EXPLAINER

Biden signed order to sanction West Bank settlers, Israeli siege on Gaza’s hospital continues.

Here’s how things stand on Friday, February 2, 2024:

Latest on human impact and fighting

• The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has reported that Israel’s siege of the al-Amal Hospital in Gaza’s Khan Younis has continued for an 11th day.
• PRCS also said Israeli forces stormed al-Amal hospital for the third time on Thursday.
• Gaza’s Health Ministry spokesperson, Ashraf al-Qudra, released a statement on Thursday, warning that over 30,000 displaced people in schools near Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis have no water, food or baby formula.
• Israel announced on Thursday that it had succeeded in the fight in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, where Israel launched a major ground attack last week, which means its forces could advance to Rafah on the enclave’s southern border.
• More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are sheltering in Rafah, mainly cold and hungry in makeshift tents and public buildings.

Diplomacy

• The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, spoke with the Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, about shifting to “low-intensity operations in Gaza”, support for a diplomatic solution along the Israel-Lebanon border and stability in the occupied West Bank.
• British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said on Thursday that his country could officially recognise a Palestinian state after a ceasefire in Gaza without waiting for the outcome of talks on a two-state solution.
• US President Joe Biden will join grieving families at Dover Air Force Base on Friday to honour three American service members killed in a drone attack in a US facility in Jordan’s Tower 22.
• Biden has signed an executive order on Thursday that aims to punish settlers who attack Palestinians in the occupied West Bank as the violence has surged since Israel’s war on Gaza began.

Attacks in the West Bank

• Israeli forces fired at and injured a Palestinian man in the city of Hebron, according to local sources, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
• Israeli settlers tried to set a car on fire on the outskirts of the Palestinian town of as-Sawiya, south of Nablus, Wafa reported.
• Israeli forces have conducted raids in the cities of Jenin, Nablus and Hebron on Thursday night, Wafa reported.

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