Middle East crisis: UN humanitarian chief calls Gaza war ‘betrayal of humanity’ – as it happened | Israel-Gaza war

It is 5pm in Gaza, Tel Aviv and Beirut, and 6pm in Sana’a. We will be closing this blog soon, but you can stay up to date on the Guardian’s Middle East coverage here.

Here is a recap of the latest developments:

• Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has escalated into a “betrayal of humanity”, the UN’s humanitarian chief said on Saturday. In a statement on the eve of the six-month anniversary of the war, Martin Griffiths, the outgoing under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief, called for a “collective determination that there be a reckoning for this betrayal of humanity”.

• Iran on Saturday again threatened retaliation for the deaths of seven Revolutionary Guards in a strike on Damascus, with the army chief saying his country’s enemies will “regret” the killings. Tehran has vowed to avenge Monday’s airstrike on the Syrian capital it blamed on its arch-enemy Israel, which has not commented. Chief of staff Mohammad Bagheri was speaking on Saturday at a ceremony in the central city of Isfahan to commemorate Mohammad Reza Zahedi, one of the two dead brigadier generals from the al-Quds force, the IRGC’s foreign operations arm. He said Iran’s response “will be carried out at the right time, with the necessary precision and planning, and with maximum damage to the enemy so that they regret their action”. AFP reports that on Saturday, crowds at the gathering in Isfahan chanted “down with Israel” and “down with the United States”.

• The US is on high alert and preparing for a possible attack by Iran targeting Israeli or US assets in the region in response to Israel’s strike on the Iranian embassy in Syria, a US official told the Reuters news agency. “We’re definitely at a high state of vigilance,” the official said in confirming a CNN report that said an attack could come in the next week.

• Israel’s army said on Saturday its troops recovered the body of a hostage abducted by Palestinian militants during the 7 October attack on southern Israeli communities. “The body of the abductee Elad Katzir, who according to intelligence was murdered in captivity by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organisation, was rescued overnight from Khan Younis and returned to Israeli territory,” the army said in a statement.

• The sister of Elad Katzir has blamed Israeli authorities for his death, saying he would have returned alive had the authorities agreed to a new truce deal. “Elad was kidnapped from his home in Nir Oz in one piece,” Carmit Palty Katzir, his sister, wrote on her Facebook page. “Our leadership is cowardly and driven by political consideration, which is why this deal has not happened yet,” she wrote.

• US and Israeli negotiators are expected in Cairo over the weekend for a renewed push to reach a ceasefire-hostage deal. Ahead of the talks, US president Joe Biden wrote to the leaders of Egypt and Qatar urging them to dial up pressure on Hamas to “agree to and abide by a deal,” a senior administration official told AFP on Friday night.

• Hamas said they will send a delegation of representatives, led by the group’s deputy chief in Gaza, Khalil al-Hayya, to Cairo on 7 April to discuss a potential ceasefire. This is in response to an invitation issued by Egyptian mediators, Hamas said on Saturday.

• World Central Kitchen has rejected as lacking credibility the findings of an Israeli investigation led by a former general into a coordinated series of Israeli drone strikes on the charity’s vehicles in Gaza this week that killed seven aid workers. While welcoming the report as a first step, WCK’s founder, the celebrity chef José Andrés, said: “The IDF cannot credibly investigate its own failure in Gaza.”

• Seven children were killed in southern Syria’s Daraa province on Saturday and two other people were injured, one of them a woman, when “an explosive device planted by terrorists” detonated in the city of Sanamayn, state news agency Sana reported, quoting a police source. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor gave a different toll, saying that “eight children of different ages were killed and another was wounded” in the blast.

• Hamas on Saturday said its fighters targeted three Israeli tanks in Khan Younis with missiles, inflicting casualties. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, though it said earlier that troops had engaged with gunmen in the area.

• The UN Office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) said in its latest flash update that, 28 children have died of malnutrition and dehydration, as of 1 April. The figures are attributed to the ministry of health in Hamas-run Gaza. “In the north, the Nutrition Cluster estimates that more than 50,000 children under five are acutely malnourished,” said the OCHA’s agency in the Palestinian territories in a social media post.

• An Israeli inquiry has blamed a series of “grave errors” by military personnel, including lack of coordination and misidentification, for its killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza through drone strikes. In an interview with the BBC, Lt Col Peter Lerner of the Israel Defense Forces said the Israeli military had been unable to recognise that the vehicles belonged to the aid organisation.

• The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has said he hopes Israel will quickly and effectively boost aid access to Gaza, describing the situation in the region as “absolutely desperate”. Noting that 196 humanitarian workers had been killed so far during Israel’s campaign, Guterres said: “We want to know why.”

• Australia’s foreign minister Penny Wong said on Saturday that her country had “not yet received sufficient information” from Israel about the death of Lalzawmi ‘Zomi’ Frankcom and the other aid workers killed in an Israeli strike on Monday night. “It cannot be brushed aside and it cannot be covered over,” Wong said.

• Sarit Michaeli, spokesperson for the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, said the strike on World Central Kitchen workers only arrested international attention because westerners were killed. “The thought that this is a unique case, that it’s a rare example – it’s an insult to the intelligence of anyone who has been following the situation,” she said.

• Thousands of people protested in Morocco’s commercial capital Casablanca late on Friday against “massacres” in the Gaza Strip and against the country’s normalisation of ties with Israel. “Normalisation is a hoax” and “Down with the occupation”, protesters chanted in Casablanca.

• Mahmud Bassal, spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence agency, told AFP on Saturday that whatever aid is reaching Gaza is “absolutely not sufficient” for its 2.4 million people, with basic necessities “extremely scarce” particularly in northern Gaza. “Children are dying from hunger” there, he said.

• At least 33,137 Palestinians have been killed and 75,815 injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said on Saturday. The latest figures from thehealth ministry, which is run by Hamas, said 46 Palestinians were killed and 65 injured in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.

• The former UK prime minister, Boris Johnson says a western arms embargo on Israel would “hand victory” to Hamas and has said banning arms sales to Israel would be “insane”. The comments were made in his column in the Daily Mail on Friday.

• Iranian police on Saturday announced the arrest of a senior operative of Islamic State (IS) with two other members of the group accused of planning a suicide attack during next week’s celebrations marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The police said Mohammad Zaker, known as “Ramesh”, and the other two were arrested in Karaj, west of the capital Tehran, after clashes, according to Iranian media. Eight others accompanying the men were also detained, they said.

• Turkish authorities detained 48 people suspected of having ties to IS in connection with a shooting at an Istanbul church in January, interior minister Ali Yerlikaya said on X on Saturday. One Turkish citizen was killed by two IS gunmen at the Italian Santa Maria Catholic church in Istanbul in January.

• An Iranian journalist who was stabbed outside his London home last week has returned to work, saying the “show must go on”. Pouria Zeraati, who works for London-based dissident broadcaster Iran International, was knifed in the leg by a group of three unknown assailants as he approached his car in Wimbledon on 29 March.

Seven children were killed in southern Syria’s Daraa province on Saturday when an “explosive device” detonated, AFP reports citing state media (see 14:14 BST).

“Seven children” were killed “and two other people were injured, one of them a woman, when an explosive device planted by terrorists” went off in the city of Sanamayn, state news agency Sana reported, quoting a police source.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor gave a different toll, saying that “eight children of different ages were killed and another was wounded” in the blast.

The UK-based monitor said militias were accused of planting the device in order to target an unidentified person in the area.

Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has escalated into a “betrayal of humanity”, the UN’s humanitarian chief said on Saturday, reports AFP.

In a statement on the eve of the six-month anniversary of the war, Martin Griffiths, the outgoing under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief, called for a “collective determination that there be a reckoning for this betrayal of humanity”.

“Each day, this war claims more civilian victims,” said Griffiths, who will leave his post at the end of June due to health reasons. “Every second that it continues, sows the seeds of a future so deeply obscured by this relentless conflict.”

According to AFP, Griffiths lamented “the unconscionable prospect of further escalation in Gaza, where no one is safe and there is nowhere safe to go.”

He added that “an already fragile aid operation continues to be undermined by bombardments, insecurity and denials of access.”

“On this day, my heart goes out to the families of those killed, injured or taken hostage, and to those who face the particular suffering of not knowing the plight of their loved ones,” he said in the statement.

At least 33,137 Palestinians have been killed and 75,815 injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said on Saturday.

The latest figures from thehealth ministry, which is run by Hamas, said 46 Palestinians were killed and 65 injured in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours.

The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.

Hamas said it will send a delegation to Cairo on Sunday, 7 April, for Gaza ceasefire talks.

Israel’s army said on Saturday its troops recovered the body of a hostage abducted by Palestinian militants during the 7 October attack on southern Israeli communities, according to AFP.

“The body of the abductee Elad Katzir, who according to intelligence was murdered in captivity by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organisation, was rescued overnight from Khan Younis and returned to Israeli territory,” the army said in a statement.

Katzir, 47 at the time of attack, was abducted from Nir Oz kibbutz community along his mother, Hanna, reports AFP. She was released on 24 November during a one-week truce in the war in Gaza.

Katzir’s father, Avraham was killed during the attack at the kibbutz, the army said.

The recovery of Elad Katzir’s body brings to 12 the number which the army says it has brought home from Gaza during the war.

The UN Office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) said in its latest flash update that, 28 children have died of malnutrition and dehydration, as of 1 April. The figures are attributed to the ministry of health in Hamas-run Gaza.

“In the north, the Nutrition Cluster estimates that more than 50,000 children under five are acutely malnourished,” said the OCHA’s agency in the Palestinian territories in a social media post.

In an Oxfam release published on Thursday, the charity said that since January, Palestinians in northern Gaza have been surviving on an average of 245 calories a day.

OCHA’s update on Friday, also highlighted the following:

According to WHO, Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza has been receiving at least 15 malnourished children every day.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child had cautioned: ‘Children in Gaza can no longer wait, as each passing minute risks another child dying of hunger as the world looks on.’”