Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir prompted strong condemnation from Arab nations and Hamas on Wednesday with his latest visit to the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City.
The Saudi foreign ministry expressed in a statement its “strongest condemnation” of the “storming” of the compound by Ben Gvir.
Egypt also expressed “its total condemnation and denunciation” of Ben Gvir’s “storming of the blessed Al Aqsa Mosque under the protection of Israeli police”.
Jordan, the custodian of the site, condemned Wednesday’s visit as a “storming” and “an unacceptable provocation” in a foreign ministry statement.
Hamas called it a “provocative and dangerous escalation”, saying the visit was “part of the ongoing genocide against our Palestinian people”.
“We call on our Palestinian people and our youth in the West Bank to escalate their confrontation… in defence of our land and our sanctities, foremost among them the blessed Al Aqsa Mosque,” it said in a statement.
Turkey on Wednesday condemned the visit, saying it would raise regional tensions.
“We condemn the raid by a member of the Israeli government on the Al Aqsa Mosque compound today,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
“This action by (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu’s accomplices is a dangerous decision that will again aggravate tensions in the region.”
NEW CORRIDOR: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Israel is establishing a new security corridor across the Gaza Strip to pressure Hamas, suggesting it would cut off the southern city of Rafah, which Israel has ordered evacuated, from the rest of the Palestinian territory.
The announcement came after Netanyahu’s defence minister said Israel would seize large areas of Gaza and add them to its so-called security zones.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described it as the Morag corridor, using the name of a Jewish settlement that once stood between Rafah and Khan Younis.
That suggests the military-controlled corridor would run between the two cities in southern Gaza.
“We are increasing the pressure step by step, so that they will give us our hostages. And the more they do not give, the more the pressure will increase until they do,” Netanyahu said in a statement issued on Wednesday.
MORE GAZANS KILLED: A wave of Israeli strikes overnight into Wednesday, meanwhile, killed more than 40 Palestinians, including several women and children, according to Palestinian health officials.
One Israeli strike killed at least 17 people in a United Nations building, previously a clinic, that had been converted into a shelter for more than 700 displaced people.
Separately, the European Hospital said that it had received the bodies of eight people killed in Khan Younis during the day Wednesday, while another three killed in Zawaida in central Gaza arrived at the Aqsa hospital, officials there said.
AID WORKERS: According to UN deputy humanitarian chief Joyce Msuya more than 408 humanitarian aid workers have been killed in Gaza during Israel’s war against Hamas.
She spoke on Wednesday at the UN Security Council alongside UN security chief Gilles Michaud, with Msuya asking the council for answers, justice and an end to the killings.
Michaud lamented that, “Impunity for attacks on humanitarian personnel has become the new normal. A pervasive normal. An accepted normal.”
Both officials cited what they said were two recent Israeli attacks – a strike on a clearly marked UN building on March 19 that killed one UN staff member and injured six others, and an attack March 23 on ambulances and other marked vehicles that killed a UN staff member and eight Palestinian Red Crescent and six civil defence staff.
GERMANY REJECTS ISRAELI CLAIMS: Germany has rejected Israel’s suggestion that it took part in the “voluntary departure” of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to third countries.
The Israeli Interior Ministry said hundreds of Gaza residents, accompanied by German diplomats, were flown from southern Israel to the German city of Leipzig on Tuesday.
It said Interior Minister Moshe Arbel visited Israel’s Ramon Airport “with the aim of examining the process of voluntary departure of Gazans to a third country.”
“This is wrong,” the German Foreign Office said on the social platform X in response to a post that summarized the Israeli statement.
In a statement, the German Foreign Office said it had worked with Israeli authorities to assist 19 German citizens and their close family members in traveling from Gaza to Germany, describing it as a routine wartime evacuation.
“Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, the German government has repeatedly and intensively advocated for the departure and safety of German citizens,” it said.
Agencies
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