Summary of the day …
US secretary of state Antony Blinken has met leaders in Israel and also the families of some of those held hostage in Gaza. He told the families to “keep the faith”, and said after meeting president Isaac Herzog “Even in these very difficult times we are determined to get a ceasefire that brings the hostages home – and to get it now. And the only reason that that wouldn’t be achieved is because of Hamas.”
Hamas has asked Egyptian and Qatari mediators to provide clarity on the terms of the latest ceasefire proposal being discussed as part of negotiations with Israel, an Egyptian official told Associated Press on Wednesday. The official said Hamas wants clear terms for the unconditional return of displaced people to the north of Gaza and to ensure that the second stage of the deal will include discussing the gradual and complete withdrawal of all Israeli troops from the entire Gaza Strip.
Jordan said some Israeli settlers attacked two of its aid convoys that were on the way to Gaza on Wednesday. It said the attack resulted in the dumping of some of their cargo, which included food, flour, and other necessities, in the streets. Honenu, an Israeli legal aid agency, reported that four men who had “blocked aid trucks going to Gaza” as they were passing near the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim were arrested by Israeli police.
The Hamas-led health ministry has issued updated casualty figures, claiming that at least 34,568 Palestinians have been killed and 77,765 wounded in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
King Abdullah II of Jordan has announced that he has departed for Italy and then the US for a “working visit” that comes within the framework of Jordan’s efforts to reach an immediate and lasting ceasefire in Gaza, and stop the humanitarian catastrophe in the Strip.”
There has been violence as rival protest groups clash in Los Angeles, and police arrested dozens of protesters at Columbia University in New York. You can follow the latest coverage of that here.
Citing, Honenu, an Israeli legal aid agency, Reuters reports that four men who had “blocked aid trucks going to Gaza” as they were passing near the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim were arrested by Israeli police.
Earlier, Jordan’s state news agency said some Israeli settlers attacked two of the country’s aid convoys that were on the way to Gaza.
A fresh wave of student demonstrations and encampments are under way at UK universities in protest over the war in Gaza.
Protests were due to take place in at least six universities on Wednesday, including Sheffield, Bristol, Leeds and Newcastle, with others expected to follow suit, in a show of solidarity with Palestinians.
Protesting students are also calling for their individual universities to divest from arms firms that supply to Israel and in some cases sever links with universities in Israel.
Read more of our education correspondent Sally Weale’s report: UK students begin new wave of protests against Gaza war after US arrests
France's foreign minister Séjourné: France calls on Israel to 'pull back on this offensive in Rafah'
French foreign minister Stéphane Séjourné has spoken briefly to the media after meeting his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry in an unscheduled extension to Séjourné’s trip to the region.
“We came to coordinate our efforts for a truce. The messages given by France and its Arab partners in the region is that Israel pulls back on this offensive in Rafah,” said Séjourné, adding “It is a question of life and death for many people on the ground.”
Reuters reports he declined to say how optimistic he was of a deal being concluded or give details of where the negotiation stood.
France has three dual-nationals still held hostage by Hamas after the group’s assault on Israel on 7 October. “We would like them to be on this list if a truce were to happen,” he said.
He also stressed that a French proposal to defuse conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah needed to be high on the agenda should a Gaza ceasefire be agreed.
As well as meeting Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and president Isaac Herzog, the US secretary of state Antony Blinken has met Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid.
In a social media post Lapid said “I told him that Netanyahu has no political excuse not to go to the deal for the return of the abductees. He has a majority in the people, he has a majority in the Knesset and if necessary I will make sure he has a majority in the government. They must be brought home. Every hour is critical.”
שוחחתי לפני זמן קצר עם מזכיר המדינה אנתוני בלינקן, דנו במאמצים הבינלאומיים לקידום עסקת חטופים. אמרתי לו שאין לנתניהו שום תירוץ פוליטי לא ללכת לעיסקה להחזרת החטופים. יש לו רוב בעם, יש לו רוב בכנסת ואם צריך אדאג שיהיה לו רוב בממשלה. חייבים להחזיר אותם הביתה. כל שעה קריטית. pic.twitter.com/cDY6J5y27e
— יאיר לפיד - Yair Lapid (@yairlapid) May 1, 2024
Jordan says Israeli settlers attacked aid convoys on way to Gaza
Jordan said some Israeli settlers attacked two of its aid convoys that were on the way to Gaza on Wednesday, the state news agency reported.
In the report it said:
The convoys were en route to the Beit Hanoun and Karam Abu Salem crossings when the attack occurred, resulting in the dumping of some of their cargo, which included food, flour, and other necessities, in the streets.
The ministry said the Israeli government’s failure to safeguard the aid convoys and allowing the attack to occur is a flagrant breach of its legal obligations as the occupying power and its duty to facilitate aid access to Gaza.Sufian Qudah, the ministry’s official spokesperson, remarked that the assault and Israel’s failure to provide protection undermine its claims and commitments to allowing aid into Gaza via the Beit Hanoun crossing.
Qudah squarely held Israeli authorities responsible for the attack, urging the international community to condemn it unequivocally.
Israel had been boasting that convoys from Jordan were increasing the amount of aid being delivered to the Gaza Strip. The Petra news agency said the convoys was able to complete its mission, despite the attack.
Israeli demonstrators have repeatedly tried to prevent aid being delivered to Gaza, contesting that supplies should be cut until all the hostages seized on 7 October by Hamas and other groups in Gaza are returned.
Arrests were made last week on a counter-demonstration where a group of rabbis attempted to make a symbolic delivery of food to the Gaza Strip during the Passover holiday period.
As well as the protests at BAE Systems factories in the UK [see 10.50 BST], there is also a pro-Palestinian camp set up outside Scotland’s parliament in Edinburgh.
As well as the camp itself, one protester has undertaken a hunger strike, which is now in its fifth day. In a statement they said:
After much time thinking and praying through this decision I have decided to partake in a hunger strike outside the Scottish parliament in protest to UK and Scotland’s complicity to the crimes of genocide happening in Gaza.
The decision to do this has come from a place of deep unresolvable grief. After 6 months of destruction and death, I’ve only wanted to scream, fight, and destroy in rage of the injustices in Gaza. Even with all this desire to rage I have always only found myself in a spaces of silence.
Not silence of inaction, that is not what I am meaning. But a silence of disbelief. Of disbelief of the overwhelming magnitude of the reality that is happening in Gaza.
Among the campaign’s demands are that the Scottish government apply pressure on the UK government to enact an embargo on all Israeli arm sales, and that local pensions funds and local Universities in Scotland divest from links to Israel.
Updated
Antony Blinken has posted to social media about his earlier visit today with Israel’s president Isaac Herzog. The US secretary of state said the meeting was to “discuss our support for Israel’s security and efforts to reach a ceasefire that secures the release of hostages,” adding “we also discussed the urgent need to get more humanitarian aid into Gaza.”
I met with President @Isaac_Herzog in Tel Aviv to discuss our support for Israel’s security and efforts to reach a ceasefire that secures the release of hostages. We also discussed the urgent need to get more humanitarian aid into Gaza. pic.twitter.com/8JF2m5yRUc
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) May 1, 2024
The court of King Abdullah II of Jordan has announced that he has departed for Italy and then the US. It said, in a post on social media, “the working visits comes within the framework of Jordan’s efforts to reach an immediate and lasting ceasefire in Gaza, and stop the humanitarian catastrophe in the Strip.”
Three arrests have been made in London at a demonstration against UK arms sales to Israel. PA Media reports as Metropolitan police statement said: “We are policing a protest in Admiralty Place and Horse Guards Parade. Officers have made three arrests after protesters blocked access to a building. Protesters must stay within the law.”
Organisers have said more than 1,000 workers and trade unionists demonstrated outside BAE Systems sites in three locations, as well as the London offices of the Business and Trade department, with the aim of showing solidarity with Palestinian workers.
Speaking in Glasgow demonstrator Jamie – who did not wish to give a surname, said: “Our fundamental aim is for the UK Government to introduce an arms embargo, it’s the morally right thing to do. It’s been almost seven months of death and destruction in Palestine, and the idea that that is being committed by weapons that are being produced in our neighbourhoods is horrifying.”
France’s foreign minister said on Wednesday that there was still work to be done to secure a truce between Israel and Gaza after he was updated by Egyptian officials in Cairo on the status of negotiations.
“We came to coordinate our efforts for a truce. The messages given by France and its Arab partners in the region is that Israel pulls back on this offensive in Rafah,” Stéphane Séjourne said after meeting his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shukri.
He declined to say how optimistic he was of a deal being concluded, but added that if there were a truce he hoped that three French-Israeli dual nationals being held by Hamas would be on the list for release.
Here are the latest images coming across the wires from Gaza and Israel:
The US secretary of state Antony Blinken has met with Israeli leaders in his push for a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas to impress on them that “the time is now” for an agreement that would free hostages and bring a pause in the nearly seven months of war.
Blinken, on his seventh visit to the region since the war erupted, said that Hamas would bear the blame for any failure to achieve a deal.
A truce could avert an Israeli incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are sheltering. Blinken on Wednesday also told families of hostages held in Gaza that Hamas needs to say yes to the deal.
The US and Saudi Arabia have drafted a set of agreements on security and technology-sharing which were intended to be linked to a broader Middle East settlement involving Israel and the Palestinians.
However, in the absence of a ceasefire in Gaza and in the face of adamant resistance from Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government to the creation of a Palestinian state – and its apparent determination to launch an offensive on Rafah – the Saudis are pushing for a more modest plan B, which excludes the Israelis.
Under that option, the US and Saudi Arabia would sign agreements on a bilateral defence pact, US help in the building of a Saudi civil nuclear energy industry, and high-level sharing in the field of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies.
Violent clashes between pro-Palestinian protesters and counter demonstrations broke out at the University of California in Los Angeles. Here is our video report.
My colleague Chris Michael is live blogging the latest on that situation here.
A US vascular surgeon who left Gaza after a stint as a volunteer said on Wednesday nothing had prepared him for the scale of injuries he had faced there.
Speaking to Reuters, Shariq Sayeed, from Atlanta said he saw dozens of patients a day, telling the news agency:
Vascular surgery is really a disease for older patients and I would say I had never operated on anybody less than 16, and that was the majority of patients that we did this time around. Most were patients 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 years of age. Mostly shrapnel wounds, and that was something I have never dealt with, that was something new. And unfortunately there is a very high incidence of infection as well so once you have an amputation that doesn’t heal, you end up getting a higher amputation.
Ismail Mehr, an anaesthesiologist from New York state, who led the Gaza mission, told Reuters the volunteer medics were “speechless at what we saw” when they arrived in southern Gaza in April.
Truly everywhere I saw was destruction in Khan Younis, not a single building standing. I hope and I pray that Rafah is not attacked. The health system will not be able to take care of that. It will be a complete catastrophe.
Updated
Media in Israel and Lebanon are publishing outline details of the deal on the table for hostage releases and a pause in fighting in Gaza. It was initially published in the Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar daily.
The details are quite intricate, and the Guardian has not independently verified the source of the document, but in an initial phase, three female hostages would be released every three days for the first 33 days, including soldiers. 40 Palestinain female detainees would be released by Israel in return for each female soldier. The IDF would agree to keep Gaza clear of all air traffic for between eight and ten hours on the days of the hostage release.
A second phase would start on the 34th day as living hostages, including male soldiers would be released in exchange for further prisoners. A third phase would involved the release of the bodies of dead hostages, and a five-year rehabilitation plan under which there would be a commitment for Palestinians not to build infrastructure for military purposes in Gaza or receive raw materials that could be used for such purposes.
Updated
A British police officer has been charged with a terrorism offence for allegedly publishing an image in support of Hamas, a group banned in Britain as a terrorist organisation, police said on Wednesday.
The constable was arrested last November and charged following an investigation by British counter-terrorism officers, Reuters reports the police said in a statement.
He has been suspended from his job with West Yorkshire police and is due to appear before London Westminster magistrates court on Thursday.
We reported earlier about a protest being staged in Glasgow in Scotland, blockading the weapons manufacturer BAE Systems. The campaign behind the demonstration claims that over 1,000 workers and trade unionists are taking part in protests across multiple locations, with blockades at BAE Systems arms factories in Glasgow, south Wales and Lancashire, and also at the Department of Business and Trade in London.
A spokesperson for the group said “Our movement forced the issue of an arms embargo on to the table and polling shows the majority of the British public want to see arms sales to Israel banned.
“The government has sought to play down the scale of its arms supplies to Israel, but the reality is UK arms and military support play a vital role in the Israeli war machine.
“If arms company bosses and Britain’s political elite won’t impose an arms embargo, we, the workers, will enforce it from below.”
A political row has broken out in Israel after comments by Orit Strook, who is minister for settlement and national missions. The far-right politician of the Religious Zionist party yesterday described the prospect of a hostage deal with Hamas as “terrible”.
She said it would be a betrayal of soldiers “who left everything behind and went out to fight for goals that the government defined, and we throw it in the trash to save 22 people or 33 or I don’t know how many. Such a government has no right to exist.”
Minister without portfolio in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government Hili Tropper has said her words were insensitive to the families of hostages, while Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid countered on social media that “a government with 22 or 33 extremist coalition members has no right to exist.”
Strook has previously been criticised for implying that doctors could be allowed to refuse to treat gay patients.
Clashes have erupted on University of California campus in Los Angeles. My colleague Chris Michael is covering the latest developments on our live blog with a focus on US protests.
Reuters has a little more detail on Stéphane Séjourné’s surprise trip to Egypt today, which follows his visits to Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Israel.
France has three dual-nationals still held hostage by Hamas after the group’s assault on Israel on 7 October and has worked closely with Cairo on providing humanitarian aid and medical assistance to Palestinians in Gaza.
Reuters reports, citing French diplomats, in talks with Egyptian officials he will assess whether those three hostages, who are not part of the Israeli military, could be on the list of people released and how close a deal actually is.
Paris also wants to put a French proposal to defuse tensions between Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah high on the agenda in case a Gaza truce is agreed, diplomats said.
The last time there was a pause in fighting in Gaza and a hostage release deal, although Hezbollah was not a formal party to the deal, hostilities between Israel and anti-Israeli forces in southern Lebanon also mostly paused.
Israel’s military has provided an operational update on its activities in the Gaza Strip, where it claims it has “struck and destroyed a number of terror targets belonging to the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations, including weapon storage facilities, military structures, launch sites, and mortar launchers used to fire toward IDF troops.”
The statement also asserts that Isreal’s troops have “found weapons stockpiles, documents, and military equipment” while conducting searches within the territory.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Israel’s military says that since the beginning of ground operations in Gaza on 27 October, 263 soldiers have been killed, and 1,593 wounded. The IDF says that of the wounded, 250 are in hospital, with 25 of those “seriously wounded”.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said on Wednesday that US secretary of state Antony Blinken’s comments on a Gaza ceasefire are an attempt to put pressure on the Palestinian group and acquit Israel.
Abu Zuhri also told Reuters that the group was still studying the recent ceasefire offer.
The Hamas-led health ministry has issued updated casualty figures, claiming that at least 34,568 Palestinians have been killed and 77,765 wounded in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October.
It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
Hamas has asked Egypt and Qatar for more clarity on terms of deal – reports
Hamas has asked Egyptian and Qatari mediators to provide clarity on the terms of the latest ceasefire proposal being discussed as part of negotiations with Israel, an Egyptian official told Associated Press on Wednesday.
The official, who has close ties to the talks and spoke on condition of anonymity in order to freely discuss the deal, said Hamas wants clear terms for the unconditional return of displaced people to the north of Gaza and to ensure that the second stage of the deal will include discussing the gradual and complete withdrawal of all Israeli troops from the entire Gaza Strip.
The official said the current deal didn’t fully explain who would be allowed to return north and how it would be decided.
The emerging phased deal includes the release of 33 civilian and sick hostages held by militants in exchange for a halt to the fighting and the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.
Blinken tells hostage families 'keep the faith' after speaking to Tel Aviv demonstration
In Tel Aviv, Antony Blinken has said some words to people protesting outside his hotel calling for the release of Israeli hostages.
The US secretary of state told the gathering:
I just had an opportunity to meet with some of the families of some of the hostages, as I have on every visit to Israel. Of course, as President Biden has done, as many of my colleagues have done. And I just want to share with you what I just shared with them.
Bringing your loved ones home is at the heart of everything we’re trying to do. And we will not rest until everyone – man, woman, soldier, civilian, young, old – is back at home.
Blinken went on to say:
There is a very strong proposal on the table now. Hamas needs to say yes, and needs to get this done.
That is our determination, and we will not rest, not stop, until you are reunited with your loved ones. So please keep strong, keep the faith, we will be with you every single day until we get this done.
מזכיר המדינה של ארה״ב אנתוני בלינקן למפגינים מחוץ למלון בו נפגש עם משפחות חטופים:
— Bar Peleg (@bar_peleg) May 1, 2024
״אנחנו לא ננוח עד שכולם נשים גברים חיילים אזרחים וזקנים יהיו בחזרה בבית. יש הצעה חזקה מאוד על השולחן עכשיו. חמאס צריך לומר כן ולגרום לזה לקרות. זו המטרה ולא ננוח עד שתתאחדו עם יקריכם. בבקשה תהיו… pic.twitter.com/RHDO1uR80T
Reporting for Al Jazeera from Rafah, Tareq Abu Azzoum has said that Israel appears to have “ramped up airstrikes and land bombardment”. He writes for the news network:
Israeli artillery units have been relentlessly pounding the Nuseirat refugee camp – in the northern part of that densely populated area – where thousands of Palestinians are. They have also been taking a systematic approach to destroying residential buildings in al-Mughraqa.
Here in Rafah in the south, the situation is also dire. A number of houses were attacked, with two Palestinian children killed. The children arrived at the Kuwaiti hospital alive, but they succumbed to their wounds.
Overnight, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued an English language video strongly critical of the international criminal court (ICC) and reports that it could be preparing charges of war crimes against Israel’s leaders.
In the address, Netanyahu described it as “an outrage of historic proportions” that a body set up “in the wake of the Holocaust committed against the Jewish people … is trying to put Israel in the dock.”
He said:
You have to hear this to believe this. The international criminal court in The Hague is contemplating issuing arrest warrants against senior Israeli government and military officials as war criminals.
This would be an outrage of historic proportions. International bodies like the ICC arose in the wake of the Holocaust committed against the Jewish people. They were set up to prevent such horrors, to prevent future genocides.
Yet now, the international court is trying to put Israel in the dock. It’s trying to put us in the dock as we defend ourselves against genocidal terrorists and regimes, Iran of course, that openly works to destroy the one and only Jewish state.
Branding Israel’s leaders and soldiers as war criminals will pour jet fuel on the fires of antisemitism, those fires that are already raging on the campuses of America and across capitals around the world. It will also be the first time that a democratic country fighting for its life according to the rules of war is itself accused of war crimes.
The Israeli army, the IDF, is one of the most moral militaries in the world. It takes endless measures to prevent civilian casualties, measures that no other army takes. It does so while fighting a terrorist enemy which uses its own civilians as human shields.
You know the truth. Hamas places its weapons, its terrorists, in hospitals, schools, mosques, and throughout civilian areas. They do this in order to win immunity and to maximize civilian casualties. So while Hamas shows no care for the lives of Palestinians and steals humanitarian aid meant for civilians, Israel is facilitating a surge of humanitarian assistance to Gaza.
Israel’s prime minister went on to say:
This ICC attempt is an attempt to paralyze Israel’s very ability to defend itself. The government and people of Israel reject outright this grave threat to our security, this grave threat to our very existence.
And I want to assure you, no ICC action will impact Israel’s ironclad determination to achieve the goals of our war with Hamas terrorists. We will destroy Hamas’ military and governing capabilities in Gaza. We will release all our hostages. And we will ensure that Gaza never poses a threat to Israel again.
Israel expects the leaders of the free world to stand firmly against the ICC’s outrageous assault on Israel’s inherent right of self-defence. We expect them to use all the means at their disposal to stop this dangerous move.
Six months after the terrible Hamas massacre of 7 October, eighty years after the horrors of the Holocaust, the Jewish state calls on decent people everywhere to reject this outrage by the ICC, to stand with Israel as we fight the barbarians of Hamas and Iran, and as we work to secure a more peaceful world.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:
— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) April 30, 2024
"You have to hear this to believe this. The International Criminal Court in The Hague is contemplating issuing arrest warrants against senior Israeli government and military officials as war criminals. pic.twitter.com/AU1z5GeJPm
Israel launched its assault on Gaza after the surprise 7 October attack inside southern Israel by Hamas, which killed about 1,120 people and during which about 250 people were seized and abducted as hostages.
The Hamas-led health authority in Gaza puts the death toll since Israel began its military campaign at over 34,500 Palestinians killed, with more than 77,700 wounded. Emergency services have said they believe another 10,000 boides may be trapped under rubble.
Aid agencies have warned of imminent famine in the territory, which is blockaded with Israel controlling access for humanitarian aid. Over 1.5 million people are estimated to have been displaced from their homes, many living in makeshift tent camps.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that several Palestinians have been killed this morning by an airstrike on Gaza City. It claimed “Israeli warplanes targeted a house on al-Jalaa Street, killing several Palestinian civilians and injuring others.”
The claims have not been independently verified.
Here is a video clip, via Kan, of the protest outside Antony Blinken’s hotel in Tel Aviv.
מפגינים להשבת החטופים מחוץ למלון קמפינסקי בת"א תומכים בבלינקן ובממשל האמריקני: "בביידן אנחנו בוטחים להחזרת כולם"@AnnaPines_ pic.twitter.com/tCDQrLx5Ec
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) May 1, 2024
Israeli media reports that demonstrators have gathered in Tel Aviv outside the hotel where Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state is staying.
Haaretz reports that at the protest outside the Hotel Kempinski they have been chanting “In Blinken we trust, to bring them home to us” and “Bring them home, all of them, now”.
Rachel Fink reports that “One of the demonstrators is reading out the names of the 133 hostages still in Gaza, as the crowd responds ‘now’ after each name. Demonstrators are also temporarily blocking the road in front of the hotel, in coordination with the police.”
In Scotland, protesters have formed a blockade outside weapons manufacturer BAE Systems in Govan, Glasgow, in protest over the Israel-Gaza conflict and calling for an immediate ceasefire to halt the killing of civilians in Palestine.
France’s foreign minister Stéphane Séjourné will travel to Cairo on Wednesday in an unscheduled stop during his Middle East tour as efforts to secure a truce between Israel and Hamas in Gaza reach a critical point, a French diplomatic source has told the Reuters news agency.
Blinken: US is 'determined to get a ceasefire that brings the hostages home'
Antony Blinken is in Tel Aviv today, and has already met with Israel’s president Isaac Herzog. Speaking to the media, the US secretary of state said “Even in these very difficult times we are determined to get a ceasefire that brings the hostages home – and to get it now. And the only reason that that wouldn’t be achieved is because of Hamas.”
“We also have to be focused on people who are suffering in this crossfire,” AFP reports Blinken said to Herzog. “Focused on getting them the assistance they need, the food, and medicine, the water or shelter is also very much on our minds,” Blinken said.
Blinken will later on Wednesday meet prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and make stops including Ashdod, the port near Gaza that was recently reopened by Israel to facilitate the additional deliver of humanitarian aid. NGOs and UN agencies have repeatedly stated that the amount of aid being allowed into the Gaza Strip by Israel falls far short of what is required. Israel has blamed logistical shortcomings by those supplying the aid for the problem.
It is understood that a proposed deal between Hamas and Israel would allow for a 40 day pause in fighting that would pave the way for the release of hostages and of Palestinian detainees held by Israel. About 130 Israelis are still believed held captive in Gaza, although not all of them are thought to be alive.
However, the picture was complicated yesterday when Netanyahu vowed that there would be a ground assault on Rafah to destroy Hamas, regardless of whether a deal was struck or not. Hamas had said it would respond to the proposals today.
Overnight Israel’s military has said that it again struck inside southern Lebanon, claiming to have targeted “Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure and a military structure in the area of Blida in southern Lebanon, as well as terrorist infrastructure and observation posts in the areas of Odaisseh and Meiss El Jabal.”
Israel and anti-Israeli forces have had near constant fire between them since 7 October. About 60,000 Israelis have been evacuated from their homes in northern Israel as a result of the skirmishing, while about 90,000 people in southern Lebanon have been forced from their homes by the fighting.
Welcome and summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.
An Israeli assault on Gaza’s southern city of Rafah is “on the immediate horizon”, according to UN aid chief Martin Griffiths.
“The world has been appealing to the Israeli authorities for weeks to spare Rafah,” he said in a statement, adding “the simplest truth is that a ground operation in Rafah will be nothing short of a tragedy beyond words.”
On Tuesday, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to proceed with an offensive on Rafah even if renewed efforts at internationally brokered talks with Hamas result in the release of hostages and a ceasefire.
Antony Blinken is set to meet with Netanyahu on Wednesday, in talks that the US hopes will advance a temporary ceasefire agreement that would also see Israeli hostages released from Gaza.
More on that in a moment, first here’s a summary of the day’s other main news.
The UK’s deputy foreign secretary, Andrew Mitchell, has told lawmakers in London that in the present circumstances, it was “not easy to see” how an Israeli ground offensive in Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip could be “compliant with international humanitarian law”.
António Guterres has said there has been “incremental progress” toward averting “an entirely preventable, human-made famine” in the northern half of Gaza, but much more is urgently needed. He specifically called on Israel to follow through on a promise to open “two crossing points between Israel and northern Gaza, so that aid can be brought from Ashdod port and Jordan.”
The top UN court has rejected a request by Nicaragua to order Germany to halt military and other aid to Israel and to renew funding to the UN aid agency in Gaza. The International Court of Justice said that legal conditions for making such an order weren’t met. However, it did not throw out the case entirely, as Germany had requested. The court said it remained deeply concerned about conditions in Gaza.
More than 34,535 Palestinians have been killed and 77,704 have been wounded during the Israeli military offensive in Gaza since 7 October, the Hamas-led Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. The Gaza Civil Emergency Service has estimated that the bodies of a further 10,000 Palestinians were under the rubble of hundreds of destroyed buildings. It said those figures had not been included in the updated health ministry death toll, which only registers bodies that are taken to hospitals.
Unrwa commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini has said that Unrwa staff who have been interrogated by Israeli security forces are being “pressured to state that the agency is politically affiliated”.
The UK said it was not ready to restore funding to the Palestinian relief agency Unrwa. Foreign secretary, David Cameron, said no UK decision on restoring funding will be made until the outcome of a UN internal investigation into Israeli allegations that 12 Unrwa staff took part in the Hamas assault on Israel on 7 October.
