Key events
Greece’s foreign minister said on Monday that threats by Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah against Cyprus were unacceptable and the EU would stand by member states against all such threats.
“It is absolutely unacceptable to make threats against the sovereign state of the EU,” Reuters reports Greek foreign minister George Gerapetritis told the media on arrival in Brussels for a monthly foreign ministers meeting.
“We stand by Cyprus and we will all be together in all kinds of global threats coming from terrorist organisations.”
Last week Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned of a war “without rules or ceilings”, saying “Opening Cypriot airports and bases to the Israeli enemy to target Lebanon would mean that the Cypriot government is part of the war, and the resistance will deal with it as part of the war.”
Cypriot president, Nikos Christodoulides, responded to the Hezbollah threat by saying “Cyprus is not part of the problem. Our role, as manifested, for example, through the humanitarian corridor, is recognised not only by the Arab world but by the entire international community.”
The UK maritime trade operations agency (UKMTO) said on Monday it has received a report of an incident 246 nautical miles southeast of Yemen’s Nishtun.
Reuters reports UKMTO added that authorities are investigating the incident.
Yemen’s Houthis have repeatedly attacked shipping which it claims is linked to Israel. It says it is doing so in support of Palestininians while Israel’s assault on Gaza continues.
The EU deployed a maritime mission to the area earlier this year, and the US and UK have carried out strikes inside Yemen intended to reduce the Houthi capability to target shipping.
Welcome and summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the Israel-Gaza war and the wider Middle East crisis.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that fighting in Gaza is entering a less intense phase, which would allow Israel to deploy more forces to the north, close to Lebanon.
“After the intense phase is finished, we will have the possibility to move part of the forces north. And we will do this. First and foremost for defensive purposes. And secondly, to bring our [evacuated] residents home,” Netanyahu said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 14.
His comments came as the top US general said that an Israeli offensive in Lebanon has the potential to increase the risk of a broader conflict that draws in Iran and Iran-aligned militants.
Air force Gen Charles Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said “Hezbollah is more capable than Hamas as far as overall capability, number rockets and the like. And I would just say I would see Iran be more inclined to provide greater support to Hezbollah,” Brown.
More on that in a moment, first here’s a roundup of the day’s other main news.
-
Israel’s defence minister has flown to meet senior Biden administration officials in Washington for what he has described as “critical” talks over the twin conflicts with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Yoav Gallant, accompanied by the Israel Defense Forces’ deputy chief of staff, will meet the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, as well as the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and Joe Biden’s special envoy, Amos Hochstein.
-
Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile batteries risk being overwhelmed in the opening strikes of any significantly escalated conflict with Hezbollah. The assessment delivered by US officials late last week, echoing recent analysis by experts in Israel and the United States, comes amid fears that a war with Hezbollah could be a far more dangerous undertaking than the devastating 2006 second Lebanon war, when Israeli bombing caused huge destruction in Lebanon.
-
Israeli troops tied a wounded Palestinian man, Mujahed Azmi, to a military vehicle during a raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, the army said Sunday, admitting that soldiers had violated operational procedures. Footage of the incident, which occurred on Saturday, has gone viral and shows Azmi, a Jenin resident strapped horizontally to the bonnet of a military Jeep being used as a human shield as it passes through a narrow alley.
-
Eight Palestinians were killed on Sunday in an Israeli airstrike on a training college near Gaza City being used to distribute aid, Palestinian witnesses said, as Israeli tanks pushed further into the southern city of Rafah. The strike hit part of an industrial college run by the UN Palestinian refugee agency Unrwa, the witnesses said. Unrwa and the Israeli military did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
-
The EU’s foreign affairs chief has called for an independent probe into a shelling which damaged the office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Gaza. In a post on social media, Josep Borrell said the EU condemned the shelling which also “led to dozens of casualties”. The ICRC reported on Saturday that heavy-calibre projectiles “landed within metres” of its office and residences, killing at least 25 people. “An independent investigation is needed and those responsible must be held accountable,” Borrell said.