Closing summary
Israeli forces have pushed deeper into Rafah, the southern Gazan city which used to be a refuge for Palestinians fleeing Israeli bombardments from elsewhere. More families, estimated in the thousands, were leaving on Sunday, bringing the total number of Palestinians who have fled following evacuation orders from Israel to about 300,000. Israel says it must invade to dismantle Hamas and return hostages taken in the 7 October attack.
Israel has called for Palestinians in more areas of Rafah to head to what it calls an expanded humanitarian area in al-Mawasi, a narrow strip of coastline at the southernmost end of the territory. But there are grave concerns for the security of those fleeing to the area, which aid workers say is packed with hundreds of thousands of displaced people who have already overwhelmed inadequate supplies of food, clean water and healthcare. Sanitation barely exists, leading to the rapid spread of disease.
The UN human rights chief, Volker Turk, warned that a full-scale Israeli assault on Rafah “cannot take place”, saying it could not be reconciled with international law. He said a full-scale offensive could have a “catastrophic impact … including the possibility of further atrocity crimes”. The UK’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, said earlier that it would be wrong for Israel to carry out a major offensive in Rafah “without a plan to protect people”.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, defended a decision to pause a delivery to Israel of 3,500 bombs over concerns they could be used in Rafah, saying Israel lacked a “credible plan” to protect the civilians sheltering there. The US president, Joe Biden, has made clear to Israel that if it “launches this major military operation to Rafah, then there are certain systems that we’re not going to be supporting and supplying for that operation,” Blinken told ABC News’ This Week. “We have real concerns about the way they’re used,” he continued. Israel needs to “have a clear, credible plan to protect civilians, which we haven’t seen.”
The Israeli army sent tanks back into al-Zeitoun, an eastern suburb of Gaza City, as well as al-Sabra, where residents also reported heavy bombardments that destroyed several houses, including high-rise residential buildings. The army claimed to have gained control of most of these areas months ago. Meanwhile, Palestinians reported heavy Israeli bombardment overnight in the Jabaliya refugee camp and other areas in the northern Gaza Strip.
At least 35,034 Palestinian people have been killed and 78,755 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement.
We are closing this blog now, but you can stay up to date on the Guardian’s Middle East coverage here.
Updated
Israel lacks 'credible plan' to safeguard Rafah civilians, US secretary of state says
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has defended a decision to pause a delivery to Israel of 3,500 bombs over concerns they could be used in Rafah, saying Israel lacked a “credible plan” to protect the civilians sheltering there.
Speaking to ABC News’ This Week, Blinken said that the US president, Joe Biden, remains determined to help Israel defend itself and that the shipment of 3,500 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs was the only US weapons package being withheld.
That could change, he said, if Israel launches a full-scale attack on Rafah.
Biden has made clear to Israel that if it “launches this major military operation to Rafah, then there are certain systems that we’re not going to be supporting and supplying for that operation,” Blinken said.
“We have real concerns about the way they’re used,” he continued. Israel needs to “have a clear, credible plan to protect civilians, which we haven’t seen.”
Rafah has been sheltering an estimated 1.4 million Palestinians, most of them displaced from elsewhere by Israeli bombardments, amid dire shortages of food and water.
Updated
Palestinians who have fled Rafah have been speaking to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“We endured three days that can be considered hell,” said Mohammed Hamad, a 24-year-old resident of eastern Rafah who was among the 300,000 Palestinians that Israel says have fled the fighting.
Despite international opposition to any major military operation in Rafah, Israel has shifted its focus to the heavily populated area in what it says is an effort to destroy the last bastion of Hamas.
Eastern parts of the city have been heavily bombarded in recent days, according to witnesses, as Israel sent tanks and ground troops into the areas in “targeted raids”.
“They were among the worst nights for us since the beginning of the war,” Hamad told AFP from al-Mawasi, an area Israel has designated a “humanitarian zone” despite aid groups warning that it is unprepared for such an influx (see earlier post at 09.45).
“They started by distributing flyers in the morning, and immediately began brutal artillery and aerial bombardment without giving people a chance to think or organise their belongings properly,” Hamad added.
Hisham Adwan, spokesperson for the Gaza crossings authority, told AFP on Sunday that the Rafah crossing has remained closed since Israeli troops seized its Palestinian side on Tuesday, “preventing the entry of humanitarian aid” and the departure of patients needing medical care.
He said Israeli forces “have advanced from the eastern border” about 2.5 kilometres (1.6 miles) into Rafah, the southern Gazan city the Israeli military is now ordering civilians to evacuate from as it prepares to intensify its military assault.
The UK’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, has branded Hamas “callous” over a video showing British-Israeli hostage Nadav Popplewell, who the militants said had died in Gaza in an Israeli airstrike.
He told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: “I can’t give you any new updates this morning.
“Like everyone else, I watched the video on Twitter, X, last night, put out by Hamas of Nadav answering a question as to who he was. And I watched that video and you just think, what callous people they are to do that, to play with the family’s emotions in that way.
“I met Nadav’s family, his sister, and I know the heartbreak they’ve been going through for over 200 days, and when you see what Hamas are prepared to do, you just realise the terrible, dreadful, inhuman people, frankly, that we are dealing with.”
Benjamin Netanyahu has spoken to Israel’s Eurovision entrant, Eden Golan, who finished fifth on Saturday, the Israeli prime minister’s office announced.
Switzerland won the 68th song contest, which was overshadowed by a row over Israel’s inclusion and the disqualification of the Dutch contestant just hours before the start of the grand final.
Netanyahu told Golan: “Eden, what success and what honor you have brought us. They booed you and we shouted: ‘Douze points!’
“I saw that you received almost the highest number of votes from the public and this is the most important thing, not from the judges but from the public, and you held Israel’s head up high in Europe.”
Updated
UN rights chief: major assault on Rafah can't be reconciled with international law
A full-scale Israeli assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah “cannot take place”, the UN human rights chief has warned, saying it could not be reconciled with international law.
The Israeli military on Saturday expanded an evacuation order for eastern Rafah and said 300,000 Palestinians had left the area.
“The latest evacuation orders affect close to a million people in Rafah. So where should they go now? There is no safe place in Gaza!” Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement.
“These exhausted, famished people, many of whom have been displaced many times already, have no good options.”
He said a full-scale offensive could have a “catastrophic impact … including the possibility of further atrocity crimes”.
“I can see no way that the latest evacuation orders, much less a full assault, in an area with an extremely dense presence of civilians, can be reconciled with the binding requirements of international humanitarian law and with the two sets of binding provisional measures ordered by the international court of justice.”
The IDF has said those displaced from Rafah will receive adequate food, water, shelter and sanitation in the humanitarian zone. But aid agencies describe acute overcrowding, limited and dirty water, almost no sanitation, and inadequate food supplies.
Volker said he was deeply distressed by fast-deteriorating conditions in Gaza, saying the latest evacuation orders had triggered “massive displacement of an already profoundly traumatised population”.
He said the towns supposed to receive those displaced from Rafah had already been “reduced to rubble”. Volker said a full scale offensive on Rafah “cannot take place” and called on all states with influence to do everything in their power to prevent it.
Updated
Death toll in Gaza reaches 35,034, says health ministry
At least 35,034 Palestinian people have been killed and 78,755 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
Most of the casualties have been women and children, the health ministry has said, and thousands more bodies are likely to remain uncounted under rubble across Gaza.
Here is a video of Israelis who took to the streets in Tel Aviv on Saturday demanding that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government do more to secure the release of hostages being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip:
UK ban on selling arms to Israel would strengthen Hamas, British foreign secretary says
Stopping British arms sales to Israel if it launches a ground assault on Rafah in the Gaza Strip would strengthen Hamas, the UK’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, has said.
Israel ordered Palestinians to evacuate more of the southern city on Saturday in an indication it was pressing ahead with its plans for a ground attack, despite the US’s threat to withhold the supply of some weapons if it did so.
Cameron said he did not support an operation in Rafah in the absence of a plan to protect hundreds of thousands of civilians sheltering in the southern border city (see earlier post at 10.19 for more details).
However, Britain was in a “completely different position” to the US in terms of providing arms to Israel, he said, noting that the less than 1% of Israel’s weapons that came from Britain were already controlled by a strict licensing system.
"I'm not interested in message-sending, I'm interested in what can we do to maximise the British pressure and the outcome that will help people"
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) May 12, 2024
Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron says "it's frustrating not enough aid is getting through" in Gaza#BBCLauraK https://t.co/P98o8sHpAf pic.twitter.com/bG8qfcwkv7
“We could, if we chose to, make a sort of political message and say we are going to take that political step,” he told the BBC.
“The last time I was urged to do that (…), just a few days later there was a brutal attack by Iran on Israel, including 140 cruise missiles,” he added.
Cameron said the “better answer” would be for Hamas, which controls Gaza, to accept a hostage deal.
“Just to simply announce today we’re going to change our whole approach to arms exports rather than go through our careful process, it would strengthen Hamas, it would make a hostage deal less likely, I don’t think it would be the right approach,” he said.
Cameron’s claim that UK arms sales are not the same as those from the US to Israel could be challenged on the basis that the scale or supplier of the arms is immaterial, and the issue is whether the arms are being used in a way that could conflict with UK legal criteria about a risk of a serious breach of international humanitarian law.
Foreign Office officials said the next formal assessment of UK arms sales and the risk the arms may be used to commit a serious breach was imminent. The formal assessments are made on a six-week cycle, and the last assessment was completed at the end of March.
According to Reuters, the Israeli army have sent tanks back into al-Zeitoun, an eastern suburb of Gaza City, as well as al-Sabra, where residents have reported heavy bombardments that destroyed several houses, including high-rise residential buildings.
The army had claimed to have gained control of most of these areas months ago.
Updated
Summary of the day so far...
On Sunday, more families, estimated in the thousands, were leaving Rafah as the Israeli military pressure intensified. Tank shells landed across the southern Gaza city as the army gave new evacuation orders covering some neighbourhoods in the centre of Rafah, which borders Egypt. Israel yesterday called for Palestinians in more areas of Rafah to head to what it calls an expanded humanitarian area in al-Mawasi, a narrow strip of coastline at the southernmost end of the territory. But there are grave concerns for the security of those fleeing to the area, which aid workers say is packed with hundreds of thousands of displaced people who have already overwhelmed inadequate supplies of food, clean water and healthcare. Sanitation barely exists, leading to the rapid spread of disease.
The UK’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, has said it would be wrong for Israel to carry out a major offensive in Rafah “without a plan to protect people”. “For there to be a major offensive in Rafah, there would have to be an absolutely clear plan about how you save lives, how you move people out the way, how you make sure they’re fed, you make sure that they have medicine and shelter and everything,” the former Conservative prime minister told Sky News. “We have seen no such plan … so we don’t support an offensive in that way,” he added, echoing similar statements by the US. The closure of the Rafah border crossing to Egypt, the difficulties of reaching the Kerem Shalom crossing because of the fighting, a lack of transport because of fuel shortages and the flight of key workers mean almost no aid is reaching southern and central Gaza.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, urged for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostages and an immediate surge in humanitarian aid” into the besieged Gaza Strip. “But a ceasefire will only be the start,” Guterres told a donor conference in Kuwait. “It will be a long road back from the devastation and trauma of this war,” he said.
Palestinians reported heavy Israeli bombardment overnight in the Jabaliya refugee camp and other areas in the northern Gaza Strip, which has suffered widespread devastation. Residents said Israeli warplanes and artillery struck across the camp and the Zeitoun area east of Gaza City.
Updated
On Sunday, more families, estimated in the thousands, were leaving Rafah as the Israeli military pressure intensified.
Tank shells landed across Rafah as the Israeli army gave new evacuation orders covering some neighbourhoods in the centre of the city, which borders Egypt.
“As I moved out of Rafah, I passed through Khan Younis, I cried, I didn’t know if was I crying for what I was passing through, the humiliation and the feeling of loss I felt or for what I have seen,” Tamer Al-Burai, a resident from Gaza, who had been sheltering in Rafah, told Reuters.
“I saw a ghost city, all buildings on the two sides of the road, complete districts were wiped out. People are fleeing for safety, knowing there was no place safe, and there are no tents and no people to care for them,” he said.
Burai, a Palestinian businessman, said Palestinians were being abandoned by world powers, with them failing to end hostilities and international mediation efforts to reach a ceasefire collapsing over Hamas and Israeli disputes.
“No ceasefire, no UN decision, no hope,” he said.
Updated
In Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city which sits on the Egyptian border, the Kuwaiti hospital said on Sunday it had received the bodies of “18 martyrs” killed in Israeli strikes over the past 24 hours.
Israel has said it will proceed with planned operations in Rafah despite its close allies, including its most powerful, the US, warning that a ground offensive could lead to mass civilian casualties and further deepen the humanitarian crisis.
Speaking to the BBC, the UK’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, said the UK would not resume funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) before investigations are complete into whether its workers colluded with Hamas.
The agency was investigated over claims that some of its staff had links with Hamas, but the outcome of a probe was enough for other countries such as Canada and Australia to restore their cashflow.
“Well, I’m being more demanding,” Cameron told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, adding that the UK is waiting for the findings of a second report.
He said he wants to see “real undertakings” from Unrwa “that they are going to investigate these things properly, that it won’t happen again, that (they are) changing their procedures and everything else, because you can’t expect us to pile back in and start funding an organisation when some of its own workers were involved on 7 October.”
In March, Israel announced it would no longer approve Unrwa food convoys to the north of Gaza, where the threat of famine is highest. The decision came after the agency was accused by the government of collaborating with Hamas in Gaza. Unrwa denies the charge and says no solid evidence has been presented to support the allegation.
Its staff have faced a systematic campaign of obstruction and harassment by the Israeli military and authorities, as revealed in internal UN documents seen by the Guardian.
The accusations by Israel led many donor countries, including its leading donor, the US, to abruptly suspend funding to the agency, threatening its efforts to deliver desperately needed aid in Gaza, although several have since resumed payments.
An independent review of the Unrwa, led by the French former foreign minister Catherine Colonna, found some “neutrality-related issues” but said Israel had yet to provide evidence for its chief allegations.
UK's foreign secretary opposes major offensive in Rafah without plan to protect civilians
The UK’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, has said it would be wrong for Israel to carry out a major offensive in the southern Gazan city of Rafah “without a plan to protect people”.
Asked whether it would be wrong to begin an incursion, Cameron told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips on Sky News:
That’s right, without a plan to protect people. For there to be a major offensive in Rafah, there would have to be an absolutely clear plan about how you save lives, how you move people out the way, how you make sure they’re fed, you make sure that they have medicine and shelter and everything.
We have seen no such plan … so we don’t support an offensive in that way.
"We don't support an offensive in that way".
— Sky News (@SkyNews) May 12, 2024
Foreign secretary @David_Cameron says it would be wrong for the Israelis to begin an offensive in Rafah "without a plan to protect people".#TrevorPhillips https://t.co/fhIHlpTGAF
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602 pic.twitter.com/s1amTxDjl9
The Israel Defense Forces instructed residents to evacuate central Rafah early on Saturday morning, via leaflets and messages on social media. Analysts said this suggested Israeli forces would advance into the centre of Rafah as early as Sunday, and were likely to continue through the entire city.
Israel has said about 300,000 people have already fled the city in the Palestinian territory since the army urged people to leave. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has ignored pleas from allies and humanitarian agencies that launching an assault on Rafah would lead to mass civilian casualties and an even worse humanitarian crisis.
Cameron, a former Conservative prime minister, also said he was “always pushing” the Israelis on a hostage deal and achieving a pause in the fighting to seek a sustainable ceasefire, but said the real pressure should be on Hamas.
“Hamas have been offered a deal which would release hundreds of prisoners from Israeli jails, that would provide a pause in the fighting to get desperately needed aid into Gaza and they’re not taking that deal,” Cameron said.
Indirect talks in Cairo on a ceasefire and hostage release deal were unsuccessful last week, with both the Israeli and Hamas delegations reportedly leaving.
Izzat El-Risheq, a member of Hamas’ political office in Qatar, said the Hamas delegation had approved an Egyptian-Qatari proposal that included the release of Israeli hostages held captive in Gaza and a number of Palestinians jailed by Israel.
Hamas has blamed Israel for the lack of agreement, and its Al-Aqsa TV’s Telegram account said the group would not make any concessions beyond those in the proposal it had accepted.
Israel has said it is open to a truce, but has rejected demands for an end to the war.
Updated
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) has described the “forced” displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza’s southern city of Rafah as “inhumane”.
The relief agency, which has been supporting the Palestinian territories since 1950, said there is “nowhere safe” left to go for civilians seeking safety and shelter in the enclave.
Over the last week, @UNRWA estimates around 300,000 people have now fled #Rafah, as the forced and inhumane displacement of Palestinians continues.
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) May 12, 2024
There is nowhere safe to go.
There is nowhere safe to go.
There is nowhere safe to go. pic.twitter.com/sPnmblvg47
Israel called on Saturday for Palestinians in more areas of Rafah to evacuate and head to what it calls an expanded humanitarian area in al-Mawasi, a narrow strip of coastline at the southernmost end of the territory designated as a “humanitarian zone” by the Israeli military.
There are grave concerns for the security of those fleeing to the “expanded humanitarian zone”, which is packed with hundreds of thousands of displaced people who have, according to aid workers, overwhelmed entirely inadequate supplies of food, clean water and healthcare. Sanitation barely exists, leading to the rapid spread of disease.
Updated
Residents said Israeli warplanes and artillery struck across the Jabaliya refugee camp, in northern Gaza (see earlier post at 08.43), and the Zeitoun area east of Gaza City, where Israeli troops have been fighting Hamas for over a week. Israel has called on tens of thousands of people to relocate to nearby areas.
“It was a very difficult night,” Abdel-Kareem Radwan, a 48-year-old Palestinian from Jabaliya, told the Associated Press. He said they could hear intense and constant bombing since midday Saturday. “This is madness.”
Updated
UN chief says it 'will be a long road back from devastation and trauma of war in Gaza'
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has reiterated his calls for an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war in Gaza, but said it would be a “long road back from the devastation” of the conflict even when the fighting had stopped.
Speaking in a video address to an international donors’ conference in Kuwait, Guterres said:
I repeat my call, the world’s call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostages and an immediate surge in humanitarian aid.
But a ceasefire will only be the start. It will be a long road back from the devastation and trauma of this war …
The war in Gaza is causing horrific human suffering, devastating lives, tearing families apart and renderi.ng huge numbers of people homeless, hungry and traumatised.
His comments came as Israeli strikes on Gaza continued on Sunday after it expanded an evacuation order for Rafah despite international outcry over its military incursion into eastern areas of the city, which has effectively shutting a key aid crossing.
More than a hundred thousand Palestinians fled Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, on Saturday. The total is now more than 280,000, according to a count by UN officials.
The closure of the Rafah border crossing to Egypt, the difficulties of reaching the Kerem Shalom crossing because of the fighting, a lack of transport because of fuel shortages and the flight of key workers mean almost no aid is reaching southern and central Gaza.
Humanitarian organisations have been the only source of food and medical services for much of the city’s population for many months but are now shutting down services
Updated
Israeli military intensifies bombardment of Jabalia refugee camp - reports
Al Jazeera is reporting that the Israeli military has intensified the bombardment of north Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp, destroying residential houses and attacking evacuation centres.
The outlet says Israel has been targeting the camp with drones and has reported, alongside Wafa news agency, that several Palestinians have been killed and injured. An exact death toll has not yet been given. The claims have not been independently verified.
Imad Abu Zayda, an emergency doctor in Jabalia, spoke to Al Jazeera about the worsening humanitarian situation in the area amid the reported Israeli airstrikes.
“No light due to the lack of fuel and there’s no medical supplement available as Israel has expanded their operation in the area. We have no oxygen to give to patients,” he said.
“Most of the injuries are children and women. We are operating with minimum facilities.”
The Israeli military issued evacuation orders to residents of the Jabalia refugee camp on Saturday, telling them to leave “immediately” so it could root out Hamas militants.
Earlier, the Israel Defense Forces had instructed residents to leave some areas of northern Gaza. It said they should “temporarily evacuate to shelters in western Gaza City”.
Jablia is the largest of the Gaza Strip’s eight cinder-block refugee camps – which date to the 1948 war of Israel’s founding.
Updated
Opening summary
Welcome to our latest live coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza and the wider crisis in the Middle East. Here’s a snapshot of the latest key developments.
Thousands of Israelis took to the streets on Saturday demanding that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government do more to secure the release of hostages being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Some protesters blocked a main highway in the city before being dispersed by police, who used water cannons to push back the crowd, Reuters reported. At least three people were arrested.
Family members of the hostages, carrying pictures of their loved ones still in captivity, joined the crowds that demonstrated in Tel Aviv.
Meanwhile, Israel launched strikes on across Gaza on Sunday after it expanded an evacuation order for the territory’s southernmost city of Rafah, in a further indication the military is pressing ahead with its plans for a ground attack.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said two doctors were killed on Sunday in the central town of Deir al-Balah, while Agence France-Presse correspondents reported intense clashes and heavy gunfire from Israeli helicopters near Gaza City in the north.
More than 100,000 Palestinians fled Rafah on Saturday, with roads leading out of city choked with long columns of people – many on foot and carrying their belongings – while witnesses said Israel carried out airstrikes in the city near the crossing with Egypt.
In other news:
The Israeli military’s new evacuation instructions suggest a coming offensive will take its forces into the centre of Rafah and on to a likely advance through the whole city. Israeli tanks were positioned on Saturday on Salahuddin Road, which divides central Rafah from the already evacuated eastern neighbourhoods, witnesses said.
Israel’s attacks on Saturday came as the UN warned an outright invasion of Rafah risked an “epic” disaster. Agence France-Presse journalists, medics and witnesses reported strikes across the strip. At least 21 people were killed during attacks in central Gaza and taken to al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah city, a hospital statement said.
Hamas on Saturday accused Israel of “expanding the incursion into Rafah to include new areas in the centre and the west of the city”. The Israeli army said troops were fighting “armed terrorists” at the Rafah crossing and had found “numerous underground tunnel shafts”.
Israel said 300,000 people had fled Rafah since receiving army warnings on Monday of an imminent military operation. Many have been displaced many times as they have fled successive Israeli offensives across Gaza. The people of Rafah were “exhausted, degraded, humiliated” after days of “relentless” bombardment, an official with the UN relief agency for Palestinians refugees (Unrwa) said.
The Biden administration is offering Israel “valuable assistance” in an attempt to stave off a full-scale Israeli invasion of Rafah, according to a report in the Washington Post. Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected US pressure to hold off an attack on Rafah, saying Hamas has based most of its top leaders and remaining forces there.
The closure of the Rafah border crossing to Egypt, and the difficulties in reaching the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel because of the fighting, mean limited aid is reaching southern and central Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) seized the Rafah border crossing with Egypt last week in what it said was a “precise, targeted operation”; since then, prices for some basic necessities have soared. Though the Kerem Shalom crossing is open, it is too dangerous for aid agencies to collect supplies crossing from Israel.
Egypt has refused to coordinate with Israel on the entry of aid into Gaza from the Rafah crossing, citing Israel’s “unacceptable escalation”, Egyptian media has reported. Red Crescent sources in Egypt reportedly said shipments had completely halted.
Hamas’s armed wing said the British-Israeli hostage Nadav Popplewell died of injuries sustained in an Israeli airstrike more than a month ago. Popplewell, 51, was a captive taken from kibbutz Nirim and a video previously showed him displaying visible signs of physical abuse.
At least 34,971 Palestinians have been killed and 78,641 injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said on Saturday.
US President Joe Biden said on Saturday a ceasefire would be achieved “tomorrow” if Hamas released the hostages. According to Israeli authorities, 128 individuals are reported to remain in captivity within the Palestinian territory, with 36 confirmed as dead. Israeli officials told the Ynet news site that hostage and ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas had not completely broken down. Indirect talks would resume “if there are answers from Hamas that we can work with”, the officials told the site. Hamas said on Friday that efforts to find a deal on a truce were back at square one after Israel rejected a plan from international mediators
Updated
