Biden, other world leaders to visit Israel as crisis in Gaza intensifies
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Several Western leaders announced plans to travel to Israel this week in a show of support ahead of the country’s expected ground offensive, and to plead for humanitarian relief for the Gaza Strip.
Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Tuesday; German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrived in Tel Aviv later in the day. President Biden said he will visit Israel on Wednesday to show solidarity with the U.S. ally “in the face of Hamas’s brutal terrorist attack.” The Israel Defense Forces have continued to bombard Gaza, including the southern parts of the strip, where the IDF has asked Gazans from the north to flee to in anticipation of its expected offensive. As many as a million people may have been displaced from the north of the enclave, aid agencies say.
Here’s what to know:
The Hamas attacks have killed at least 1,400 people in Israel and injured more than 4,121, authorities said. Palestinian officials said 2,778 people in Gaza have been killed and 9,938 wounded. Hamas is holding between 200 and 250 hostages, the spokesperson for Hamas’s military wing estimated.
After his visit to Israel, Biden will travel to Jordan where he will discuss Gaza’s humanitarian crisis with Jordanian King Abdullah II, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, the White House said.
Cross-border clashes between Israeli soldiers and militants from Hamas and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon are increasing in pace and intensity, fueling concerns that the war in Israel and Gaza could spark a broader regional conflict.
Israel’s military said early Tuesday that it targeted Hamas sites across Gaza, including in Rafah and Khan Younis in the south. The Hamas-run Interior Ministry in Gaza said around 80 people were killed in strikes on Khan Younis and Rafah in the past 24 hours, while dozens of others were injured.
The United States is sending more than 4,000 U.S. sailors and Marines toward Israel, where they will be positioned aboard warships in case the conflict there with Hamas expands, defense officials said.
Gaza evacuation directives may amount to forcible transfer, U.N. says
Israel’s directive for 1.1 million people to evacuate the north of Gaza may amount to the forcible transfer of civilians, the United Nations’ human rights office said Tuesday. Under international law, any temporary evacuation requires guarantees of accommodation, hygiene, health, safety and nutrition, Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said Tuesday.
“There appears to have been no attempt by Israel to ensure this for the 1.1 million civilians ordered to move,” she said. “We are concerned that this order combined with the imposition of a ‘complete siege’ on Gaza may not be considered as lawful temporary evacuation and would therefore amount to a forcible transfer of civilians — in breach of international law.”
Those who followed the evacuation warning “are now trapped in the south of the Gaza Strip, with scant shelter, fast-depleting food supplies, little or no access to clean water, sanitation, medicine and other basic needs,” she continued. According to the U.N., forcing civilians to leave the area in which they live can be a crime against humanity, a war crime or both. Shamdasani said there were “daily indications” that international laws on war and human rights are being violated, and urged Israel to avoid targeting civilians or carrying out indiscriminate attacks.
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“Appalling reports that civilians attempting to relocate to southern Gaza were struck and killed by an explosive weapon must be independently and thoroughly investigated, as must all allegations of serious violations of international humanitarian law,” she said. She also urged Palestinian armed groups to release hostages taken from inside Israel and to stop using indiscriminate weapons against Israel.
Source: Washington Post
