Closing summary
Israeli tanks pushed into southern and eastern areas of the Gazan city of Deir al-Balah for the first time on Monday, an area where Israeli sources said the military believes some of the remaining hostages may be being held by Hamas. Gaza medics said at least three Palestinians were killed and several were wounded in tank shelling that hit eight houses and three mosques in the area, and which came a day after the military ordered residents to leave, saying it planned to fight Hamas militants.
Pope Leo has warned against the “indiscriminate use of force” and the “forced mass displacement” of people in the Gaza strip in a phone conversation with the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Monday, the Vatican said in a statement. It was the first official conversation between the two men since Leo’s papacy began.
Gaza’s health ministry has said the Palestinian death toll has surpassed 59,000 after more than 21 months of war. In an update from the Associated Press, the ministry says 59,029 people have been killed since the war started on 7 October 2023, while another 142,135 have been wounded.
Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) said on Sunday that evacuations orders from Israel have directly endangered “vital humanitarian and primary healthcare sites”. The charity said in a statement that the move was “accelerating the systematic dismantling of Gaza’s already-decimated healthcare system”.
Israel on Monday rejected the joint statement published by over 20 countries calling for an end to the war in Gaza, “as it is disconnected from reality and sends the wrong message to Hamas”, the foreign ministry said. Britain and more than 20 other countries called on Monday for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and criticised the Israeli government’s aid delivery model after hundreds of Palestinians were killed near sites distributing food.
An Israeli undercover force detained Marwan Al-Hams, a senior Gaza Health Ministry official, outside the field hospital of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday, the health ministry said according to a report from the Reuters news agency. Hams, in charge of field hospitals in the enclave, was on his way to visit the ICRC field hospital in northern Rafah when an Israeli force “abducted” him after opening fire, killing one person and wounding another civilian nearby, according to the ministry.
Gaza health officials said on Monday at least 13 people, including two women and five children, were killed in Israeli strikes since the previous night. The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the strikes. It blames Hamas for civilian casualties because the group operates from populated areas.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said at least 93 Palestinians had been killed queueing for food on Sunday, while Israel issued fresh evacuation orders for areas packed with displaced people. The territory’s health ministry said scores were killed by Israeli fire while waiting for UN aid trucks entering through the northern Zikim crossing with Israel. It was one of the highest reported death tolls among repeated recent cases in which aid seekers have been killed by Israeli fire.
Russian defence minister Andrei Belousov and his Iranian counterpart Aziz Nasirzadeh discussed strengthening military cooperation at a meeting in Moscow, Russian state news agency RIA reported on Monday, citing the Iranian ambassador. The meeting followed talks on Sunday between Russian president Vladimir Putin and Ali Larijani, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on the situation in the Middle East and issues surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme.
Washington cannot “compel” Israel to do anything, US special envoy Thomas Barrack said in Beirut on Monday, in response to a reporter’s question about Lebanese demands that the US guarantees a halt to Israeli strikes on Lebanese territory. The US last month proposed a roadmap to Lebanon’s top officials to fully disarm Hezbollah within four months, in exchange for a halt to Israeli strikes and a withdrawal of Israeli troops still occupying positions in southern Lebanon.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said on Monday that the ceasefire in the southern province of Sweida was holding, despite isolated gunfire in areas north of Sweida city with no reports of casualties. The agreement announced on Saturday put an end to the sectarian violence that has left more than 1,100 dead, most of them Druze fighters and civilians, according to the monitor.
The Syrian government on Monday started evacuating Bedouin families trapped inside the city of Sweida, where Druze militiamen and Bedouin fighters have clashed for over a week. The UN International Organization for Migration said about 128,571 people were displaced in the hostilities that started with a series of tit-for-tat kidnappings and attacks a week ago.
A US envoy doubled down on Washington’s support for the new government in Syria, saying on Monday there is “no Plan B” to working with the current authorities to unite the country still reeling from a nearly 14-year civil war and now wrecked by a new outbreak of sectarian violence. Tom Barrack, who is ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria and also has a short-term mandate in Lebanon, took a critical tone toward Israel’s recent intervention in Syria, calling it poorly timed and saying that it complicated efforts to stabilise the region.
Belgian authorities said on Monday that they had briefly held and questioned two Israeli citizens who attended an electronic music festival, after pro-Palestinian groups accused them of war crimes, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports. Prosecutors said they received legal complaints alleging that two Israeli soldiers responsible for “serious violations of international humanitarian law” in Gaza were spotted at the Tomorrowland festival near the northern city of Antwerp last week.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said on Monday that it was “receiving desperate messages of starvation” from its Gaza staff, as the Palestinian territory experiences surging levels of hunger, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports. Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people are facing severe shortages of food and other essentials, with doctors, the civil defence agency and medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reporting a spike in malnutrition cases in recent days.
A trilateral meeting between Iran, Russia and China will take place on Tuesday regarding Tehran’s nuclear programme and the UN snapback mechanism, Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday. The UN snapback mechanism refers to efforts to reimpose international sanctions on Iran.
Tehran on Monday accused the UK, France and Germany of failing to respect the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, after they threatened to reimpose sanctions over its atomic programme. The 2015 deal, reached between Iran and the UN security council’s permanent members – Britain, China, France, Russia and the US – plus Germany imposed curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.
The charity Action For Humanity has confirmed that, following the latest evacuation orders in Deir al-Balah, three of its displacement camps have been directly affected by the intensifying military operations and worsening security situation.
In a statement, a spokesperson said:
Camp 5 has now been fully evacuated, with only the landowner remaining to safeguard essential humanitarian assets. Camp 4, which remained partially occupied as of yesterday, has now also been fully vacated under extreme duress. This morning, tanks advanced to the entrance of Al-Baraka Street, the main access point to Camp 4. The few families that had remained were able to flee from the western side with great difficulty.
Camp 3 initially remained home to 56 families, as their tents were fixed and difficult to move. Earlier today, we were informed that the women and children have since been relocated to safer areas within Deir al-Balah.
All of Action For Humanity’s humanitarian activities in the evacuation zones have been suspended due to the imminent threat to life and the approaching military forces. Our teams and partners continue to face major barriers to communication, particularly with those still near Camp 3.
Together with our local partners, we have arranged for guards to protect all three camps from theft and looting.
