Middle East live blog: ++ Child mortality in Gaza “rising steeply” ++

The aid organization World Vision warns of a dramatic increase in child mortality in the Gaza Strip. CIA chief Burns is reportedly traveling to Egypt for talks on the release of hostages. All developments in the live blog.

Israeli police say they have arrested eight Muslim believers after morning prayers on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The suspects expressed support for terrorism and terrorist organizations or called for terrorism, the police said. According to the information, those affected are four residents from the Arab-dominated eastern part of Jerusalem and four people from northern Israel. They would all be interrogated at a police station.

The police said it was regrettable that Israeli citizens – those arrested were all Arab Israelis, this minority makes up around 20 percent of Israel’s almost ten million inhabitants – were abusing religious occasions and holy places. Their behavior also has a negative impact on the many Muslims who do not take part in calls for terror. Thousands of believers took part in the morning prayer on the last Friday of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. According to Israeli media, dozens chanted chants to express their support for Hamas. The name of a spokesman for the military wing of the Islamist organization was also called. According to Israeli and Palestinian reports, Israeli police also used tear gas at the facility using a drone.

In Iran, amid military tensions, thousands of government supporters have taken to the streets in anti-Israel demonstrations. At the same time as the protests on the occasion of the so-called Al-Kuds Day, a funeral procession also began for the members of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) killed in Syria and who are to be buried today. Eyewitnesses reported thousands of supporters. The protests were accompanied by calls for retaliation.

Hundreds of thousands of government supporters traditionally gather at the Quds demonstrations every year. The state-organized Kuds rallies, introduced in 1979 by the then Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, always take place on the last Friday of the fasting month of Ramadan. The country’s spiritual and political leadership calls for the conquest of Jerusalem. The background is the occupation of the eastern part of Jerusalem by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967. Al-Kuds is the Arabic name for Jerusalem.

Six months after the attacks by the terrorist organization Hamas in Israel and the subsequent war in the Gaza Strip, the aid organization World Vision warns of dramatic consequences for children. The organization said that “child mortality due to malnutrition in Gaza is currently rising sharply.” In addition, more than a million boys and girls would “suffer lifelong consequences to their mental and physical health if an immediate end to hostilities cannot be achieved in the Gaza conflict.” The toll taken on the children is, in the words of Andrew Morley, president and chief executive of World Vision, “absolutely devastating and will affect a generation if those responsible do not commit to immediate and lasting peace.” But even if the war in Gaza were to end immediately and humanitarian access to the coastal strip on the Mediterranean were possible, the risk of starvation among the girls and boys living there would not yet be averted. For many families, help will come too late even in this positive scenario.

The situation of the civilian population is also deteriorating drastically in the West Bank: “Residents in four out of five of the West Bank villages supported by World Vision report that they do not have regular access to hospitals and that ambulances are routinely refused passage through checkpoints.”

According to official information, Israel has agreed to reopen the Erez border crossing into the north of the Gaza Strip. The country also wants to allow the temporary use of the southern Israeli port of Ashdod for aid deliveries, the government announced. It thereby confirms corresponding media reports. In addition, supplies to the Gaza Strip from Jordan via the Kerem Shalom border crossing are to be increased.

According to a media report, the USA wants to help the indirect negotiations for the release of hostages in the embattled Gaza Strip to achieve a breakthrough. As the usually well-informed Israeli journalist Barak Ravid reported on the Axios news portal Friday morning, citing two sources familiar with the matter, CIA Director Bill Burns is scheduled to meet this weekend for talks with the head of the Israeli foreign intelligence agency Mossad, David Barnea, as well senior representatives from Qatar and Egypt travel to Cairo to secure the release of the hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

US President Joe Biden called on Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call on Thursday to “immediately” conclude an agreement to get the hostages back.

Following a clear warning from its ally the United States, Israel has decided to take “immediate steps” to increase humanitarian aid to the civilian population in the Gaza Strip. The war cabinet decided early on Friday morning (local time) to temporarily open the port of Ashdod and the Erez border crossing for aid deliveries, as the Israeli newspapers Haaretz and Times of Israel reported, citing a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office. This will make it easier for help to reach northern Gaza, which is particularly affected by food shortages. Aid coming from Jordan via the Kerem Shalom border crossing will also be increased, it said.

The USA welcomed Israel’s announcement – and at the same time is pushing for an agreement to release the hostages in Gaza. According to a media report, negotiations will take place in Cairo this weekend.

The UN Human Rights Council is today discussing a draft resolution calling for an embargo on arms sales to Israel in view of the “possible risk of genocide in the Gaza Strip.” The text, submitted by Pakistan on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIZ), is also supported by Bolivia, Cuba and the Palestinian Authority. The draft resolution calls on Israel to “fulfill its legal responsibility to prevent genocide.”

Any transfer of weapons, ammunition and other military equipment to Israel should be stopped, it says, citing the “possible risk of genocide.” In addition to an arms embargo against Israel, the text also calls for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. In addition, starving civilians is condemned as a “method of warfare.”

According to White House national security spokesman John Kirby, the US is investigating information from a media report about Israel’s use of artificial intelligence (AI) to identify bomb targets in the Gaza Strip. Kirby said this in an interview with the US news channel CNN. The report on the Israeli military’s use of AI was published on Wednesday in the Israeli online magazine “+972 Magazine” and the Israeli news site “Local Call”.

CIA Director Bill Burns is expected to travel to Cairo this weekend. Axios reporter Barak Ravid reports this on the social media website X, referring to two insiders who said they shared the information with him. Burns plans to meet there with his Egyptian and Israeli counterparts, as well as the Qatari prime ministers, about the release of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip in order to achieve a breakthrough on the release.

After the attack on an Iranian embassy building in Damascus, Israel has increased its combat readiness. Welthungerhilfe begins its first aid operation in Gaza. You can read the developments in the live blog.