Source: Mondoweiss.net
Israel’s Knesset approved a $19.4 billion budget increase to fund the ongoing Israeli genocide, while the Biden administration has indicated that it will greenlight the targeting of “high-value Hamas targets in and underneath Rafah.”
Casualties
- 31,341+ killed* and at least 73,134 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
- 423+ 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.
- 590 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 40,000 when accounting for those presumed dead.
** The death toll in West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. According to PA’s Ministry of Health on March 6, this is the latest figure.
*** This figure is released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.”
Key Developments
- Israeli parliament approves 2024 budget that “guarantees continuation of war.”
- Israeli attack on UN aid distribution center in Rafah kills at least one UNRWA staff member and wounds over 20 others.
- Israeli army plans to displace Palestinians in Rafah towards “humanitarian islands” in the center of the Gaza Strip, according to AP News.
- Israeli forces open fire yet again on aid seekers in Gaza City, killing at least 7 Palestinians, wounding 86, reported Wafa.
- Human rights groups call for all Gaza land crossings to be opened for aid.
- Israeli military confiscates body of slain 13-year-old.
- UN: Since October 7, Israeli forces killed over 400 people sheltering in U.N. facilities in Gaza.
- UN: Israel has attacked over 150 of the agency’s structures despite having protected status under international law since October 7, 2023.
- Amnesty International director slams global community for “pretending” as if the crisis in Gaza is humanitarian and not engineered by Israel.
- Human rights group demands international probe into attack on IRC and MAP facility in safe zone.
- Politico: U.S. officials say Biden administration will get behind targeting of “high-value Hamas targets in and underneath Rafah.”
Israeli forces kill 7 aid seekers, attack UN distribution center
On the fourth day of Ramadan, Palestinians in Gaza are growing ever more desperate as food shortages continue and the Israeli military targets aid seekers and distribution sites.
Israeli forces killed 7 Palestinians and wounded about 86 others after opening fire on a group of Palestinians waiting for aid to arrive at the Kuwait Roundabout in Gaza City, reported Wafa.
In recent weeks, Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked the roundabout where large groups of people gather to wait for aid trucks. On Tuesday, Israeli forces killed 11 people waiting for food aid at the roundabout.
Al Jazeera correspondent Hani Mahmoud says the Kuwait Roundabout as “known as a death trap” and that it’s becoming increasingly dangerous right now for aid seekers….