Summary
We’re closing our live coverage of the latest news from the Middle East for the day. In case you missed anything, here’s a quick round-up of all today’s developments.
Israel has vowed to go ahead with its ban on the UN’s Palestinian relief agency, UNRWA, which has been told to vacate its headquarters in East Jerusalem by Thursday
The head of the body, Philippe Lazzarini, told the UN Security Council that the ban was “jeopardizing any prospect for peace and security” and “harming the lives and future of Palestinians across the occupied Palestinian territory”.
Numerous US allies – including Jordan, Qatar, and France – have rejected Donald Trump’s proposal that people in Gaza should be moved into Jordan or Egypt
The Jordanian air force has begun delivering 20 tonnes of food and medical supplies to Gaza, a government spokesperson said
The death toll from the conflict in Gaza provided by the Palestinian Ministry of Health - which currently stands at 47,354 - is probably an underestimate, a spokesperson for the World Health Organisation has said.
The mayor of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, Ahmed al-Soufi, has urged residents not to return to parts yet because it remains “extremely dangerous”, despite the start of the withdrawal of Israeli troops
Israeli forces have detained at least 25 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank, including former prisoners, according to a statement by the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees
Israel has said it is “continuing defensive operations” in southern Lebanon following the extension of a deadline – originally last Sunday – for the withdrawal of its forces from the area
Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Mikhail Bogdanov, will travel to Damascus next week to meet Syria’s new government, according to reports. The trip would mark the first visit by a Russian official since the fall of the Assad regime
Thanks for joining us. You can find all our latest coverage of the Middle East here.
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The US supports Israel’s move to ban the UN’s Palestinian relief agency, UNRWA, and sever all contact, a US envoy to the UN told a Security Council meeting on Tuesday.
UNRWA has been told to vacate its headquarters in East Jerusalem by Thursday following bills passed by the Israeli parliament in October banning its operations in Israel and the Palestinian territories and designating it a terror organisation.
“The United States supports the implementation of this decision,” said Dorothy Shea, a United States representative to the UN who suggested UNRWA officials were “exaggerating the effects of the laws.”
Israel has claimed that around a dozen UNRWA employees were involved in the 7 October attacks and that some of the hostages taken by Hamas were kept in UNRWA facilities in Gaza, which include schools, clinics, and depots.
Shea called for “a full and independent investigation to assess these very serious allegations”.
“Unfortunately, this follows a pattern of serious allegations on the misuse of UN facilities - particularly UNRWA facilities - by Hamas terrorists,” she said.
Several probes, including one last year led by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna, identified “neutrality-related issues” at UNRWA, but stressed that Israel had not provided evidence for its central claims.
Palestinian health ministry death count probably too low, says WHO
The death toll from the conflict in Gaza provided by the Palestinian Ministry of Health is probably an underestimate, a spokesperson for the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said.
Since the start of the conflict, many have questioned the reliability of the ministry’s statistics on the grounds that the government of Gaza is still run by Hamas.
The ministry’s tolls currently stand at 47,354 people killed – including at least 12,298 women and 17,841 children – and 111,563 injured.
Discussing the WHO’s confidence in the figures on Tuesday, Christian Lindmeier said: “In terms of the death toll, yes, we do have confidence.
“But let’s not forget, the official death toll given by the Ministry of Health is deaths accounted in morgues and in hospitals, so in official facilities.
“As people go back to their houses, as they will start looking for their loved ones under the rubble, this casualty figure is expected to increase.”
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Thousands of people displaced to southern Gaza by the conflict between Israel and Hamas have been returning to the north.
Pictures taken today show cars ladened with belongings and people standing in what remains of their homes.
The Jordanian air force has begun delivering 20 tonnes of aid to Gaza, a government spokesperson said.
Fourteen Jordanian helicopters and two provided by the Italian military took off from the King Abdullah II air base in the country’s north, kicking off what Jordan said would be eight days of shipments.
The craft were carrying food and medical supplies and landed at an air strip in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
Jordan said it would hand the aid to the World Food Programme, whose teams would be responsible for distributing it to people in Gaza.
On Monday, tens of thousands of people displaced to southern Gaza by the conflicting began returning to the north.
The spokesperson told reporters the aid deliveries were intended to help “alleviate their suffering”.
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Regional powers reject Trump proposal to 'clean out' Gaza
Regional powers have rejected Donald Trump’s suggestion that people in Gaza could be moved into Jordan or Egypt.
Speaking on Saturday, Trump described Gaza as a “demolition site” and suggested it would be best to “just clean out that whole thing”, adding that the move “could be temporary” or “could be long-term”.
On Tuesday, Jordanian government spokesman Mohammad Momani said in response that Jordan’s “national security dictates that the Palestinians must remain on their land”.
“The Palestinian people must not be subjected to any kind of forced displacement whatsoever,” he added.
Qatar, which played a central role in mediating the truce between Israel and Hamas, said it often did not see “eye to eye” with its allies, including the US.
“Our position has always been clear to the necessity of the Palestinian people receiving their rights, and that the two-state solution is the only path forward,” said foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari.
The Egyptian government has denied reports that Trump spoke with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi over the weekend.
On Monday, Trump told reporters he had spoken to Sisi, adding: “I wish he would take some [Palestinians].”
After Trump’s original comments, Egypt rejected any forced displacement of people from Gaza, reiterating its “continued support for the steadfastness of the Palestinian people on their land”.
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Israel’s ban on UNRWA jeopardising peace, says agency chief
Israel’s ban on the UN’s relief agency for the Palestinians, UNRWA, is jeopardising the chances of peace in the region, the head of the body has said.
Philippe Lazzarini told a meeting of the UN Security Council: “The relentless assault on UNRWA is harming the lives and future of Palestinians across the occupied Palestinian territory.
“It is eroding their trust in the international community, jeopardizing any prospect for peace and security.”
UNRWA has been told to vacate its headquarters in East Jerusalem by Thursday following bills passed by the Israeli parliament in October banning its operations in Israel and the Palestinian territories and designating it a terror organisation.
While most of Unrwa’s activities take place in the West Bank and Gaza, it is hugely dependent on an agreement with Israel to operate, including access to border crossings into Gaza including for humanitarian aid.
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Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been quoted as saying that Gaza had brought Israel “to its knees”, in a reference to the recent ceasefire between Hamas and Israel that came into effect on 19 January. You can read more about the three stages of the agreement in this explainer.
“The small, limited Gaza brought the Zionist regime, armed to the teeth and fully supported by America, to its knees,” Khamenei, the ultimate authority in Iran, said during a meeting with officials in Tehran.
Tehran has recently suffered strategic setbacks in Lebanon after Israeli attacks against Iranian-backed Hezbollah and the toppling of Tehran’s ally President Bashar Al-Assad in Syria last month.
Summary of the day so far...
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is planning to meet US President Donald Trump in Washington as early as next week, according to reports, in what could be the first trip a foreign leader makes to the White House since his inauguration on 20 January.
Donald Trump repeated his suggestion that large numbers of Palestinians should leave Gaza for Egypt or Jordan, despite widespread opposition to the proposal that has been condemned by the UN, Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and US allies in the region. Adding to the growing criticism, France on Tuesday said any forced displacement of Palestinians would be “unacceptable”.
Palestinian people are continue to return to northern Gaza after Israel yesterday opened military checkpoints that had divided the strip for more than a year.
Rafah’s mayor has urged displaced Palestinians seeking to return to the devastated southern city to exercise caution as Israeli soldiers remain stationed along the Philadelphi Corridor, a narrow strip of land running along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt. Ahmed al-Soufi, told Al Jazeera that the city, as a whole, remains “extremely dangerous” and will stay this way until the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces.
The Times of Israel has quoted an anonymous security cabinet minister as saying that Donald Trump’s comments on resettling Palestinians outside Gaza – which draw comparisons to a proposal for ethnic cleansing - had likely been “partially designed to help Netanyahu hang on to support from far-right allies who have destabilised his coalition” in protest against the ceasefire deal.
As a reminder, the Republican president, a close ally of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said over the weekend that Gaza’s Palestinian population could be “cleaned out” and moved to Egypt and Jordan.
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Israeli forces are “continuing defensive operations” in southern Lebanon, the IDF has said.
Recent days have seen growing protests over the continued presence of Israeli troops in the area as residents previously displaced by fighting try to return to their homes.
Under the terms of a ceasefire deal reached between Israel and Hezbollah in November, the troops were supposed to have withdrawn by Sunday, but Israel said on Friday that the terms of the ceasefire had not been fully implemented by the Lebanese state and that it’s troops would remain. The deadline has now been extended to 18 February.
At least 26 people were killed and more then 140 were wounded by Israeli gunfire during demonstrations on Sunday and Monday.
In a statement on Tuesday, the IDF its forces were continuing operations to “remove threats and terrorist infrastructure in southern Lebanon, in accordance with understandings between Israel and Lebanon and in order to preserve operational achievements in the region”.
Forced displacement of Palestinians would be 'unacceptable', says France
Any policy that would force people in Gaza to vacate the territory would be “unacceptable”, the French government has said.
It comes after US President Donald Trump, speaking on Saturday, described Gaza as a “demolition site” and suggested it would be best to “just clean out that whole thing”, adding that the move “could be temporary” or “could be long-term”.
Asked about the comment on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the French foreign ministry said: “Any forced displacement of the population in Gaza would be unacceptable”.
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When insurgents threw open the doors of Aleppo central prison in northern Syria as they overran the city in December, Wafa Mustafa, 34, watched videos of the scenes from exile in Germany in disbelief. Shocked detainees could be seen running into the night as a decades-long dictatorship built on a network of prisons and torture chambers crumbled.
Mustafa began praying that the insurgents would reach the detention centres in Damascus, where she believed her father, Ali, was being held by the feared intelligence services. He was kidnapped from their home in the Syrian capital more than a decade ago and she has not seen or heard from him since.
In the intervening years, Mustafa became the public face of tens of thousands of families suffering under the constant weight of enforced disappearances in Syria; she is a relentless campaigner intent on making sure the missing are not forgotten.
“I have done everything I could these past years,” she says. “I exhausted myself. I cried, I got angry, I talked to politicians, I protested, and then… someone just opened the door and everyone is free. All that stood between me and my father’s prison was just a door that could easily open.”
Read the full story here:
US and Israel would be 'crazy' to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, foreign minister says
In an interview with Sky News, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi has said that Israel and America would be “crazy” to attack its nuclear facilities.
“Any attack against our nuclear facilities would be faced with an immediate and decisive response,” Araghchi said, adding such a move would be “crazy”, and would “turn the region into a very bad disaster”.
He said the new US administration should work to win back Tehran’s trust if it wants a new round of nuclear negotiations. He said there is “mistrust” between the countries, which needs to be “overcome” before the two sides enter into any new negotiations.
“The situation is different and much more difficult than the previous time, lots of things should be done by the other side to buy our confidence,” Araghchi said.
During his first term, US President Donald Trump pursued a policy of “maximum pressure” towards Iran, withdrawing from a landmark 2015 deal that imposed curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief.
Following the withdrawal, the US reimposed sanctions on Tehran, prompting the Islamic republic to begin rolling back its commitments, including by increasing its level of uranium enrichment.
“There should be enough confidence for Iran to once again engage in negotiations, and I think we are still far from that,” Araghchi told Sky News.
“We haven’t heard anything but the nice words (from the new US administration) and this is obviously not enough.”
On Thursday, Trump said he wished to avoid military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, hoping instead for an agreement.
In the UK, the chair of the House of Commons international development committee has issued a statement today on Israel banning the UN’s aid agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa. As a reminder, Israel has ordered the UN agency to vacate its headquarters in East Jerusalem by Thursday, after the country’s parliament passed a law in October banning its operations in Israel and the Palestinian territories. Israel’s ban only directly covers Israeli territory, which Israel considers East Jerusalem to be. Unrwa also operates in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, but it was unclear how the law will affect Unrwa’s work there.
The international development committee, which scrutinises the aid policy of the British foreign ministry, has warned that the Unrwa ban could cause the already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and the occupied West Bank to “deteriorate rapidly, possibly irreparably” and would “almost certainly lead to further conflict and increased displacement”.
Unrwa is the major distributor of aid in Gaza and provides education, health and other basic services to millions of Palestinian refugees across the region.
Sarah Champion, who chairs the international development committee, said on Tuesday:
Let us be clear: this ban will be devastating for Palestinian refugees across the region. Food, water, education, even rubbish collection will all be affected.
In the strongest possible terms, I urge the UK government to do everything it can to get all parties round the table and ensure that Unrwa can fulfil its UN-mandated work. The success of the current ceasefire hangs in the balance if not.
The fragile Hamas-Israel ceasefire allows for an increase in aid to the territory, but the ban on the UN agency, seen by many as the core of the humanitarian support operation in the region, will likely have a devastating effect on many Palestinian’s lives. You can read more on the ban in this analysis piece by the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour.
Teams from the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) recovered ten decomposed bodies last night in areas along al-Rashid street, in central Gaza, spanning from al-Nweiri hill to al-Zahra city, the independent humanitarian organisation, which is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, wrote in a post on X.
Thousands of Palestinian people, displaced by forced evacuation orders and Israeli airstrikes during the war, were pictured in recent days on the al-Rashid road waiting for permission to return to the northern Gaza Strip. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians returned to northern areas – such as Jabalia and Beit Hanoun - on Monday after Israel opened military checkpoints that had divided the strip for more than a year.
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Jenin has been a focus of Israeli raids into the occupied West Bank throughout Israel’s 15 month war on Gaza. The Palestinian health ministry says more than 800 people have been killed in Israeli raids since Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.
The Jenin refugee camp is home to about 14,000 people, most of whom are descendants of the Palestinian people dispossessed of their land when Israel was created in 1948.
My colleagues Ruth Michaelson, Sufian Taha and Lorenzo Tondo have written about the continuing deadly Israeli assault on the West Bank city of Jenin, happening amid the ceasefire with Hamas. Here is an extract from their report:
Israeli officials have labelled the latest escalation in the West Bank, codenamed Iron Wall, which began just days after a ceasefire in Gaza came into effect, as part of a shift in the aims of the war that began in October 2023, after an attack by Palestinian militants on Israeli towns and kibbutzim around the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military said it was operating in Jenin to target Palestinian militants in the refugee camp, with the Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, Lt Col Nadav Shoshani, telling reporters in a briefing that the operation was intended to prevent militants “from regrouping” and attacking Israeli civilians.
65-year-old Saleh Ammar, who fled the Jouret al-Dhahab neighbourhood inside the Jenin refugee camp, accused forces affiliated to the Palestinian Authority (PA) of shooting at residents of the refugee camp before Israeli forces entered, to assist their assault. The PA launched its own assault on the camp in December, intended to target militias that oppose its rule.
“I am so upset by the Palestinian Authority invasion – they burned the houses, installed snipers on the rooftops and opened fire randomly,” he said. “This continued until Israeli forces entered the camp … we are living between two fires.”
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Israeli forces have detained at least 25 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank, including former prisoners, according to a statement by the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees.
The detentions, reported by Palestinian news agency Wafa, took place across the areas of Tulkarm, Hebron, Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem and Jerusalem, as the Israeli military continues its military operations in the governorates of Jenin and Tulkarm.
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Rafah mayor urges displaced civilians not to return to areas of the city as it remains 'extremely dangerous'
As per the terms of the fragile ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel. which came into effect on 19 January, Israeli forces have withdrawn from Rafah’s city centre in the southern Gaza Strip. However, the city’s mayor has urged displaced Palestinians seeking to return to the devastated city to exercise caution as Israeli soldiers remain stationed along the Philadelphi Corridor – the 9-mile-long (14km) strip of land along the Gaza-Egypt border.
The Israeli military has warned civilians to stay clear of the area within 700 metres (765 yards) of the border, labelling it as a “red zone”.
Rafah’s mayor, Ahmed al-Soufi, has told Al Jazeera that the city remains “extremely dangerous” even outside of this designated zone, saying it will stay this way until the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces.
“Access to the southern half of the city near the border axis is unavailable,” he said. “Although the northwestern, northern, and eastern areas are relatively safer due to their distance from the axis, they are still vulnerable” to Israeli firepower.
He said displaced people should not rush back to the city, especially its central and southern areas, which he describes as “devastated” and lacking in basic “living conditions”.
Relentless Israeli bombardments during the war destroyed much of the southern city of Rafah, where more than a million displaced Palestinians and most international aid workers sheltered during the first half of the assault on Gaza. An Israeli assault on Rafah last year led to an emptying of the city as people sought shelter elsewhere in the strip. Many homes and shops were destroyed in subsequent Israeli attacks, with healthcare facilities, water and electricity systems badly damaged. The Israeli military said it was conducting targeted strikes against Hamas.
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Now turning to news regarding Syria. Reuters is reporting that Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Mikhail Bogdanov, will meet the country’s new rulers this week in Damascus, citing two sources. If the trip goes ahead it would mark the first visit by Russian officials since Moscow’s ally Bashar al-Assad was toppled by the rapid rebel offensive lats month.
It is not clear what the agenda for the meeting is, but Bogdanov has previously said Russia hoped to maintain its two bases in Syria: a naval base in Tartous and the Hmeimim base near the port city of Latakia.
But this month, Syria’s new administration, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, the head of the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, cancelled a contract with Russian firm STG Stroytransgaz to manage and operate the Tartous port, according to three Syrian businessmen and media reports. The contract had been signed under Assad.
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Here are some of the latest images being sent to us over the newswires after hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people returned to northern Gaza on Monday after Israel opened military checkpoints that had divided the strip for more than a year:
A civilian was killed and several others were injured yesterday evening after Israeli aircraft struck a bulldozer west of central Gaza’s al-Nuseirat refugee camp, Palestinian news agency Wafa is reporting.
The bulldozer was reportedly attempting to free a vehicle trapped in the area when it was hit. The driver was killed in the Israeli airstrike, according to Wafa.
The suggestion by the US president, Donald Trump, that Gaza’s Palestinian population could be “cleaned out” and moved to Egypt and Jordan has been widely condemned both by American allies in the west and countries in the Middle East.
My colleague Peter Beaumont has written an analysis piece on Trump’s incoherent ideas about Middle East politics, as reflected in his most recent remarks on Gaza, which were rejected by Jordan and Egypt and condemned by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.
Here is a snippet of his story:
Over the decades since the Six Day war in 1967, when Israeli forces first captured the Gaza Strip, which had been under Egyptian military rule, Israeli officials and commentators have periodically pushed the notion that Palestinians in Gaza could be resettled in Egypt.
Most recently that notion was floated in a leaked paper by Israel’s intelligence ministry – which prepares studies and policy papers rather than representing the intelligence agencies – a few weeks into the war in Gaza.
That “concept” paper recommended that Israel “evacuate the civilian population to Sinai” then create “a sterile zone of several kilometres … within Egypt” that would prevent return.
If the idea is a non-starter, it is because Egypt, which shares a border with Gaza and Israel and has a peace treaty with Israel, has long let it be known that it absolutely rejects any efforts by Israel to subcontract the problem of Gaza to Cairo, whether through forced transfer of the population or otherwise.
Netanyahu hopes to meet Trump in Washington as soon as next week - reports
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the latest events in the Middle East.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is planning to meet US President Donald Trump in Washington as early as next week, according to reports, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people made their way back into northern Gaza on Monday.
Should Netanyahu’s trip come together in that timeframe, he could be the first foreign leader to meet with Trump at the White House since his inauguration last week. Citing two US officials familiar with the preliminary plans, the Associated Press reports that details could be arranged when Trump’s special Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, travels to Israel this week for talks with Netanyahu and other Israeli officials.
Axios, which first reported the planning for the trip, said that it is a gesture from Trump to Netanyahu for agreeing to the Gaza hostage-release and ceasefire deal. Israeli officials told Axios that Netanyahu’s arrival in Washington depends primarily on whether his health has recovered after recent prostate surgery.
Trump teased the upcoming visit in a conversation with reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday, but didn’t provide scheduling details. “I’m going to be speaking with Bibi Netanyahu in the not too distant future,” he said.
Netanyahu’s spokesperson Omer Dostri said the Israeli leader has yet to receive an official invitation to the White House.
Trump also reiterated his desire to move Palestinians from Gaza to so-called “safer” locations such as Egypt or Jordan, in comments that triggered longstanding Palestinian fears of being permanently driven from their homes.
These comments echoed the ones he made over the weekend when he proposed that large numbers of Palestinian people should leave Gaza in order to “just clean out” the whole strip. His suggestion was denounced by some as being a proposal for ethnic cleansing.
Asked about those comments, Trump told reporters on Monday evening that he would “like to get them living in an area where they can live without disruption and revolution and violence so much.”
“You know, when you look at the Gaza Strip, it’s been hell for so many years... there’s always been violence associated with it,” he said.
In other developments:
US secretary of state Marco Rubio held a call with Jordan’s King Abdullah on Monday, two days after a suggestion by Donald Trump that Jordan and Egypt should take more Palestinians from Gaza. “The Secretary and King Abdullah discussed implementation of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, the release of hostages, and creating a pathway for security and stability in the region,” the state department said in a statement. Trump’s weekend remarks were not mentioned.
Lebanese officials say firing by Israeli troops has killed two people and injured 17 in the second day of deadly protests in southern Lebanon. Residents displaced by the 14-month war between Israel and Hezbollah on Monday again attempted to return to villages where Israeli troops remain. On Sunday, 24 people were killed and more than 130 injured when Israeli troops fired at protesters.
Israel said on Monday that it had arrested two Israelis suspected of spying for Iran, including one accused of handing the country classified information obtained during his military service.
Tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem were set to lose education, healthcare and other services provided by UN agency Unrwa as an Israeli ban on the organisation takes effect on Thursday.
Eight of the 33 hostages who were to be released under the first phase of the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas are dead, Israel has confirmed. It means 18 hostages are now due to be released in the coming weeks as seven people have already been freed by Hamas.
A Hamas delegation has arrived in Cairo to discuss the implementation of the Gaza ceasefire deal, the group said in a statement.
The EU’s foreign ministers have agreed to a “roadmap” to ease current sanctions on Syria, a move welcomed by the country’s government.
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