UNRWA released a report March 9 on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories from Feb. 26 to March 4, in which the agency demanded that Israel lift its Gaza blockade to allow essential humanitarian access in compliance with its international humanitarian law obligations. The report also noted that the ongoing Israeli Defense Forces  operation in the West Bank has caused the largest mass displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank since Israel occupied the territory in 1967. (Jurist)

UNRWA is banned from operating in areas under Israei jurisdiction.

Israel cut off electricity to a desalination plant for drinking water on March 9, a week after it blocked aid—including food, fuel, and medicine—to more than two million people in the enclave. The renewed blockade is a bid to force Hamas into accepting its new US-backed ceasefire plan. The head of UNRWA said Israel is weaponising humanitarian aid, a sentiment echoed by rights and aid groups. (TNH)

Israel has warned of "total destruction" as it launches a new ground operation in Gaza. Defense Minister Israel Katz issued Gazans with a "final warning" March 19: "Take the US president’s advice. Return the hostages and remove Hamas and other options will open up for you, including leaving for other places in the world for those who desire. The alternative is total destruction and ruin." (The Times)

Tens of thousands protested in both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem March 19. In the latter city, protesters gathered at the Knesset and outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's home, chanting: "The time has come to topple the dictator." There, a motorist rammed into the protesters. Democrats Party head Yair Golan said this was not a "traffic incident, but a terrorist attack." (ToI, JP)

The protests were led by families and relatives of hostages, and the group Standing Together.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he has instructed the IDF to seize mare of the Gaza Strip, while issuing evacuation orders for Palestinian civilians in those areas—and explicitly threatening Israeli annexation.

In a statement, Katz said: "If the Hamas terror organization continues to refuse to release the hostages, I instructed the IDF to capture additional areas, evacuate the population, and expand the security zone around Gaza for the protection of Israeli communities and IDF soldiers, through a permanent hold of the area by Israel. As long as Hamas continues its refusal, it will lose more and more land that will be added to Israel." (ToI)

Open embrace of an annexation agenda of course loans further credence to the genocide accusations against Israel.  

The new protests in Israel are the largest since those over the government judicial reform that ended with the October 7 attacks of 2023, and were called partly over political demands not directly related to the war in Gaza—specifically to oppose Netanyahu's plans to remove Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara.

These moves are seen as consolidation of a power-grab by the most hard-right elements of the government. Tellingly, ultra-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was reported by Israeli media to have suggested during a March 20 cabinet meeting on the dismissal of  Ronen Bar that the responsibility of "preserving democracy" should be removed from the security agency's purview. (ToI, NYT)

The cabinet voted unanimously to dismiss Ronen Bar, but the next day Israel's Supreme Court issued an injunction temporarily freezing his removal. (Jurist)

Tens of thousands of Israelis again protested across the country on March 23 both demanding a ceasefire and hostage release deal, and opposing the Netanyahu government. A popular slogan was: "Netanyahu is killing the hostages and destroying Democracy." Opposition leader Yair Lapid threatened to organize a tax revolt if the assault on democracy continues. (Haaretz)

Amid all this, the renewed air-strikes have continued on Gaza with doubled savagery. The Gaza Health Ministry reported 436 killed just on the first night of the new strikes, March 17, among them 183 children, 94 women and 34 people over the age of 65. A statement from UNICEF said that the number of children killed that night made it "one of the largest single-day child death tolls in the last year." The UN Human Rights Office noted: "Using explosive weapons with wide-area effects in such densely populated areas will almost certainly have indiscriminate effects and is very likely to be in violation of international humanitarian law…and is not consistent with Israel's obligations under international humanitarian law." (Haaretz)

An Israeli air-strike on the night of March 23 hit Nasser hospital in the city of Khan Younis, the largest hospital in southern Gaza, killing five people, apparently including the Hamas  political leader who was the target. This was the latest in numerous strikes on hospitals over the course of the Gaza bombardment since October 2023. And this was the second strike on a hospital in Gaza in three days. On March 21, Israel blew up central Gaza's Turkish-Palestinian Friendship hospital, the Strip's only cancer treatment facility. (The Guardian)

In an unanticipated development on March 25, hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza, for a protest against both the bombardment and Hamas. Masked Hamas militants forcibly dispersed the protesters, but they remobilized the following day, chanting "Out, out, Hamas out" and "Hamas does not represent us," as well as "Stop the war" and "We want to live in peace." One protester told a reporter: "Hamas wants to kill our children, Hamas is a partner with the occupation. Our children are precious to us, unlike the Hamas leaders, who are outside the country." A smaller anti-Hamas protest was also reported that day from Gaza City.

There have been sporadic anti-Hamas protests within Gaza since the bombardment began in October 2023, but this appears to have been by far the largest.

Hamas responded predictably, releasing a statement condemning those who it accused of pushing "suspicious political agendas," and seeking to shift the blame from Israel. (BBC News, DW, DW, NYT, The Guardian)

There are also reports of at least one deadly reprisal against a protester. Hamas operatives kidnapped, tortured and summarily executed a 22-year-old Palestinian who participated in the protests, according to his family. Oday Nasser Al Rabay's body was left in front of his family's home March 29. Mourners turned the funeral into a new protest against Hamas, chanting: "Hamas out, out!" (ToI) Social media accounts indicate that his family is blaming the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, and is demanding justice.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz also responded predictably. In a statement issued after the protests he announced yet another evacuation of residents from Gaza "combat zones," and added: "Learn from the residents of Beit Lahia, you too should demand the removal of Hamas from Gaza and release of the hostages." In another, he said: "If all Israeli hostages are not released and Hamas is not kicked out of Gaza, Israel will act with force you have not known before. Take the advice of the US president: return the hostages and kick out Hamas, and new options will open up for you including relocation to other parts of the world for those who choose. The alternative is destruction and total devastation."

Israeli planes have also been dropping flyers on Gaza calling for an uprising against Hamas and threatening yet greater destruction if this does not happen. (TNA)

Netanyahu repeated threats on March 26 to seize territory in the Gaza Strip if Hamas failed to release the remaining hostages. "The more Hamas continues in its refusal to release our hostages, the more powerful the repression we exert will be," Netanyahu told a hearing in the Knesset. "This includes seizing territory and it includes other things." (The Guardian)

On March 29, Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya announced that his organization had accepted an Egyptian proposal for a renewed ceasefire in exchange for the release of five more hostages. However, this was rejected by Israel, which said it is preparing its own proposal. (CNN)

Israel's security cabinet has meanwhile approved a proposal to facilitate Palestinian emigration from Gaza. Finance Minister Smotrich on March 23 said the security cabinet approved the proposal by Defense Minister Katz to organize "a voluntary transfer for Gaza residents who express interest in moving to third countries, in accordance with Israeli and international law, and following the vision of US President Donald Trump." (CNN)

UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) spokesperson Thameen al-Kheetan expressed deep concern on March 28 over the shrinking space for civilians in Gaza, stating the Israeli army is forcibly displacing Palestinians from vast areas of land.

Al-Kheetan stated:

We call on all parties to reach a permanent ceasefire as soon as possible. Israel must immediately end its blockade of humanitarian assistance and refrain from any acts amounting to forcible transfer of Gaza’s population. Forcible transfer is a serious violation of international humanitarian law and constitutes a crime under international law.

According to Rule 131 of Customary International Humanitarian Law, parties to a conflict must ensure that displaced civilians receive adequate shelter, hygiene, healthcare, safety and nutrition while keeping families together. Al-Kheetan highlighted, however, that Israel has not taken any steps to provide accommodation for the evacuated population or to ensure that these evacuations occur under proper conditions. Additionally, the Israeli army has instructed residents of western Rafah to relocate to Al Mawasi, which has itself reportedly been subjected to bombardment over the past days.

Since resuming its military campaign on March 18, the Israeli army has issued ten mandatory evacuation orders, affecting large areas across all governorates of the Gaza Strip. (Jurist)

On March 27, a three-judge panel of the Israeli Supreme Court rejected a petition challenging the legality of Israel's policy of restricting entry of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip. The court found that whereas Israel is obligated under international and Israeli law  to allow and facilitate humanitarian aid, such obligations are relative in nature, and the petitioners failed to establish that those obligations have been generally violated over the course of the current Gaza war. It also rejected the claim of the petitioners that Israel incurs positive obligations to ensure that aid is provided and distributed, holding that areas populated by Palestinian civilians are not subject to Israeli "effective control" under the law of belligerent occupation.

However, the court did identify several problems with how the humanitarian aid policy was implemented. Furthermore, the court explicitly refrained from reviewing the legality of the government’s decisions from March 2025 to suspend the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza and to terminate the limited supply of electricity from Israel to Gaza. (Just Security)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said April 2 that advancing IDF forces are carving out a new security corridor across southern Gaza that is to cut off the city of Rafah from the rest of the Strip. Israel is opening a “second Philadelphi” route, Netanyahu said in a video message, referring to the corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border.

IDF forces are seizing the "Morag Corridor," said Netanyahu. The route, which separates Rafah from Khan Younis to its north, is located where the Israeli settlement of the same name once stood, before it was evacuated during Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza. (ToI)

Meanwhile, 19 Palestinians, including nine children, were killed in an air strike on a UN clinic-turned-shelter in the northern town of Jabalia, a local hospital said. Israel's military said it targeted "Hamas terrorists." (BBC News)

Members of a local clan in the Gaza town of Deir al-Balah reportedly killed a Hamas police officer in a reprisal attack April 1, after a young member of the Abu Samra clan was killed by Hamas police in a raid on a flour seller who was accused of price-gouging. The youth was standing in line to buy flour when he was shot. (ToI, TNA) 

Dozens of people were killed April 3 in an Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City, according to local health authorities. The bodies of 27 people killed in the strike arrived at al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, the health ministry said. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its casualty counts. Multiple videos verified by The New York Times show an explosion and its chaotic aftermath at the Dar al-Arqam school in the Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City, where civilians were sheltering. In the videos, people can be seen carrying victims, including children, to ambulances as fires burn in the background.

The bodies of 15 rescue workers from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, the Palestinian Civil Defense and UNRWA were recovered from a mass grave on the outskirts of Rafah in southern Gaza on March 30. They had been missing since March 23 when Israeli forces opened fire on an ambulance dispatched to retrieve people injured in an air-strike. Israeli forces then opened fire at a convoy of rescue vehicles and two ambulances from a different location dispatched to collect the bodies of two paramedics killed. In total, five clearly marked ambulances, a fire truck, and a UN vehicle—all crushed—were pulled from the mass grave along with the bodies. It was the deadliest attack on Red Cross or Red Crescent workers globally since 2017. A team from the UN and the Palestinian Red Crescent searching for the missing aid workers last week witnessed hundreds of Palestinian civilians fleeing under Israeli fire, including a woman shot in the back of the head.

Since Israel resumed its assault on Gaza on March 18, at least 1,171 Palestinians have been killed and more than 280,000 have been newly displaced. About 65% of Gaza is under Israeli evacuation orders or has been declared a "no-go" zone by the Israeli military, which is further dividing up the enclave and seizing large areas of territory. No aid or supplies has been allowed to enter since March 2. (TNH)

Doctors Without Borders reports that of 82,000 primary care visits in Gaza, one fifth of them are for illnesses caused by a lack of access to clean water. The amount of water available to each Palestinian in Gaza, on average, is also shrinking toward dangerously low levels. Israeli authorities' blockade of fuel and electricity is a major factor, as they assert that some of those resources could be used by Hamas. (PRI)

UNICEF on April 5 urged Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza to avoid placing the lives of 1 million children at risk—citing the country's obligations under international law. According to the statement, no aid has entered Gaza since March 2, resulting in "shortages of food, safe water, shelter, and medical supplies." (Jurist)

Last month, Israeli forces fired on a convoy of ambulances and emergency workers in southern Gaza, killing 15 people. One worker in the convoy remains missing. The Palestinian Red Crescent says the attack "constitutes a full-fledged war crime." The health care and social services organization is urging an international investigation into the incident. (PRI)