Israel-Gaza war live: Hostage families release graphic footage of female Israeli soldiers captured by Hamas during 7 October attack

US worried Netanyahu may torpedo normalisation deal with Saudi Arabia

Bethan McKernan

Bethan McKernan is Jerusalem correspondent for the Guardian.

The US is worried that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, may be willing to torpedo a potential normalisation deal with Saudi Arabia if it entails ending the war in Gaza and committing to working towards a two-state solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, told the Senate’s foreign relations committee on Tuesday: “There’s an opportunity for Israel to become integrated in the region, to get the fundamental security it needs and wants, to have the relationships it’s wanted since its founding. The Saudis have been clear that this would require calm in Gaza and a credible pathway to a Palestinian state,” he said, adding: “It may well be at this moment, Israel is not able or willing to proceed down this pathway.”

The Biden administration has been working for some time on a plan in which Riyadh would normalise relations with Israel in return for a formal defence pact with the US and assistance in developing a civilian nuclear programme.

For Israel, normalisation with the Saudi kingdom – the anchor of Sunni Islam and home to the religion’s two holiest sites – could in theory pave the way for the acceptance of the Jewish state across the Muslim world and shore up a nascent Arab-Israeli defence coalition against Iran.

Since the new war in Gaza began, the US has made ending the conflict a condition of a deal, as well as Israeli consent for a new governing mechanism in the strip involving the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority. A success would be a foreign policy boon for the US president, Joe Biden, who is facing an uphill battle for re-election in November.

You can read Bethan McKernan’s full report here:

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is set to worsen once again as deliveries of aid and fuel to the Palestinian territory slow to a trickle in the wake of Israel’s two-week-old ground offensive in the southern city of Rafah.

The UN has suspended food distribution in Rafah owing to a lack of supplies and insecurity, the world body said late on Tuesday, and delivery operations from the new US-funded floating pier have also been halted after desperate people seized most of the shipment offloaded on to trucks on Saturday, an incident in which one person was killed.

Since 10 May, shortly after Israel seized control of the Rafah crossing with Egypt, through which the majority of aid to Gaza flows, only about three dozen trucks have successfully been delivered via the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing, and only about a quarter of the allowed fuel has been delivered since the Israeli operation began.

The ongoing fighting means that both Kerem Shalom and Rafah are effectively blocked, and perishable food and medicine is piling up on the Egyptian side of the border. Egypt and Israel have traded blame over a failure to negotiate Rafah’s reopening, which has also prevented sick and injured Palestinians from leaving the strip for treatment elsewhere.

You can read the full piece by Bethan McKernan and Lorenzo Tondo in Jerusalem here:

Israel will reprimand the ambassadors of Ireland, Norway and Spain on Thursday over their governments’ plan to recognise a Palestinian state next week, an Israeli official said.

Reuters reports that the envoys have been summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, where they will be shown a previously unpublished video of Hamas taking female captives during its 7 October attack on Israel, the official said.

Israel has also recalled its own ambassadors in Dublin, Oslo and Madrid for consultations.

Announcing on Wednesday that they would recognise a Palestinian state on 28 May, the three European countries said they wanted to help secure a Gaza truce and revive peace talks. Some other western powers, such as the US, say recognition of a Palestinian state should follow negotiations.

Robert Tait is a journalist based in Washington DC. He was previously
the Guardian’s correspondent in Czech Republic, Iran and Turkey.

The US is concerned about Israel’s growing diplomatic isolation among countries that have traditionally supported it, Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said on Wednesday.

Sullivan’s remarks, at a White House briefing, followed the announcement by Ireland, Spain and Norway that they will next week formally recognise a Palestinian state. They also came amid efforts by the Biden administration and Congress to coordinate a response to a decision by the international criminal court (ICC) to seek an arrest warrant for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over Israeli actions in Gaza.

Asked if he was concerned about Israel’s diplomatic isolation, Sullivan – who is due to visit the country in the coming days – answered affirmatively.

“I think it’s a fair question,” he said. “As a country that stands strong in defense of Israel in international forums like the United Nations, we certainly have seen a growing chorus of voices, including voices that had previously been in support of Israel, drift in another direction. That is of concern to us because we do not believe that that contributes to Israel’s long-term security or vitality … So that’s something we have discussed with the Israeli government.”

You can read more on this story here:

Hostages Families Forum release graphic footage of female Israeli soldiers captured by Hamas during 7 October attack

Lorenzo Tondo

The Hostages Families Forum in Israel on Wednesday released graphic footage of seven female Israeli soldiers captured by Hamas from a military base during the 7 October attacks.

The three-minute video showed the women, all Israel Defense Forces (IDF) personnel, sitting on the ground, some bruised and bloodied, with their hands tied after their capture from the Nahal Oz base in southern Israel.

The footage, taken from a two-hour video filmed on a body camera by Hamas militants during the attack, was previously released by Hamas. The families obtained it months ago by the IDF, which had previously edited the video to exclude the most disturbing scenes.

“The footage reveals the violent, humiliating, and traumatising treatment the girls endured on the day of their abduction, their eyes filled with raw terror,” the forum said.

“I think that the message here is to the international community, in a time where we are seeing US president Joe Biden threatening he is not going to supply weapons to Israel, we are seeing three European countries recognising the Palestinian state. All of this is happening while our hostages are still in Gaza,’’ Ashley Waxman Bakshi, a cousin of Agam Berger, one of the women in the video, told the Guardian.

Waxman Bakshi said: “That is sending a message to Hamas that they have no reason to negotiate a deal for their release. Why should they? We want to send a message to the international community to remind people that this war started because of 7 October, because of our hostages that are still there, while the international community has focused only on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Nobody is talking about our humanitarian crisis, our hostages.’’

“Release the hostages and the situation will improve,’’ she adds.

Thousands of Israelis joined protests in recent weeks calling for a deal to bring home hostages still held in Gaza by Hamas, early elections and the immediate resignation of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

“This hostage crisis is not only a failure of the Israeli government, it is also a failure of the international community,’’ said Waxman Bakshi.

The war was triggered by Hamas’s attack in Israel in which 1,200 died, mainly civilians, and about 250 were taken hostage.

As a result of Israel’s retaliatory offensive on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, at least 35,386 Palestinians have been killed and 79,366 have been wounded, the Gaza health ministry said on Saturday.

About half of the approximately 250 people abducted on 7 October have since been freed, most in swaps for Israeli-held Palestinian prisoners during a week-long ceasefire in November. According to Israeli authorities, about 30 are confirmed to have died.

Last Saturday, the Families Forum released a statement saying one hostage, Ron Benjamin, had died. The organisation’s statement said 128 hostages remained in captivity.

The bodies of three hostages kidnapped by Hamas, including the German-Israeli Shani Louk, have been retrieved from Gaza by the Israeli military, it announced.

The other two hostages were identified as Amit Buskila, 28, and Itzhak Gelerenter, 56, according to the military spokesperson R Adm Daniel Hagari, who said the three victims were taken to Gaza after being killed by Hamas at the Nova music festival.

Footage of what appeared to be the body of Louk, 22, on the back of a pickup truck on the streets of Gaza was among the first images to surface after 7 October, as the scale of the attacks became clear.

It has gone 10am in Gaza and Tel Aviv. This is our latest Guardian live blog on the Israel-Gaza war and the wider Middle East crisis.

Egypt has threatened to withdraw from its role as a mediator in Gaza ceasefire negotiations after a report by CNN that Egyptian intelligence changed the terms of a recent truce proposal, scuttling a deal, reports Reuters.

Diaa Rashwan, head of Egypt’s State Information Service, said in a statement published on social media:

Attempts to cast doubt and offend Egypt’s mediation efforts … will only lead to further complications of the situation in Gaza and the entire region and may push Egypt to completely withdraw from its mediation in the current conflict.

Quoting three people familiar with the discussions, CNN reported on Tuesday that Egyptian intelligence changed terms of a ceasefire proposal that Israel agreed to earlier in May.

When Hamas announced on 6 May that it accepted the agreement, it was not the proposal that fellow mediators from the US and Qatar thought was submitted to Hamas for review, according to CNN.

The CIA, whose director, William Burns, has been leading the US mediation efforts, declined to comment on the report.

Rashwan said in the statement that Cairo’s participation as a mediator resulted from “repeated requests and insistence” from Israel and the US.

Egypt said some “parties” recently directed blame towards Egyptian and Qatari mediators and accused them of being biased, he added.

Tensions have been growing between Egypt and Israel over the Israeli military operation in Rafah at the southern end of the Gaza Strip, just across the border from Egypt.

More on that in a moment but first, here is a summary of the latest developments:

• The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is set to worsen once again as deliveries of aid and fuel to the Palestinian territory slow to a trickle in the wake of Israel’s two-week-old ground offensive in the southern city of Rafah. The UN has suspended food distribution in Rafah owing to a lack of supplies and insecurity, the world body said late on Tuesday, and delivery operations from the new US-funded floating pier have also been halted after desperate people seized most of the shipment offloaded on to trucks on Saturday, an incident in which one person was killed.

• The UN World Food Program says it has handed out in Gaza in recent days a “limited number” of high-energy biscuits that arrived from a US-built pier, the first aid from the new humanitarian sea route to get into the hands of Palestinians, reports Associated Press.

• Ireland, Spain and Norway announced plans to formally recognise a Palestinian state on Wednesday, amid warnings from Israel that recognition will ‘fuel extremism and instability’. Ireland’s prime minister Simon Harris said a two-state solution was the only credible path to peace and security for Israel, Palestine and their peoples. The recognition of statehood has particular resonance in Ireland given its history, Harris added. He also said that Ireland was unequivocal in fully recognising Israel and its right to exist “securely and in peace with its neighbours”, and he called for all hostages in Gaza to be immediately returned.

• The Palestinian Authority and Hamas both welcomed on Wednesday the recognition of a Palestinian state by Ireland, Spain and Norway.

• Israel have “instructed for the immediate recall” of Israel’s ambassadors to Ireland and Norway for “consultations”. Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz shared a post with the news on X on Wednesday, saying that it was “in light of these countries’ decisions to recognise a Palestinian state”.

• US president Joe Biden believes a Palestinian state should be achieved through negotiations, not unilateral recognition, the White House said on Wednesday after Ireland, Spain and Norway said they would recognise a Palestinian state this month.

• The US is concerned about Israel’s growing diplomatic isolation among countries that have traditionally supported it, Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said on Wednesday.

• The Israeli military has approved permission for Israelis to return to three former West Bank settlements they had been banned from entering since an evacuation ordered in 2005, the defence ministry said on Wednesday. The three settlements, Sa-nur, Ganim and Kadim, are located near the Palestinian cities of Jenin and Nablus.

• Colombia said on Wednesday that it will open an embassy in Ramallah in the Palestinian territories. Foreign Minister Luis Murillo told reporters that president Gustavo Petro – an ardent critic of Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu – had given instructions “that we install the embassy of Colombia in Ramallah” in the West Bank, reported Reuters.

• Israeli tanks advanced to the edge of a crowded district in the heart of Rafah on Wednesday during one of the most intense nights of bombardment of the southern Gaza city since Israel launched its offensive there this month. Residents and militants told Reuters that tanks had taken up new positions farther west than before along the southern border fence with Egypt. They said Israeli troops were now stationed on the edge of the Yibna neighbourhood at the centre of Rafah.

• Heavy battles also rocked Gaza’s northern and central areas where Hamas forces have regrouped, and more Israeli airstrikes have hit Gaza City, Jabalia and Zeitun.

• The World Health Organization said northern Gaza’s last two functioning hospitals, al-Awda and Kamal Adwan, were besieged by Israeli forces, with more than 200 patients trapped inside.

• At least 35,709 Palestinians have been killed and 79,990 injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. The Hamas-run health ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.

• Iran’s supreme leader led prayers in Tehran on Wednesday at the funeral of the late president Ebrahim Raisi, as tens of thousands of mourners thronged streets at the funeral in Iran’s capital city, which will move to the cleric’s eastern home city of Mashhad for burial on Thursday.

• The US is worried that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, may be willing to torpedo a potential normalisation deal with Saudi Arabia if it entails ending the war in Gaza and committing to working towards a two-state solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.