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US-backed Gaza aid centres to close temporarily after 27 killed

Aid centres in hunger-wracked Gaza will temporarily close on Wednesday, a controversial US-backed agency said, with the Israeli army warning roads leading to distribution stations “are considered combat zones”. Twenty-seven people were killed in southern Gaza on Tuesday when Israeli troops opened fire near one of the centres operated by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).Israel recently eased its blockade of the Palestinian enclave, but the UN has said the entire population remains at risk of famine.The UN Security Council will vote Wednesday on a resolution calling for a ceasefire and humanitarian access to Gaza, a measure expected to be vetoed by the United States.The GHF said its “distribution centres will be closed for renovation, reorganisation and efficiency improvement work” on Wednesday and would resume operations on Thursday.The Israeli army, which confirmed the temporary closure, warned against travelling “on roads leading to the distribution centres, which are considered combat zones”.The GHF, officially a private effort with opaque funding, began operations a week ago but the UN and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with it over concerns it was designed to cater to Israeli military objectives.Following Tuesday’s deadly incident near one of GHF’s centres, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres decried the killing of Palestinians seeking food aid as “unacceptable”.Israeli authorities and the GHF — which uses contracted US security — have denied allegations that the Israeli army shot at civilians rushing to pick up aid packages at GHF sites. The Israeli army has said the incident is under investigation. – ‘A trap’ – At a hospital in southern Gaza, the family of Reem al-Akhras, who was killed in the shooting at Rafah’s Al-Alam roundabout near GHF’s facility, were beside themselves with grief.”She went to bring us some food, and this is what happened to her,” her son Zain Zidan said, his face streaked with tears.Akhras’s husband, Mohamed Zidan, said “every day unarmed people” were being killed.”This is not humanitarian aid — it’s a trap.”The Israeli military maintains that its forces do not prevent Gazans from collecting aid.Army spokesperson Effie Defrin said the Israeli soldiers had fired towards suspects who “were approaching in a way that endangered” the troops, adding that the “incident is being investigated”.UN human rights chief Volker Turk called such attacks against civilians “unconscionable” and said they “constitute a grave breach of international law and a war crime”.The International Committee of the Red Cross meanwhile said “Gazans face an “unprecedented scale and frequency of recent mass casualty incidents”.- Relief boat – The United States said Tuesday that a US-backed relief effort in Gaza was succeeding in distributing meals but acknowledged the potential for improvement after the reports of shootings near the GHF centre.A boat organised by an international activist coalition was meanwhile sailing toward Gaza, aiming to deliver aid.The boat from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition departed Sicily Sunday carrying a dozen people, including environmental activist Greta Thunberg, along with fruit juices, milk, tinned food and protein bars.”Together, we can open a people’s sea corridor to Gaza,” the coalition said.But Israel’s military said Tuesday it was ready to “protect” the country’s maritime space.When asked about the Freedom Flotilla vessel, army spokesman Defrin said “for this case as well, we are prepared”, declining to go into detail.Israel has stepped up its offensive in what it says is a renewed push to defeat the Palestinian group Hamas, whose October 2023 attack sparked the war.The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said at least 4,240 people have been killed since Israel resumed its offensive on March 18, taking the war’s overall toll to 54,510, mostly civilians.Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, also mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Apart from the aid centre incident, the civil defence agency reported 19 killed on Tuesday.The army said three of its soldiers had been killed in northern Gaza, bringing the number of Israeli troops killed in the territory since the start of the war to 424.

Israel army says shelling Syria after projectiles launched

The Israeli military said it was shelling targets in Syria on Tuesday in response to a pair of projectile launches, with Defence Minister Israel Katz saying he held Syria’s leader “directly responsible”.Syria’s foreign affairs ministry denied firing the projectiles and said the country “has never been and will never be a threat to anyone in the region”.Israeli media said Tuesday’s strikes were the first fired from Syria into Israeli territory since the fall of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December.There were no reports of casualties or damage on the Israeli side due to the projectiles, which the military said triggered air raid sirens in parts of the southern Golan Heights, a territory Israel conquered from Syria in 1967 and annexed in 1981.Israel Katz, the Israeli defence minister, said in a statement released by his office that “we view the president of Syria as directly responsible for any threat or fire directed at the State of Israel”.Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, led the Islamist group that spearheaded the offensive that led to Assad’s toppling.The Israeli military said “two projectiles were identified crossing from Syria into Israeli territory, and fell in open areas”, adding in a subsequent statement that its “artillery struck in southern Syria” following the launches.Syria’s official news agency SANA reported shelling “targeting the Yarmuk Basin, in the west of Daraa” province.Britain-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said bombardments had hit farmland in the province, without reporting casualties.”Violent explosions shook southern Syria, notably the town of Quneitra and the Daraa region, following Israeli aerial strikes” overnight Tuesday to Wednesday, the monitor said in a statement.- ‘Never a threat’ -Syria condemned the Israeli shelling as a “blatant violation of Syrian sovereignty” that “aggravates tensions in the region”.”Syria has never been and will never be a threat to anyone in the region,” the foreign ministry said in a statement published by SANA.The ministry denied responsibility for the strikes, but said “numerous parties are trying to destabilise the region to serve their own interests.””The absolute priority in southern Syria is to extend the authority of the state and put an end to the presence of weapons outside the framework of official institutions,” it added.Following Assad’s overthrow, Israel moved its forces into the UN-patrolled demilitarised zone in the Golan Heights, and has carried out hundreds of strikes against military targets in Syria.Israel says the strikes aim to stop advanced weapons from reaching Syria’s new authorities, whom it considers jihadists.Israel’s military said on Sunday that its troops were continuing “defensive operations in southern Syria” to “dismantle terrorist infrastructure and protect the residents of the Golan Heights”.Syria and Israel have technically been at war since 1948.US President Donald Trump announced last month the lifting of sanctions on Syria and voiced hope that it would normalise relations with Israel, but experts say that prospect is far from becoming a reality.