As of: February 11, 2024, 5:02 a.m
By: Jens Kiffmeier, Felix Busjaeger, Tadhg Nagel, Felix Durach, Nail Akkoyun
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The IDF has targeted the southern city of Rafah - and discovered a Hamas tunnel under UNRWA headquarters.
The news ticker about the war in Israel.
UN relief agency pilloried
: Hamas hid a tunnel under its headquarters
Israel
prepares
offensive
on
Rafah
: Netanyahu calls for plan to evacuate civilians
Hezbollah
attacks
: Terrorist militia announces further attacks on Israel
The information processed here about the war in Israel and the fight against Hamas in the Gaza Strip
comes from local and international media as well as news agencies.
Much of the information cannot be independently verified.
Update from February 10th, 9:29 p.m.:
That's it again
UN Palestinian Relief Agency UNRWA in the pillory: The Israeli military has apparently discovered a Hamas militia tunnel that is said to run under the international organization's headquarters in the city of Gaza.
The underground passage was 700 meters long, 18 meters deep and served as an important facility for Hamas's military intelligence service, the military said on Saturday evening.
In the past two weeks, the military also claims to have found large quantities of weapons and explosives in the headquarters, which was abandoned by UNRWA in the early stages of the war.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said he had no knowledge of this.
The Israeli army is currently discovering Hamas tunnels all over the Gaza Strip.
© Cover Images/Imago
The aid organization has recently come under heavy criticism.
There have been repeated accusations from Israel that it is working with Hamas.
Specifically, some employees were accused of being involved in the terrorist acts carried out by the Islamist Hamas on October 7th in Israel.
Several Western countries temporarily suspended payments to UNRWA because of the allegations, including the two largest donors, the United States and Germany.
UN Secretary General António Guterres promised comprehensive information.
The collaboration with several employees has been terminated.
Air strikes on Rafah: Israel's military kills two Hamas officials
Update from February 10, 7:01 p.m.:
Hamas officials are believed to have been killed in the air strikes on Rafah.
As the
Tagesschau
reports, one of those killed was responsible for the security of the Hamas leaders, the other worked as a senior investigator for the militant Islamist group.
This emerges from information from the Israeli military.
A Rafah-based investigator was also killed in the attacks on the city in the Gaza Strip.
Medical sources said more than 20 people were killed in aerial attacks on two houses in Rafah on Saturday.
The mayor of the city in the south of the coastal area, Ahmed al-Sufi, also confirmed the number of victims to the German Press Agency.
In addition, Israeli soldiers are said to have bombed a Hamas vehicle.
Three people, including the head of the Islamist organization's police intelligence service and his deputy, were killed.
According to Israel, the army adheres to international law in its operations and takes precautions to minimize damage to the civilian population.
Medic found dead in Gaza Strip – offensive in Rafah is looming
Update from February 10th, 5:58 p.m.:
Two paramedics from the Palestinian Red Crescent were found dead in the city of Gaza.
Both were reported missing twelve days ago.
This is reported by
ZDF
.
It is said that the paramedics were on their way to rescue a six-year-old girl.
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Update from February 10, 5:30 p.m.:
Faced with a possible offensive on Rafah in the Gaza Strip, Hamas warned on Saturday that there could be “tens of thousands” of dead and injured if Israel's military continued the attack.
In a statement, Hamas said any military action would have catastrophic consequences.
AFP said witnesses reported new attacks on Rafah early Saturday, raising fears among Palestinians of an impending ground invasion.
US attacks Houthi targets over attacks in Israel war
Update from February 10th, 4:55 p.m.:
The US military has again attacked targets of the militant Islamist Houthis in Yemen in order to prevent new attacks on ships in the Red Sea.
This is reported by the German Press Agency.
The target of Friday's attacks were two unmanned watercraft and five militia cruise missiles, the responsible US regional command Centcom announced on Saturday on the X platform, formerly Twitter.
The ships and missiles were discovered in Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen and were assessed as a direct threat to US Navy ships and merchant vessels in the region.
Since the beginning of the war in Israel and the fighting in the Gaza Strip, the Houthis have repeatedly attacked merchant ships on the Red Sea.
According to its own statements, the militia acts in solidarity with the Islamist Hamas.
It directs its attacks off the Yemeni coast on freighters with alleged ties to Israel.
Iran comments on the war in Israel: “We have never tried to expand it”
Update from February 10, 4:45 p.m.:
Iran's foreign minister said, according to the
Guardian,
that neither Iran nor Lebanon sought to expand hostilities in the region following Hamas' attack on Israel.
“Iran and Lebanon believe that war is not the solution and that we have absolutely never tried to expand it,” Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said at a news conference alongside his Lebanese counterpart in Beirut.
AI in the Israel War: Military should use new technology in the Gaza Strip
Update from February 10, 3:30 p.m.:
As AFP reports, Israel's army has used military technology with artificial intelligence in the fight against Hamas in the Gaza Strip for the first time.
According to the British Guardian, this is fueling fears about the use of autonomous weapons in modern warfare.
In detail, the Israeli army's technology will be used to locate enemy drones.
In addition, Hamas' tunnel network in Gaza is to be mapped.
After several weeks, the conflict in the Middle East has intensified further.
Israel's army has attacked targets in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip despite international warnings, according to eyewitnesses.
Medical sources said more than 20 people were killed in aerial attacks on two houses on Saturday.
Criticism of the offensive in Rafah: Israel is expanding fighting in the Gaza Strip
Update from February 10th, 2 p.m.:
International criticism of the Israeli offensive in the south of the Gaza Strip continues.
Saudi Arabia has also now expressed criticism about the attacks on the city of Rafah.
The kingdom noted the serious consequences of military action in Rafah and stressed its categorical rejection of the forced relocation of hundreds of thousands of civilians, according to a Foreign Ministry statement on Saturday.
Riyadh called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to “prevent Israel from causing an impending humanitarian catastrophe.”
Israel launches attacks on Rafah – Baerbock warns of “humanitarian catastrophe with announcement”
Update from February 10th, 12:55 p.m.:
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has warned Israel's government against a military offensive in the south of the Gaza Strip.
“An offensive by the Israeli army on Rafah would be a humanitarian catastrophe,” the Green politician wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday.
“The people in Gaza cannot disappear into thin air.” Baerbock pointed out that the need in Rafah was already unbelievable and that 1.3 million people there were seeking protection from the fighting in the Gaza Strip in a very small space.
Baerbock emphasized on X that Israel must defend itself against Hamas terror, but alleviate the suffering of the civilian population as much as possible.
That's why another ceasefire is needed so that more hostages can be released.
“I will discuss how to get there again next week in Israel,” she announced.
War against Hamas: Israel launches attacks on Rafah
Update from February 10th, 12:14 p.m.:
Despite concerns and warnings expressed internationally, the Israeli military has launched attacks on the city of Rafah.
Medical sources said more than 20 people were killed in aerial attacks on two houses on Saturday.
The mayor of the city in the south of the coastal area, Mohammed al-Sufi, also confirmed the number of victims to the dpa.
Israeli soldiers also bombed a Hamas vehicle, killing three people, including the Islamist organization's head of police intelligence and his deputy, according to police sources and eyewitnesses on Saturday.
None of the information could initially be independently verified.
Israel's military initially did not comment when asked.
Smoke rises over the town of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday following Israeli attacks.
© SAID KHATIB/AFP
There are currently no Israeli ground troops deployed in the city.
Rafah's mayor Al-Sufi warned of an army advance into the town.
“Any military action in the city, home to more than 1.4 million Palestinians, will result in a massacre and a bloodbath.”
Israel war: IDF reports fighting against Hamas fighters in Khan Younis
Update from February 10, 10:14 a.m.:
The Israeli military leadership reports intense fighting between the Israeli army and Hamas fighters in the region around the city of Khan Younis.
The army's goals are “eliminating terrorists, detecting weapons and attacking terrorist infrastructure,” the military leadership said in a post on X.
Meanwhile, the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip reported on Saturday morning that 110 people were killed by Israeli airstrikes overnight.
The air strikes were primarily aimed at the southern city of Rafah.
The information cannot be independently verified.
Violent explosions near Damascus – Israel is probably carrying out drone attacks in Syria
Update from February 10, 8:16 a.m.:
According to media reports, the Israeli armed forces have attacked targets near the Syrian capital Damascus.
The Israeli military fired on the Damascus area from the Golan Heights, the Syrian state news agency (Sana) reported on Saturday, citing a military source.
Violent explosions were heard west of the Syrian capital.
The Syrian air defense shot down some of the rockets.
Sana further reported that there was only material damage.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a residential building west of the Syrian capital was hit.
Three people were killed.
On Friday evening, the Shiite Hezbollah militia claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on an Israeli barracks in the Golan Heights.
“Catastrophic consequences” threaten – Israel targets Rafah
Update from February 10, 7:00 a.m.:
The Israeli army continued to bomb targets in the region of the city in the south of the Gaza Strip following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's order to develop a plan to evacuate the civilian population from Rafah.
Eyewitnesses reported attacks on Saturday morning in the area around the city, which is now home to around 1.3 million Palestinians.
More than a million Palestinian internally displaced people have sought refuge from the fighting in the city on the border with Egypt since the start of the war.
The human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) sharply criticized Netanyahu's announcement.
“Forcing the more than one million Palestinian refugees in Rafah to undergo a new evacuation without there being a safe place for them to go would be illegal and would have catastrophic consequences,” said HRW representative Nadia Hardman on the night Saturday.
There are no safe places left in the Gaza Strip.
“The international community should act to prevent further atrocities,” Hardman said.
War crimes in the West Bank?
UN allegations against Israel
Update from February 9, 7:57 p.m.:
The killing of three Palestinian men in a West Bank hospital in January by Israeli commandos disguised as medical staff and Muslim women could constitute war crimes, a group of UN experts said on Friday.
The three militants were killed in a joint covert operation by the army, Shin Bet security service and border police at Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin on January 29, the Israeli military said.
“Under international humanitarian law, the killing of a defenseless, injured patient being treated in a hospital constitutes a war crime,” the U.N. experts said in a statement, referring to Basel Al-Ghazzawi, who was being treated for injuries alleged to have been caused by an Israeli airstrike.
Soldiers “disguised as seemingly harmless, protected medical personnel and civilians.”
“By masquerading as seemingly harmless, protected medical personnel and civilians, the Israel Defense Forces also prima facie committed the war crime of perfidy, which is prohibited under all circumstances,” they added, calling on Israel to investigate.
According to the Israeli military, one of the men killed in the hospital was a member of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, while the others worked for the Jenin Brigade and the armed wing of Islamic Jihad.
The Ibn Sina Hospital in the West Bank.
© IMAGO/Nasser Ishtayeh
Update from February 9th, 7:55 p.m.:
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has strongly condemned Israel's plans for a military offensive in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
Abbas said on Friday evening at his official residence in Ramallah in the West Bank that these would represent a "dangerous prelude" to a policy of displacement that Palestinians fear.
Abbas accused Israel and its ally USA of “destructive policies”.
He called on the UN Security Council to take action.
“These steps [considered by Israel] endanger security and peace in the region, they cross all red lines,” he added.
Israel prepares offensive on Rafah
Update from February 9th, 7 p.m.:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the country's army to prepare an offensive on the southern city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip.
"It is impossible to achieve the war goal of eliminating Hamas if four Hamas battalions remain in Rafah," he said through the prime minister's office on Friday.
The plans that the military leadership should submit to the government must also include the evacuation of civilians in Rafah, the statement said.
A military offensive in Rafah, which lies in the very south of the Gaza Strip and borders Egypt, is considered highly problematic.
The town, which had around 300,000 inhabitants before the war, is now said to be home to 1.3 million people.
Most of them fled there from other parts of the Gaza Strip before the war, partly on orders from the Israeli military.
“Combined Plan” for Evacuation and Destruction - Warnings of Humanitarian Disaster
“It is clear that intense (military) activity in Rafah requires civilians to clear the combat zone,” Netanyahu said on Friday.
He therefore instructed the military leadership to present the government with a “combined plan” for the evacuation of the population and the destruction of the Hamas battalions.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres had previously warned of a humanitarian catastrophe and consequences for the entire region.
Half of the Gaza Strip's population is crammed into Rafah and has nowhere else to go, he wrote on the news platform X, formerly Twitter.
The US government and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock have also spoken out clearly against military action in Rafah in recent days.
A camp of refugee Palestinians in Rafah.
© IMAGO/Bashar Taleb\apaimages
Israeli soldiers storm hospital in Khan Yunis
Update from February 9th, 5:45 p.m.:
According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, Israeli soldiers stormed a hospital in the city of Khan Yunis in the south of the Gaza Strip.
This is reported by the
AFP news agency.
The Israeli armed forces stormed the Al-Amal hospital and began a search, the organization said on Friday.
The Israeli military did not initially respond to a request from the news agency.
At the beginning of the week, the Red Crescent announced that around 8,000 people who had sought protection in the hospital had been evacuated.
Around 40 displaced people, 80 patients and 100 employees remained in the hospital after the evacuation.
Israel has recently focused its military action on Khan Yunis in the south of the Gaza Strip.
The army suspects that high-ranking officials of the Islamist Palestinian organization Hamas are hiding in the city, as well as hostages kidnapped by them.
Netanyahu has Rafah evacuated
Update from February 9th, 4:32 p.m.:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered his armed forces to draw up plans for the evacuation of the civilian population in the city of Rafah.
The military should present the government with a “combined plan to evacuate the population and destroy the battalions” of the radical Islamic group Hamas in Rafah, the prime minister's office said on Friday.
Rafah is located in the south of the Gaza Strip near the border with Egypt.
Since the war between Israel and Hamas began, more than a million Palestinian internally displaced people have sought refuge in the city.
Smoke rises over the town of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
© Ismael Mohamad/imago-images
Update from February 9th, 3:40 p.m.:
The Syrian state news agency SANA has reported the shooting down of two Israeli drones near the capital Damascus.
The drones entered Syrian airspace from the Golan Heights.
The report cannot currently be independently verified.
Israel's armed forces have not yet commented on the allegations.
War in Israel: Humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip – one in ten children is malnourished
Update from February 9th, 3:22 p.m.:
The humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip remains catastrophic.
According to the United Nations, almost one in ten children under the age of five in the Gaza Strip is malnourished.
This resulted in measurements of the arm circumference of thousands of small children and infants, according to a statement from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) distributed on Friday.
Overall, 9.6 percent are undernourished, and in the northern Gaza Strip alone the figure is 16.2 percent.
According to the charity ActionAid, some Gazans eat grass.
“Every single person in Gaza is hungry now,” it said.
The supply of clean drinking water is also a problem.
The aid organization Islamic Relief quoted one of its workers in Gaza as saying: “My children and I have not eaten fruit or vegetables in months.
People are being killed trying to get to the United Nations aid trucks.”
Hamas demands 1,000 trucks of humanitarian aid per day for the Gaza Strip
Update from February 9th, 1:23 p.m.:
Hamas is apparently demanding that 1,000 trucks with humanitarian aid be driven to the northern Gaza Strip every day in order to mitigate the effects of the war.
This is reported by several Arab media.
The Times of Israel also reported the demand, citing the Hamas-run media office in Gaza.
The famine in the Gaza Strip has “worsened as a result of American and Israeli actions,” a Hamas spokesman is quoted as saying.
“We call for the immediate entry of 1,000 trucks daily into the northern Gaza Strip until it recovers from the famine and its effects,” it said.
It is estimated that 300,000 to 400,000 Palestinian people currently live in the northern Gaza Strip, which the Israeli army had evacuated at the beginning of the war.
Concern in Israel: Will the USA soon recognize a Palestinian state?
Update from February 9th, 10:30 a.m.:
According to a newspaper report, Israel is concerned that the USA could recognize a Palestinian state without Israel's consent as part of its efforts to find a two-state solution.
The Israeli newspaper
Maariv
wrote on Friday that Israel sees “intense activities” by the US government with the aim of unifying the West Bank and Gaza Strip under a Palestinian government.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects a two-state solution.
This means an independent Palestinian state that exists peacefully side by side with Israel.
However, efforts to achieve this have not made any progress for years.
The Islamist Palestinian organization Hamas, which violently seized sole power in the Gaza Strip a year after its election victory in 2007, also rejects this.
War in Israel: Hezbollah announces attacks – “Sirens will sound”
Update from February 9th, 7:48 a.m.:
In response to an Israeli drone attack on the vehicle of a high-ranking Hezbollah member, the Lebanese terrorist militia has launched a new series of attacks against northern Israel.
The Israeli army had not previously claimed responsibility for the attack in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatea.
However, both Arab and Israeli media reported the incident and identified the Hezbollah member as Abbas al-Debs.
A Hezbollah spokesman would neither confirm nor deny the target's identity, telling
Newsweek
that "Debs' name was mentioned by Israel, not us."
He further claimed that no one was killed and there were “only injured people.”
He then threatened that sirens would sound in “a number of settlements” in Israel.
Biden criticizes Israel: “Action in the Gaza Strip is excessive”
First report:
Tel Aviv/Gaza - While things remained relatively quiet in Israel and the Gaza Strip on Friday night (February 9th), US President Joe Biden tightened his tone towards Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the action against the terrorist militia Hamas described as disproportionate.
“I believe the response in Gaza has been excessive,” Biden said.
There are many innocent people who are starving, in need or even dying.
“This has to stop.” During his appearance in front of the press, the Democrat actually spoke about a domestic political issue, but at the end he answered a question about the crisis in the Middle East.
The USA has long been urging Israel to increase protection of the civilian population and provide more aid to the population in Gaza.
However, the US government's recent statements indicate increasing discontent with the resonance of its appeals with the Israeli leadership.
Air strikes on Rafah: Apparently several people killed
According to media reports, Israeli air strikes took place overnight on Rafah, the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip.
According to the Qatari-operated broadcaster
Al Jazeera,
several people were killed in the attack on residential areas.
Israel has stepped up airstrikes on Rafah in recent days after Prime Minister Netanyahu vowed to expand the military offensive on the city to advance the war against Hamas.
In this case, too, the United States warned urgently of catastrophic consequences for the civilian population if the operation were extended to the city.
It was only on Wednesday (February 7th) that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken struck a strikingly clear note during a visit to Israel and warned the military leadership to do more to protect civilians in the Gaza war.
The dehumanization that Israel experienced in the Hamas massacre in October “cannot be a license” to dehumanize others, Blinken said in Tel Aviv.
(talk to agencies)