Closing summary
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Only a ceasefire deal in Gaza stemming from hoped-for talks this week would hold Iran back from direct retaliation against Israel for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on its soil, three senior Iranian officials have told Reuters. A ceasefire in Gaza would give Iran cover for a smaller “symbolic” response, one of the sources said.
Iran’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that calls for restraint regarding Israel from France, Germany and the United Kingdom “lack political logic and contradict principles of international law”. Iran’s president told Britain’s prime minister that Tehran considers retaliation against Israel over the July killing of Ismail Haniyeh a right, and a way to discourage future aggression.
Hamas’ said on Tuesday it targeted the Israeli city of Tel Aviv and its suburbs with two “M90” rockets. Explosions were heard in Tel Aviv but there were no reports of casualties, Israeli media reported.
An attack from Iran or its proxies on Israel could be “this week”, according to the White House, mirroring statements from the Israeli government which said a strike was increasingly likely. “We have to be prepared for what could be a significant set of attacks,” White House national security adviser John Kirby said on Monday, adding “which is why we have increased our force posture and capabilities in the region even in just the last few days.”
Explosions heard in Tel Aviv as Hamas says it targeted city with rockets
Hamas’ said on Tuesday it targeted the Israeli city of Tel Aviv and its suburbs with two “M90” rockets, Reuters reports.
Explosions were heard in Tel Aviv but there were no reports of casualties, Israeli media reported.
Israel’s far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visited Temple Mount, the holiest Muslim site in Jerusalem, in a pilgrimage Palestinians see as provocative.
Ben-Gvir, an ultranationalist settler leader, last visited the compound in July, which the Palestinian foreign ministry condemned as a “provocative intrusion” that endangered the fragile status quo regarding the Jerusalem compound.
Ben-Gvir visited the site in Jerusalem, where al-Aqsa mosque is located, on Tuesday morning. The visit elicited a rebuke from prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said it was a “deviation” from decades-old understandings at the site that prohibit Jewish worship there.
In video released by his office, Ben-Gvir was seen strolling through the compound singing, “The people of Israel live!” while accompanied by dozens of supporters. One supporter yelled a Jewish prayer, which is not permitted under the longstanding arrangement in place at the site meant to ease regional tensions.
Ben-Gvir has said he is changing the policy and, despite previous assurances to the contrary by Netanyahu, he repeated the stance on Tuesday, adding that “very large progress” had been made to allow Jewish prayer at the site. Netanyahu said there was no change to the policy.
Benjamin Netanyahu has attempted to ease concerns after a decision by one of the three major credit rating firms to downgrade Israel’s economic rating. The downgrade can affect Israel’s borrowing rate and its ability to seek cash from international lenders.
Fitch Ratings downgraded Israel from “A+” to “A” late on Monday. “In our view, the conflict in Gaza could last well into 2025 and there are risks of it broadening to other fronts,” it said. “In addition to human losses, it could result in significant additional military spending, destruction of infrastructure and more sustained damage to economic activity and investment, leading to a further deterioration of Israel’s credit metrics.”
“The lowering of the rating is a result of Israel having to cope with a multi-front war that was forced on it,” Netanyahu said Tuesday in comments reported by Associated Press. “The rating will be raised again when we win.”
Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 39,929 Palestinians and wounded 92,240 since 7 October the Palestinian enclave’s health ministry said on Tuesday. A total of 32 Palestinians have been killed and 88 wounded in the past 24 hours, the ministry said in a statement.
The Associated Press reports that Israeli strikes in Gaza killed at least 16 Palestinians, including four women and seven children, and orphaned another four children, Palestinian medical officials said Tuesday.
Ten people were killed in a strike late Monday on a house near the southern city of Khan Younis, where Israel ordered mass evacuations in recent days, saying it must act against Palestinian militants.
Nasser hospital, where the bodies were brought, said another four children, including a 5-month-old infant, were wounded. The infant’s parents and their other five children were among those killed. The parents of the other three wounded children were also killed, according to the hospital’s list of casualties. An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies.
A separate strike near Deir al-Balah in central Gaza killed a woman and her twin babies, who were four days old, and their grandmother. Another strike in central Gaza killed a man and his nephew.
An Associated Press reporter counted the bodies at the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital and spoke to the father of the twins, who had planned to register their birth on Tuesday.
Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas because its fighters operate in residential areas. The military rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children.
Ceasefire deal in Gaza would temper retaliation from Iran, senior officials say
Only a ceasefire deal in Gaza stemming from hoped-for talks this week would hold Iran back from direct retaliation against Israel for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on its soil, three senior Iranian officials have told Reuters.
Iran has vowed a severe response to Haniyeh’s killing, which took place as he visited Tehran late last month and which it blamed on Israel. Israel has neither confirmed or denied its involvement. The US Navy has deployed warships and a submarine to the Middle East to bolster Israeli defenses.
One of the sources, a senior Iranian security official, said Iran, along with allies such as Hezbollah, would launch a direct attack if the Gaza talks fail or it perceives Israel is dragging out negotiations. The sources did not say how long Iran would allow for talks to progress before responding.
With an increased risk of a broader Middle East war after the killings of Haniyeh and Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, Iran has been involved in intense dialogue with western countries and the US in recent days on ways to calibrate retaliation, said the sources, who all spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
In comments published on Tuesday, the US ambassador to Turkey confirmed Washington was asking allies to help convince Iran to de-escalate tensions. Three regional government sources described conversations with Tehran to avoid escalation ahead of the Gaza ceasefire talks, due to begin on Thursday in either Egypt or Qatar.
“We hope our response will be timed and executed in a way that does not harm a potential ceasefire,” Iran’s mission to the UN said on Friday in a statement. Iran’s foreign ministry on Tuesday said calls to exercise restraint “contradict principles of international law.”
Iran, two of the sources said, was considering sending a representative to the ceasefire talks, in what would be a first since the war started in Gaza.
The representative would not directly attend the meetings but would engage in behind-the-scenes discussions “to maintain a line of diplomatic communication” with the us while negotiations proceed. Officials in Washington, Qatar and Egypt did not immediately respond to questions about whether Iran would play an indirect role in talks.
Two senior sources close to Lebanon’s Hezbollah said Tehran would give the negotiations a chance but would not give up its intentions to retaliate.
A ceasefire in Gaza would give Iran cover for a smaller “symbolic” response, one of the sources said.
The Yemen Data Project (YDP) has recorded 92 civilian causalities as a result of Israel’s first strikes in the country in July, including nine fatalities in one of two Israeli-claimed strikes in Al-Hudaydah.
They said an Israeli strike on the oil storage facility in Al-Mina district of Hudaydah on 20 July resulted in more civilian harm than all 225 US-UK strikes combined since the start of US-led Operation Poseidon Archer in January.
After the strike, extensive fires broke out when several fuel storage tanks exploded. Satellite imagery showed at least 33 storage tanks were razed, destroying most of Hudaydah port’s 150,000 ton fuel storage capacity. Another storage tank reportedly exploded on 27 July. YDP recorded a second Israeli strike at the electricity power station in Al-Mina on the same day. No civilian casualties were recorded.
Israel’s military said the strikes were in response to “hundreds” of Houthi attacks against Israel in recent months. According to the Israeli military, since 7 October, the Houthis have fired over 220 drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missile at Israel. On 19 July, a day before the Israeli strikes, a drone sent by the Houthi’s struck Tel Aviv in the early hours of Friday, killing one person and wounding at least 10.
Iran considers retaliation against Israel over Haniyeh killing a 'right', president says
Iran’s president has said Tehran considers retaliation against Israel over the killing of Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh a “right” and a way to prevent future aggression in a call with Britain’s prime minister.
A Tuesday report by the official IRNA news agency said President Masoud Pezeshkian, in a late Monday phone conversation with prime minister Keir Starmer, said that a punitive response to an aggressor is “a right of nations and a solution for stopping crimes and aggression.”
Pezeshkian said that the West’s silence about “unprecedented inhumane crime” in Gaza and Israeli attacks elsewhere in the Middle East was “irresponsible” and encouraged Israel to put regional and global security at risk.
The report said the two leaders discussed ways for restoring peace and stability in the region and the world as well as improving bilateral relations, without elaborating.
Israel has not confirmed nor denied its role in the July killing of Haniyeh, but Israel earlier pledged to kill him and other Hamas leaders over the group’s 7 October attack on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. The assassination has sparked fears of a wider regional conflict and of a direct confrontation between Israel and Iran if Tehran retaliates.
Iran does not recognise Israel and supports anti-Israeli militant groups including Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Here are some more comments from Iran's foreign ministry, who earlier said calls for restraint regarding Israel from France, Germany and the United Kingdom “lack political logic and contradict principles of international law”,
Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said: "Without any objection to the crimes of the Zionist regime (Israel), the E3 statement impudently requires Iran not to respond to a violation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Kanaani said Tehran was determined to deter Israel and called on Paris, Berlin and London to "once and for all stand up against the war in Gaza and the warmongering of Israel".
"The inaction of the UN security council and the extensive political and military support of western governments to the Zionist regime (Israel) are the main factors behind the regional expansion of the Gaza crisis," he said.
Israeli forces killed an 18-year-old Palestinian in dawn raids on Tuesday in the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Al-Bireh, hospital sources said, as violence in the Israeli occupied territory simmers, Reuters reports.
The Israeli military was not immediately able to confirm the information from the medics at the Ramallah-based Palestinian Medical Complex.
Violence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem was already on the rise before the war in Gaza erupted, but it has since escalated, with stepped-up Israeli military raids, settler violence and Palestinian street attacks.
Israeli forces have killed at least 620 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the start of the Gaza war, according to Palestinian health ministry figures.
Reuters reports that a ship's captain reported being attacked by an uncrewed surface vessel (USV) which was successfully disabled about 63 nautical miles (116 km) southwest of Yemen's Hodeidah, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency said on Tuesday.
The vessel also reported two explosions in its close proximity, UKMTO and British maritime security firm Ambrey said.
Iran-aligned Houthi militants have launched attacks on international shipping near Yemen since last November in solidarity with Palestinians.
On Tuesday, UKMTO added that a separate ship located 97 nautical miles (179 km) northwest of Yemen's port city of Hodeidah reported an explosion in its vicinity.
The vessels and crew involved in both incidents are safe and proceeding to their next port of call.
The Houthi attacks have drawn US and British retaliatory strikes and disrupted global trade as shipowners reroute vessels away from the Red Sea and Suez Canal to sail the longer route around the southern tip of Africa.
Iran rejects call for restraint from European leaders as ‘lacking political logic’
Iran’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that calls for restraint regarding Israel from France, Germany and the United Kingdom “lack political logic and contradict principles of international law”, Reuters reports.
French president Emmanuel Macron, German chancellor Olaf Scholz and British prime minister Keir Starmer issued a joint statement on Monday endorsing the latest push by mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States to broker an agreement to end the Israel-Hamas war.
The European leaders also called for the return of scores of hostages held by Hamas and the “unfettered” delivery of humanitarian aid, and asked that Iran and its allies to refrain from retaliation that would further escalate regional tensions after the late-July killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
Iran’s president told Britain’s prime minister that Tehran considers retaliation against Israel over the July killing of Ismail Haniyeh a right, and a way to discourage future aggression.
A report by the official IRNA news agency said President Masoud Pezeshkian, in a late Monday phone conversation with Starmer, said that a punitive response to an aggressor is “a right of nations and a solution for stopping crimes and aggression.”
Updated
Iran attack on Israel ‘could be this week’ says US
Hello and welcome to today’s blog.
An attack from Iran or its proxies on Israel could be “this week”, according to the White House, mirroring statements from the Israeli government which said a strike was increasingly likely.
“We have to be prepared for what could be a significant set of attacks,” White House national security adviser John Kirby said on Monday, adding “which is why we have increased our force posture and capabilities in the region even in just the last few days.”
The US on Sunday announced it had ordered the deployment of the USS Georgia, a nuclear-powered, guided-missile submarine, to the Middle East, amid mounting concern over the determination by Iran and its proxies to retaliate for the assassination of Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran.
It comes as the UK, France and Germany said there must be “no further delay” in agreeing to a ceasefire in Gaza and called on Iran and its allies to refrain from attacks against Israel that would further escalate tensions. In a joint statement released on Monday, they endorsed the latest push by the US, Qatar and Egypt to broker an agreement to end the 10-month-old war.
Here’s a summary of the day’s other main news.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu exchanged words with his defence minister on Monday, underscoring the deep internal splits that continue to plague the government as the war in Gaza risks spilling out into a wider regional conflict.
Following Israeli media reports quoting Yoav Gallant dismissing Netanyahu’s war aim of total victory against Hamas as “nonsense”, Netanyahu’s office put out a statement rebuking Gallant. “When Gallant adopts the anti-Israel narrative, he harms the chances of reaching a hostage deal,” the statement said.The armed wing of Hamas has said its militants shot and killed an Israeli hostage and wounded two others, both women, “in two separate incidents” in Gaza. Abu Obeida, spokesperson for the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement: “In two separate incidents, two [Hamas] soldiers assigned to guard enemy prisoners fired at a Zionist prisoner, killing him immediately, and also injured two female prisoners critically.” The statement, posted on Telegram, did not identify the hostages or say when or where the incidents occurred.
Gaza officials told AFP on Monday that they had identified 75 bodies of Palestinians killed in a weekend strike by Israel on a school building where rescuers reported at least 93 dead. The Israeli military claimed that Saturday’s pre-dawn strike on the Al-Tabieen religious school compound in Gaza City killed at least 19 Palestinian militants who were allegedly using it as a base.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, has said the bloc should consider sanctions in response to calls by Israel’s far-right national security minister to cut off aid to Gaza, calling them an “incitement to war crimes”. Writing on the X platform late on Sunday, EU foreign policy chief Borrell said the recent remarks by Itamar Ben-Gvir constitute “incitement to war crimes,” adding that “sanctions must be on our EU agenda.”
142 people have been killed and 150 others have been injured by Israeli strikes in Gaza in the past 48 hours, the Palestinian health ministry has said, as the overall death toll from the war nears 40,000. On Monday, the health ministry said 39,897 Palestinians have been killed and 92,152 have been injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October.
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