UN warns aid stocks running out in Gaza as Arab ministers meet on Gaza reconstruction

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Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem welcomed on Wednesday US President Donald Trump’s apparent retreat on the Gazans displacement call, urging him to refrain from aligning with the vision of the "extreme Zionist right."

(Reuters)

A shooting attack in a settlement in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday left an Israeli civilian injured, the military said, adding troops were in pursuit of the gunman.

"Following the initial report regarding a shooting attack near Ariel, an Israeli civilian, moderately injured by gunfire, arrived at the Ariel industrial park and is currently receiving medical treatment," the military said in a statement.

"The security forces began a pursuit after the terrorist and are setting up roadblocks in the area."

No other details were immediately available, but Israel's emergency services provider, Magen David Adom, said the victim was an 18-year-old man who was evacuated to a hospital.

A group of around 100 senior figures from Syria's Druze are expected to visit the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Friday, members of the community said, in a further sign of Israel's support for the minority group.

The group is expected to meet Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif, spiritual leader of the Druze community in Israel, as well as other members of the community and to visit a shrine.

There was no immediate confirmation of the visit from the Israeli foreign ministry.

(Reuters)

Arab foreign ministers met in Qatar on Wednesday with US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to discuss reconstruction for Gaza, devastated by Israel's war, the Gulf state said.

"The Arab foreign ministers discussed the Gaza reconstruction plan, which was approved during the Arab League Summit held in Cairo on March 4, 2025. They also agreed with the US envoy to continue consultations and coordination on the plan as a foundation for the reconstruction efforts," Qatar's foreign ministry said in a statement.

The United Nations warned Wednesday that supplies of aid are at risk of running out in Gaza as Israel blocks deliveries.

"Eleven days is already 11 days too long to prevent aid reaching civilians who so badly need it," said Fletcher.

"The supplies are clearly running out very, very fast," he said, forcing the UN to ration stocks to make them last longer.

"The fact that we're not getting fuel in means that incubators are being switched off," said Fletcher, adding that Gaza will quickly become a humanitarian crisis again.

Fletcher said he visited Gaza last month and while trying to prepare himself, things were much worse than anticipated.

He said one of his biggest shocks was seeing dogs fattened from eating corpses as they sniffed through the rubble of Gaza.

"And you notice that the people are thin, and then you see that for miles and miles and miles. And I don't think anything can prepare you for that," said Fletcher.

Jordan Bardella, the leader of France's far-right National Rally (RN) party, is to make an unprecedented visit to Israel later this month to attend a conference on fighting anti-Semitism, a party source said on Wednesday.

Bardella's fellow European Parliament MP Marion Marechal, the niece of Marine Le Pen, who leads a separate far-right movement, will also be attending, she told AFP.

They are both expected on 26 and 27 March in Jerusalem on an invitation of the Israeli government to address the conference.

"Jordan Bardella will deliver a speech on the rise of anti-Semitism in France since October 7," a source close to Bardella told AFP, confirming a report in newspaper Le Figaro.

The International Court of Justice will hold hearings next month on Israel's humanitarian obligations towards Palestinians, amid claims the Israeli government is blocking aid access to Gaza.

The United Nations General Assembly approved a resolution in December requesting that the world body's top court give an advisory opinion on the matter.

The hearings will open on 28 April at the court's seat in The Hague, it said in a statement.

The resolution, submitted by Norway in October, was adopted by a large majority.

A US judge orders that a detained Columbia University student be allowed to have private phone calls with lawyers challenging his arrest by immigration authorities.

Mahmoud Khalil’s case has become a flashpoint of the Trump administration’s pledge to deport pro-Palestinian college activists. Khalil’s lawyers argue the arrest violated his right to free speech under the US Constitution’s First Amendment, and have urged his release.

At a hearing in Manhattan federal court, Khalil’s lawyer Ramzi Kassem says his client had been allowed just one call with his legal team from immigration detention in Louisiana. Kassem says the call was cut off prematurely and was on a line recorded and monitored by the government.

US District Judge Jesse Furman rules that Khalil, 29, and his lawyers should have one phone call today and another one tomorrow covered by attorney-client privilege, meaning the government would not have access to their conversation.

Furman on Monday temporarily blocked Khalil’s deportation.

Arab foreign ministers agreed on Wednesday to continue consultations and coordination with US President Donald Trump's special envoy on Egypt's Gaza reconstruction plan during a meeting in Doha, according to a joint statement.

Consultations will continue on the plan with the US speical envoy, Steve Witkoff, as a "basis for the reconstructions efforts" in the Gaza Strip, the statement said.

Hundreds of protesters have gathered to show support for pro-Palestinian protester Mahmoud Khalil, who is is set to appear in a New York court after Donald Trump pledged to revoke his green card and deport him for his activism at Columbia University.

Among those supporting Khalil is US actress Susan Sarandon, according to videos shared online.

Actress and activist, Susan Sarandon, the first in line awaiting to enter into the courtroom where Mahmoud Khalil is set to appear. pic.twitter.com/nIzDjoJ2yV

— Madison Swart (@swartmadison) March 12, 2025

Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin on Wednesday said aid needed to be surged into Gaza while also calling for a ceasefire and the release of all remaining hostages as he prepared to meet with US President Donald Trump in Washington.

Trump, speaking alongside Martin at the White House before the two leaders' meeting, said no one is expelling anyone from Palestinian territory.

The Israeli military said it will be investigating soldiers’ use of Palestinian civilians as human shields during operations in Gaza, the Israeli army told CNN on Tuesday.

This is the first time the military has acknowledged that there is "reasonable suspicion" to believe soldiers forced civilians to take part in military operations, CNN said.

"In several cases, the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division opened investigations after reasonable suspicion arose regarding the use of Palestinians for military missions during the operations," the Israeli army said.

This comes after reports emerged that Israeli soldiers forced civilians in Gaza to enter potentially booby-trapped houses and tunnels in order to avoid the potential harming of troops.

Israeli forces reported fresh arrests as they kept up raids in the northern occupied West Bank on Wednesday, a day after troops shot dead three Palestinians as part of an ongoing military operation.

Overnight, Israeli troops conducted raids in the villages of Qabatiya and Arraba, arresting about a dozen Palestinians. The detainees were handed over to the Israeli police and the Shin Bet security agency for further investigation, the military added.

The Israeli military has been conducting a sweeping offensive across multiple areas of the West Bank since January 21, two days after a fragile ceasefire took effect in the Gaza Strip, largely halting 15 months of war there.

The arrest of a pro-Palestinian activist does not contradict the US administration's stance on defending free speech, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday.

"This is not about free speech," Rubio said when asked if the weekend arrest of Mahmoud Khalil clashed with President Donald Trump's championing of the right to express opinions in the United States and in Europe.

"This is about people that don't have a right to be in the United States to begin with," Rubio told reporters at Ireland's Shannon Airport during a refuelling stop after a trip to Saudi Arabia.

Khalil, a recent graduate of Columbia and one of the most prominent faces of the university's high-profile protests, was arrested by US immigration officials even though the university's student union and his lawyer said he held a Green Card allowing permanent residency.

Protesters in New York and rights groups have expressed outrage after Khalil, a leader of pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the city's Columbia University, was arrested over the weekend.

Trump has said Khalil's arrest is the first "of many to come", accusing students across the country of being engaged in "pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity" that his administration "will not tolerate".

Hamas said the Houthi rebels' blockade on Israeli ships in response to the blocking of aid in Gaza demonstrates "commitment" to the Palestinian cause.

"It is a true commitment of support for our Palestinian people and their resistance, and it exerts real pressure to break the unjust siege on Gaza," Hamas said in a statement, after the Houthis announced they would resume attacks following the expiry of their deadline for Israel to stop blocking aid deliveries into Gaza.

A Palestinian man in Jenin has sustained injuries after being shot by Israeli forces on Wednesday.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said its crews transported a 20-year-old man with a hand injury after Israeli forces fired live ammunition towards him near the Shuhada Roundabout, south of Jenin.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly lost his composure as his corruption trial resumed in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, where he reportedly slammed his fists and slammed "the lies" that have "upturned" his life, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Netanyahu is on trial for corruption, bribery and fraud. He denies all charges.

Palestinians who suffered brutal beatings and sexual abuse in Israeli detention and at the hands of Israeli settlers testified about their ordeals at the United Nations this week.

"I was humiliated and tortured," said Said Abdel Fattah, a 28-year-old nurse detained in November 2023 near Gaza City's Al Shifa hospital where he worked.

Fattah gave his testimony from Gaza via video-link to a public hearing, speaking through an interpreter.

He described being stripped naked in the cold, suffering beatings, threats of rape and other abuse over the next two months as he was shuttled between overcrowded detention facilities.

"I was like a punching bag," he said of one particularly harrowing interrogation he endured in January 2024.

The interrogator, he said, "kept hitting me on my genitals... I was bleeding everywhere, I was bleeding from my penis, I was bleeding from my anus".

"I felt like my soul (left) my body."

A second Palestinian man has died after being struck by Israeli gunfire, this time in Khan Younis' the Khuza’a area.

This comes as Israel has carried out a number of violations in the Gaza Strip in recent days, including in the Rafah area.

Syria's foreign minister Asaad al-Shaibani is set to attend a donor summit for his country in Brussels on March 17, a European official told Reuters on Wednesday, the first time Syria will be formally represented at the yearly conference.

The official said that Syria's interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa was not expected to be at the donor meeting, after a Syrian source and two diplomats had told Reuters he was expected there.

The yearly conference, hosted by the European Union, aims to "mobilise international support for an inclusive, peaceful transition" and will be the first time it is held following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad from power in December.

In the past, representatives of Syrian civil society were invited to take part in the summit - but the Syrian state was not.

The Doctors Without Borders (MSF) medical charity claimed Wednesday that Israel had "instrumentalised humanitarian needs" in Gaza, with its decision to halt aid and cut electricity into the Palestinian territory.

"Israeli authorities are yet again normalising the use of aid as a negotiation tool," MSF emergency coordinator Myriam Laaroussi said in a statement.

"This is outrageous. Humanitarian aid should never be used as a bargaining chip in war."

Israel halted aid deliveries to war-torn Gaza after a deadlock over a fragile ceasefire, which since January 19 has reduced hostilities after more than 15 months of relentless fighting.

And ahead of a current round of talks in Doha, Israel on Sunday halted the supply of electricity to the territory's only desalination plant, in a move Hamas condemned as "cheap and unacceptable blackmail".

Describing the move as "collective punishment", MSF demanded that Israel "end this inhumane blockade of the Strip".

It warned that with the suspension of electricity supply, the water desalination plant in Khan Yunis in the south of the territory had already run out of fuel.

El Al Israel Airlines reported a nearly five-fold jump in net profit in 2024, benefiting from being one of very few carriers serving Tel Aviv after foreign airlines halted flights during Israel's deadly war in Gaza.

El Al, Israel's flag carrier, said on Wednesday it earned $545 million last year, up from $117 million in 2023, as revenue rose 37 percent to $3.4 billion.

In the fourth quarter, El Al earned net profit of $130 million, up from $40 million a year earlier, with revenue up 26 percent to $851 million.

El Al has faced criticism from customers in Israel and abroad for price-gouging since the Gaza war, but El Al said the average fare per passenger rose 14 percentIsrael's El Al Airlines 2024 profit soars amid war over 2023

Syria's interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is expected to attend an international donor summit for his country in Brussels on March 17, a Syrian source and two diplomats familiar with the trip said.

It will be his first visit to Europe since he was declared interim president following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad in December. The conference, hosted by the European Union, aims to "mobilise international support for an inclusive, peaceful transition".

A group of Israeli extremists stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied Jerusalem early on Wednesday, as they were being escorted by police.

Israel settlers often raid Islam's third holiest site in a bid to provoke Palestinians. Tensions are specifically heightened as it is currently the holy month of Ramadan and Israel has stepped up its raids in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

A Palestinian man has succumbed to his wounds on Wednesday, from injuries he sustained by Israeli forces' in Rafah several days ago, local media is reporting.

Gaza's Government Media Office said that that 137 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the ceasefire went into effect on January 19, including 52 in Rafah.

Israeli forces have reportedly opened fire at Palestinians in southern and eastern Rafah early on Wednesday, Al Jazeera is reporting, after having already opened fire in the city Abasan al-Kabira, east of Khan Younis earlier in the day.

Israeli forces have blown up parts of a house in the West Bank city of Qalqilya early on Wednesday reportedly belonging to a slain Palestinian man Ali Mahmoud Khalil.

The residence was a two-storey home spanning at least 150 square meters, the Palestinian news agency Wafa said.

Israeli forces had stormed the area, accompanied by explosives engineering teams. They planted explosives in the house before detonating it.