Middle East crisis: Israel and Hamas ‘not near a truce’, says Qatar; Biden ‘devastated’ US-Israeli citizen killed in 7 October attack – as it happened

• The US president, Joe Biden, said he was “devastated” to learn that dual US-Israel citizen Itay Chen, 19, was killed in Hamas’ 7 October attack on Israel. Chen, who was serving in the Israeli army near the Gaza border, was earlier believed to have been taken hostage by Hamas.

• At least 31,184 Palestinians have been killed and 72,889 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. Palestinian health officials have reported that nine Palestinians were killed and dozens injured by Israeli gunfire when crowds were awaiting aid trucks at the Kuwait Square in Gaza City.

• A charity ship that has been docked in Cyprus for close to a month finally set sail for Gaza, taking almost 200 tonnes of aid in a pilot project to open a new sea route for aid to a population on the brink of famine. A video showed the Open Arms boat departing the Mediterranean island’s southern port of Larnaca at an unknown time early on Tuesday.

• In response, the EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, thanked the president of Cyprus, Nikos Christodoulides, for the island’s “leadership in setting up the humanitarian maritime corridor to Gaza”. The EU chief wrote on X that the “the departure of the first ship is a sign of hope. We will work together for many more ships to follow. We will do everything in our power for aid to reach Palestinians.” The Open Arms aid ship is expected to arrive in Gaza around the same time that a US army ship, the General Frank S. Besson, is also expected to reach the territory’s shores. Separately, the World Food Programme said it has succesfully delivered enough food for 25,000 people to Gaza City on Tuesday, in its first successful convoy to the north of the enclave since 20 February.

• Ursula von der Leyen warned that starvation of people in Gaza cannot be allowed to happen, amid reports of children dying of malnutrition and mothers giving birth to underweight babies because of a lack of food. “The situation on the ground is more dramatic than ever, and it has reached a tipping point. We have all seen the reports of children dying of starvation. This cannot be,” she told the European parliament in an address.

• Israeli warplanes struck deep into Lebanon for a second consecutive day on Tuesday, hitting a facility belonging to Hezbollah in the Bekaa Valley and killing at least one member of the Iran-backed group, sources in Lebanon told Reuters. The Israeli military said its fighter jets had “struck two Hezbollah military command centers” in the Baalbek area, in response to Hezbollah rocket launches towards northern Israel earlier in the day.

• Airstrikes carried out by the US have hit port cities and small towns in western Yemen, killing at least 11 people and injuring 14, a spokesperson for Yemen’s internationally recognised government has told Reuters. US Central Command said it carried out six strikes on Monday, claiming it destroyed an unmanned underwater vessel and 18 anti-ship missiles in Houthi controlled areas. Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said on Tuesday that the group would escalate their military operations during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said it has succesfully delivered enough food for 25,000 people to Gaza City on Tuesday, in its first successful convoy to the north of the enclave since 20 February.

“With people in northern Gaza on the brink of famine, we need deliveries every day + we need entry points directly into the north,” it wrote in a post on X.

The UN’s food agency said it was “largely unsuccessful” in its attempt last week to resume deliveries to northern Gaza, which is nearing famine.

The WFP said on 20 February it was pausing deliveries of food aid to northern Gaza until conditions in the Palestinian enclave allow for safe distribution.

The US president, Joe Biden, said he was “devastated” to learn that dual US-Israel citizen Itay Chen was killed in Hamas’ 7 October attack on Israel.

“I reaffirm my pledge to all the families of those still held hostage: we are with you. We will never stop working to bring your loved ones home,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House.

Chen, who was serving in the Israeli army near the Gaza border, was earlier believed to have been taken hostage by Hamas (see post at 13.16).

The full statement from the White House reads:

Today, our hearts are heavy. Jill and I are devastated to learn that American Itay Chen was killed by Hamas during its brutal terrorist assault on 7 October.

In December, Itay’s father and brother joined me at the White House, to share the agony and uncertainty they’ve faced as they prayed for the safe return of their loved one. No one should have to endure even one day of what they have gone through. At the end of our meeting, they gave me a menorah-a solemn reminder that light will always dispel the darkness, and evil will not win.

Today, as we join Itay’s parents, brothers, and family in grieving this tragic loss, we keep this reminder close to our hearts.

And I reaffirm my pledge to all the families of those still held hostage: we are with you. We will never stop working to bring your loved ones home.

Palestinian health officials have reported that nine Palestinians were killed and dozens injured by Israeli gunfire when crowds were awaiting aid trucks at the Kuwait Square in Gaza City. There was no immediate comment from Israel on this.

“Bombing gatherings of hungry people has become a daily routine practiced by the occupation and seen by the international community on screens,” Ashraf Al-Qidra, spokesperson for the Gaza health ministry, said.

“Hunger will claim the lives of all residents in northern Gaza. Aid is very scarce. The price of a meal could mean certain death. Help the people of the north. Don’t leave them prey to hunger, bombing, and disease.”

Last month, more than 100 people were killed when Israeli forces opened fire near an aid convoy in Gaza. Israeli military has said most died in a stampede. The Palestinians, however, say that Israeli forces carried out a massacre, opening fire on a crowd of people who had gathered in the hope that food would be distributed.

The Israeli military said a soldier believed to be held captive in Gaza had been killed in the 7 October attack, AFP reports.

Sergeant Itay Chen, 19, “fell on 7 October and was then kidnapped” to the Gaza Strip by Palestinian militants, the military said in a statement.

During Hamas’ October attack on Israel, about 1,200 people were killed and another 250 abducted, according to Israeli figures.

Citing the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS), Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that the number of Palestinians detained by Israeli security forces since 7 October in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has reached about 7,555 people.

Wafa reports “From yesterday evening until this morning, the occupation forces launched a massive arrest campaign that targeted at least 25 West Bank citizens, including former prisoners.”

Reuters reports that local sources have told it that one Hezbollah member was killed and several more were wounded in an Israeli airstrike in the village of Nabi Chit inside Lebanon. Hezbollah claimed earlier on Tuesday that it had fired more than 100 rockets at Israeli targets.

Fundraising platform GoFundMe has said that since the 7 October attacks, more than $69m (£54m / €63m) has been donated to causes associated with the crisis in the Middle East. Fundraisers to help people evacuate from Gaza have received more than 155,000 unique donations, it said.

A spokesperson for the platform said it had set up a page explaining to users how to fundraise to evacuate civilians from Gaza in a way that “will comply with applicable laws and regulations and make the flow of funds from donors to beneficiaries as fast as possible”.

One person in Deir el-Balah inside the Gaza Strip has spoken to Al Jazeera. Hussain al-Ramlawi told the news network:

We don’t have anywhere to go. All that we have is to stay and wait for our turns to be killed. What is happening is beyond any human’s capability. My children are terrorised. Even in Ramadan, we are being killed and are unable to worship God. Where are the human rights organisations? Living in this world as Palestinians is a curse.

The network reports that Israeli tanks have been hitting the outskirts of Deir el-Balah, and that there have been at least four airstrikes. Images sent over the news wires today show a number of bodies being received for burial from the morgue of Al-Aqsa hospital.

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In an update on X, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its troops had located a ‘terrorist compound” containing weapons, including AK-47 rifles and explosive devices, in Hamad, and killed four “terrorist operatives” attempting to plant explosives.

In northern and central Gaza, the IDF said it dismantled rocket launchers that were used to fire toward Israeli territory, cleared the area of weapons and killed “terrorists firing rockets at troops”.

“In response to mortar shells fired at Israel, the IAF struck the terrorist, terrorist compounds and terrorist infrastructure,” the IDF wrote.

Israel and Hamas are not close to a deal on a cessation of hostilities in Gaza and releasing hostages, Qatar, which is acting as a mediator, has said.

“We are not near a deal, meaning that we are not seeing both sides converging on language that can resolve the current disagreement over the implementation of a deal,” foreign ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari told a news conference.

All parties were “continuing to work in the negotiations to reach a deal hopefully within the confines of Ramadan,” Ansari said.

But he added that he could not “offer any timeline” on a deal and explained the conflict remained “very complicated on the ground”.

Israel’s war on Gaza was triggered last October after Hamas, the militant organisation that has ruled Gaza since 2007, killed 1,200 Israelis, mainly civilians, and abducted another 250 in surprise attacks in southern Israel. About half of the hostages were released during a short-lived ceasefire in November.

Hamas has said it will not release all of the remaining hostages without a full Israeli withdrawal. A second demand is the release of a large number of prisoners, including senior militant figures serving life sentences, in exchange for the hostages.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has called Hamas’s demands “delusional”.

At least 31,184 Palestinians have been killed and 72,889 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

Most of the casualties have been women and children, the ministry has said, and thousands more bodies are likely to remain uncounted under rubble across Gaza.

• A charity ship that has been docked in Cyprus for close to a month finally set sail for Gaza, taking almost 200 tonnes of aid in a pilot project to open a new sea route for aid to a population on the brink of famine. A video showed the Open Arms boat departing the Mediterranean island’s southern port of Larnaca at an unknown time early on Tuesday.

• In response, the EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, thanked the president of Cyprus, Nikos Christodoulides, for the island’s “leadership in setting up the humanitarian maritime corridor to Gaza”. The EU chief wrote on X that the “the departure of the first ship is a sign of hope. We will work together for many more ships to follow. We will do everything in our power for aid to reach Palestinians.” The Open Arms aid ship is expected to arrive in Gaza around the same time that a US army ship, the General Frank S. Besson, is also expected to reach the territory’s shores.

• Ursula von der Leyen warned that starvation of people in Gaza cannot be allowed to happen, amid reports of children dying of malnutrition and mothers giving birth to underweight babies because of a lack of food. “The situation on the ground is more dramatic than ever, and it has reached a tipping point. We have all seen the reports of children dying of starvation. This cannot be,” she told the European parliament in an address.

• Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, said it fired more than 100 Katyusha rockets at several Israeli military posts in response to Israeli shelling of the Bekaa region the previous night. At least one civilian was killed and several others injured after Israel launched four strikes on the eastern Lebanese city Baalbek, two security sources and the Baalbek governor, Bashir Khader, told Reuters.

• Airstrikes carried out by the US have hit port cities and small towns in western Yemen, killing at least 11 people and injuring 14, a spokesperson for Yemen’s internationally recognised government has told Reuters. US Central Command said it carried out six strikes on Monday, claiming it destroyed an unmanned underwater vessel and 18 anti-ship missiles in Houthi controlled areas. Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said on Tuesday that the group would escalate their military operations during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

An Italian military vessel serving in the EU’s naval mission in the Red Sea has shot down two drones, Italy’s defence staff has said.

It described the incidents involving the Italian Navy’s “Caio Duilio” destroyer as acts of self-defence, without elaborating on the details. The same ship had shot down another drone earlier this month.

The EU’s mission in the Red Sea was launched in February to help protect the key maritime trade route from drone and missile attacks by Yemen’s Houthi militia, who say they are retaliating against Israel’s war in Gaza.

The statement from Italy’s defence staff comes after reports of airstrikes being carried out by the US in western Yemen.

Al Jazeera has this on a report by Save the Children which warns of the huge psychological damage being done to Palestinian children affected by Israel’s war in Gaza:

Without urgent action, Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip will inflict further lifelong detrimental mental harm to Palestinian children, with rapidly shrinking opportunities to recover, a report by Save the Children said.

The report notes that before 7 October, children in Gaza were already living with exceptionally poor mental health due to the 16 years of a blockade, lack of freedom of movement, various Israeli escalations on the Strip, economic collapse, and separation from family and friends.

“It is unacceptable that any child should contend with the horrors that those in Gaza have lived through,” said Jason Lee, Save the Children’s country director for the occupied Palestinian territories.

“While dodging bombs and bullets, fleeing through streets littered with debris and corpses, being forced to sleep in the open air and going without the basic food and clean water they need to survive, children in Gaza are going through a period of mass-scale shock and grief.

“This war and the physical and mental scars it is leaving on children is further eroding their resilience.”

EU leaders will demand an “immediate humanitarian pause leading to a sustainable ceasefire” in Gaza and urge Israel not to launch a ground operation in Rafah, according to draft conclusions of a summit to take place next week.

“The European Council urges the Israeli government to refrain from a ground operation in Rafah, where well over a million Palestinians are currently seeking safety from the fighting and access to humanitarian assistance,” says the draft text, seen by Reuters.

The text will require the approval of all the EU’s 27 national leaders to be adopted at the summit on 21 March and 22.

There was significant pressure on Israel and Hamas to agree to a ceasefire before Ramadan, which started on Monday for Palestinians. However, no deal was made.

Israel has previously said its aim is to destroy Hamas and that any ceasefire must be temporary. It has also pressed for a list of hostages still alive and held by Hamas in Gaza.

Hamas officials have said a ceasefire must be in place before the hostages are freed, Israeli forces must leave Gaza and all Gazans must be able to return to homes they have fled.