Key events
Aharon Haliva, who was the general in command of the IDF’s military intelligence directorate on 7 October, has resigned over the failure of Israel’s military to prevent the attack inside southern Israel by Hamas that day, according to Israeli media reports.
Haliva had already indicated he would step down after the war was concluded, and looks set to stay in the role until a replacement is appointed, but Hebrew news outlet Ynet has published an image of his resignation letter.
The IDF confirms that Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, the head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, will resign over his role in the failures that led to Hamas’s October 7 onslaught.
Haliva will step down and resign from the military once a replacement is appoint, the IDF says. https://t.co/evb7YwloZA
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) April 22, 2024
Haliva had already described 7 October as “an intelligence failure”, saying “the IDF under my command failed to warn of the terrorist attack carried out by Hamas.”
Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi has arrived in Islamabad on a three-day trip to Pakistan.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry said “The Iranian president is accompanied by his spouse and a high-level delegation” including Iran’s foreign minister, and the party would be meeting prime minister Shehbaz Sharif, and also visiting Lahore and Karachi.
Relations between the two countries have been tense in recent months, including an exchange of missile fire, during which both countries said they were targeting separatists militants based over the border with their neighbours.
New EU sanctions against Iran in response to the country’s recent attack on Israel should include the Revolutionary Guards, Belgium’s foreign minister has said, while adding that sanctions against violent settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank should also be expanded.
Reuters reports that speaking to the media ahead of an EU ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg, Hadja Lahbib said:
We will discuss it together. I also think we have to expand sanctions against violent settlers. We have to be balanced and make sure we won’t be accused of having double standards.
State media in Lebanon is reporting that Israel is “firing artillery shells intermittently at the outskirts of Ter Harfa town”.
Ter Harfa is in southern Lebanon, about six kilometres (3.7 miles) from the UN-drawn blue line which has separated Israel and Lebanon since 2000.
The World Food Programme has said on social media that it has successfully delivered fuel and ingredients to bakeries in northern Gaza, so that they can start production after 170 days without being able to make bread.
#Gaza: WFP has delivered fuel and wheat flour to bakeries in the north so they can begin production again after 170 days of being inoperable.
Four bakeries are now up and running and WFP is urgently working to deliver more supplies. pic.twitter.com/thZUAEdwaw
— World Food Programme (@WFP) April 22, 2024
International aid agencies have repeatedly warned that the population in Gaza is facing chronic food insecurity, and that famine was imminent without a pause in fighting in order to deliver more humanitarian aid.
Last week the office of Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that it rejected claims there was starvation in the territory.
If you would like to listen to something about the conflict in the Middle East, our Audio Long Read podcast today is by Joshua Leifer, and is a version of his essay from March entitled What is the real Hamas?
You can listen to it here …
Israeli drone shot down inside Lebanon’s airspace
Overnight the Israeli armed forces have said that one of their drones, which was staging an incursion inside Lebanon’s airspace, had been taken down by a surface-to-air missile.
In a statement on its official Telegram channel, the IDF said:
Earlier this evening, a surface-to-air missile was launched toward an IAF UAV that was operating in Lebanese airspace. As a result, the UAV was hit and fell in Lebanese territory. The incident is under review.
Israel said that its fighter jets struck at the site of the launch which had taken down the drone, and claimed that it is “continuing to operate in Lebanese airspace to carry out IDF missions in order to protect the state of Israel.”
Patrick Wintour
Patrick Wintour is the Guardian’s diplomatic editor
A plan due to be published today to improve the accountability and transparency of Unrwa, the UN relief works agency for Palestinians, is not expected to lead to a snap British decision to restore funding to the agency.
Britain joined 18 other nations in suspending funding for the agency after Israel claimed that 12 of the 30,000 Unrwa staff had participated in the attack on Israel on 7 October. Almost all those countries have restored funding, and the UK government is facing conflicting domestic pressures over whether to do the same. The UK provided £35m last financial year to Unrwa, including £16m extra for humanitarian aid.
Some MPs from the ruling Conservative party and strong supporters of Israel have written to the foreign secretary, Lord Cameron, to warn that it would be a form of moral bankruptcy to resume funding, since they regard the agency as being too close to Hamas.
They claim the task of food distribution can be undertaken by other agencies such as the World Food Programme, but others say Unrwa has an infrastructure that no other agency can replace.
Read more here: UK unlikely to make snap decision over Unrwa funding
Welcome and summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.
At least five rockets were launched from the Iraqi town of Zummar towards a US military base in northeastern Syria on Sunday, the first attack against US forces since early February when Iranian-backed groups in Iraq stopped such strikes.
A post on a Telegram group affiliated with Kataib Hezbollah said armed factions in Iraq had decided to resume attacks after seeing little progress on talks to end the US-led military coalition in the country.
More on that in a moment, first here’s a summary of the day’s other main events.
-
Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will fight against any efforts to impose sanctions on Israeli military units, amid reports that an Israel Defense Forces battalion is facing US sanctions over its treatment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. According to reports in the Israeli media, US state department officials have confirmed they are preparing to impose sanctions on the IDF’s Netzah Yehuda battalion, which has been accused of serious human rights violations against Palestinians.
-
Israel’s foreign minister has hit out at the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, over his decision to publicise his latest meeting with the head of Hamas’s politburo. Israel Katz shared a photo on X which showed Erdoğan shaking hands with Ismail Haniyeh at a presidential office in Istanbul over the weekend, writing that the Turkish president “should be ashamed”.
-
Hamas has condemned the US House of Representatives’ approval of $26.4bn in military support for Israel. “This support, which violates international law, is a licence and a green light for the Zionist extremist government to continue the brutal aggression against our people,” the Palestinian militant group said.
-
The Israeli army said that its soldiers killed two Palestinians who tried to shoot and stab them in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, and the Palestinian health ministry said both men had died. The official Palestinian news agency Wafa, quoting local sources, said that Israeli forces shot the two men near the West Bank city of Hebron, and that ambulance crews were prevented from reaching them.
-
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, thanked the country’s armed forces for their 13 April operation against Israel, Iran’s official news agency reported, and he called upon them to “ceaselessly pursue military innovation and learn the enemy’s tactics”.
