Middle East crisis: Israel issues evacuation order for parts of northern Gaza – as it happened

Patrick Wintour is diplomatic editor for the Guardian

One year after Israel’s killing of three British aid workers employed by World Central Kitchen, the family of James Kirby, one of those killed, said they had still not received answers from the British government.

The three British citizens were killed in an Israeli airstrike despite their vehicle being clearly marked. Seven aid workers were killed in the strikes to which the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) admitted took place. Two IDF members were dismissed.

Louise Kirby said the pain of losing her cousin James remains ever-present, but adds “what has been equally devastating is the lack of justice and accountability. Despite repeated calls for answers, the family continues to be met with silence and no substantial action from the UK government.

She said it was “disheartening” that after all this time “we still have no concrete proof of accountability from any responsible party. The government’s response has been nothing but empty apologies, which are and will never be sufficient. My family and I remain deeply concerned that breaches of policy or laws may have possibly occurred, which is possibly why the government has failed to engage meaningfully with us”.

She said the family were still calling for a formal in depth investigation presented to an unbiased court. “We want justice for James and the truth to be known, no matter how difficult or uncomfortable that may be.”

In the Commons the middle east minister Hamish Falconer urged the Israeli military forces speedily to complete its investigation into whether criminal proceedings were going to be taken in relation to the incident.

Amjad Al Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs Network (PNGO), an umbrella group of 30 Palestinian NGOs and ActionAid’s partner in Gaza, has warned that Gaza will likely enter a “new cycle of famine, starvation and thirst” in the coming days as bakeries across the strip are forced to close because of fuel and flour shortages caused by the ongoing Israeli aid blockade.

He said:

The people of Gaza are totally dependent on humanitarian aid...We are warning that in the coming days, the bakeries which produce bread and community kitchens which produce meals will stop. This means Gaza will (go into) a new cycle of famine, starvation and thirst, which will be the worst that Gaza witnessed.

This is the real time for the international community to intervene, to pressure Israel to respect international law, to reopen the crossings, to stop its attacks on Palestinian civilians. To get justice for the victims, protection for children, women and elders.

The warning comes after the head of the Bakery Owners Association said it had been told by the UN World Food Programme (WFP), which supports 18 bakeries across Gaza, that flour had run out in its warehouses.

“The bakeries will no longer operate until the occupation opens the crossings and allows the necessary supplies to enter. We call on the world to pressure the occupation to open the crossings to prevent the famine from worsening in the Strip,” Abdel Nasser al-Ajrami was quoted by Al Jazeera as having said.

Unicef, the UN humanitarian aid organisation for children, has said at least 322 children have reportedly been killed and 609 injured since the resumption of Israel’s “intense bombardments” and “ground operations” in the Gaza Strip on 18 March.

In a press release, Unicef wrote:

The breakdown of the ceasefire and resumption of intense bombardments and ground operations in the Gaza Strip has reportedly left at least 322 children dead and 609 injured – constituting a daily average of around 100 children killed or maimed over the past 10 days. Most of these children were displaced, sheltering in makeshift tents or damaged homes.

These figures include children who were reportedly killed or injured when the surgical department of Al Nasser hospital, in southern Gaza, was struck in an attack on 23 March.

The resurgence of relentless and indiscriminate bombardments, combined with the complete block on supplies entering the Gaza Strip for more than three weeks, has put the humanitarian response under severe strain and Gaza’s civilians – especially its one million children – at grave risk.

At least 50,399 Palestinian people have been killed and 114,583 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

At least 42 bodies and 183 injured people have been received by hospitals in Gaza over the last day, according to the territory’s health ministry, which said that at least 1,042 Palestinian people have been killed by Israeli forces since Israel broke the ceasefire with Hamas on 18 March.

Health officials have said in the past that thousands of other dead people are most likely lost in the rubble of the territory.

We reported in the opening post that officials had said three people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut in the middle of the night.

The death toll has been increased, with Lebanon’s health ministry reporting that four people were killed in the airstrike, including one woman. At least seven others were reported to have been injured.

The Israeli military said on Tuesday it had struck and killed Hassan Ali Badir, a Hezbollah and Iran Quds Forces operative, in the attack.

On Friday, the Israeli military carried out its first major airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburbs in months, apparently retaliating for an earlier rocket launch from Lebanon.

The Israeli airstrike targeted a building in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital that Israel said was a drone storage facility belonging to Hezbollah, the Iranian backed Lebanese militant group.

Hezbollah said it had no involvement in the rocket attack and remained committed to the November ceasefire brokered by France and the US, which brought an end to Israel’s assault on Lebanon last year.

The November truce halted the fighting and mandated that southern Lebanon be free of Hezbollah fighters and weapons, that Lebanese troops deploy to the area and that Israeli ground troops withdraw from the zone. But each side accuses the other of not entirely living up to those terms.

Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun condemned the latest Israeli attack on Beirut, calling it a “dangerous warning” of Israel’s intentions.

“Israel’s persistence in its aggression requires more effort from us in addressing Lebanon’s friends around the world and rallying them in support of our right to full sovereignty over our land,” Aoun said.

The IDF has issued a forced evacuation order to residents in parts of northern Gaza: Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya and the neighbourhoods of Sheikh Zayed, al-Manshiya and Tal al-Zaatar.

Avichay Adraee, an Arabic language spokesperson for the Israeli army, said it is a “final” warning before the “raid”.

“We have warned about this area many times. For your safety, you must move immediately west to the known shelters in Gaza City,” he wrote in a post on X this morning.

It comes a day after the Israeli military ordered a sweeping evacuation order for the southern city of Rafah and parts of neighbouring Khan Younis – the biggest since the war resumed last month when Israel broke the ceasefire agreement with Hamas by launching a wave of airstrikes that killed hundreds of Palestinian people, including many women and children.

The IDF claims the evacuation orders are issued to protect Palestinian civilians from Hamas fighters who the Israeli military says are using civilians as human shields.

The UN has said the evacuations have failed to comply with the requirements of international law, as Israel is accused of failing to provide adequate health or safety conditions to civilians forced to flee.

Yesterday, residents in parts of southern Gaza were advised to leave immediately for the al-Mawasi “humanitarian zone”, a narrow strip of coastline at the southernmost end of the strip. But there have been many deadly Israeli airstrikes in the zone so there is no guarantee of safety there.

So why did Benjamin Netanyahu withdraw his selection of former navy commander vice admiral Eli Sharvit as the next head of the Shin Bet security service – and so quickly?

On Monday, hours after Sharvit’s appointment was announced, reports began surfacing that he had been among tens of thousands of Israelis who took to the streets in 2023 to oppose the Netanyahu government’s controversial attempts to reform the judiciary.

Despite huge protests, Israel’s far-right, ultra-religious government that year succeeded in passing a key part of the coalition’s judicial overhaul: abolishing the court’s power to overrule government decisions.

There were also local media reports that said Sharvit, who served in the military for 36 years, had supported a 2022 water agreement with Lebanon that Netanyahu had opposed.

It was also revealed that the former naval chief had penned an opinion piece criticising Donald Trump’s policies on climate change.

“Trump’s shortsightedness sends a shocking message to the world of disregard for scientific reality, the well-being of humanity, and responsibility to future generations,” he reportedly wrote as CEO of Elgry Eco Energy.

This prompted staunch Trump ally, senator Lindsey Graham, to criticise Sharvit’s appointment in a post on X.

“While it is undeniably true that America has no better friend than Israel, the appointment of Eli Sharvit to be the new leader of the Shin Bet is beyond problematic,” Graham, South Carolina’s senior senator as well as a ranking member of the chamber’s judiciary and budget committees, wrote on Monday.

“There has never been a better supporter for the State of Israel than President Trump. The statements made by Eli Sharvit about President Trump and his polices will create unnecessary stress at a critical time. My advice to my Israeli friends is change course and do better vetting.”

Netanyahu and Trump are close allies. Israel’s war on Gaza is being fuelled by the US, by far its biggest arms supplier and critical in providing it with diplomatic cover.

We are seeing reports that Mohammed Saleh al-Bardawil, a Palestinian journalist who worked as a broadcaster for Sawt Al-Aqsa radio, and his wife and three children were killed at dawn on Tuesday in an Israeli airstrike on their home in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.

These reports – which we have not yet independently verified - are from Al Jazeera and a correspondent from the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Under international law, journalists are protected civilians who must not be targeted by warring parties.

But more than 200 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israeli forces since October 2023, according to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate.

At least three people have been killed and seven injured in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburbs early on Tuesday, the Lebanese health ministry said, further testing a shaky four-month ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

The Israeli military said in a statement that it attacked a Hezbollah militant “who had recently directed Hamas operatives and assisted them”.

Reuters reported that the attack took place a few days after a previous strike by Israel on the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital.

There was no immediate statement from Hezbollah on the identity of the target. But a source close to the Iran-backed Lebanese group told AFP the strike had targeted Hassan Bdair, an official overseeing its Palestinian affairs.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned the attack on Tuesday, calling it a “dangerous warning” that signals premeditated intentions against Lebanon.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said it was a “clear breach” of a ceasefire that largely ended more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.

We will be bringing you more reaction as we get it. In other developments:

• Palestinians held funerals on Monday for 15 medics and emergency responders killed by Israeli troops in southern Gaza, after their bodies and mangled ambulances were found in a mass grave. The Palestinian Red Crescent says the slain workers and their vehicles were clearly marked as medical and humanitarian personnel and accused Israeli troops of killing them “in cold blood.”

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Tuesday he has reversed his decision, announced a day earlier, to appoint former navy chief Vice Admiral Eli Sharvit as the new head of the Shin Bet security agency. The move was controversial as the supreme court had blocked moves to oust the incumbent chief, Ronen Bar.

• A 17-year-old from the West Bank who was held in an Israeli prison for six months without being charged died after collapsing in unclear circumstances, becoming the first Palestinian teen to die in Israeli detention, officials said. Walid Ahmad was a healthy high schooler before his arrest in September for allegedly throwing stones at soldiers, his family said.

• Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed on Tuesday that they shot down another American MQ-9 Reaper drone, even as the US kept up its campaign of intense airstrikes targeting the group. The reported shootdown over Yemen’s contested Marib governate came as airstrikes hit around Sanaa, the country’s rebel-held capital, and Saada, a stronghold for the Houthis. US President Donald Trump issued a new warning to both the Houthis and their main benefactor, Iran, describing the group as having “been decimated” by the campaign of strikes that began March 15.