Israel-Palestine live: Unicef says over 13,000 children killed in Gaza

Good evening Middle East Eye readers.

Our live coverage of the conflict in Gaza will shortly be closing for the evening.

Here are the day's key developments.

At least 63 Palestinians were killed and 112 wounded by Israeli attacks over the past 24 hours, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

That brought the total number of Palestinians killed in Gaza since 7 October to 31,553. At least 73,546 others have been wounded during that time. 

On Saturday, an air strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed seven Palestinians, the government media office in Gaza reported. Most were women and children.

Saturday's strike followed Israel's bombardment of the camp on Friday night, when 36 people from the same family were killed and many more wounded, according to Wafa. The majority of those killed were children, with a pregnant woman among the fatalities.

A Palestinian gunman opened fire toward a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank on Saturday and was then shot dead by Israeli soldiers there, said Israel’s military. The man opened fire from the Palestinian cemetery in Hebron at the adjacent Jewish settlement, Israel’s public broadcaster Kan reported

According to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), one in three children under the age of two in northern Gaza is now acutely malnourished.

"Children's malnutrition is spreading fast and reaching unprecedented levels in Gaza. Famine is looming. There is no time to waste," Unrwa said in a social media post on Saturday.

The health ministry in Gaza has in recent weeks recorded at least 27 deaths from malnutrition and dehydration, most of them children.

The news came as American and Jordanian aircraft dropped food supplies in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, US Central Command said in a statement, and followed the arrival in the enclave on Friday of 200 tons of food, the first maritime shipment in a new aid route to the Gaza Strip.

A second vessel filled with food aid was set to depart from Cyprus to Gaza on Saturday, the island's president said.

The head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency will resume ceasefire talks in Doha on Sunday, according to a source who spoke with Reuters. David Barnea is due to meet with Qatar's prime minister, as well as Egyptian officials.

Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels discussed "expanding confrontations and encircling" Israel in a meeting in Lebanon with Hamas and other Palestinian factions, a Houthi official told AFP on Saturday.

Houthi attacks on Red Sea ships since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict have disrupted global trade, actions the rebels say are in solidarity with the Palestinians.

Representatives from Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine met last week with the Houthis in Beirut, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Palestinian sources on Friday told AFP that the meeting had taken place, saying the representatives discussed "mechanisms to coordinate their actions of resistance" for the "next stage" of the war in Gaza.

A second vessel filled with food aid is set to depart from Cyprus to Gaza on Saturday, the island's president said.

On Friday, around 200 tons of food arrived in the enclave, the first maritime shipment in a new aid route to the Gaza Strip.

"The first ship has started its return to Cyprus, and we are ready to dispatch the second ship," Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides said on Saturday.

The new shipment, which is around 240 tons, will include pallets of canned goods and bulk products.

The head of the UK's Foreign Affairs Committee called out an Israeli government spokesperson who claimed the UN rather than Israel was responsible for blocking aid deliveries into Gaza.

Alicia Kerns MP said on X that Israel was failing to meet its legal obligation to help aid get into the besieged enclave, citing the closure of the Kerem Shalom crossing.

"I’ve just returned from the aid staging location in Egypt, thousands of trucks are sat waiting to deliver aid," she wrote.

In response, Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy claimed that the crossing was "currently closed on Saturdays at the request of the UN because there is so much undistributed aid piling up on the other side."

Kearns asked for evidence from Levy, pointing out that his claim was the "opposite" of what she had been told by the UK government, Egyptian government and the UN. 

Read more: UK committee head calls out Israeli official over aid blocking claims

American and Jordanian aircraft dropped food supplies in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, US Central Command said in a statement.

The air drops were carried out by US Air Force C-130 aircraft and a Royal Jordanian Air Force C-130 aircraft.

It came on the day that the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) said that one in three children under the age of two were acutely malnourished in northern Gaza, and warned of looming famine.

Air drops have been widely criticised for being dangerous, inefficient and limited in its quantities. 

Earlier this month, five Palestinians were killed and several wounded after a parachute landing a humanitarian air-drop load failed to open, bringing a pallet crashing down into a crowd of people waiting for food north of Gaza City's Shati refugee camp.

The head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency will resume ceasefire talks in Doha on Sunday, according to a source who spoke with Reuters. 

David Barnea is due to meet with Qatar's prime minister, as well as Egyptian officials. 

The discussions will include negotiations around the number of Palestinian prisoners who could be released in exchange for Israeli captives, the source said, as well as humanitarian aid to Gaza.

A Palestinian man has been shot dead by Israeli forces after opening fire on an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank, according to Israel's military. 

The man opened fire from a cemetery in Hebron towards an adjacent Israeli settlement, according to Israel's Kan public broadcaster. Kan aired footage of the man firing an assault rifle.

One in three children under the age of two in northern Gaza is now acutely malnourished, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa).

"Children's malnutrition is spreading fast and reaching unprecedented levels in Gaza. Famine is looming. There is no time to waste," Unrwa said in a social media post on Saturday.

In recent days, several children have died in Gaza of malnutrition and dehydration.

At least 63 Palestinians were killed and 112 wounded by Israeli attacks over the past 24 hours, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

That brings the total number of Palestinians killed in Gaza since 7 October to 31,553. At least 73,546 others have been wounded during that time. 

In December, Ibrahim Dawi was driving with a group of other journalists on an empty road between the coastal town of Naqoura and Tayri in south Lebanon when they narrowly survived an Israeli attack.

“Israel is specifically targeting journalists to curb the truth. I will need to be more vigilant, but I have no intention to scale back on my reporting,” said Dawi, a 21-year-old reporter for the independent broadcaster Radio Sawt El Shaab.

The incident recalls several others where journalists have been involved in life-threatening experiences when Israel struck areas where they had been reporting on the growing border tension between Israel and Hezbollah.

In total, Israeli attacks have so far claimed the lives of three Lebanese journalists.

Read more: On the frontline of war, Lebanon's journalists fear being Israel’s next victim

Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in multiple Israeli air strikes on Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. 

The government media office in Gaza said that 36 people were killed and many more wounded after aerial bombardment of the camp late on Friday night. Israeli jets targeted a home belonging to the Tabatibi family, according to Wafa news agency. 

The majority of those killed were children, and a pregnant woman was among the fatalities, the government media office said. 

On Saturday, another air strike on the camp killed a further seven Palestinians, Wafa reported. Most were women and children.

Hello MEE readers.

Discussions between Israel and Hamas over a potential truce appear to be picking back up, with an Israeli delegation reportedly heading to Qatar as early as this weekend.

This comes despite Israel rejecting the most recent proposal set forth by Hamas, which included a prisoner swap and a weeklong ceasefire.

However, Israel also approved a plan to invade Rafah, the southernmost city of Gaza, where more than half the enclave's population is seeking refuge in.

Many of Israel's allies in the international community have warned Israel against going through with the attack, while the US has said that it wants Israel to come up with a plan to protest the area's civilian population before doing so.

Israel and Hezbollah also exchanged fire over the Lebanese border. Hezbollah warned that it was ready to increase its war effort, saying to Israel, "if you expand, we expand".

Outside of the region, the International Court of Justice has said it will hold hearings for the case Nicaragua has brought against Germany, accusing Berlin of having "contributed to the commission of genocide" by Israel in Gaza. Those hearings will take place on 8 and 9 April.

Here's what else you need to know about today's developments:

• Hamas' military wing, the Qassam Brigades, said it intercepted and killed a group of four Israeli soldiers transporting explosives in al-Zahra in central Gaza.

• US Central Command (Centcom) said it conducted another air drop of humanitarian aid to Gaza. It said it dropped 35,700 meals and 31,800 bottles of water into northern Gaza.

• Multiple Palestinian news outlets reported that Israeli forces bombed a family residence in the al-Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City, killing five people and wounding dozens of others.

• White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said a ceasefire proposal from Hamas is within the bounds of what is possible and expressed cautious optimism.

• The UK security firm Ambrey and the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations reported incidents in which a vessel was targeted near Yemen's port city of Hodeidah.

The attendance for night prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque was 90,000 on Friday, the sixth night of the month of Ramadan.

The large attendance comes after Israeli restrictions prevented thousands of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank to attend Friday prayers at the mosque.

Typically the first Friday of Ramadan sees large numbers of worshippers in attendance at Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said that Israeli forces also prevented ambulances and medical teams from entering the site.

Al Jazeera Arabic is reporting that dozens of Palestinians are missing under the rubble, after Israeli forces bombed a seven-storey residential building in Gaza City.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations reported an incident near Yemen's Hodeidah.

UKMTO said it had received a report of an incident 65 nautical miles west of Hodeidah where the captain of a merchant vessel reported an explosion a distance off the vessel's starboard beam.

"There is no damage to the vessel and the crew are reported safe. The vessel is continuing to its next port of call," UKMTO added in an advisory note.

The news comes after Ambrey reported that a vessel was targeted approximately 80 nautical miles northwest of Hodeidah. It's unclear if they are reporting the same incident.

Reporting by Reuters