Welcome and opening summary
Welcome to our latest live blog on the Israel-Gaza war and the wider Middle East crisis. Here are the latest headlines …
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu says any Gaza ceasefire deal must allow Israel to resume fighting until its objectives are met, Reuters reports.
Hamas wants mediators to guarantee a permanent ceasefire, but Netanyahu is vowing to keep fighting until Israel destroys Hamas’ military and governing capabilities, reports Associated Press.
“Any deal will allow Israel to return and fight until all the goals of the war are achieved,” Netanyahu said in a statement Sunday.
Five days after Hamas accepted a key part of the plan, two officials from the Palestinian militant group said the group was awaiting Israel’s response to its latest proposal.
Hamas has dropped a key demand that Israel first commit to a permanent ceasefire before it would sign an agreement. Instead, it said it would allow negotiations to achieve that throughout the six-week first phase, a Hamas source told Reuters on Saturday on condition of anonymity.
But Netanyahu said he insisted the deal must not prevent Israel from resuming fighting until its war objectives are met. Netanyahu said:
The plan that has been agreed to by Israel and which has been welcomed by President Biden will allow Israel to return hostages without infringing on the other objectives of the war.
Netanyahu was scheduled to hold consultations late on Sunday on the next steps in negotiating the three-phase plan that was presented in May by US President Joe Biden and is being mediated by Qatar and Egypt.
It aims to end the war and free about 120 Israeli hostages being held in Gaza.
In other developments:
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The Israeli government has been accused of attempting to sabotage a US-backed ceasefire proposal, according to Israeli media, by introducing new demands despite previously accepting the plan. Two Hamas officials told Reuters they were now waiting for a response from Israel. However, David Barnea, the chief of the Mossad foreign intelligence service, who was dispatched over the weekend to Qatar, where talks are being held, was reported to have provided the mediators with a list of new reservations, according to Israeli media.
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Protests aimed at pressuring the Israeli government to reach a hostage deal with Hamas began across Israel on Sunday, with demonstrators blocking roads and picketing at the homes of government ministers. The demonstrators took to the streets, blocking rush hour traffic at major intersections across the country. They briefly set fire to tires on the main Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway before police cleared the way.
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In Gaza, Palestinian health officials said at least 15 people were killed in separate Israeli military strikes on Sunday. An Israeli airstrike on a house in the town of Zawayda, in central Gaza, killed at least six people and wounded several others, while six others were killed in an airstrike on a house in western Gaza, the health officials said.
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Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement fired another 20 rockets at northern Israel, leaving one person injured there, the latest cross-border attacks launched in solidarity with Gaza’s Palestinian militant group Hamas. Hezbollah said that “in response to the attack and assassination that the Israeli enemy carried out”, it had targeted “one of the main bases” in northern Israel, west of Tiberias, with “dozens of Katyusha rockets”.
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At least 38,153 Palestinians have been killed and 87,828 injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, Gaza’s health ministry said on Sunday.
Key events
Israel’s military has said in a statement that it is operating in Gaza City “following intelligence indicating the presence of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist infrastructure, operatives, weapons, and investigation and detention rooms.”
It claims this includes the use of “the Unrwa headquarters”.
The IDF claims in the statement that it “called on and warned civilians about the operational activity in the area, and a defined route will be opened to facilitate the evacuation of uninvolved civilians from the area.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Local media has claimed that dozens of families have been trapped in their homes during the bombardment, while thousands have been forced to flee.
Unrwa commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini has previously criticised both Hamas and Israel for occupying and using its facilities during the conflict on the ground inside Gaza.
Haaretz reports that the head of Israel’s Shin Bet security service, Ronen Bar, has traveled to Egypt to continue talks.
Israel’s military has claimed in a statement that “Over the past day, IDF troops and IAF aircraft operated to eliminate more than 30 terrorists who posed a threat to IDF troops in the area of Rafah. The troops also located additional tunnel shafts and confiscated weapons in the area.”
The claims have not been independently verified.
Reuters reports that Israel is again attacking Gaza City in what residents say is one of the heaviest attacks since 7 October.
It reports the Gaza civil emergency service said they believed dozens of people were killed in eastern Gaza areas but emergency teams were unable to reach them because of ongoing offensives in Tel Al-Hawa, Sabra, Daraj, Rimal, and Tuffah suburbs.
Israeli media reports that Egypt has told Israel it would work with the US on a “hi-tech underground barrier to prevent the smuggling of weapons into Gaza” on the border between Egypt and Gaza.
The Times of Israel reports that “Troops have discovered at least 25 cross-border smuggling tunnels between Egypt and Gaza. The existence of some of the tunnels was previously known to the IDF, and others were discovered for the first time when troops entered the border area.”
Ending weapons smuggling into Gaza is one of Israel’s demands for a ceasefire.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that three people have been killed in Gaza by Israeli airstrikes.
It writes:
Local sources said that occupation warplanes bombed a residential apartment near the industrial junction south of Gaza City, killing two citizens and wounding five others.
They added that the occupation aircraft bombed a house near south of Gaza City, killing a citizen and wounding seven others.
It reports that thousands were forced to flee their homes as Israeli forces moved in, and that “Eyewitnesses said that thousands of citizens were displaced from areas southwest of the city towards the northwest and spent the night on the streets without shelter.”
The claims have not been independently verified.
Health authorities inside the Gaza Strip state that more than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s military assault on the territory since 7 October. Israel’s military states that 324 Israeli troops have been killed during its ground offensive.
It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
In a statement Israel’s military has claimed to have again struck at what it called “a Hezbollah military site” inside Lebanon. It also claims to have struck “a Hezbollah weapons storage facility” and several other locations to the north of Israel.
The statement continued “IDF artillery fired to remove a threat in a number of areas in southern Lebanon. The IDF will continue to operate against the threat of the Hezbollah terrorist organization in order to defend the state of Israel.”
The claims have not been independently verified.
Israel and anti-Israeli forces have exchanged almost continuous fire since 7 October across the UN-drawn blue line that separates northern Israel and southern Lebanon. Tens of thousands of civilians on both sides have been forced to flee their homes.
Welcome and opening summary
Welcome to our latest live blog on the Israel-Gaza war and the wider Middle East crisis. Here are the latest headlines …
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu says any Gaza ceasefire deal must allow Israel to resume fighting until its objectives are met, Reuters reports.
Hamas wants mediators to guarantee a permanent ceasefire, but Netanyahu is vowing to keep fighting until Israel destroys Hamas’ military and governing capabilities, reports Associated Press.
“Any deal will allow Israel to return and fight until all the goals of the war are achieved,” Netanyahu said in a statement Sunday.
Five days after Hamas accepted a key part of the plan, two officials from the Palestinian militant group said the group was awaiting Israel’s response to its latest proposal.
Hamas has dropped a key demand that Israel first commit to a permanent ceasefire before it would sign an agreement. Instead, it said it would allow negotiations to achieve that throughout the six-week first phase, a Hamas source told Reuters on Saturday on condition of anonymity.
But Netanyahu said he insisted the deal must not prevent Israel from resuming fighting until its war objectives are met. Netanyahu said:
The plan that has been agreed to by Israel and which has been welcomed by President Biden will allow Israel to return hostages without infringing on the other objectives of the war.
Netanyahu was scheduled to hold consultations late on Sunday on the next steps in negotiating the three-phase plan that was presented in May by US President Joe Biden and is being mediated by Qatar and Egypt.
It aims to end the war and free about 120 Israeli hostages being held in Gaza.
In other developments:
-
The Israeli government has been accused of attempting to sabotage a US-backed ceasefire proposal, according to Israeli media, by introducing new demands despite previously accepting the plan. Two Hamas officials told Reuters they were now waiting for a response from Israel. However, David Barnea, the chief of the Mossad foreign intelligence service, who was dispatched over the weekend to Qatar, where talks are being held, was reported to have provided the mediators with a list of new reservations, according to Israeli media.
-
Protests aimed at pressuring the Israeli government to reach a hostage deal with Hamas began across Israel on Sunday, with demonstrators blocking roads and picketing at the homes of government ministers. The demonstrators took to the streets, blocking rush hour traffic at major intersections across the country. They briefly set fire to tires on the main Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway before police cleared the way.
-
In Gaza, Palestinian health officials said at least 15 people were killed in separate Israeli military strikes on Sunday. An Israeli airstrike on a house in the town of Zawayda, in central Gaza, killed at least six people and wounded several others, while six others were killed in an airstrike on a house in western Gaza, the health officials said.
-
Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement fired another 20 rockets at northern Israel, leaving one person injured there, the latest cross-border attacks launched in solidarity with Gaza’s Palestinian militant group Hamas. Hezbollah said that “in response to the attack and assassination that the Israeli enemy carried out”, it had targeted “one of the main bases” in northern Israel, west of Tiberias, with “dozens of Katyusha rockets”.
-
At least 38,153 Palestinians have been killed and 87,828 injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, Gaza’s health ministry said on Sunday.