This month Israeli attacks on Gaza killed more than 3,247 Palestinians and injured at least 5,271 others. The attacks in February brought the comprehensive death toll in Gaza since 7 October to at least 30,147, including 13,230 children and 8,860 women, while 71,217 have been injured. Israel also killed 35 Palestinians in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), 9 of whom were children, bringing the comprehensive death toll in the West Bank since 7 October to 409 killed, including 103 children. UNOCHA estimated on 8 February that Israel had destroyed the homes of 650,000 Palestinians in Gaza, and the New York Times reported that at least 33 buildings were destroyed in controlled demolitions. The Gaza Media Office said Israeli forces had set fire to 3,000 housing units and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk condemned Israel's systematic demolition of homes to create “buffer zones.”
A child and her family and the victims of the Flour Massacre quickly came to symbolize the Israeli intent, not only to target militants, but also to target and kill Palestinian civilians. Five-year-old Hind Rajab and 6 members of her extended family were killed by Israeli forces on 29 January while fleeing Gaza City. Her 2 adult relatives and 3 cousins were killed first in tank shelling of the vehicle they were traveling in, leaving Hind and her 15-year-old cousin Layan as the only survivors in the car. Layan then called the Palestinian Red Crescent for help and was on the phone with dispatchers when Israeli machine gun fire killed her. The dispatcher later called back and spoke with Hind who said everyone in the car with her was dead. Hind stayed in contact with a dispatcher for hours until an ambulance received permission to retrieve her. The dispatcher subsequently lost contract with both Hind and the paramedics, Yousef Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun. Their fate was unknown until 10 February when Hind was found dead in the car along with her family and the 2 paramedics were found in a burned-out ambulance nearby. Israel denied that it had any troops within firing range of Hind's vehicle, but the Washington Post found that satellite imagery showed that there were Israeli tanks in the area where the 9 Palestinians were killed, and wreckage of the ambulance was consistent with Israeli tank shelling. Forensic Architecture would later publish a detailed investigation concluding that an Israeli tank fired 335 shots at Hind's car at a distance of 13-23 meters; the driver would have been able to see that the car occupants were civilians and included children.
Israel indiscriminately killed civilians in an event that became known as the Flour Massacre on 29 February. On that day, Israeli forces opened fire on, fired tank shells at, and bombed Palestinians following aid trucks in Gaza City, killing at least 118 Palestinians and injuring 760 others. The massacre received the strongest international backlash for a single event during the genocide. Separately, Israel acknowledged that it had killed at least 74 Palestinians as a diversion during a mission to retrieve 2 captives in Rafah on 12 February. These events made clear that Israel's main focus in Gaza is to kill as many Palestinians as possible without international intervention.
The U.S. slightly adjusted its rhetoric on Israel's ongoing atrocities but continued to send Israel weapons and to shield it at the UN. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated in Israel that 7 October cannot be used as a “license to dehumanize others,” President Joe Biden called the Israeli attacks “over the top” and said Palestinians in Gaza were “starving, in trouble and dying. It has got to stop.” Biden also spoke out against Israel's planned invasion of Rafah. At the same time, however, he called on Republicans to pass a bill that would provide Israel with billions worth of military aid, and UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield vetoed an Algerian ceasefire resolution at the UN, claiming it would jeopardize a temporary ceasefire that the U.S. was working on. The resolution had support of 13 members of the Security Council; the UK abstained. The Palestinian Authority (PA) said that the U.S. shielding of Israel at the UN made it “a partner in the crime of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes.” Prior to the vote, EU High Commissioner for Foreign Affairs Josep Borell said that the U.S. response to Israeli attacks has been self-contradictory, saying “if you believe that too many people are being killed, maybe you should provide less arms in order to prevent so many people being killed.”
Other important developments this month include Israel's announcements on 22 February and 27 February that it would expand settlements by constructing more than 7,000 housing units.
The International Court of Justice began hearings on the legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, on 19 February, concluding 6 days of arguments on 26 February. Fifty-two states and 3 organizations presented legal arguments with 4 states (the U.S., UK, Fiji, and Hungary) presenting in favor of Israel and 51 states and organizations speaking out against the Israeli occupation.
Palestinian political prisoner Marwan Barghouthi was moved to solitary confinement on 14 February. The Israeli Public Defender's Office issued a report stating that Palestinian prisoners in the Carmel, Damon, Eshel, and Russian Compound prisons were experiencing “intolerable overcrowding; poor sanitary conditions, hygiene problems and infestations; poor ventilations; [and] a lack of basic equipment.”
PA Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh and his government resigned on 25 February. The PA also received part of its tax revenue after Israel and Norway entered an agreement in which Israel transferred a heavily deducted part of the tax revenue to Norway which subsequently dispersed it to the PA. The U.S. said the payment was done upon its request.
Hamas, Fatah, and many other Palestinian parties met in Moscow on 29 February for reconciliation talks and discussions on forming a technocratic unity government. Palestinian National Initiative secretary-general Mustafa Barghouthi said, “I have never seen the atmosphere so close to unity as it is today.”
The UN said it had not seen evidence to corroborate the claim made by Israel last month that UNRWA staffers took part in attacking Israel on 7 October. The U.S. also suggested that it has not seen evidence, but it cut UNRWA funding anyway.