Israel’s military has intensified its attacks on the Gaza Strip and its civilian population, killing at least 51 Palestinians since dawn. Thousands of Palestinian families have been forced to flee northern Gaza after Israel issued new forced evacuation orders for Beit Lahia and Jabaliya. Gaza’s Health Ministry reports Israel bombed three electric power generators and fuel storage tanks at the besieged Indonesian Hospital; they’ve also surrounded Gaza’s Al-Awda Hospital. With Israel’s latest attacks, only 19 of Gaza’s 38 hospitals are still operating — albeit at a severely limited capacity.

On Wednesday, Israel allowed just 100 trucks carrying humanitarian aid into Gaza — a tiny fraction of the 9,000 trucks that Israel is continuing to hold up at Gaza’s border amid a near-total blockade of food, water and medicine. U.N. officials say that trickle of aid is far short of what’s needed to prevent a famine, and hasn’t even been distributed yet, due to extremely difficult conditions faced by humanitarian workers. Starving children have been lining up for hours at a community kitchen in Gaza City hoping for a meal.

Mais: “I’ve been standing since morning, and everyone is pushing. It’s a huge number of people trying just to get food. Everyone is rushing in. How can I fill my plate? I can’t. Every day is like this. People come from inside and outside the camp for food. I’ve been here since early morning. I tried to rush in and get some food, but I can’t.”

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers fired shots Wednesday toward a delegation of foreign diplomats on an official mission to observe the humanitarian situation in the Jenin refugee camp. Video shows the European Union, Arab and Asian diplomats conducting interviews near Jenin’s entrance when shots ring out. Israeli soldiers were seen pointing rifles at the diplomats. The incident drew official protests and statements of condemnation from Italy, France, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Ireland, Spain and the EU’s foreign policy chief, among others.

In Washington, D.C., police have arrested a suspect in the shooting death of two Israeli Embassy employees late Wednesday. Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, who were a couple, were exiting the Capital Jewish Museum when 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez of Chicago allegedly opened fire on them. Video of the aftermath shows Rodriguez shouting “Free Palestine!” as he’s led away in handcuffs. After headlines, we’ll go to Tel Aviv to speak with the Israeli journalist Gideon Levy.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa visited the White House on Wednesday, where President Trump used their Oval Office appearance to push false claims that white Afrikaner farmers are facing a “genocide.” During an extraordinary confrontation broadcast live on TV, Trump had the lights dimmed and ordered video clips played showing people calling for violence against white farmers in South Africa. One clip showed white crosses marking what Trump falsely called “burial sites” of “over a thousand” white farmers; in fact, they were part of a protest against farm violence, not actual graves. South African police data show farm murders comprised less than 0.2% of murders between October and December of last year. This is President Ramaphosa responding to Trump’s ambush.

President Cyril Ramaphosa: “They’re a small minority party, which is allowed to exist in terms of our Constitution, which” —

President Donald Trump: “But you do allow them to take land.”

President Cyril Ramaphosa: “No, no, no, no.”

President Donald Trump: “You do allow them to take land.”

President Cyril Ramaphosa: “Nobody can take land” —

President Donald Trump: “And then when they take the land, they kill the white farmer. And when they kill the white farmer, nothing happens to them.”

President Cyril Ramaphosa: “No, no. There is quite” —

President Donald Trump: “Nothing happens to them.”

President Cyril Ramaphosa: “There is criminality in our country. People who do get killed, unfortunately, through criminal activity are not only white people. The majority of them are Black people.”

This month, the Trump administration granted refugee status to a group of 59 white South Africans — even as it suspended refugee resettlement for almost everyone else in the world. Trump’s claims of “white genocide” come after South Africa brought a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

A federal judge on Wednesday ruled the Trump administration violated a court order when it expelled eight immigrants this week to South Sudan without giving them at least 15 days to challenge their removal. Judge Brian Murphy said immigration officials had only given the men 24 hours’ notice. But Murphy did not order the men to be returned to the U.S. as their lawyers had requested. Their plane is believed to have landed in Djibouti Wednesday, but it’s not clear if it would continue on to South Sudan, which observers fear could be on the brink of a new civil war. Only one of the men is from South Sudan; the others are nationals of Cuba, Mexico, Laos, Vietnam and Burma.

This comes amid mounting reports of ICE arrests outside immigration courts, as agents prey on people who are dutifully appearing for their hearings. Community members have started showing up to courts to protest the arrests and inform immigrants of their rights. Immigration lawyers fear the arrests will scare people into skipping their court hearings, making them subject to possible immediate deportation.

House Republicans have passed Trump’s sweeping budget bill that gives massive tax breaks to the rich while slashing spending for Medicaid, nutritional assistance and subsidies for clean energy. The measure just eked through in a 215-214 vote early this morning. Senate Republicans, who’ve voiced some concerns over the measure, will now have to pass their own version of the budget. With all Democratic senators opposed to the package, Republicans could resort to using the reconciliation process to avoid a filibuster.

The Pentagon has accepted a $400 million luxury Boeing jet from Qatar, which will eventually be used as a new Air Force One. Ethics experts have raised concerns over the legality of the gift, as well as the cost of retrofitting the plane, which could cost upwards of $1 billion. The aircraft will eventually be transferred to Trump’s presidential library, where he can continue using it after leaving office. Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a bill authored by Democratic leader Chuck Schumer that would have barred the Pentagon from spending any taxpayer money on the jet.

In other news from D.C., officials from the U.S. Institute for Peace returned to their offices Wednesday, after a federal judge ruled the Trump administration engaged in a “gross usurpation of power” when it took over the independent institute earlier this year and ejected its leaders, as part of Elon Musk’s rampage against federal agencies. Judge Beryl Howell declared the White House takeover “null and void.”

Pakistan has blamed “Indian terror proxies” for an attack on a school bus in southwestern Balochistan province Wednesday which killed at least six people — three of them children. India has rejected any involvement in the attack, which comes at a time of heightened tensions between the two neighbors. Just days earlier, a car bomb killed four more people in Balochistan. The region has seen years of bloody conflict between the Pakistani government and Baloch separatists. The father of three boys killed in Wednesday’s school bus attack implored warring parties to halt the deadly attacks.

Ying: “For God’s sake, we are neither terrorists, nor do we like terrorism. We are peace-loving people. For God’s sake, forgive our children. We have left our region and homeland for you. What else can we do? You have targeted my innocent children, for God’s sake. We have no other way. Have mercy on our situation.”

In Britain, Laila Soueif, the mother of imprisoned British Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah, has resumed an almost total hunger strike to demand the release of her son. She spoke in front of the prime minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street Tuesday as she applies pressure on the U.K. government to secure the freedom of her son, who is also on hunger strike in an Egyptian prison.

Laila Soueif: “The prime minister made a promise to me and to Parliament to do all he could to free Alaa. A few days ago, my daughter Mona received a truly humane letter from Mr. Starmer, assuring all of my family of his continued support. But for Alaa, sitting in prison, now on hunger strike for 81 days, since the 1st of March, nothing has changed.”

Egyptian authorities have kept Alaa Abd El-Fattah behind bars for most of the past decade over his human rights advocacy.

The Justice Department is dismissing police reform and oversight agreements in Minneapolis and Louisville just days ahead of the fifth anniversary of the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020. The consent decrees came in response to Floyd’s murder, as well as the Louisville police killing of Breonna Taylor on March 13, 2020, after federal investigations found patterns of unconstitutional and racist policing practices in both cities. The Trump administration disputed those findings and dismissed the consent decrees as “federal micromanagement.”

The DOJ is also ending civil rights investigations into police departments in Memphis; Phoenix; Oklahoma City; Trenton, New Jersey; and Mount Vernon, New York. Both Minneapolis and Louisville, which are run by Democratic mayors, said they would nonetheless move ahead with the planned reforms.