Record numbers of Palestinian detainees are filling Israeli prisons where they face “systemic abuse” and torture, rights advocates warned, calling for international action, reports AFP.

Members of several Israeli NGOs travelled to Geneva this week to raise concerns before the UN about a major “crisis” inside the country’s prisons.

“We are extremely, extremely concerned,” said Tal Steiner, the executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI). “What we’re looking at is a crisis,” she told AFP.

She said nine people had allegedly died behind bars since 7 October, according to Israeli sources. “There are almost 10,000 Palestinians in Israeli custody right now, … a 200% increase from any normal year,” she said.

While the UN and others have long raised concerns about conditions for Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons, Steiner said the situation had worsened dramatically since war erupted in Gaza.

“During the military onslaught on Gaza, there’s been a crisis within Israeli detention facilities and prisons that has been really left ignored,” Miriam Azem of the Adalah legal centre told AFP. The centre is dedicated to protecting the rights of Israel’s Palestinian citizens.

Her organisation had managed to document “19 clear cases” of torture within the Israeli prison system just since 7 October, including sexual violence, she told AFP.

“We’re seeing really widespread and systemic use of many, many tools in order to inflict torture and ill-treatment on Palestinians.”

This crisis, she said, “requires the immediate intervention of the international community”. Steiner agreed, warning that this was “an ongoing crisis.

“People are (suffering) in detention right now … An urgent intervention is very much needed,” she said.

The Israeli Prison Service told AFP: “All prisoners are detained according to the law.”

The service was “not aware of the claims”, against it, the spokesperson said, but stressed that any complaints filed by detainees “will be fully examined and addressed by official authorities”.

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa) said on Saturday that “one in three children under two years of age are now acutely malnourished in northern Gaza” in a social media post on X.

“Children’s malnutrition is spreading fast and reaching unprecedented levels in Gaza. Famine is looming. There is no time to waste,” it added.

The post comes as the first aid ship to test the new humanitarian maritime route across the eastern Mediterranean arrived in Gaza and offloaded almost 200 tonnes of food.

Aid agencies have repeatedly said that bringing in aid to Gaza by sea and through airdrops will not be enough to make up for difficulties getting in supplies by land.

AFP reports that the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza has in recent weeks recorded at least 27 deaths from malnutrition and dehydration, most of them children.

A US charity said on Saturday that its team in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip had finished unloading the first maritime aid shipment to reach the besieged territory, reports AFP.

“All cargo was offloaded and is being readied for distribution in Gaza,” World Central Kitchen (WCK) said in a statement, noting that the aid was “almost 200 tonnes of food”.

The group is preparing a second boat of 240 tonnes of food to set sail from Cyprus, the starting point of a new maritime aid route across the eastern Mediterranean.

The humanitarian effort is intended to mitigate food shortages that have prompted famine warnings in Gaza from the UN and aid workers.

“That shipment includes pallets of canned goods and bulk product including beans, carrots, canned tuna, chickpeas, canned corn, parboiled rice, flour, oil and salt,” WCK said. The second shipment would also include a forklift and a crane to assist with deliveries, it added.

AFP reports that the US charity had to build a jetty southwest of Gaza City to deliver the aid.

The humanitarian group said it had “no information to release on when our second boat and the crew ship will be able to embark.”

The Israeli military on Friday confirmed the first vessel, operated by the Spanish charity Open Arms, had arrived and said soldiers had been deployed to secure the area and conduct a security inspection.

The military also said the delivery of humanitarian aid by sea did not constitute a breach of its years-long maritime blockade of Gaza, which has been ruled since 2007 by Hamas.

José Andrés, founder of the WCK, said on social media platform X on Friday that the first shipment was “a test” and that “we could bring thousands of tonnes each week.”

Biden says Schumer made ‘good speech’ in breaking with Benjamin Netanyahu

Chris Stein

US president Joe Biden on Friday said Senator Chuck Schumer made “a good speech” that reflected many Americans’ concerns when he publicly broke with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over his handling of the war in Gaza.

While the US president announced no changes in his administration’s policy towards Israel, his views on the speech Schumer made Thursday from the floor of the US Senate, where the New York Democrat is the majority leader, could portend a broader shift in sentiment.

Tensions have been rising between senior members of the Biden administration, including the president and the vice-president, Kamala Harris, and rightwinger Netanyahu, in the continued absence of a ceasefire deal.

Schumer’s speech was a surprise to many and attracted criticism from US Republican lawmakers and Israel’s ruling party.

“I’m not going to elaborate on the speech. He made a good speech,” Biden said at the start of an Oval Office meeting with Irish taoiseach Leo Varadkar, adding that he had been given advance notice of Schumer’s comments.

“I think he expressed a serious concern shared not only by him, but by many Americans,” Biden said.

You can read Chris Stein’s full piece here:

Jason Burke

Benjamin Netanyahu has approved plans for an attack on Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, where more than a million people displaced from elsewhere in the territory have sought shelter, officials in Israel have said.

The decision was made as a ship towing a barge loaded with food arrived off Gaza on Friday. It was a test run for a new aid route by sea from Cyprus into the devastated Palestinian territory, where famine looms after five months of Israel’s military campaign.

Any attack on Rafah is likely to cause civilian casualties and worsen an already acute humanitarian crisis across Gaza.

Germany’s foreign affairs minister, Annalena Baerbock, tweeted: “A large-scale offensive in #Rafah cannot be justified. Over a million refugees have sought protection there and have nowhere to go. A humanitarian truce is needed immediately so that more people don’t die and the hostages are finally released.”

Netanyahu made the decision after a meeting of Israel’s war cabinet to discuss a new proposal from Hamas for a ceasefire.

As a first stage, Hamas has proposed it would release the Israeli women, children, elderly and sick people it is holding hostage in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including some convicted of multiple murders of Israelis.

You can read Jason Burke’s full piece here:

A first aid ship plying a new maritime corridor from Cyprus began unloading its cargo of desperately needed food in Gaza on Friday as Hamas proposed a six-week truce in the war.

News agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that its footage showed the Open Arms, which set sail from Cyprus on Tuesday, towing a barge that the Spanish charity of the same name says is loaded with 200 tonnes of food for Palestinians threatened with famine.

World Central Kitchen, the US charity working with Open Arms, said it was readying another boat with supplies of beans, canned meat, flour, rice and dates in the Cypriot port of Larnaca but stressed the need for more road access to bring aid into Gaza.

The Israeli military said it had deployed troops to “secure the area” around the jetty while the cargo of aid was unloaded. The “vessel underwent a comprehensive security inspection”, it said.

A spokesperson for the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry said early on Saturday that 123 people had been killed across Gaza in the past 24 hours, including 36 people in a strike on a house sheltering displaced people in central Nuseirat.

The office of Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Friday he had approved the military’s plan for an operation in Rafah, where most of the Gaza Strip’s population has sought refuge, without providing details or a timeline.

In negotiations aimed at securing a new truce and hostage deal, Hamas had put forward a nproposal for a six-week ceasefire and the exchange of several dozen Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, an official from the militant group told AFP.

Hamas would want this to lead to “a complete [Israeli] withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and a permanent ceasefire”, the official said.

Netanyahu rejected Hamas’s proposal for a truce and release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, saying its demands “are still absurd”. However, he said he would send Israeli delegates to Qatar to continue truce efforts “once the security cabinet discusses the Israeli position”.

It has gone 10.30am in Gaza and Tel Aviv. This is our latest Guardian live blog on the Israel-Gaza war and the wider Middle East crisis.

The first Gaza aid ship plying a new maritime corridor from Cyprus began unloading its cargo of desperately needed food in the territory on Friday as Hamas proposed a new six-week ceasefire in the war.

A US charity said it was readying another boat with food supplies but stressed the need for more road access to bring aid into Gaza.

The Israeli military said it had deployed troops to “secure the area” around the jetty while the cargo of aid was unloaded.

The office of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Friday that he had approved the military’s plan for an operation in the southern city of Rafah, where most of Gaza’s population has sought refuge, without providing details or a timeline.

In negotiations aimed at securing a new truce and hostage deal, Hamas put forward a new proposal for a six-week ceasefire and the exchange of several dozen Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, an official from the militant group said. But, Netanyahu rejected the proposal by Hamas for a truce and a hostage-prisoner exchange, saying its demands “are still absurd”.

However, Netanyahu said he would send Israeli delegates to Qatar to continue truce efforts “once the security cabinet discusses the Israeli position”.

More on that story soon. In other key developments:

• Witnesses reported airstrikes and fighting in the southern Gaza Strip’s main city of Khan Younis as well as areas of the north where humanitarian conditions have been particularly dire. A spokesperson for the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry said early on Saturday that 123 people had been killed across Gaza in the past 24 hours, including 36 people in a strike on a house sheltering displaced people in central Nuseirat.

• The US Central Command said on Friday that Houthis fired three anti-ship ballistic missiles from Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen towards the Red Sea. It said there were no injuries or damage reported.

• The international court of justice (ICJ) said it would hold hearings next month on Nicaragua’s case against Germany for providing weapons to Israel and defunding the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa). According to Nicaragua, Germany is violating the 1948 Genocide conventions and the 1949 Geneva conventions surrounding the laws of war in Gaza, where Israeli forces have killed more than 30,000 Palestinians since last October.

• The US president, Joe Biden, said the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, made a “good speech” on Thursday when Schumer called for new Israeli elections and criticised Netanyahu. Biden added: “He [Schumer] expressed serious concerns, shared not only by him but by many Americans.”

• The US needs to see a clear and implementable plan in Rafah, including how to get civilians out of harm’s way, the US secretary of state said on Friday. Antony Blinken, whose comments came after Netanyahu’s office said it approved plans for an invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza, also said the US had not yet seen such plans.

• Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters that Israel’s rejection of its latest truce counter-proposal showed that Netanyahu was “determined to pursue the aggression against our people and undermine all efforts exerted to reach a ceasefire agreement”. It was up to Washington to push its ally Israel to accept a ceasefire, he said.

• Hamas criticised the “unilateral” designation by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, of ally and leading business figure Mohammad Mustafa as prime minister with a mandate to help reform the Palestinian Authority and rebuild Gaza.

• The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, was due to travel to Jordan and Israel over the weekend to lobby for more aid to be delivered to Gaza, his spokesperson said on Friday. The German leader would also reiterate his warning against a ground offensive in Rafah.

• Protests have been held in Dublin and Belfast urging Joe Biden to demand a permanent ceasefire in the Middle East. The Amnesty International demonstrations took place to coincide with Irish premier Leo Varadkar’s meeting with the US president at the White House as part of the traditional St Patrick’s Day visit on Friday.

• The US Central Command has conducted its 11th aid drop into Gaza. Centcom said on Friday: “US C-17 and C-130s dropped over 35,700 US meals ready to eat and 31,800 bottles of water into northern Gaza, an area of great need, allowing for civilian access to the critical aid.”