Middle East crisis live: West Bank drone strike killed militant planning attack, Israel claims; ceasefire talks ‘going well’, says US | Israel

Claims of Israeli sexual assault of Palestinian women are credible, UN panel says

Julian Borger

UN experts say they have seen “credible allegations” that Palestinian women and girls have been subjected to sexual assaults, including rape, while in Israeli detention, and are calling for a full investigation.

The panel of experts said there was evidence of a least two cases of rape, alongside other cases of sexual humiliation and threats of rape. Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, said the true extent of sexual violence could be significantly higher.

“We might not know for a long time what the actual number of victims are,” said Alsalem, who was appointed special rapporteur by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in 2021.

She noted that reticence in reporting sexual assault was common because of the fear of reprisals against victims. She said that in a wave of detentions of Palestinian women and girls after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on 7 October, there was an increasingly permissive attitude towards sexual assault in Israeli detention centres.

Israel’s army said on Friday a Palestinian militant on his way to carry out a shooting attack was killed in a drone strike in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin a day earlier, reports news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Yasser Hanun from the Islamic Jihad group had previously been detained for his involvement in the “terrorist organisation’s military activities,” the army said in a statement. The resident of Jenin refugee camp “was eliminated while en route to carry out another shooting attack,” the statement said, without giving further details.

A witness said weapons in the car exploded after the strike on Thursday.

Hanun was involved in several shooting attacks targeting Israeli communities as well as shooting at soldiers and military posts in the West Bank, the army said.

Palestinian news agency Wafa said two people were killed and four others wounded in the strike. AFP footage showed a car severely burned from the hit, it’s roof torn as if by a can opener.

“Two successive missiles” struck the car, Usayd Shelbi, who witnessed the strike, told AFP. “The situation was dangerous. The weapons in the car were exploding,” he said.

The drone strike in Jenin came after three Palestinian gunmen opened fire at cars on a congested West Bank highway near a Jewish settlement on Thursday, killing an Israeli man and wounding eight others.

Hamas says its political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, has left Egypt after holding talks with Egyptian officials about a possible ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and an exchange of hostages held by the militants for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, news agency The Associated Press (AP) reports.

During Hamas’ 7 October attack on southern Israel, militants killed about 1,200 people and took 250 hostages. Roughly half of the hostages were released during a weeklong ceasefire in November. About 100 hostages remain in captivity, in addition to the bodies of 30 others who were killed on 7 October or died in captivity.

Israel’s subsequent offensive in Gaza has killed more than 29,000 Palestinians and driven about 80% of the territory’s 2.3 million people from their homes. Most heeded Israeli orders to flee south, and approximately 1.5 million are now packed into Rafah near the border with Egypt.

European diplomats have ramped up calls for a ceasefire as alarm grows over the worsening humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.

It has gone 9am in Gaza and Tel Aviv and this is our latest Guardian blog on the Middle East crisis.

International efforts to broker a ceasefire in Gaza appeared to gain new momentum as the White House said talks were “going well”.

On Thursday, White House Middle East envoy Brett McGurk held talks with Israeli leaders.

“The initial indications we’re getting from Brett are these discussions are going well,” said White House spokesperson John Kirby.

More on that in a moment, first here’s a summary of the day’s other main news.

• Israeli officials have said they want to use local administrators without links to either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority to run Gaza, and will set up small scale trials of the scheme as soon as “the right people step up to the plate”.

• UN experts say they have seen “credible allegations” that Palestinian women and girls have been subjected to sexual assaults, including rape, while in Israeli detention, and are calling for a full investigation.

• In a collective appeal, heads of UN humanitarian entities and global NGOs have implored world leaders to help prevent further deterioration of the crisis in Gaza. The principals of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), the coordinating body of global humanitarian organisations, released a statement on Wednesday in which it said “civilians in Gaza are in extreme peril while the world watches on”. It listed ten requirements “to avoid an even worse catastrophe”.

• A UN attempt to deliver 10 convoys of food aid to northern Gaza over seven days was suspended earlier this week after trucks were looted by crowds, a driver was beaten and gunfire reported amid chaotic scenes. “In most cases, when food does get taken directly from convoys, it’s because of utter desperation, with people even eating it on the spot,” said Jonathan Fowler, a spokesperson for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

• An Israeli man in his 20s was killed in Thursday’s shooting at a checkpoint on a West Bank highway where gunmen opened fire on cars in the morning rush-hour traffic jam. AP report that five others were injured, including a pregnant woman – some other news agencies have put the number of injured at eight. Security forces killed two of the gunmen and detained the third, police said.

• The foreign ministers of 26 European countries on Thursday called for a pause in fighting leading to a longer ceasefire. They urged Israel not to take military action in Rafah “that would worsen an already catastrophic humanitarian situation.”

• Japan had strong words for Israel in the opening of its oral submission at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which is hearing further argument today in the case “legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the cccupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.” Japan’s legal team said “No country must be allowed to be above the law” and argued that “Israel is acting and has been allowed to act in complete disregard of international law”.