Israel's strikes continue on Gaza, scores killed

The New Arab's live blog on the escalation in Gaza and other regional updates has now finished, and will resume at 0900 GMT.

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Columbia University agreed to some changes demanded by US President Donald Trump's administration before it can negotiate to regain federal funding that was pulled this month over allegations the school tolerated antisemitism on campus.

The Ivy League university in New York City acquiesced to several demands in a 4,000-word message from its interim president released on Friday. It laid out plans to reform its disciplinary process, hire security officers with arrest powers and appoint a new official with a broad remit to review departments that offer courses on the Middle East.

Columbia's dramatic concessions to the government's extraordinary demands, which stem from protests that convulsed the Manhattan campus over the Israel's war in Gaza, immediately prompted criticism. The outcome could have broad ramifications as the Trump administration has warned at least 60 other universities of similar action.

Israeli fighter jets have bombed a home in the Tuffah neighbourhood, east of Gaza City, killing at least five people and wounding several others, Al Jazeera is reporting.

The governments of Germany, France and Britain called for an immediate return to a ceasefire in Gaza in a joint statement on Friday that also called on Israel to restore humanitarian access.

"We call on Israel to restore humanitarian access, including water and electricity, and ensure access to medical care and temporary medical evacuations in accordance with international humanitarian law", the foreign ministers of the three countries, known as the E3, said in a statement.

The ministers said they were "appalled by the civilian casualties", and also called on Palestinian Hamas militants to release Israeli hostages.

US immigration officials on Friday sent an email to the legal team of Momodou Taal, a Cornell University student who has participated in pro-Palestinian protests, asking him to turn himself in, Taal's attorneys said in a court filing.

A "notice to appear" sent by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials is among the first steps in the deportation process.

Taal, a doctoral candidate in Africana Studies and dual citizen of the UK and the Gambia, has participated in pro-Palestinian protests against Israel's war in Gaza following an October 2023 Hamas attack.

President Donald Trump has pledged to deport foreign pro-Palestinian protesters and accused them of supporting Hamas and being antisemitic.

Taal's attorneys called the development a free speech assault. Taal previously filed a lawsuit to block deportations of protesters. He has said he was doxxed.

The Israeli military said it attacked two Syrian military bases on Friday, saying they hosted "military strategic capabilities".

In a statement, the military identified the bases as Tadmur and T4.

Israeli air strikes on Friday targeted the military airport near Palmyra in central Syria, a war monitor said, reporting the latest Israeli attack in the country since the fall of Bashar al-Assad.

"Israeli warplanes targeted the Palmyra military airport," the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Israel's military said it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen late on Friday, after air raid sirens sounded in Jerusalem and areas of central Israel.

"Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in a number of areas in Israel, a missile launched from Yemen was intercepted by the IAF (air force) prior to crossing into Israeli territory," the military said in a statement.

Israel's military said it "struck terrorists" on Friday at a site it described as an inactive Gaza hospital used by Hamas militants, after Turkey condemned what it called a "deliberate" Israeli attack on a Turkish-built hospital in the territory.

"Earlier today (Friday), the IDF (military) struck terrorists in a Hamas terrorist infrastructure site that previously had served as a hospital in the central Gaza Strip," a military spokesman told AFP in response to a question about the Turkish accusations.

Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' armed wing, said it has fired a barrage of rockets on the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon.

The attack at 4:30pm (14:30 GMT) was in response to Israel’s "massacres against civilians" in Gaza, according to a statement on Telegram.

Israel’s military said earlier that it intercepted two projectiles fired from northern Gaza after air raid sirens sounded in Ashkelon.

Houthi media in Yemen reported strikes on the Iran-backed rebels' homeland of Saada on Friday, blaming "American aggression."

The rebels' Al-Masirah TV cited their correspondent in Saada, in Yemen's north, for their latest claim of strikes since the United States on Saturday said it carried out air strikes that killed several Houthi leaders, after the rebels said they would resume attacks on Israeli shipping.

The Israeli army has issued a new evacuation orders, demanding Palestinians in northern Gaza to immediately relocate to the southern part of the Strip, Palestinian media reported.

The orders targeted the areas of Al-Salateen, Al-Karama, and Al-Awda in the territory's north, which were followed by threats from the army to target these locations.

Israel's ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon said Hamas leadership will fall "one by one" if it does not come back to the table and negotiate with Israel, in an address at the UN Security Council.

Hamas, however, issued a statement saying that it was indeed still communicating with mediators over negotiations to release the remaining Israeli captives and restart the ceasefire.

A report by Israeli settlement watchdogs says settlers have used grazing to seize control of 14 percent of the occupied West Bank through the establishment of shepherding outposts in recent years.

In their report, "The Bad Samaritan", Israeli NGOs Peace Now and Kerem Navot said that in the past three years, 70 percent of all land seized by settlers was "taken under the guise of grazing activities".

Settlers in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, use herding to establish a presence on agricultural lands used by Palestinian communities and gradually deny them access to these areas, according to the report.

To force Palestinians out, settlers resort to harassment, intimidation and violence, "with the backing of the Israeli government and military", the watchdogs said.

"Israeli authorities make living conditions very difficult, but settler violence is really the main trigger why people leave lately - they have nothing to protect themselves", said Allegra Pacheco, director of the West Bank Protection Consortium, a group of international NGOs.

The Israeli military said on Friday it killed the head of Hamas' military intelligence in southern Gaza on Thursday.

In a statement, the military named the Hamas leader as Osama Tabash. It said he was also the head of the group's surveillance and targeting unit.

There was no immediate comment from Hamas.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claimed on Friday that Tehran does not need proxies in the region and that Yemen's Houthis, who are among the groups in the Middle East that Iran is aligned with, act on their own motivations.

Over the years, Iran has been aligned with groups across the region that describe themselves as the "Axis of Resistance" to Israel and US influence. Those groups include Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah and various Shia armed groups in Iraq.

Americans, said Khamenei, "make a big mistake and call regional resistance centres Iranian proxies. What does proxy mean?"

"The Yemeni nation has its own motivation and the resistance groups in the region have their own motivations. Iran doesn't need proxies," Khamenei said.

"They issue threats," added Khamenei, but "we have never started a confrontation or conflict with anyone. However, if anyone acts with malice and initiates it, they will receive severe slaps."

Ankara on Friday condemned what it said was a "deliberate" attack by Israel on a Turkish-built hospital in the Gaza Strip.

"We strongly condemn the destruction by Israel of the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital," said a foreign ministry statement.

Palestinian group Hamas is to blame for deaths in the Gaza Strip since hostilities resumed, the United States told the United Nations Security Council on Friday.

"Hamas bears full responsibility for the ongoing war in Gaza and for the resumption of hostilities. Every death would have been avoided had Hamas accepted the bridge proposal that the United States offered last Wednesday," acting US Ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea told the 15-member council.

Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli strikes killed 11 people on Friday, as the military pressed its offensive in the Palestinian territory for a fourth day.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP three people were killed in pre-dawn strikes. Eight more were killed during daytime, six of them in Gaza City and two in Abassan in the south.

The UN warned Friday that all of Gaza's approximately one million children were facing "massive trauma" as fighting in the war-ravaged territory resumed, and amid dire aid shortages.

Sam Rose, the senior deputy field director in Gaza for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, highlighted the psychological shock for already traumatised children to one again find themselves beneath the bombs.

This is a "massive, massive trauma for the one million children" living in the Palestinian territory, he told reporters in Geneva, speaking from Gaza.

James Elder, a spokesman for the UN children's agency UNICEF, said traumatised children usually only start to process their trauma when they begin returning to normalcy.

"Psychologists would say our absolute nightmare is that they return home and then it starts again," he told reporters.

The Israeli military said it intercepted two projectiles from northern Gaza after alerts were activated in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon on Friday.

No Palestinian group has so far claimed responsibility for the launches.

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a rare move, is beefing up the Navy warship presence in the Middle East, ordering two aircraft carriers to be there next month as the US increases strikes on the Yemen-based Houthi rebels, according to a US official.

According to the official, Hegseth signed orders on Thursday to keep the USS Harry S. Truman in the Middle East for at least an additional month. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing military operations.

And Hegseth has ordered the USS Carl Vinson, which has been operating in the Pacific, to begin steaming toward the Middle East, which will extend its scheduled deployment by three months.

The Vinson is expected to arrive in the region early next month. It had been conducting exercises with Japanese and South Korean forces near the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan and was slated to head home to port in San Diego in three weeks.

Security forces in Syria's eastern city of Deir Ezzor have arrested the head of an Iran-affiliated faction that fought alongside ousted president Bashar al-Assad's forces, a war monitor said Friday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said security forces detained Moayad Abdul Samad al-Douaihy in Deir Ezzor on Thursday.

The Britain-based Observatory said Douaihy founded and led a faction known as the Sayyida Zeinab Brigade, affiliated with Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

That faction was active in the city of Al-Mayadeen, fighting alongside Assad's forces, said the Observatory which has a network of sources in Syria. It added that Douaihy received Iranian citizenship after converting to the Shia branch of Islam.

Douaihy was "involved in a long list of crimes including financial blackmail, drug smuggling, theft of civilians' properties and selling displaced people's land to naturalised Iranian and Afghan mercenaries", the Observatory said.

Sirens sounded in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon on Friday, the Israeli military said, adding that details were under review.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday expressed "concern" over a fresh Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip and said Moscow was ready to help "de-escalate" the situation.

In a readout of a phone call between Putin and the Emir of Qatar, the Kremlin said "concern was expressed over the resumption of hostilities in the Gaza Strip, and the readiness of both countries to promote de-escalation and long-term normalisation in the region was stressed."

The Israeli military has targeted the Turkish Friendship Hospital for Cancer Patients in central Gaza, the only medical facility offering cancer care in the region.

The hospital had already suffered significant damage from Israeli airstrikes in October 2023.

More updates will follow shortly.

Iran has the right to peaceful atomic energy and is acting in line with international law, the Kremlin said on Friday as the United States and Israel prepare for high-level talks on Tehran's nuclear programme next week.

At a briefing with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked how Russia would respond if the US or Israel resorted to attacks on Iran's nuclear infrastructure.

"We are convinced that the problem of Iran's nuclear programme should be resolved exclusively by peaceful political and diplomatic means, and we believe that everything necessary is available for this. All that is needed is political will," Peskov said.

"Secondly, Iran, like all other countries, has the right to develop the peaceful atomic sector, peaceful nuclear energy, and is taking important steps in this direction. And all this is happening in strict accordance with international law."

He said Moscow accepted Iran's repeated statements that it has no intention of acquiring nuclear weapons.

Israel's supreme court on Friday froze the decision by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to sack the domestic intelligence agency chief, in order to review appeals filed against the dismissal.

"It is hereby ordered that a provisional measure be taken to stay the effect of the decision subject to the appeals until another decision is made," the court said in a document obtained by AFP. It added that the freeze will remain in place until the appeals are presented to the court before April 8.

France opposes any kind of annexation by Israel of the Gaza Strip or the occupied West Bank, its foreign minister said Friday, after Israel's defence minister threatened to annex parts of Gaza unless Hamas released Israeli captives.

"France is opposed to any form of annexation whether it concerns the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. We have a very clear vision of the future of the region - a solution of two (Israeli and Palestinian) states living side-by-side in peace," Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told reporters in the eastern city of Dijon.

One of the largest providers of food aid in Gaza warned on Friday it only has enough flour to distribute for the next six days.

"We can stretch that by giving people less, but we are talking days not weeks," Sam Rose from the United Nations' Palestinian relief agency UNRWA told reporters in Geneva, speaking from Central Gaza.

The situation in Gaza is gravely concerning with massive reductions in distribution of aid supplies, UNRWA said.

"Six of 25 bakeries that the World Food Programme were supporting had to close down. There are larger crowds on streets outside bakeries," Rose added.

"This is the longest period since the start of conflict in October 2023 that no supplies whatsoever have entered Gaza. The progress we made as an aid system over the last six weeks of the ceasefire is being reversed," Rose added.

Less than half of emergency vehicles run by the Palestinian Red Crescent are operational in Gaza due to fuel shortages, the IFRC humanitarian network said on Friday.

Of 53 vehicles in total, 23 remain operational after aid supplies into Gaza, including fuel, were halted in early March, IFRC spokesperson Tommaso Della Longa told reporters in Geneva.

"It is having a devastating impact. If an ambulance doesn't have gasoline fuel then there are entire communities that are calling the emergency services and are not getting any answer," he added.

Hamas said on Friday it is still discussing US envoy Steve Witkoff's proposal and various other ideas, with the aim of reaching a deal to release prisoners, end the war in Gaza, and achieve a withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Palestinian enclave.

Witkoff presented last week a "bridge" plan to extend the ceasefire in Gaza into April beyond Ramadan and Passover and allow time to negotiate a permanent cessation of hostilities.

The situation in Gaza is gravely concerning with massive reductions in distribution of aid supplies, the United Nations Palestinian relief agency said.

"This is the longest period since the start of conflict in October 2023 that no supplies whatsoever have entered Gaza. The progress we made as an aid system over the last six weeks of the ceasefire is being reversed," Sam Rose from UNRWA told reporters, speaking from Central Gaza.

Our latest on the situation in📍#Gaza and the #WestBank:

🔹On the night between 17-18 March, the Israeli Forces resumed airstrikes and bombardments across the Gaza Strip. As a result, around 500 people were reportedly killed, including more than 170 children.

🔹The Israeli… pic.twitter.com/qscNMfKEg8

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) March 21, 2025

Israel's defence minister, Israel Katz, said Friday he ordered the military to "seize more ground" in Gaza and warned of partial annexation if Hamas does not release captives held in the Palestinian territory.

"I ordered (the army) to seize more territory in Gaza... The more Hamas refuses to free the hostages, the more territory it will lose, which will be annexed by Israel," he said in a statement in which he threatened "permanent occupation" of "buffer zones" inside the Gaza Strip.

Israel's military said it struck military sites in east and south Lebanon on Thursday, in its latest attack despite a November ceasefire that ended a war against militant group Hezbollah.

"A short while ago, the IDF (military) struck a military site containing an underground terrorist infrastructure site in the Bekaa area in Lebanon, as well as a military site containing rocket launchers in southern Lebanon in which Hezbollah activity has been identified," the military said in a statement.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said "enemy aircraft" struck "the eastern slopes of the mountain range within the town of Janta in the Bekaa," (along the Syrian border), as well as "the outskirts of the town of Taraya, west of Baalbek", also in the east. Four missiles were fired in the Nabatiyeh area of southern Lebanon, NNA said.

No casualties were immediately reported.

غارات إسرائيلية على إقليم التفاح #جنوب_لبنان #لبنان pic.twitter.com/4bOBKXlu4T

— Al Modon - المدن (@almodononline) March 20, 2025

Iran's supreme leader said Friday that US threats against his country "will get them nowhere", after US President Donald Trump warned of possible military action against the Islamic republic.

"The Americans should know threats will get them nowhere when confronting Iran. They and others should know that if they do anything malign to the Iranian nation, they will get a hard slap," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said during a live televised speech.

The United States sanctioned on Thursday a China-based oil refinery that purchased Iranian oil worth around $500 million from Houthi-linked ships, as the White House ramps up pressure on Iran.

The US Treasury Department announced in a statement it was sanctioning a "teapot refinery" based in China's Shandong province that bought Iranian oil worth "approximately half a billion dollars." Teapot refineries are small, privately owned operations in China and stand in contrast to the larger state-owned enterprises in the country.

Beijing hit back on Friday, accusing the US of "undermining the normal trade and economic cooperation between China and Iran."

The oil in question was transported by Iran's "shadow fleet" of tankers, according to the Treasury Department, including from ships linked to the Houthis and to the Iranian ministry of defence of armed forces logistics, MODAFL.

The Treasury Department also sanctioned an additional 19 ships and companies responsible for supplying the refineries.

Israel's military said it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen on Thursday for the second time within a day, after air raid sirens sounded in several areas including Jerusalem.

"Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in a number of areas in Israel, a missile launched from Yemen was intercepted by the IAF (air force) prior to crossing into Israeli territory," the military said in a statement.

In a statement on Telegram, Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed responsibility.

"The Yemeni Armed Forces' missile force carried out a qualitative military operation targeting an Israeli military target south of the occupied Jaffa region with a Palestine 2 hypersonic ballistic missile," the statement said.

MOMENT: Air sirens go off in #Jerusalem after an incoming missile fired from #Yemen detected pic.twitter.com/e3hyuiUI5D

— ShanghaiEye🚀official (@ShanghaiEye) March 21, 2025