Image source, EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

Israel can give "no more excuses" over delays to aid getting into Gaza, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock says.

It comes after Israel announced it approved the reopening of the Erez crossing in northern Gaza. The port of Ashdod in southern Israel will also temporarily be used.

"The people in Gaza need every aid package now... We expect the Israeli government to implement its announcements quickly," Baerbock writes in a post on X, external, formerly known as Twitter.

"No more excuses."

Adam Easton
Warsaw Correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

Poland’s foreign ministry has handed a diplomatic note of protest to Israel’s ambassador following the deaths in Gaza of seven people, including a Polish citizen, in the Israeli strike on an aid convoy on Monday.

Deputy defence minister Andrzej Szejna has said that the ambassador, Yacov Livne, has apologised for the deaths of the World Central Kitchen workers, including 35-year-old Pole Damian Soból, during a meeting on Friday at the foreign ministry.

He says the ambassador will not be expelled from the country.

Livne has been heavily criticised for his reaction to their deaths. He has repeatedly expressed Israel’s deep regret for the attack but has rejected accusations the attack constituted a war crime.

The ambassador has accused Poland’s far-right deputy parliamentary speaker, Krzysztof Bosak, of being an antisemite for making such an accusation.

Polish President Andrzej Duda has called the ambassador the biggest problem for the two countries' relations.

Szejna says Poland expects Israel to conduct a transparent investigation into the attack and pay compensation to Soból’s family.

More now from the World Central Kitchen (WCK), which is calling for an "independent commission" to be created to investigate the killings.

The charity says Israel's military "cannot credibly investigate its own failure in Gaza".

Without "systemic change" within the military, there will be "more military failures, more apologies and more grieving families", the statement adds.

The charity says the "root cause" of the "unjustified" attack is the severe lack of food in Gaza and calls on Israel to "dramatically increase" the volume of aid travelling by land.

We're now getting reaction to the IDF's statement from the World Central Kitchen charity - whose workers were killed in the Israeli strike on Monday.

In a statement, WCK's chief executive Erin Gore says the IDF's apologies for their "outrageous killing of our colleagues represent cold comfort" for the victims' families and the charity.

"Israel needs to take concrete steps to assure the safety of humanitarian aid workers. Our operations remain suspended," she adds.

In addition to last night's briefing, the IDF has now released a statement on the findings from its initial inquiry.

It says the incident "should not have occurred" and it was a "grave mistake stemming from a serious failure due to a mistaken identification, errors in decision-making, and an attack contrary to the Standard Operating Procedures."

"The investigation’s findings indicate that the incident should not have occurred," the statement reads.

"Those who approved the strike were convinced that they were targeting armed Hamas operatives and not WCK employees".

The statement also gives more detail on the two senior officers who have been sacked and the three who have been reprimanded.

The brigade fire support commander - an officer with the rank of major - and the brigade chief of staff - an officer with the rank of colonel in reserve - will both be dismissed from their positions, the IDF says.

It says the brigade commander and the 162nd division commander will be "formally reprimanded".

The commander of the southern command will be "formally reprimanded for his overall responsibility for the incident", the statement adds.

Jo Floto
Middle East bureau chief in Jerusalem

The IDF goes on to set out the military's movements.

It says they then tracked the convoy, including the aid lorry, to a warehouse.

At this point the convoy splits, the aid lorry remains in the warehouse, and four SUV type cars emerge. One of those vehicles heads north, and is then shown to contain gunmen, with weapons clearly visible from the drone footage, as they emerge next to another aid warehouse.

The IDF says that these gunmen were not targeted, because of their proximity to an aid facility.

Meanwhile, three remaining vehicles, that belong to World Central Kitchen, begins to head south.

The drone team, the army says, now working under the assumption that they are dealing with Hamas militants and not an aid convoy, had misidentified one of the aid workers as gunmen, and claimed to have seen them enter one of the three WCK cars.

No footage of this moment was provided, but the military investigation concluded that it was a “misclassification. . . they saw that it’s a rifle but at the end of the day it was a bag”.

Under the mistaken belief that one vehicle now contained a gunman, authorisation to fire a missile is sought, and granted by superior officers. At 23:09 the first vehicle is struck, two minutes later the second, and at 23:13 the third final, fatal strike is launched, the IDF says.

Image source, .

Jo Floto
Middle East bureau chief in Jerusalem

More comments now from the IDF's briefing about Monday's strike.

The IDF sets out the events leading up to the incident, saying that the aid workers had been overseeing the distribution of food aid that had arrived on a ship from Cyprus, and unloaded at a recently constructed jetty in the northern Gaza strip before the strike.

Under co-ordination with the IDF, the World Central Kitchen team were transferring these supplies to a warehouse a few kilometres further south, the military says.

During this process, the IDF say their drone operators spotted a gunman riding on the roof of a large aid lorry, that was being escorted by the WCK team.

This gunman was seen, in a video shown to journalists, to fire a shot. At this stage an attempt to contact WCK is made by the military, it says.

The IDF says military called a WCK co-ordinator, who is unable to reach the team on the ground – where phone communication is patchy, and where aid agencies say they are prohibited by the IDF from using radios.

The drone footage also appears to confirm that at night, the stickers on the roof of the World Central Kitchen vehicles, with the charity’s logo, are not visible to the drone operator, it adds.

Jo Floto
Middle East bureau chief in Jerusalem

More now from the briefing the IDF gave last night on its inquiry into Monday's strike.

It says its drone operators mistook an aid worker carrying a bag for a gunman, and then targeted one of the WCK vehicles with a missile.

It says two people escaped that vehicle and got into a second car, which was hit by another missile from a drone.

The Israeli military says there were survivors from the second explosion, who managed to get into the third vehicle which was then also hit by a missile. By the end all the aid workers were dead.

The initial inquiry, carried out by a retired Major General, Yoav Har-Even, found that the army unit involved had believed the vehicles they were tracking from the sky had been taken over by Hamas gunmen and that they were not aware of the co-ordination procedures put in place between the military and WCK for that evening.

It also says the unit did not know the cars belonged to the charity, and the three air strikes had been in violation of the army’s own procedures.

Jo Floto
Middle East bureau chief in Jerusalem

We can bring you some comments now from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) about the strike in Gaza on Monday, which killed seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen (WCK).

After a late night briefing to journalists I attended on Thursday, the IDF said it has sacked two senior officers from the unit involved in the incident from duties.

Evidence from its initial inquiry has been passed to the Military Advocate General – the Israeli army’s top legal authority – to determine if there has been any criminal conduct, the IDF adds.

Its inquiry into the incident also found some workers survived initial air strikes, but were killed when a third car was hit.

We'll be bringing you more details shortly, so stay with us.

Image source, Pool clip

British Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has called on Israel to change the way it is prosecuting its war in Gaza.

"We want Israel to change the way it's prosecuting this war to reduce the number of civilian deaths so that we can get aid in and hostages out," he tells reporters.

He says the British government was one of the "first governments in the world to speak out in support of Israel's right to self defence".

"But we are also saying they need to do so in a way that avoids the unnecessary deaths of civilians such as we have seen so tragically in the last few days," he adds.

The government is under growing pressure, including from within the Conservative Party, to suspend arms sales to Israel following Monday's aid convoy strike which resulted in the deaths of seven people, including three British nationals.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said the UK has a "very careful" arms licencing regime.

Image source, Getty Images

Alicia Kearns says she believes the UK has "no choice but to suspend arms sales" to Israel.

Kearns, chair of the Foreign Affairs committee, tells BBC Radio 4's Today Programme President Biden's call with Netanyahu may prove to be a "tipping point" but that it is "devastating" it has taken six months for the international community to influence Israeli policy.

"A friend to Israel is someone who wants to see the people of Israel, safe, prosper and secure for the long term, not living under threat," she says.

"There is nothing anti-Israel, much less antisemitic, about taking a tougher line with the Netanyahu government."

James Landale
Diplomatic correspondent

Lawyers seeking to block British arms sales to Israel have formally urged the UK government to disclose its internal assessment of Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law.

In a letter to government lawyers, the Palestinian rights group, Al Haq, supported by the Global Legal Action Network, says ministers have a “duty of candour” to reveal the legal advice.

The group are seeking judicial review of the government’s decision to continue selling arms to Israel and will make their case in a hearing at the High Court later this month.

In their letter to the government’s legal department, seen by the BBC, they say ministers should disclose an internal assessment and legal advice that Alicia Kearns, who chairs the Foreign Affairs committee, says shows Israel is not demonstrating a commitment to international humanitarian law.

The Foreign Office said the content of any such advice and assessment was confidential.

Will changes announced by Israel satisfy the US?published at 10:46 British Summer Time 5 April

10:46 BST 5 April

Jeremy Bowen
International Editor

The issue now is whether Israel will indeed open up the crossings and allow more aid to flow into Gaza, and whether that will satisfy US President Joe Biden enough to allow the war to continue to be prosecuted in the same way as it has been.

There have been lots of leaks here in the Israeli press about supposedly very angry meetings between the US and Israel.

These suggest the Israelis have been raising their voices about the proposed Rafah operation in the southern city of Gaza and the Americans have been saying that Israeli plans to try and safeguard civilians during that operation are totally inadequate.

So I think it depends what happens on the ground now. Obviously President Biden has said something to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that has pushed him into announcing a change of policy.

I wonder if that is the threat of putting condition on the use of American weapons, which up to now the Biden administration has been absolutely against doing.

The pressure for doing that is now coming from very mainstream elements inside the US Democratic party, including allies of Biden, so perhaps he has waved that prospect in front of Israel, and perhaps that has worried them.

Image source, Reuters

We’ve heard from Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, who welcomes Israel's aid route announcement, calling it a "turning point".

“It's wonderful news,” he says while appearing on BBC Newsday, adding he and others have been calling for this for months.

“The border crossings to open in the north will make it possible to reach people in famine within 30-40 minutes by road, which is the only rational and effective way.”

Although he expresses confidence that Israel will follow through on these commitments, he says the "intrusive and counterproductive" monitoring system used to check aid deliveries needs to change.

“I think it now has to be rational. And the United States has to be at these border crossings and have to enable the flow as they have to be in the deconfliction system, so that not more of our aid workers are bombed and killed," he says.

Imogen Foulkes
Reporting from Geneva

Members of the UN Human Rights Council have backed a resolution calling for a weapons ban on Israel, because of its conduct in the war in Gaza. Twenty-eight countries voted in favour, six against, and 13 abstained.

Ahead of the vote cracks appeared between European countries, with Germany and Bulgaria saying they would vote against because the resolution did not explicitly condemn Hamas (although it did condemn the firing of rockets into Israel from Gaza, and call for the release of hostages).

France abstained, describing the humanitarian situation in Gaza as "catastrophic".

The vote, while not binding, does come from the UN’s top human rights body, and will increase the diplomatic pressure on Israel to change course.

Image source, United Nations

Image source, Reuters

In the last few moments, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is meeting EU leaders in Belgium, has welcomed efforts from Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza.

But he said success would be measured in results on the ground.

"Really the proof is in the results, and we will see those unfold in the coming days, in the coming weeks," he says.

Blinken says the US will be monitoring how many trucks carrying aid are getting in and around the territory, as well as the risk of famine.

He says Israel needs to be "maximising every effort to protect civilians", adding that the US is looking to see accountability for the Israeli strike on the World Central Kitchen aid convoy, which killed seven workers, including a US-Canadian citizen, earlier this week.

Image source, Reuters

Getting aid into Gaza is an “incredibly slow” process, Unicef spokesperson Tess Ingram says.

There are “many, many checks” at the two crossings in the south - Kerem Shalom and Rafah - and Ingram says she expects the same if Erez opens in the north.

She tells BBC 5 Live's Breakfast programme that nothing is put on the aid delivery trucks without pre-approval and everything needs to be cleared.

Ingram says the trucks are loaded in a warehouse in Egypt and sent to the crossings, where they are screened for a second time.

“In that screening process, everything is unloaded and every box is checked, which makes things incredibly slow," she explains.

"Sometimes items are sent back to us with no explanation”.

We're getting some reaction now to Israel's aid route announcement.

Stephane Dujarric, a spokesperson for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, says Israel needs to make sure that re-opened aid routes are operational.

The Erez Gate in northern Gaza will be temporarily re-opened for the first time since the start of the war and Ashdod Port will also be opened for humanitarian deliveries, Israel says, and more aid from Jordan will be allowed to enter via the Kerem Shalom Crossing.

Speaking on Radio 4's Today programme, Dujarric welcomes the move but says it's overdue.

"We've been calling for more humanitarian aid for months... we will need to see how this is actually implemented," he adds.

"Once this phase of the conflict ends, people will need to be held accountable for the violations of the law that we have seen."

Image source, .

Netanyahu faces growing pressure from all sidespublished at 09:07 British Summer Time 5 April

09:07 BST 5 April

Hugo Bachega
Middle East correspondent

In the end, Benjamin Netanyahu was left with no other option. After months of apparently ignoring Washington’s concerns about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, he was forced to make concessions, or face the threat of a shift in the US policy towards his country.

The port of Ashodod, about 30km from Gaza, will be used to increase humanitarian supplies into Gaza, and the Erez crossing will be reopened into northern Gaza, where there are concerns that famine is imminent.

This marks a major shift in Israeli policy. Israel was already facing growing isolation over the way it has conducted its war against Hamas in Gaza, where more than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed and a humanitarian crisis only gets worse.

The Israeli attack on the World Central Kitchen convoy that killed seven aid workers sparked widespread condemnation, and indicated that patience with the country was running out.

Biden officials have repeatedly voiced their frustration with Netanyahu but US policy, especially about the vast weapons exports to Israel, has remained unchanged, to the anger of many in the US and elsewhere.

Netanyahu was warned by Biden yesterday that US support for the Gaza offensive could change if Israel did not step up the delivery of aid and took additional measures to protect civilians and aid workers.

Netanyahu faces increased pressure from all sides. Internationally, calls for a ceasefire are getting louder. Domestically, families of the hostages who remain in Gaza accuse him of not prioritising their release.

He remains defiant and insists that the military will launch an offensive into Rafah, the last relatively safe area in Gaza. He says a major operation, which has faced opposition by virtually everyone outside Israel, is vital to defeat Hamas. This is likely to be the next big test for Israel.

Image source, Reuters

The quickest, most effective way to get aid into Gaza is over land - but the entry of trucks via two crossings in southern Gaza has so far not met the need for food.

People are suffering severe food shortages, with the UN saying children in northern Gaza are starving to death and famine is looming.

A deadly Israeli air strike on one aid agency - World Central Kitchen - has caused it to pause its operations, along with another agency.

Cogat, the Israeli body that coordinates humanitarian aid to Gaza, said on 1 April that an average of 140 trucks a day carrying food entered Gaza. It said this was more than the 70 trucks carrying food specifically that entered Gaza before the war (500 trucks in total entered Gaza each day before the war).

But military operations and the breakdown of social order have severely hampered aid distribution, while Gaza's food production has also been reduced to almost nothing, with farms, bakeries and factories destroyed or inaccessible.

As not enough food is reaching people via land, countries have been trying alternative routes via the skies and sea - but these too have been beset by problems.

Read more here.