Israel’s war on Gaza updates: 215 Palestinians killed in last 24 hours

The army says on X that its forces hit “a military site used by the terrorist organisation Hezbollah” in the Lebanese village of Blida, as well as a truck “in which weapons were stored” in the village of Shoba.

It also said that rocket fire was detected in the Israeli areas of Avivm and Yaraon.

This is the latest in what have become daily exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli army, as tensions rise on Lebanon’s northern border. Israeli officials say they are determined to return Israeli citizens to their homes in the north of the country and will escalate their attacks against Hezbollah into full-scale conflict if it doesn’t happen soon.

“We are not getting confirmation from multiple sources here at the Pentagon that the US has now started launching retaliatory air strikes against targets inside both Syria and Iraq,” Al Jazeera’s Rosalind Jordan reports from the Pentagon.

We will continue to bring you more information as we get it.

This live page is now closed. Follow along with our ongoing coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza here.

To learn more about Israel’s Return to Gaza settler conference and plans to displace Palestinians from the besieged enclave, watch this.

And you can always read more about the conflict here.

We are about to close the live blog. Here’s a recap of the day’s major developments:

• Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed has met with Antony Blinken in Washington, DC, where he said progress is being made on a Gaza truce and captives talks.
• Countries, rights groups and aid organisations across the world decry Western funding cuts to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
• At least 25 civilians have been killed in Israeli shelling of the Hamada family’s home in Gaza City’s Tuffah neighbourhood.
• Despite protests from the Biden administration, some Israeli politicians are still calling for reducing Gaza’s population, a policy that rights groups say would amount to ethnic cleansing.
• A group calling itself the Islamic Resistance in Iraq claims responsibility for the drone attack that killed three US soldiers and wounded 34 others at a base along the Jordan-Syria border.

The Lebanese group has said two of its fighters were killed today. Hezbollah also claimed 13 separate attacks against Israeli army positions as the daily exchange of fire across the Lebanon-Israel border continues.

Blinken has voiced hope for a deal that would halt the fighting in Gaza and lead to the release of Israeli captives as well as Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons, after talks in Paris involving the CIA director and Qatar.

“Very important, productive work has been done. And there is some real hope going forward,” Blinken told reporters.

We reported earlier that the PRCS had said it was trying to rescue a six-year-old who was trapped in her family’s car after the vehicle was attacked by Israeli forces in Gaza City.

The PRCS has now issued an update on the situation.

Six of the girl’s family members were killed in the attack and she was the sole survivor in the car, according to the PRCS. “Hind remained for hours pleading for our teams to reach her and evacuate her from the area surrounded by Israeli tanks.”

The PRCS said after hours of coordination, its rescuers arrived in the area where the girl was. “Since then, we lost contact with the team, and as of now, we are uncertain if our teams successfully reached the girl,” it said.

💔This is a picture of the 6 years old girl Hind who remained trapped inside a vehicle fired upon by the occupation forces, resulting in the martyrdom of everyone inside (6 individuals). Hind remained for hours pleading for our teams to reach her and evacuate her from the area… pic.twitter.com/V3VC1GlhGg

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) January 29, 2024

Local media sources in Ya’bad, north of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, say Israeli troops accompanied by several military vehicles have raided the town and stormed several homes and shops and ransacked them.

The Israeli army severely beat three young men in the town, which has been targeted almost daily by the soldiers.

The Israeli military also raided the city of Tulkarem with dozens of vehicles and four bulldozers, local Fatah official Iyad Jarrad told Al Jazeera.

The Israeli military has destroyed and damaged dozens of homes in the city since October 7.

A major Muslim advocacy group in Canada says it cancelled a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over the Canadian government’s response to the Gaza war and rising Islamophobia.

Stephen Brown, the head of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, said Ottawa has been unwilling “to take concrete action” to help end the war. But the “straw that broke the camel’s back”, Brown said, was Canada’s response to last week’s ICJ decision.

The top UN court ruled that allegations Israel is committing genocide in Gaza were plausible and ordered the Israeli government to take interim measures to prevent genocidal acts. Canada issued a statement taking note of the decision but did not urge Israel to abide by the measures.

“That for us was an indication that the government has no intention to actually holding Israel to account when international bodies render decisions that would force them to stop the war,” Brown said.

He had said earlier that there was nothing the community could have told Trudeau that had not been said already. “At what point in time do you realise that you’re just no longer being listened to?”

Blinken says allegations that UNRWA employees were involved in the October 7 attack on Israel are “deeply troubling”.

Washington said it would temporarily pause additional funding to UNRWA after Israel provided information on the alleged role of some staff members.

“It is imperative that UNRWA immediately – as it said it would – investigate, that it hold people accountable as necessary, and that it review its procedures,” Blinken said at a news conference.

Washington has been criticised for its swiftness in suspending aid to UNRWA during the humanitarian crisis in Gaza that is caused by the Israeli offensive. At the same time, the Biden administration is seeking more than $14bn in aid for Israel as the US ally stands accused of genocide at the UN’s top court.

Speaking to Al Jazeera’s The Stream in Doha, photographer Motaz Azaiza, who reported on Israel’s war on Gaza from the ground for 107 days, says he wants to continue his work and talk about Palestine from abroad to bring an end to the war.

“I want you to act, go to a protest, go ask your government member to stop this, to put a pressure on Israel. If you’re not going to act, we’ll keep making noise; we will not make this life easy for anyone; we will keep acting for freedom,” Azaiza said.

“We are the true heroes in the whole world who are facing the last occupation in the whole world, and no one is trying to do anything about it.”

Mark Pocan notes that only 12 out of the agency’s 13,000 employees have been accused of possible involvement in the October 7 attack by Hamas.

“And UNRWA feeds 1.2 million people a day, as well as helps distribute aid now to all Palestinians in need,” Pocan wrote in a social media post. “Aid needs to be restored now to help the displaced millions in Gaza.”

I agree with @AOC. 12 workers have been fired for possible involvement out of 13,000 employees.

And @UNRWA feeds 1.2 million people a day, as well as helps distribute aid now to all Palestinians in need.

Aid needs to be restored now to help the displaced millions in Gaza. https://t.co/gIXZSqYOey

— Mark Pocan (@MarkPocan) January 29, 2024

The US Department of Defense said William Jerome Rivers, 46; Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24; and Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, were the soldiers killed in the drone attack.

The Pentagon said all three were killed “when a one-way unmanned aerial system (OWUAS) impacted their container housing units”.

The progressive US senator says Washington is “complicit” in the “nightmare” unfolding in Gaza.

“It’s time for the US to stop ASKING Israel to do the right thing. We must TELL them: unless they change course, they will lose our support,” Sanders wrote in a social media post.

The  administration of US President Joe Biden has argued that it is urging the Israeli government to minimise civilian casualties and to allow more aid into Gaza, but US officials have ruled out halting or conditioning aid to Israel.

In contrast, Washington was quick to suspend aid to UNRWA after unconfirmed allegations that some individuals who work for the UN agency participated in Hamas’s October 7 attack.

Osama Hamdan says Washington is fuelling unrest across the region with its uncompromising support for Israel’s war on Gaza.

Hamdan also rebuked the US for pushing to dismiss the link between the Houthis’ Red Sea attacks and the war “as if that region had seen these kinds of operations before” October 7.

The US has been conducting military strikes against the Houthis. It has also targeted Iran-linked groups in Iraq and Syria. The Biden administration has vowed to respond to a drone assault that killed three US soldiers near the Jordan-Syria border.

Moreover, Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging fire almost daily. Israel assassinated a top Hamas official in Beirut early in January, further risking an all-out confrontation with Hezbollah. The US appeared to welcome the assassination.

MSF says the decision of some countries to suspend their funding to UNRWA will have consequences on the ground for millions of Palestinians.

In a statement, the group also said the move contradicts the measures ordered on Friday by the International Court of Justice to ensure aid flows into Gaza.

“In the Gaza Strip, the humanitarian crisis has reached catastrophic levels, and any additional limitations on aid will result in more deaths and suffering. Humanitarian organisations are already grappling to meet even a fraction of the urgent needs in Gaza,” it said.

Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has expressed “deep concern” at the decision by several Western countries to suspend funding for UNRWA over allegations that some employees of the UN agency were involved in Hamas’s October 7 attacks.

“The timing of this suspension is deeply troubling as it takes place amidst the ongoing war, displacement, and suffering of the people of Gaza who depend on critical aid from UNRWA for their daily survival,” the ministry said in a statement.

“As the primary humanitarian agency in Gaza, UNRWA serves as a lifeline for over two million people, providing shelter and delivering vital food and primary healthcare services, even amidst the most intense hostilities. The decision to suspend funding in response to allegations against a small group of staff is unjustifiable.”

In the past few hours, we’ve been hearing that Israeli military forces had stormed one of the UN-run shelters in Gaza City in the central neighbourhood of Remal.

They surrounded the vicinity and then stormed it, arresting a number of Palestinian evacuees who were taking shelter inside.

There’s no official confirmation of any killings of Palestinians in these ongoing raids. Previously in similar occasions, Israeli forces have stormed a number of UN shelters, taken a number of men for investigation in different areas across the Gaza Strip. Some of them have been killed, others released after long weeks of torture.

The situation is completely chaotic as Israeli forces have been targeting the central areas of Gaza City within the past few hours.