Summary
We’re closing our live coverage of the Middle East for today. In case you missed anything, here’s a quick summary of all the day’s developments.
Three Israeli hostages set to be released on Thursday under the terms of the ceasefire deal have been named as Arbel Yehoud, 29, Agam Berger, 19, and the man as Gadi Mozes, 80
Five Thai nationals will also be released, an Israeli official said, although their names have not been released
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, is in Jerusalem and has met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Trump has announced plans to deport foreign nationals living or attending college in the US if they have taken part in the pro-Palestinian protests of recent years
The death toll in Gaza since Israel launched its operation now stands at 47,417, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health
Two Palestinians were also killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank overnight and into Wednesday, according to the ministry
A Turkish ship carrying 871 tons of humanitarian aid for Gaza docked at the Egyptian port city of El-Arish
Israel has dismissed claims by two Hamas officials that it is delaying the delivery of aid to Gaza as “totally fake news”
Egypt has said the forced displacement of Palestinians on its territory or that of Jordan, as Trump has suggested should be done, would be an “act of injustice”
The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, told the UN general assembly that “respect for international humanitarian law is in crisis” and “threatening the very humanity that these laws seek to preserve”, citing the situations Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank
Al-Qaida’s affiliate group in Syria, Hurras al-Din, has announced its dissolution just weeks after the regime of Bashar al-Assad was toppled by Islamist group HTS
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Gaza death toll reaches 47,417, says Hamas-run health ministry
The death toll in Gaza since Israel launched its operation in the territory following the 7 October attacks now stands at 47,417, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health.
In its latest daily update, the ministry added that the latest figure for people injured was 111,571.
Speaking on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the World Health Organisation, Christian Lindmeier, said the ministry’s figures only included deaths counted in official facilities, such as hospitals and morgues, so were likely to be an underestimate.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is meeting in Jerusalem with US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, his office said in a statement.
Israeli media reports that Witkoff, who has been credited with helping to secure the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, was also in Gaza earlier in the day.
Netanyahu is scheduled to travel to Washington to meet with Trump next week.
Updated
US President Donald Trump has announced plans to deport foreign nationals living or attending college in the US if they have taken part in pro-Palestinian protests.
“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you,” Trump said in the fact sheet announcing an executive order on Wednesday.
“I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”
He added that he would be ordering the Justice Department to “aggressively prosecute terroristic threats, arson, vandalism and violence against American Jews.”
Five Thai hostages also to be released
More now on what we know about the group of hostages set to be released by Hamas on Thursday.
As well as the three Israelis who have been named, an Israeli official told the Associated Press that five Thai nationals would be released.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak on the record.
The names of the Thai nationals have not been made available.
Israel names three hostages set to be released on Thursday
Israel has named three Israeli hostages set to be released on Thursday under the terms of the ceasefire deal with Hamas.
An official named the Israel women as Arbel Yehoud, 29, Agam Berger, 19, and the man as Gadi Mozes, 80, according to the Associated Press.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record, said the hostages’ families had approved publication of their names.
Hamas named the three via mediators Egypt and Qatar.
Updated
Al-Qaida’s affiliate group in Syria has announced its dissolution just weeks after the regime of Bashar al-Assad was toppled by Islamist group HTS.
In a statement, Hurras al-Din said it was disbanding “in light of developments” in Syria and that the move followed a decision by the “general command of Al-Qaida”.
It marked the first time the group, which is designated a terror organisation by the US, had identified itself as al-Qaida’s branch in Syria.
Hurras al-Din was formed in 2018 after members of what had previously been the al-Qaida affiliate in Syria, al-Nusra Front, cut ties with al-Qaida to form HTS.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitor, said Hurras al-Din had “announced its dissolution so as not to enter into armed conflict with HTS”.
HTS has said that it wants all armed groups in Syria to disband.
Updated
Summary of the day
It has just gone 5pm in Gaza City, Tel Aviv and Beirut, and 6pm in Damascus. Here is a summary of the latest developments in the Middle East:
The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told the United Nations general assembly, in New York, that “respect for international humanitarian law (IHL) is in crisis” and “threatening the very humanity that these laws seek to preserve”. In a statement given on Tuesday, Mirjana Spoljaric, said she had seen “so much devastation” on recent visits to Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. At the event, Spoljaric called on states to join a global initiative launched by Brazil, China, France, Jordan, Kazakhstan, and South Africa with the ICRC to galvanise support for IHL.
A Turkish ship docked at Egypt’s El-Arish on Wednesday, delivering the first aid destined for Gaza through the port since a fragile ceasefire went into effect, a Turkish official and Egyptian sources said. The ship was loaded with 871 tons of humanitarian aid, including 300 power generators, 20 portable toilets, 10,460 tents and 14,350 blankets, according to Turkish interior minister, Ali Yerlikaya.
On Wednesday, Israel dismissed claims by two Hamas officials that had accused it of delaying the delivery of aid to Gaza and warned that delays could affect the release of hostages under the ceasefire deal. A spokesperson for Cogat, a unit in the Israeli defence ministry that oversees civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, said the accusations were “totally fake news”.
Egypt has said it will not participate in the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza. It comes after US president Donald Trump suggested the residents of Gaza should be moved out of the territory and relocated to Jordan and Egypt. A statement from the office of Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, on Wednesday said the policy would be an “act of injustice” and that his country would work with Trump towards a two-state solution.
Donald Trump has invited Benjamin Netanyahu to be the first foreign leader to visit the White House, in a major concession to a US ally who is wanted by the international criminal court for war crimes. The invitation was made in a letter from the US president, which invited the Israeli prime minister to come to the White House on 4 February to “discuss how we can bring peace to Israel and its neighbors, and efforts to counter our shared adversaries”.
Two Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank overnight and into Wednesday, said the Palestinian health ministry. The ministry said in a statement that a 25-year-old man it identified as Osama Abu al-Hija was killed late on Tuesday in Jenin “as a result of an Israeli airstrike”. Shortly after midnight on Wednesday, the ministry also announced that a 23-year-old Palestinian man it identified as Ayman Naji was killed in the northern city of Tulkarem “after being shot” by Israeli forces. The Palestinian health ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its reports. The Israeli army said it was looking into the details of both deaths.
Five people were injured in an Israeli drone strike targeting the southern Lebanese town of Majdal Selm on Wednesday, the Lebanese health ministry said. On Tuesday night, Israeli airstrikes injured 24 people in Nabatieh, a major town in south Lebanon. The Israeli military said in a statement it had struck Hezbollah vehicles that were transporting weapons on the edge of Nabatieh.
The international charity ActionAid has warned that Israel’s imminent ban on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa) will “devastate humanitarian aid in Gaza” and cut off “essential services” for millions. In a statement on Wednesday, ActionAid said it was “deeply alarmed” by Israel’s ban on Unrwa coming into effect. Israel has ordered the UN agency to vacate its headquarters in East Jerusalem by Thursday. The charity called on the international community to take immediate action to prevent it.
The EU has promised €3bn (£2.5bn; $3.1bn) of financing and investments to Jordan as part of a new “strategic” partnership. European Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen, said the package, which runs from 2025 through 2027, would “enhance our cooperation on matters of common interest” and said the €3bn reflected the “urgency and scale of the challenges Jordan faces in the region.”
Germany’s interior and foreign ministries are in consultations about sending a German contingent to the European Union’s civilian mission to monitor the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt at Rafah, spokespeople in Berlin said on Wednesday. The foreign ministry spokesperson said general conditions and ensuring the contingent would be deployed safely had to be taken into consideration.
The director of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon said on Wednesday that the agency had not been affected by Trump’s halt to US foreign aid funding or by an Israeli ban on its operations. “Unrwa currently is not receiving any US funding so there is no direct impact of the more recent decisions related to the UN system for Unrwa,” Dorothee Klaus told reporters at Unrwa’s field office in Lebanon.
Russia said on Wednesday it had held “frank” discussions with Syria’s new de facto leader as it tries to retain its two military bases in the country, but it declined to comment on what he was demanding in return. A Syrian source familiar with the discussions told Reuters that the new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, had requested that Moscow hand over former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, who fled to Russia when he was toppled by Sharaa’s rebels in December. Asked to confirm whether Russia had been asked to return Assad and pay compensation, Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, declined to comment.
Trump has thrown into doubt the security and administration of the main two detention facilities in north-east Syria that hold thousands of Islamic State fighters, the former counter-terrorism director of M16, Richard Barrett, says. The state of limbo has been caused in the short term by the US president unexpectedly suspending all USAid funding for 90 days, and by long-term uncertainty over his willingness to retain troops in Syria.
In a call, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, told the Egyptian foreign minister, Badr Abdelatty, it was important to closely cooperate to ensure that Hamas can never govern Gaza again, the state department said on Tuesday.
An explosion has struck a Hong Kong-flagged container ship traveling north through the Red Sea, sparking a major fire that forced its crew to abandon the vessel, shipping industry officials said. The ship was drifting and ablaze about 225 kilometers (140 miles) off the coast of Hodeida, a port city in Yemen held by the country’s Houthi rebels, said the Diaplous Group, a maritime firm. It did not name the vessel.
Conflict in the Middle East has affected efforts to tackle the ever-worsening ecological disaster facing the Dead Sea. “Regional cooperation is the key … to saving the Dead Sea,” said Nadav Tal, a hydrologist and water officer for the Israel office of EcoPeace, a regional environmental nonprofit that has long advocated for finding a solution. “Because we are living in a conflict area, there is an obstacle,” he said. The Dead Sea is nestled where Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian territory meet.
Updated
First Gaza aid ship arrives at Egypt’s El-Arish port since ceasefire
A Turkish ship docked at Egypt’s El-Arish on Wednesday, delivering the first aid destined for Gaza through the port since a fragile ceasefire went into effect, a Turkish official and Egyptian sources said.
“We are prepared to heal the wounds of our Gazan brothers and sisters and to meet their temporary shelter needs,” the Turkish interior minister, Ali Yerlikaya, posted on X on Wednesday.
The ship was loaded with 871 tons of humanitarian aid, including 300 power generators, 20 portable toilets, 10,460 tents and 14,350 blankets, according to Yerlikaya.
A team from the Egyptian Red Crescent received the Turkish aid to make the necessary arrangements for its delivery to the Gaza Strip, a source at the port, 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of the Gaza Strip, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). Two staff from the Egyptian Red Crescent also confirmed its arrival.
Since the start of the truce in the Palestinian territory, hundreds of truckloads of aid have entered Gaza while some has been airlifted in.
Updated
Germany’s interior and foreign ministries are in consultations about sending a German contingent to the European Union’s civilian mission to monitor the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt at Rafah, spokespeople in Berlin said on Wednesday.
“We are in good consultations with the foreign ministry,” said an interior ministry spokesperson at a regular government news conference, reports Reuters.
“These missions always start with a ramp-up to see how great the need is and how many people are required,” added the spokesperson. The foreign ministry spokesperson said general conditions and ensuring the contingent would be deployed safely had to be taken into consideration.
The EU’s foreign policy chief said on Monday that the bloc would restart a civilian mission to monitor the border crossing.
Italy’s foreign and defence ministries have announced that Rome will send seven Carabinieri officers to join the Rafah mission, and they added that Spanish Guardia Civil officers and French gendarmes will also join the international force.
Displacement of Palestinians would be 'injustice', says Egypt
Egypt has said it will not participate in the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.
It comes after President Trump suggested the residents of Gaza should be moved out of the territory and relocated to Jordan and Egypt.
A statement from the office of Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi on Wednesday said the policy would be an “act of injustice” and that his country would work with Trump towards a two-state solution.
A number of other countries – notably Qatar, which helped mediate the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and Jordan – have rejected Trump’s proposal.
Israel accuses Hamas of 'fake news' over aid delay claims
Earlier on we reported that two Hamas officials had accused Israel of delaying the delivery of aid to Gaza and warned that delays could affect the release of hostages under the ceasefire deal.
Israel has now dismissed those claims, with a spokesperson for COGAT, a unit in the Israeli ministry of defence which oversees civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, saying they were “totally fake news”.
The EU has promised €3bn (£2.5bn; $3.1bn) of financing and investments to Jordan as part of a new “strategic” partnership.
European Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen, said the package, which runs from 2025 through 2027, would “enhance our cooperation on matters of common interest”, including “peace, security, human rights, economic resilience & trade, support to refugees”.
“Our financial and investment package of €3bn reflects the urgency and scale of the challenges Jordan faces in the region,” she said.
“Europe is firmly by your side.”
Jordan has long been viewed by Europe as a vital bulwark of stability in the Middle East, but conflicts in the region in recent years have hampered its economic growth.
As of early 2024, it hosted some 710,000 refugees, the majority of them Syrians displaced by their country’s civil war. The UN estimates that, since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December, around 115,000 Syrians have returned home.
Updated
Reporting by Ruth Michaelson, Sufian Taha and Quique Kierszenbaum:
Pressing her face to the blue bars of a pharmacy window, Fatmeh Jahaleen pleaded for just a few extra boxes of medication. She relies on the pharmacy inside an East Jerusalem clinic run by the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, for a monthly supply of blood pressure and kidney medications, as well as insulin.
“Where am I supposed to get my medicine? This would cost me 400 [Israeli shekels – £90] a month otherwise. We can’t afford that; we are refugees,” she said.
Then there are the blood tests she needs every three months, which would otherwise cost her another 150 shekels (£30), or her regular treatment at an eye hospital that was covered by Unrwa that would otherwise prove costly.
Across Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank, a disaster looms for Unrwa with a ban imposed by Israel’s parliament due to come into force at the end of this month.
“Are you sure that Unrwa will close?” Jahaleen asked, slapping her hands against her thighs in distress. “I really don’t know what to do – only God can help us if they close this clinic.”
When the Israeli parliament passed the bill to ban Unrwa last October, Fathi Saleh, the director of services for the Shuafat refugee camp on the outskirts of Jerusalem, arrived at his office to find hundreds of terrified people demanding to know what could happen if the agency was forced to close.
“Cutting the services we provide is like cutting the oxygen supply to people here,” he said. “It will devastate people.”
Saleh is a child of the camp, whose office sits on the site of a municipal cafeteria for children, where he supervises the same schools, medical services and sanitation workers that he has used his entire life. Even so, what will happen on 1 February when he arrives at his office deep within the camp remains a mystery.
The ban could mean no dial tone when he picks up the landline, a red seal of wax on the door blocking entry to his office or, worse, the presence of Israeli security forces who regularly raid the camp. All the Unrwa staff know is that it will not be them who decides their fate.
The director of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon said on Wednesday that the agency had not been affected by US president Donald Trump’s halt to US foreign aid funding or by an Israeli ban on its operations, reports Reuters.
“Unrwa currently is not receiving any US funding so there is no direct impact of the more recent decisions related to the UN system for Unrwa,” Dorothee Klaus told reporters at Unrwa’s field office in Lebanon.
US funding to Unrwa was suspended last year until March 2025 under a deal reached by US lawmakers and after Israel accused 12 of the agency’s 13,000 employees in Gaza of participating in Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack. The UN has said it had fired nine Unrwa staff who may have been involved and said it would investigate all accusations made.
Klaus said that Unrwa Lebanon had also placed four staff members on administrative leave as it investigated allegations they had breached the UN principle of neutrality.
One Unrwa teacher had already been suspended last year and a Hamas commander in Lebanon – killed in September in an Israeli strike – was found to have had an Unrwa job, reports Reuters.
Klaus also said there was “no direct impact” on the agency’s Lebanon operations from a new Israeli law banning Unrwa operations in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and that “Unrwa will continue fully operating in Lebanon”.
Unrwa provides aid, health and education services to millions in the Palestinian territories and neighboring Arab countries of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. Its commissioner general, Philippe Lazzarini, said on Tuesday that Unrwa has been the target of a “fierce disinformation campaign” to “portray the agency as a terrorist organisation”.
Updated
Israel delaying aid delivery to Gaza may affect hostages’ release, say Hamas officials
Two Hamas officials on Wednesday accused Israel of delaying the delivery of vital humanitarian aid to Gaza, as agreed in the ceasefire deal, and warned that it could affect the release of hostages.
“We warn that continued delays and failure to address these points (delivery of key aid) will affect the natural progression of the agreement, including the prisoner exchange,” a senior Hamas official told Agence France-Presse (AFP), while another offical said the group had asked mediators to intervene in the issue. Both spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Israeli drone strike injures five people in southern Lebanon, health ministry says
Five people were injured in an Israeli drone strike targeting the southern Lebanese town of Majdal Selm on Wednesday, the Lebanese health ministry said, according to Reuters.
On Tuesday night, Israeli airstrikes injured 24 people in Nabatieh, a major town in south Lebanon. The Israeli military said in a statement it had struck Hezbollah vehicles that were transporting weapons on the edge of Nabatieh.
After the strikes on Nabatieh, senior Hezbollah official Mohammad Raad said that the Lebanese people’s right to resist Israeli attacks is a “sacred and legitimate right. He emphasised that this right should be exercised at the time and place deemed necessary to protect the country’s security, reports Reuters.
Hezbollah and Israel agreed on a ceasefire in late November, ending a conflict that has killed thousands of people since it was ignited by the Gaza war in 2023.
The US said on Sunday the agreement between Lebanon and Israel, which included an initial 60-day period for the withdrawal of Israeli troops, would remain in effect until 18 Februay, an extension to the 26 January deadline previously agreed.
Lebanese caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, on Tuesday urged US Gen Jasper Jeffers, who chairs the committee monitoring the ceasefire, to pressure Israel into implementing the ceasefire according to international law.
Israeli forces killed at least 24 people and injured at least 141 in southern Lebanon on Sunday and Monday, the Lebanese health ministry said, as thousands of people tried to return to their homes in the area in defiance of Israeli military orders.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images coming in via the newswires:
Agence France-Presse (AFP) has more details on the news of the two Palestinians, who the Palestinian health ministry say were killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank overnight and into Wednesday (see 09.09am GMT).
The Palestinian health ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that a 25-year-old man it identified as Osama Abu al-Hija was killed late on Tuesday in Jenin “as a result of an Israeli airstrike”.
The Israeli military launched an intensive military assault in the Jenin area, now in its eighth day, which it said was to root out Palestinian militant groups. The Israeli military on Monday said it had “eliminated over 15 terrorists” and arrested 40 wanted individuals during the offensive.
According to AFP, Abu al-Hija is the sixteenth person killed during the operation which has caused many residents of Jenin refugee camp, the focus of the operation, to flee the area after the army urged citizens to evacuate last week.
Shortly after midnight on Wednesday, the ministry of health also announced that a 23-year-old Palestinian man it identified as Ayman Naji was killed in the northern city of Tulkarem “after being shot” by Israeli forces.
The army told AFP it was looking into the details of both deaths.
Israel's Unrwa ban will 'devastate humanitarian aid in Gaza', warns international charity
The international charity ActionAid has warned that Israel’s imminent ban on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa) will “devastate humanitarian aid in Gaza” and cut off “essential services” for millions.
In a statement on Wednesday, ActionAid said it was “deeply alarmed” by Israel’s ban on Unrwa coming into effect. Israel has ordered the UN agency to vacate its headquarters in East Jerusalem by Thursday. The charity called on the international community to take immediate action to prevent it.
In its statement, ActionAid said:
Not only would this ban torpedo the response to the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza, it would hinder Unrwa’s ability to continue providing essential and life-saving services to Palestinian refugees across the occupied Palestinian territory.”
If Unrwa run schools and health clinics in East Jersusalem were to close, more than 1,550 students and 70,000 patients would be left without access to healthcare and education, say ActionAid.
It also warned that “Gaza’s aid system cannot function without Unrwa” and that there is “no alternative” to the UN agency.
Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs Network (PNGO), which is an umbrella organisation of 30 Palestinian NGOs responding to the humanitarian need in Gaza and a partner of ActionAid Palestine, said:
Unrwa is the backbone of humanitarian aid [in] the Gaza Strip. Unrwa has delivered decades of work in Gaza … work on shelter, on education, on social services, on health, and other important services.
Israel’s decision to ban Unrwa’s work will have severe implications for the lives of the Palestinians, on services, and [it] will [also have] critical consequences for the Palestinian issue. We are calling on all actors to support Unrwa legally and financially, to continue its services and existence.
[It is an] unprecedented decision taken by the Israelis to ban Unrwa’s work … Unrwa got its legitimacy from the general assembly of the UN.”
Riham Jafari, advocacy and communications coordinator at ActionAid Palestine, said:
The international community cannot abandon Palestinian refugees and stand by as the Israeli government enacts this reckless piece of legislation, which directly flouts its obligation to allow aid into Gaza unhindered, as set out by international humanitarian law and the advisory opinion of the international ourt of justice. It must act now.”
Unrwa has been told to vacate its headquarters in East Jerusalem by Thursday after 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.
Updated
Russia said on Wednesday it had held “frank” discussions with Syria’s new de facto leader as it tries to retain its two military bases in the country, but it declined to comment on what he was demanding in return, reports Reuters.
A Syrian source familiar with the discussions told Reuters that the new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, had requested that Moscow hand over former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, who fled to Russia when he was toppled by Sharaa’s rebels in December.
Syrian news agency Sana said Damascus also wanted Russia, which backed Assad in the country’s civil war, to rebuild trust through “concrete measures such as compensation, reconstruction and recovery”.
Asked to confirm whether Russia had been asked to return Assad and pay compensation, Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, declined to comment, according to Reuters.
Russia, whose troops and air force backed Assad for years against Syrian rebels, is seeking to retain its naval base in Tartous and Hmeimim airbase near the port city of Latakia. Losing them would deal a serious blow to its ability to project power in the region.
According to Reuters, the new Syrian administration said after Tuesday’s talks with a Russian delegation headed by deputyforeign minister, Mikhail Bogdanov, that it had “stressed that restoring relations must address past mistakes, respect the will of the Syrian people and serve their interests”. But the Syrian source told Reuters that the Russians had not been willing to concede such mistakes and the only agreement that was reached was to continue discussions.
Russia’s foreign ministry said there had been a “frank discussion of the entire range of issues”. It said the two sides would pursue further contacts in order to seek “relevant agreements”, without referring specifically to the two bases.
Respect for international humanitarian law is 'in crisis', warns ICRC president
In a statement given on Tuesday at the United Nations general assembly, in New York, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) president, Mirjana Spoljaric, said she had seen “so much devastation” on recent visits to Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank.
Spoljaric warned that “respect for international humanitarian law (IHL) is in crisis” and “threatening the very humanity that these laws seek to preserve”.
At the event, Spoljaric called on states to join a global initiative launched by Brazil, China, France, Jordan, Kazakhstan, and South Africa with the ICRC to galvanise support for IHL.
Spoljaric said:
The evidence is clear: hospitals reduced to rubble, civilian neighbourhoods destroyed, and innocent lives lost. Across the globe, respect for international humanitarian law (IHL) is in crisis, threatening the very humanity that these laws seek to preserve.
This is not an abstract issue. It is one that impacts millions of lives every day, and one that costs hundreds of billions of dollars to recover from.
This month I visited Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. I saw so much suffering. So much rubble. So much devastation. What is important in the face of this misery is not who wins or who loses. What is important is that a human life is a human life, and that every human being deserves to live in safety and dignity.
I met people whose lives are irrevocably changed because their rights under international humanitarian law were disregarded. The same could be said for millions of other civilians living through armed conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar, and elsewhere.”
Updated
Donald Trump has thrown into doubt the security and administration of the main two detention facilities in north-east Syria that hold thousands of Islamic State fighters, the former counter-terrorism director of M16, Richard Barrett, says.
The state of limbo has been caused in the short term by the US president unexpectedly suspending all USAid funding for 90 days, and by long-term uncertainty over his willingness to retain troops in Syria.
It emerged that all security and administration around al-Hol and al-Roj, the main two detention facilities, was withdrawn for the several days after funding of the camp’s humanitarian and security work was suddenly cut.
It appears funding as a stopgap has been transferred from the frozen US aid budget to the Global Coalition to Defeat Isis, a military alliance of dozens of countries including the US.
But Barrett cautioned that the mainly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), responsible for guarding Islamic State (IS) fighters, was under long-term threat. He said it had not been able to reach an agreement with the de facto government in Damascus about any future role in the Syrian national army.
This meant IS saw an opportunity to engineer the escape of as many as 9,000 of its fighters held in north-east Syria, he said.
Barrett, speaking to the UK foreign affairs select committee, said a 2,000-strong group of IS fighters had already had a resurgence in the past 18 months, but now saw an opportunity to launch a “Breaking the Walls” campaign, similar to one they launched in Iraq. He questioned whether Trump, owing to his isolationist policies, would continue to fund US forces remaining in north-east Syria or security around the camps.
An explosion has struck a Hong Kong-flagged container ship traveling north through the Red Sea, sparking a major fire that forced its crew to abandon the vessel, shipping industry officials said, according to the Associated Press (AP).
The ship was drifting and ablaze about 225 kilometers (140 miles) off the coast of Hodeida, a port city in Yemen held by the country’s Houthi rebels, said the Diaplous Group, a maritime firm. It did not name the vessel.
Data from Nasa satellites tracking wildfires showed that the blaze burning on Tuesday and Wednesday off Eritrea’s Dahlak archipelago corresponded to satellite-tracking data from MarineTraffic.com for the location of the ASL Bauhinia, a Hong Kong-flagged container ship. It had been traveling from the United Arab Emirates’ Jebel Ali port in Dubai to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, before beginning to drift on Tuesday.
It was not immediately clear what caused the fire in the Red Sea, which has been repeatedly targeted by attacks from the Houthis, reports the AP. The rebels said last week that they were limiting their assaults after a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. The Houthis did not immediately acknowledge the fire incident, according to the AP.
The vessel was abandoned and the crew later rescued unharmed, another maritime industry official told the AP. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as authorisation had not been given to speak publicly about the incident.
Two Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in occupied West Bank, officials say
The Palestinian health ministry says two Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank overnight and into Wednesday, reports the Associated Press (AP).
A 23-year-old man was shot dead in Tulkarem and a 25-year-old man was killed in a strike on Jenin, where Israel launched a large operation earlier this month.
The Palestinian health ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its reports. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Malak A Tantesh in Gaza and Emma Graham-Harrison in Jerusalem:
For Abdulaziz the return to Sheikh Radwan in northern Gaza was bittersweet. His home was still standing, if damaged, but the life he built around it had been utterly destroyed by 15 months of Israeli attacks.
Relatives, friends, acquaintances are dead. His job as manager of a car rental business is gone because the cars, the office and all their equipment have been destroyed. He is traumatised by more than a year of war and life as a refugee.
“My experience in this war is beyond words. It’s been nothing short of devastating in every way,” the 24-year-old said. “I lost everything I worked for.”
The hope that it was finally finished, that a fragile ceasefire could be made permanent, kept him going as he trudged back toward the ruins of his home town. His first plan is to visit the graves of loved ones killed by Israeli airstrikes and attacks.
“Now I can finally return to the north. All of this suffering feels somewhat bearable with the hope that the war is over,” he said. “All I can say is, thank God. The exhaustion from the long walk will fade into nothing the moment I finally set foot in my own home.”
Northern Gaza is the most damaged area in a ravaged strip, and the vast crowds trudging along beside the Mediterranean knew they were returning to a wasteland.
Their desperation to get back was testament to the horrors they had endured during their displacement, moving between overcrowded shelters and makeshift camps.
“I know I’m coming back to a place that looks like hell with destruction all around,” said 25-year-old Raed Said Sobeh, who had been displaced five times during the war. He knew his home was gone, but wanted to kiss the ground where it had been.
“Despite everything, we’ve returned to Gaza, defying the occupation! I feel like I’m in heaven! I’ll pitch a tent right on top of the rubble where my home once stood.”
He waited with thousands of others through the bitter cold of a January night, outside the seaside checkpoint that for more than a year had sealed off access to the north, where people would be allowed through on foot. Vehicles lined up outside a second crossing, farther east.
For today’s First Edition newsletter, Archie Bland, has spoken to the Guardian’s senior international reporter, Peter Beaumont, about Donald Trump’s comments on finding many of the residents of Gaza somewhere else to live. They talk about why it has alarmed many in the Middle East and what they might tell us about what comes next. Here is a snippet:
Does Trump’s proposal amount to ethnic cleansing?
In a word, yes. The United Nations defines ethnic cleansing as the deliberate policy of clearing out civilians from their lands “by use of force or intimidation”. If the residents of Gaza voluntarily left the territory without any threat of violence, that would not amount to ethnic cleansing. But the context of the assault on Gaza, and the fact that most people want to rebuild their lives there, is a long way from that scenario.
“It would clearly be ethnic cleansing,” Peter Beaumont said. “And it is entirely cynical to present it as a humanitarian solution when so many of the levers that could change the circumstances of civilians in Gaza are in Israel’s hands.”
Crucial to understanding why the idea is so horrifying for many Palestinians is the history of what they call the Nakba, or catastrophe, when Israeli forces expelled up to 750,000 people – the exact figures are disputed – from Arab towns and villages in the newly created state of Israel in 1948. The war since the 7 October attacks is viewed by many Palestinians as a new Nakba.
But that is not the only precedent that they will have in mind. “The history for decades has been that when Palestinian populations have been moved since 1948, they don’t get to come back,” Peter said. By the end of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, for example, hundreds of thousands had been displaced from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, mostly to Jordan.
Egypt and Jordan have rejected Trump’s idea that they could take in Palestinians forced to leave Gaza. “Public opinion tends to be much more pro-Palestinian rights than either King Abdullah’s regime in Jordan or that of Sisi in Egypt,” Peter said. “So it is politically hugely problematic for them.”
Updated
Conflict in the Middle East has affected efforts to tackle the ever-worsening ecological disaster facing the Dead Sea, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP). The Dead Sea is nestled where Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian territory meet.
“Regional cooperation is the key … to saving the Dead Sea,” said Nadav Tal, a hydrologist and water officer for the Israel office of EcoPeace, a regional environmental nonprofit that has long advocated for finding a solution.
“Because we are living in a conflict area, there is an obstacle,” he said, describing how the sea has been declining more than one metre (three feet) a year since the 1960s.
The evaporation of the salty waters in a time of rapid climate change and in a place where summer temperatures can reach upward of 50C (122 degrees fahrenheit) has been exacerbated by decades of water diversions from the sea’s main source – the Jordan River – as well as various tributaries that begin in Lebanon and Syria, reports AFP.
The water is also being pumped out by local factories extracting natural minerals - potash, bromine, sodium chloride, magnesia, magnesium chloride and metal magnesium – to sell to markets across the world.
“The consequences of this water diversion is what we see around us,” Tal told AFP, pointing to a nearby pier that was once submerged in water but now stands firmly on dry land. “It is an ecological disaster.”
In a call, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, told the Egyptian foreign minister, Badr Abdelatty, it was important to closely cooperate to ensure that Hamas can never govern Gaza again, the state department said on Tuesday.
Trump invites Netanyahu to be first foreign leader to visit White House
Donald Trump has invited Benjamin Netanyahu to be the first foreign leader to visit the White House, in a major concession to a US ally who is wanted by the international criminal court for war crimes.
The invitation was made in a letter from the US president, which invited the Israeli prime minister to come to the White House on 4 February to “discuss how we can bring peace to Israel and its neighbors, and efforts to counter our shared adversaries”.
“It will be my honor to host you as my first foreign leader during my second term,” the letter read.
Trump and Netanyahu have had a difficult personal relationship, but Israel remains the US’s closest ally in the region. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy, is said to have had a tense conversation with Netanyahu in the days before a hostages-for-ceasefire deal was negotiated between Hamas and Israel, on the day before Trump’s inauguration.
Since then, Trump has lifted a ban on supplying Israel with 2,000lb bombs that had been held back by the Biden administration in opposition to Israel’s overwhelming use of force against Gaza.
Opening summary
Donald Trump has invited Benjamin Netanyahu to be the first foreign leader to visit the White House, in a major concession to a US ally who is wanted by the international criminal court for war crimes.
The invitation was made in a letter from the US president, which invited the Israeli prime minister to come to the White House on 4 February to “discuss how we can bring peace to Israel and its neighbors, and efforts to counter our shared adversaries”.
“It will be my honor to host you as my first foreign leader during my second term,” the letter read.
Trump has said he is “not confident” that the ceasefire in Gaza will hold. Under the terms of the ceasefire, Israel and Hamas should soon commence negotiating a longer-term peace that many fear will fail and lead to a return to bloodshed following more than 15 months of fighting.
More on Trump’s invitation to Netanyahu in a moment, but first here are some of the latest developments in the Middle East:
More than 375,000 Palestinians have crossed into northern Gaza since Israel allowed their return on Monday morning, the United Nations said on Tuesday. That represents over a third of the million people who fled in the war’s opening days.
An increase in humanitarian aid into Gaza has continued under the ceasefire. “In this past week alone, approximately 4,200 trucks carrying aid have entered the Gaza Strip following inspections,” said Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Sharren Haskel. Under the ceasefire deal, 600 trucks of aid are meant to enter a day.
The Jordanian air force has begun delivering 20 tonnes of food and medical supplies to Gaza, a government spokesperson said on Tuesday.
The government of Qatar, a mediator in the ceasefire talks, said on Tuesday that while complaints have been raised by both sides, no confirmed ceasefire violations have occurred that could cause the agreement to collapse.
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.
