Israel-Hamas war: UK to consider suspending arms exports to Israel if Rafah offensive goes ahead

The UK government is considering restricting some arms exports to Israel if it launches a deadly offensive in Rafah or obstructs aid trucks from entering Gaza.

As the humanitarian situation in Gaza has worsened, diplomatic pressure has been mounting on the UK to follow other countries and suspend arms exports to Israel.

Citing ministerial sources, the British daily said a decision has yet to be made regarding a suspension of arms export licenses, but that it could quickly act if ministers were given legal advice that Israel is violating international law.

The UK has joined other allies in pressuring Israel to avoid a ground offensive in Rafah.

In a letter to the foreign affairs select committee about arms export controls to Israel published on Tuesday, UK’s foreign secretary David Cameron said he could not see how an offensive in Rafah could go ahead without harming civilians and destroying homes.

At a meeting in Geneva on Wednesday on the Arms Trade Treaty, UK officials were accused by Palestinian diplomats of breaking the treaty by refusing to rescind arms sales after the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel must ensure its forces did not commit acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Palestinian representative Nada Tarbrush warned “a ground incursion in Rafah will lead to mass killings on an even greater scale than the atrocities we have seen in recent months”, adding that when the history books come to be written no one in the west can pretend they did not know of the destruction.

British officials told the meeting: “We can and do respond quickly and flexibly to changing and fluid situations.”

An article in the treaty obligates states not to authorise any transfer of conventional weapons if they know that those weapons will be used to commit acts of genocide or crimes against humanity.

It comes as the health ministry in Gaza said that at least 29,313 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory by Israel.

A ministry statement said a total of 118 people died in the past 24 hours, while another 69,333 have been wounded since October 7.

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100 CHILDREN KILLED IN OCCUPIED WEST BANK

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) also reports that 702 children were among the 4,528 Palestinian people injured across the occupied West Bank, occupied East Jerusalem, and in Israel, since October.

The latest data, which was accurate up to Tuesday, also reveals that Israeli settlers carried out 573 recorded attacks against Palestinian people and their property during the same period.

In the most recent killing, undercover Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man on Tuesday after besieging a house in the Jenin refugee camp.

The Israeli practice of demolishing Palestinian-owned homes in the occupied territories has also led to the displacement of 830 people, including 337 children, with 131 homes demolished since October 7, according to UNOCHA.

Some 95 percent of the demolitions were reported in the Jenin, Nur Shams and Tulkarem refugee camps in the occupied West Bank.

HAMAS LEADER REPORTEDLY ILL

Hamas’s leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar reportedly has a complicated case of pneumonia and the militant organisation is reportedly searching for a replacement.

Israel’s Channel 12 reports that an Arab country, which it doesn’t name, had heard of Sinwar’s illness from Hamas leaders.

It had recently been reported that Sinwar had stopped contacting Hamas leadership; the group’s demands for a ceasefire last week were drawn up without his input.

However the Kan public broadcaster reports that he is back in touch with his group.

ISRAEL’ ATTACKS ‘CLEARLY MARKED’ SHELTER

Doctors Without Borders has condemned in “strongest possible terms” the killing of two family members of its staff after Israeli troops fired into the building that had been clearly marked.

The incident occurred late Tuesday local time when an Israeli tank fired on a house sheltering the employees and their families in Al-Mawasi area on Gaza’s coast, said the charity known by its French acronym MSF Medecins sans Frontieres.

“The attack killed the daughter-in-law and wife of one of our colleagues, and wounded six people, including five women and children,” MSF said in a statement.

Gunshots were fired at the building, which was clearly marked with the MSF logo and had 64 people sheltering inside at the time, the non-governmental organisation said.

“We are outraged and deeply saddened by these killings,” MSF general director Meinie Nicolai said, who is currently coordinating the charity’s medical activities in the war-torn Gaza Strip.

“These killings underscore the grim reality that nowhere in Gaza is safe, that promises of safe areas are empty and deconfliction mechanisms unreliable.”

In its statement, the charity said Israeli forces had been “clearly informed of the precise location” of the MSF shelter in Al-Mawasi.

“This demonstrates, once again, that Israeli forces are not ensuring the safety of civilians in their military operations and shows a complete disregard for human life and lack of respect for the medical mission,” it said.

A report released by an Israeli group says the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel involved “systematic and deliberate sexual assaults” on civilians.

Israeli officials have previously alleged that the militants committed violent sexual assaults and genital mutilation during the unprecedented attack.

However, the scarcity of survivor testimonies and the lack of forensic evidence make it difficult to assess their scale. The Palestinian movement Hamas has categorically denied these allegations.

On Wednesday, the Association of Rape Crisis Centres in Israel — an umbrella body that fights sexual violence — said that sexual assaults occurred in each of the attack areas including the Nova music festival and private homes in kibbutzim (small towns) around the Gaza Strip.

They were “carried out systematically and deliberately towards Israeli civilians,” said the report, which was based on witness testimonies, public and classified information, and interviews. It did not have testimonies of victims themselves

One survivor from the Nova festival attack described the aftermath of the assault at the event as an “apocalypse of bodies”.

The report, which contained graphic descriptions, said mutilation also occurred on men.

The allegations come as the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said it had received “credible” reports of rape, sexual assault and naked strip searches among the hundreds of Palestinian women and girls detained by Israeli authorities since October 7.

OHCHR experts said a number of female detainees had been allegedly raped, while others were threatened with sexual violence. They also noted that photos of women in “degrading circumstances” had been taken by the Israeli army and uploaded online.

“On at least one occasion, Palestinian women detained in Gaza were allegedly kept in a cage in the rain and cold,” OHCHR said.

“Some of them were reportedly holding white pieces of cloth when they were killed by the Israeli army or affiliated forces”.

WOMAN, GIRL KILLED IN STRIKE ON LEBANON

An Israeli air strike on south Lebanon killed a woman and wounded her daughter, while a hospital source told AFP a young girl had also died.

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement and its arch-foe Israel have been exchanging near-daily fire across the border since the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said that Khadija Salman was killed and her daughter seriously wounded in the “enemy” strike on the southern village of Majdal Zun.

Requesting anonymity, a hospital source confirmed the woman had died and her daughter remained in serious condition, adding that a young girl was also killed.

The cross-border exchanges since October have killed at least 271 people on the Lebanese side, most of them Hezbollah fighters but also including 42 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, 10 soldiers and six civilians have been killed, according to the Israeli army.

Hezbollah said it had carried out several attacks on Israeli troops and positions.

ISRAEL STRIKE ON SYRIA

An Israeli strike on a residential area of Damascus killed at least two people on Wednesday local time, Syrian state media reported, the latest deaths from an escalating Israeli air campaign since the Gaza war erupted in October.

Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes in Syria since civil war broke out in 2011, but has stepped up its campaign since Hamas’s unprecedented attack from Gaza on October 7.

“The Israeli enemy carried out an air attack with a number of missiles … targeting a residential building in the Kafr Sousa neighbourhood in Damascus,” a statement from a military source carried by state news agency SANA said.

“The attack led to the martyrdom of two civilians, wounded others and caused material damage to the building” and surrounding structures, the statement added.

An AFP photographer said the strike hit a nine-storey building, with damage centred around the fourth floor.

The exterior of the building was partially blackened by the resulting blaze, which firefighters scrambled to put out.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said that “a Syrian civilian” was killed as well as two foreign nationals.

The Israeli army told AFP it had no comment.

US URGES UN NOT TO EVICT ISRAEL FROM PALESTINIAN LAND

The United States told the UN’s top court that Israel should not be legally forced to withdraw from occupied Palestinian territory without security guarantees.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is holding a week of hearings after a request from the United Nations, with an unprecedented 52 countries giving their views on Israel’s occupation.

Most speakers have demanded that Israel end its occupation, which came after a six-day Arab-Israeli war in 1967, but Washington came to its ally’s defence at the court.

“The court should not find that Israel is legally obligated to immediately and unconditionally withdraw from occupied territory,” said Richard Visek, legal adviser at the US State Department, on Wednesday local time.

“Any movement towards Israel withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza requires consideration of Israel’s very real security needs,” he argued.

“We were all reminded of those security needs on October 7,” he said, referring to the Hamas attacks that sparked the current conflict.

The UN has asked the ICJ to hand down an “advisory opinion” on the “legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem”.

The court will probably deliver its opinion before the end of the year, but it is not binding on anyone.

‘NOTHING NEW’

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki told reporters after the US statement: “I expected much more. I didn’t hear anything new.”

Washington has been insisting that the Israel-Palestinian conflict be addressed in “other fora and not here”, Al-Maliki said.

“Well, we tried other fora for the last 75 years and we confronted the US veto and the US hegemony over decision-making processes within the UN system,” he said.

“And that’s why we came to the ICJ.”

Also speaking on Wednesday local time, the representative from Egypt, which has played a key role in talks between Israel and the Palestinians, said the occupation was “a continued violation of international law”.

“The consequences of Israel’s prolonged occupation are clear and there can be no peace, no stability, no prosperity without upholding the rule of law,” foreign ministry legal adviser Jasmine Moussa said.

The hearings began Monday with three hours of testimony from Palestinian officials, who accused the Israeli occupiers of running a system of “colonialism and apartheid”.

ISRAELI POLL BITTER PILL FOR NETANYAHU

Despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence the Gaza war will end with Israel achieving “absolute victory”, a majority of Israelis do not think this is a likely outcome, a new poll found.

The Israel Democracy Institute think tank said only 38.3 per cent of Israelis polled believed there was a “very high” or “fairly high” likelihood of an “absolute victory” at the end of the war.

Some 55.3 per cent of respondents conversely said there was a “fairly low” or “very low likelihood” of such an outcome. Just over six per cent of the 612 respondents were undecided, the poll found.

Asked whether they support Israel agreeing “in principle to the establishment of an independent and demilitarised Palestinian state”, a majority of respondents – 55.4 per cent – said they either somewhat or strongly opposed it, while 37.4 per cent strongly or somewhat supported it.

TRUCE TALKS RESUME IN CAIRO

Heavy fighting rocked besieged Gaza as aid agencies warned of looming famine, a day after a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire was blocked by a US veto.

Washington, which argued the resolution would have imperilled ongoing efforts to free hostages, sent top White House official Brett McGurk to Cairo for renewed talks involving mediators and Hamas.

Combat and chaos again stalled the sporadic aid deliveries for desperate civilians in Gaza, where the UN has warned the population of 2.4 million is on the brink of famine and could face an “explosion” of child deaths.

The UN World Food Programme said it was forced to halt aid deliveries in north Gaza because of “complete chaos and violence” after a truck convoy encountered gunfire and was ransacked by looters.

‘WE WANT TO LIVE’

“We can’t take it anymore,” said Ahmad, a resident of Gaza City, where entire blocks are in ruins and cratered streets are strewn with rubble.

“We do not have flour, we don’t even know where to go in this cold weather,” he said.

“We demand a ceasefire. We want to live.”

Particular concern has centred on Gaza’s far-southern Rafah area, where 1.4 million people now live in crowded shelters and makeshift tents, fearing attack by nearby Israeli ground troops.

Aid groups warn a ground offensive could turn Rafah into a “graveyard” and the United States has said the vast numbers of displaced civilians must first be moved out of harm’s way.

OPERATION IN RAFAH WOULD BE A ‘DISASTER’

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that “without properly accounting for the safety and security of those refugees, we continue to believe that an operation in Rafah would be a disaster”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted the army will keep fighting until it has destroyed Hamas and freed the remaining 130 hostages, around 30 of whom are feared dead.

War cabinet minister Benny Gantz has warned that, unless Hamas releases the captives by the start of Ramadan around March 10, the army will keep fighting during the Muslim holy month, including in Rafah.

THREE PALESTINIAN ‘MILITANTS’ KILLED IN WEST BANK

Israeli troops killed three Palestinian “militants” during an overnight raid in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, the military said.

The Palestinian health ministry confirmed at least one death in the Israeli operation, the latest in a months-long military crackdown across the occupied West Bank since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.

“In a joint counter-terrorism activity in the city of Jenin, IDF soldiers apprehended 14 suspects, killed three terrorists and struck additional terrorists,” the army said in a statement.

“During the activity, the soldiers located weapons and exposed explosive devices planted under routes in order to attack IDF soldiers.”

Jenin has been the focus of repeated Israeli raids which have often led to clashes with Palestinian militants.

IRAN CLAIMS ISRAEL BEHIND GAS SABOTAGE

Iran said that Israel was behind twin sabotage attacks against gas pipelines that disrupted supplies in at least three provinces last week.

The February 14 explosions hit pipelines in the cities of Safashahr in the southern province of Fars and Borujen in the southwestern province of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari.

Officials said at the time it was an act of “sabotage and terrorism.”

There were no reported casualties but state media said supplies were disrupted in the provinces of North Khorasan in the northeast, Lorestan in the west and Zanjan in the northwest.

“The explosion of the country’s gas lines was the work of Israel,” Oil Minister Javad Owji told reporters after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday local time.

“The plot was foiled,” he added.