EXPLAINER
Clashes over a two-state solution and US foreign policy on Houthi strikes – here are major updates.
Here’s how things stand on Friday, January 19, 2024:
Latest updates
A near-total communications blackout in Gaza has entered its seventh day on Friday.
Families of Hamas captives in Gaza blocked Ayalon Highway in Tel Aviv on Thursday. Losing patience with the Israeli government, family members of four captives have promised to take “extreme actions”, including blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza with their own bodies, as a means to bring their loved ones home, reported the Times of Israel.
An Israeli siege of Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank has stretched for at least 40 hours, with forces claiming that they are attempting to root out resistance fighters in the city. The body of a Palestinian man killed by an Israeli sniper in Tulkarem was also found at about midnight on Friday, reported Wafa news agency.
Human impact and fighting
Five people were killed by an Israeli air attack on a residential building west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza overnight, local media reported.
An Israeli air strike on an apartment block near al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Friday has killed 12 people and injured several more, according to local media.
On Thursday, the Palestinian foreign ministry accused Israel of committing 15 “massacres” killing 172 people in 24 hours under the cover of a communications blackout in Gaza.
The United States Central Command confirmed reports of an attack on a US-owned vessel in the Red Sea on Thursday, but says the ship was not damaged, contrary to Houthi claims.
Israeli forces in northern Gaza called in air force strikes on several occasions on Thursday against Palestinian fighters, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP). “This activity is consistent with CTP-ISW’s assessment that Hamas is likely re-infiltrating some of these areas,” they said.
Diplomacy
In a public statement released on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Biden White House that he rejects any moves to establish a Palestinian state.
The spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said peace in the region can only come about after the establishment of a Palestinian state with “East Jerusalem as its capital on the borders of 1967”, Wafa reported on Thursday.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, US President Joe Biden said that strikes on Houthi rebels will continue despite admitting that they had failed to halt the group’s attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea.
China’s Ministry of Commerce said late on Thursday that it is closely tracking the escalating situation in the Red Sea, reported Reuters.
