Israeli forces bombed Gaza on the first day of Ramadan, killing two fishermen. Israel’s fortified highway has reached the Mediterranean coast, effectively splitting Gaza in two. Meanwhile, hundreds of settlers stormed the al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
At least eighteen children have died in Gaza from malnutrition, while deaths by starvation have risen to 23. Meanwhile, the Pentagon announced that Biden’s proposed floating pier would take two months and 1000 U.S. troops to build.
As Israel’s impending ground invasion of Rafah looms without a ceasefire agreement in sight, the 1.5 million people crammed into Gaza’s southernmost city fear that they will spend Ramadan under Israeli fire.
The Biden administration sees Benny Gantz as a leader who can be reasoned with. To his supporters, Gantz sells himself as the “rational” alternative to Netanyahu, but just as iron-fisted in his policies toward Gaza and the Palestinians.
Gaza’s skies now oscillate between punishment and mercy, terror and relief, as U.S. aid is dropped among its besieged population alongside U.S.-made bombs.
Canada will resume funding to UNRWA and pay a pledge of $25m due in April. In Gaza, another Palestinian child dies of thirst and hunger in the north, bringing the number of children to die from malnutrition to 18.
The “flour massacre” marked a new phase in Israel’s starving of northern Gaza when the army opened fire on crowds waiting for aid trucks. “Our lives must have become so cheap for so many people to die this way,” a witness told Mondoweiss.
U.S. airdrops of food and aid in Gaza have been described as “performative BS” that “fools no one.” Meanwhile, Hamas’s delegation has arrived in Cairo for ceasefire talks as Ramadan is due to start next Sunday.
Israeli soldiers have photographed themselves posing with the lingerie of Palestinian women they have displaced or killed in Gaza. They join a long line of conquest images, from Abu Ghraib images to the spectacle of Jim Crow-era lynchings.
UNRWA says that the famine in northern Gaza can be avoided if more food convoys are allowed in, but Israel continues to hold up over 2000 aid trucks. Meanwhile, Netanyahu reaffirms plans to invade Rafah, where 1.5 million Gazans have sought shelter.