‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 157: As Ramadan begins, Israel obstructs Palestinian entry to al-Aqsa Mosque

Casualties 

• 31,112+ killed* and at least 72,760 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
• 25 children in Gaza have died of malnutrition and dehydration since the beginning of March, according to the Gaza health ministry. 
• 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.
• 589 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 the West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. This is the latest figure according to PA’s Ministry of Health as of March 6.

*** This figure is released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.”

Key developments 

• Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh blames Israel for lack of truce agreement before Ramadan, says Palestinians want ceasefire.
• Netanyahu administration: Israel wants to clear up space in its prisons to be prepared for the arrest of “thousands” more Palestinians in Gaza and occupied West Bank.
• Survey: three-quarters of Jewish Israelis support attack on Rafah.
• Israeli military and Hezbollah continue to launch offensives and counter-offensives in border fighting.
• Gaza Ministry of Health: Exhausted medical personnel starving in northern Gaza.
• Euro-Med Monitor: Gaza’s elderly are dying at rapid rates.
• The Palestinian city of Jericho in the occupied West Bank names street after the late U.S. airman Aaron Bushnell, who self-immolated last month in protest of the genocide in Gaza. 
• Gazans “celebrate Ramadan with no mosques,”  says Palestinian Foreign Affairs Ministry. 
• Israeli forces block entrance to Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, attack worshippers, on the first evening of Ramadan. 
• Yemen’s Ansar Allah stages military exercises on mock Israeli city, U.S. and UK forces.
• Israeli settlers establish a new illegal outpost in the occupied West Bank’s Jordan Valley, reports Wafa.
• U.S. charity ANERA demands independent probe into staff member’s killing in Gaza.

Ramadan with no mosques

Sunday evening marked the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, as Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza amid severe foot shortages continue. Instead of celebrating, Palestinians in Gaza are entering the month with heavy hearts. 

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs says Ramadan in the Gaza Strip this year is “unlike the holy month in previous years or anywhere else in the world,” especially in light of the destruction of all aspects of life in the Gaza Strip, including dozens of mosques.

Ramadan has arrived as “Palestinians have been suffering from the lack and scarcity of food and drinkable water for more than five consecutive months,” it continued. 

Half of the besieged enclave population crammed into the southern city of Rafah, many living in plastic tents and facing severe shortages of food. 

“Everyone we’ve known has lost a family member or loved one or someone they knew from their networks, which makes it very difficult for people. People used to prepare and start the first day of Ramadan with festivities, decorations, lights, and lanterns in the streets, markets, and mosques; the vast majority of those are now destroyed, according to Al Jazeera correspondent Hani Mahmoud from Rafah.

Ramadan is usually filled with family feasts; however, Israel’s ongoing siege has rendered this almost impossible for those living in Gaza. Even where food is available, there is little beyond canned goods, and the prices are too high for many.

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, says Ramadan is here as “displacement continues, and fear and anxiety prevail amid threats of a military operation on Rafah,” Gaza’s southernmost point.

“This month should bring a ceasefire for those who have suffered the most. They need respite and peace of mind. It’s long overdue,” he continued on X.

Sabah al-Hendi, who was shopping for food on Sunday in the southernmost city of Rafah, told AP: “You don’t see anyone with joy in their eyes. Every family is sad. Every family has a martyr.”

Meanwhile, in the north of Gaza, Palestinians continue to face famine, as severe food and aid shortages continue.

On Monday afternoon, two more children in northern Gaza died of starvation, reported Al Jazeera, citing local sources, bringing the total number to 27, most of them children who have starved to death.

At least one in six children in the north are malnourished, according to the World Health Organization. 

“I came here to buy but I can’t find anything to buy,” Sufian al-Yazji, a displaced Palestinian in the north, told Al Jazeera.

“There’s nothing, no dates or milk, or anything. One can’t find anything for their children. All these canned goods are full of germs that infect the stomach. We need vegetables and fruits to feed our children because they’ve weakened and will die from hunger.” 

Over 2,000 medical staff in northern Gaza are exhausted and struggling to keep up under immense physical pressure with nothing to eat as they work around the clock, says the Palestinian Ministry of Health. 

As a result of the lack of healthcare, bombing, starvation, and dehydration, the enclave’s elderly population are dying at an alarmingly high rate.

Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said in a statement on Sunday that its team in Gaza “is recording nearly daily deaths among the elderly due to Israel’s systematic and pervasive crimes of starvation and treatment deprivation in the Gaza Strip, especially in Gaza City and the Strip’s northern regions.”

“The majority of these cases do not reach hospitals, which are only partially operational in northern Gaza because of the difficulty of access given the ongoing Israeli military attacks. Consequently, after dying at home, the elderly are buried either close to their residences or in makeshift graves dispersed across the Strip. There are currently more than 140 such cemeteries,” Euro-Med said. 

Israel refuses to lift the Gaza siege 

As Gaza’s population starves, Israeli politicians are refusing to lift the siege on Gaza to allow adequate amounts of aid trucks to enter the strip. Instead, in collaboration with the U.S. and Jordan, they are exploring the possibility of continuing airdrops and building a port to receive aid. 

Following a boat tour of Gaza’s coast, Israeli War Cabinet and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said he thinks Washington’s plan for building a port to get humanitarian aid will hurt Hamas.

“The process is designed to bring aid directly to the residents and thus continue the collapse of Hamas’s rule in Gaza,” said Gallant, who was accompanied by military officials on the visit, as cited by Al Jazeera.

“We will ensure that supplies reach here for those who need them and not for those who don’t,” he added.

However, the plan to build a port has been criticized as an attempt to divert attention from hundreds of thousands of starving Palestinians and Israel’s consistent blocking of assistance to the enclave.

Similarly, human rights groups have slammed plans to continue airdropping humanitarian assistance as incredibly inefficient when the dire needs of Gaza’s population are put in context.

Physicians for Human Rights Israel says that aid airdrops are not sufficient, as Palestinian families resort to animal feed for nourishment or skip meals, leading to acute malnutrition among a large section of the population in the besieged coastal enclave, according to Al Jazeera.

The group also refutes Israeli claims that food is entering the Strip in pre-war amounts, “since there is no local production due to the destruction of crops and local bakeries, so the need is much higher.” 

“According to the International Criminal Court, starvation is considered a war crime. Israel must immediately stop all forms of carnage in the Gaza Strip and stop limiting life-saving humanitarian aid. This is a moral stain that will stay with us for generations,” Physicians for Human Rights Israel concluded.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry has described the international failure to protect Palestinians during Ramadan as “an assassination of humanity.”

In a statement posted on X, it said: “The failure of the Security Council to implement Resolution 2720 and its inability to guarantee the entry of humanitarian and medical aid on a constant basis to civilians in the Gaza Strip has no justification.”

Israeli forces restrict Palestinian access to Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque 

Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israel is gearing up its armed forces for harsh crackdowns and restrictions on movement and worship as Ramadan begins.

On Sunday evening, Israeli forces reportedly prevented a large number of Palestinian worshipers from entering the Al Aqsa mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem for tarawih prayers, the special night prayers that only take place during Ramadan.

According to Wafa, Israel has escalated its restrictions on the area and is now only allowing women over the age of 40 to pray.

Moreover, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his defense, national security, and finance ministers to open up space in Israeli prisons in preparation for the arrests of “thousands” more Palestinians this year.

Netanyahu’s administration has said in a statement on Sunday that the military and internal security agency, the Shin Bet, has assessed that many more “terrorists'” will be arrested in Gaza, and Israel will run out of prison space if it doesn’t do something now.

The statement added that approximately 4,000 Palestinians have been arrested in the occupied West Bank and Gaza since October 7, “creating an urgent need to prepare for the intake of many more detainees and prisoners.”

Thousands of Palestinians are being held unlawfully without charge in administrative detention, according to Addameer. 

Qaddoura Fares, head of the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs, has condemned Netanyahu’s decision to provide more detention holding centers.

“Netanyahu’s mind is crowded with hateful, aggressive plans, and the decision he made to equip and prepare new detention places categorically confirms his decision to continue the war against the Palestinian people for as long as possible,” Fares said in a statement cited by Al Jazeera.

“This means that the series of arrests will continue in an upward curve against our defenseless people,” Fares added.

Hamas says Israel is responsible for stalling ceasefire agreement

In the days leading up to Ramadan, the Biden administration planted seeds of hope that a ceasefire deal would be reached before the holy month began. However, there is no agreement in sight. 

Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh says the group has shown “great positivity and responsibility” in the negotiation process under the auspices of Qatar and Egypt.

“If Israel adheres to a ceasefire and allows people to return to the areas they were forced to flee from, we will demonstrate flexibility in the issue of the captives,” Ismail Haniyeh said in a televised speech on Sunday.

“We do not want to reach an agreement that does not end the war on Gaza, or does not let displaced people return to their homes, or does not ensure the departure of the Zionist enemy from Gaza,” Haniyeh continued.

 Haniyeh said Israel bears “responsibility for not reaching an agreement because it does not want to commit to the basic principles of the agreement.”

“Nevertheless, we are open to continuing negotiations and open to any formula that achieves these principles and ends this aggression,” he emphasized.

Israel will not retrieve any of its captives without an agreement, Haniyeh added.

On Saturday, Biden told MSNBC that Netanyahu is “hurting Israel more than helping Israel” by not preventing more civilian deaths. Netanyahu has rejected the U.S. President’s criticism, saying Biden is “wrong” and “false.”

“These are policies supported by the overwhelming majority of the Israelis,” Netanyahu said. “They support the action that we’re taking to destroy the remaining terrorist battalions of Hamas.”

He also said “the last thing” Israel should do is allow the Palestinian Authority to govern Gaza after the war, something the U.S. and Biden administration have been a vocal proponent of. Of this, Netanyahu said: “we should resoundingly reject the attempt to ram down our throats a Palestinian state.” 

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry described Netanyahu’s latest rejection of the Palestinian Authority as the future governing body of Gaza as “an extension of his anti-peace policy that he has worked for decades to implement.”

The ministry says a months-long genocide in the Gaza Strip should be sufficient to show that the goals pursued by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must be “confronted and overthrown.”

The Ministry added that Netanyahu has made it clear he firmly opposes the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and wishes to create a “state of division.”

Still, Al Jazeera reported that Mahmoud Habbash, a top adviser to Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, told the Al Arabiya network that following the resignation of Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh and the dissolution of his government, Abbas would appoint the new PA government, which should be announced soon. 

“Hamas is like any other faction, and it will, like the other groups, be expected to give up the reins of control to the PA and the new government,” he says.