth Day event they all attended in Virginia.

The lawmakers have sharply criticised Israel’s policies, with Ocasio-Cortez last month describing the humanitarian situation in Gaza as “an unfolding genocide”.

However, earlier this month, the congresswoman from New York made a case for Biden’s reelection despite his support for Israel, citing a “vested interest in protecting democracy not just here domestically, but globally” in an interview with the media organisation Zeteo.

“I learned a long time ago to listen to that lady,” Biden said of Ocasio-Cortez in Virginia. “We’re going to talk more about another part of the world, too.”

The White House and the lawmakers declined to comment on the subject of the meeting.

Protesters caused a stir at Columbia University when they used the Urdu chant, which some interpreted as an instance of anti-Semitism on campus.

“Azaadi”, originally a Persian word, means “freedom”. Kashmiri activists said the chant originated from their struggle for greater rights and autonomy in India.

Others say the slogan is associated with groups accused of trying to rid Kashmir of Hindus.

Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) has said that the US Department of State in its 2023 human rights report cited numerous incidents taken by Israeli forces such as arbitrary or unlawful killings, enforced disappearance, torture and unjustified arrests of journalists, among others.

“While we welcome reports indicating the State Department’s intention to blacklist some Israeli units in accordance with Leahy laws, today’s human rights report shows that designating only a few units amounts to little more than a slap on the wrist,” said Raed Jarrar, DAWN’s advocacy director.

“The widespread nature of the abuses described in the human rights report is overshadowed by the State Department’s inaction on these same findings. The State Department needs to read its own report and take immediate action against all abusive Israeli units.”

Israeli authorities “took no publicly visible steps to identify and punish officials accused of committing human rights abuses”, said the report, covering the incidents of last year.

Hundreds of Irish artists have urged Ireland’s Eurovision entrant to be on the “right side of history” by boycotting the song contest over Israel’s participation in the event in Sweden next month.

“We are asking you to withdraw from Eurovision 2024, to heed the call from Palestinians to boycott the competition due to the participation of Israel,” the letter signed by more than 400 Irish artists said.

“By participating in Eurovision you will be standing with the oppressor.”

The letter pointed to Irish artists and musicians like Irish-language rap group Kneecap, which pulled out of the SXSW Music Festival in the United States last month in protest over the US military’s sponsorship of the event.

“You have the chance to be on the right side of history and to be remembered as an artist of conscience, who, in a time of genocide, chose to do no harm, to truly stand with the oppressed,” the letter read.

“I stand with anyone doing the boycott. I think if I wasn’t in the competition, I would also be boycotting,” Ireland’s entrant Bambie Thug told a chatshow on Friday.

“At the end of the day, without the group of us who is pro-Palestine, it is less competition for the other side [Israel] to win, and it’s less of solidarity there,” the 31-year-old said.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein has said the review of UNRWA headed by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna was insufficient and an “effort to avoid the problem and not address it head on”.

Marmorstein accused more than 2,135 UNRWA workers of being members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

But according to the Colonna report, Israel has still not provided any evidence for its allegations.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, said the recommendations “enhance UNRWA’s already high standards of impartiality, humanity and neutrality”. The ministry appealed to donors who paused funding to “urgently reconsider their decisions”.

The Israeli military says about 35 rockets have been launched from Lebanon at Safed in northern Israel but most fell in open areas and caused no damage.

The Lebanese armed group Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Since October 8, Hezbollah and Israel have traded fire across the border. In recent months, the severity and frequency of these attacks have increased.

You can see our in-depth analysis of the attacks here.

Israeli protesters have set fire to a symbolic seder table outside Netanyahu’s house at the start of the Jewish holiday, accusing him of failing captives held in Gaza.

Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the gates leading to the house in the coastal town of Caesarea, calling for the release of captives taken on October 7 and criticising Netanyahu’s leadership.

Demonstrators, some of whom are relatives of captives, also laid out empty places on another table to mark their continued captivity.

In a post on X marking the start of Passover on Monday, Netanyahu insisted, “Our resolve remains unyielding to see all hostages back with their families.”

Facing widespread criticism over its response to the Israeli war on Gaza, the writers’ group PEN America has called off its annual awards ceremony.

Dozens of nominees had dropped out of the event, which was to have taken place in New York next week.

PEN hands out hundreds of thousands of dollars in prizes each year, including $75,000 for the PEN/Jean Stein Award for best book.

Authors affiliated with PEN have repeatedly denounced the organisation for favouring Israel and downplaying atrocities against Palestinian writers and journalists.

PEN has repeatedly called for a ceasefire and has helped set up a $100,000 emergency fund for Palestinian writers.

At least three Palestinians have been shot with live ammunition by Israeli forces north of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Wafa said Israeli soldiers opened fire “directly” towards several vehicles on a highway. A 19-year-old man and two women – aged 63 and 30 – sustained injuries, it said, adding that that a number of vehicles were also damaged.

The wounded people were transferred to a nearby hospital, and their condition has been described as “moderate”.

The US Department of State says that Hamas negotiators have moved the “goalpost” in hostage negotiations and changed their demands, adding it will continue to push for a final agreement.

Hamas has repeatedly said it would not compromise on its demands, which include a permanent ceasefire and the unhindered return of displaced Palestinians to their homes in Gaza.

Israel has not presented credible evidence to support its claims that UNRWA staff were members of “terrorist” groups, an independent review for the United Nations led by a former French foreign minister has said.

The claims against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) led to a massive funding deficit as several donor countries announced cuts.

The independent review into the relief agency’s practices was also commissioned, as well as a separate investigation into the October attack itself, by the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services.

The review, headed by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna and supported by three Nordic research institutes, makes clear that Israel failed to support its claims about UNRWA staff belonging to either Hamas’s military wing or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Read more about the report here.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the United States is looking into allegations of human rights abuses by Israel in its war on Gaza.

Unveiling the State Department’s annual human rights report, Blinken denied the US has double standards when it comes to Israel and human rights.

“Do we have a double standard? The answer is no,” Blinken told reporters.