This blog has now closed. Follow our live coverage of the search for Ebrahim Raisi’s helicopter on our new blog here.
Updated
Russia is sending two planes, a helicopter and 60 specialist rescue workers to Iran to help with the search operation, Russian state-run media is reporting.
The group, along with other special equipment, is setting off from Zhukovsky airport near Moscow and will arrive in the Iranian city of Tabriz, in East Azerbaijan, Tass news agency wrote.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Tass that President Putin was closely monitoring the situation and had held a meeting with the Iranian ambassador on Sunday evening.
The president told the ambassador Russia would do everything it could to help, Tass reported.
Updated
Raisi had been on the border with Azerbaijan early Sunday to inaugurate a dam with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev. The dam is the third one that the two nations built on the Aras River.
The visit came despite chilly relations between the two nations, including over a deadly gun attack on Azerbaijan’s Embassy in Tehran in 2023, and Azerbaijan’s diplomatic relations with Israel, which Iran’s Shiite theocracy views as its main enemy in the region.
In the wake of the 2023 attack Azerbaijan accused Iran of ignoring its warning about potential attacks and said there had been an “anti-Azerbaijani campaign against our country” in Iran.
State news agency Irna said Raisi was flying in a US-made Bell 212 helicopter.
Iran flies a variety of helicopters in the country, but international sanctions make it difficult to obtain parts for them.
Its military air fleet also largely dates back to before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Irna published images it said showed Raisi taking off in a Bell helicopter, with a blue-and-white paint scheme previously seen in published photographs.
Iranians have been praying for the president, while expressions of concern come in from around the world
One Tehran citizen, a 29-year-old journalist who only gave her name as Vakili, told teh news agency AFP she “feared” the worst and said it recalled previous tense moments in recent years.
“I hope they are okay and that they are found,” she said.
“It’s a strange feeling, like we felt before with Haj Qasem Soleimani,” she said, referring to revered Revolutionary Guards commander who was killed in a 2020 US drone strike in Baghdad.
“I am deeply saddened,” said another resident of the capital, a private sector employee named Hadi. “We hope that he [Raisi] and his companions are found in good health.”
A summary of today's developments
A rescue operation is continuing in the mountains close to the Iranian-Azerbaijani border after one of the helicopters in a convoy carrying Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, was involved in a “hard landing” on Sunday, according to Iranian state media.
The helicopter that crashed has been found by search teams, Iranian state TV reported. There is no update yet on the condition of those onboard. However, Iran’s Red Crescent humanitarian movement has denied the state TV report. The location of the helicopter is still unknown.
The incident, which involved one helicopter in a convoy of three, was described by Iranian state television as an accident.
An unnamed Iranian official told Reuters that the lives of the president and his foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, were “at risk” after a “crash” as it was crossing mountain terrain in heavy fog.
An unnamed Iranian official told state media that contact had been made on several occasions with a passenger and a crew member, but there have been no further updates.
Three rescue workers searching for the crashed helicopter were reported missing by the Red Crescent but were later accounted for. A spokesperson said the search and rescue operation will slow down as the weather is expected to get “severely cold” soon with more rain forecast.
Raisi was travelling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. State TV described the area of the helicopter incident as being near Jolfa, a city on the border with Azerbaijan. The president had been in Azerbaijan earlier on Sunday to inaugurate a dam with the country’s president Ilham Aliyev. The dam is the third one that the two nations have built on the Aras River.
Iran’s army chief of staff said all army resources will be used for the search and rescue operations, state TV reported. Maj Gen Mohammad Bagheri has also ordered guards to take part in the search efforts, it said.
Iraq has instructed its interior ministry, the Red Crescent and other relevant bodies to offer help to neighbouring Iran and assist in the search. Turkey, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates also offered support.
Iran’s national broadcaster had stopped all regular programming to show prayers being held for Raisi across the country.
In the early hours of Monday local time, it broadcast footage of a rescue team, wearing bright jackets and head torches, huddled around a GPS device as they searched a pitch-black mountainside on foot amid a snowy blizzard.
“We are thoroughly searching every inch of the general area of the crash,” state media quoted a regional army commander as saying.
“The area has very cold, rainy, and foggy weather conditions. The rain is gradually turning into snow.”
The Iranian helicopter crash comes at a time when the country, faced by unprecedented external challenges, was already bracing itself for a change in regime with the expected demise in the next few years of its 85-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In the country’s hydra-headed leadership where power is spread in often opaque ways between clerics, politicians and army, it is the supreme leader, and not the president, that is ultimately decisive.
Indeed, in some ways the posts of president, and prime minister – originally based on a model of the French constitution – became overwhelmed in the drafting of Iran’s constitution in 1979, leading to advocates of a more powerful presidency to claim the role was being subsumed in a form of autocracy created in the name of religion.
The United Arab Emirates said it stands by Iran and is ready to provide support in efforts to find a helicopter carrying the Iranian president that crashed, the UAE foreign ministry said in a statement.
Thick fog surrounded ambulances and rescue workers as they searched for the site of the crash in Iran, footage broadcast on state TV showed on Sunday.
Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, who is missing in Iran’s mountains after a helicopter crash near the border with Azerbaijan, is a hardliner who was instrumental in the last few years in steering Iran back towards the more uncompromising beliefs of the Islamic Republic’s revolutionary founders.
A supporter of deeply conservative values on the domestic front, in terms of foreign policy Raisi also carved out an increasingly aggressive stance, and it was on his watch that Tehran opted to launch its recent unprecedented missile and drone strike against Israel bringing the two countries into direct and open conflict for the first time.
While he was elected president in June 2021, having represented himself as the best person to fight corruption and Iran’s economic problems, Raisi had long occupied important positions in Iran, including an allegedkey role in the so-called Death Committee responsible for executing thousands of prisoners in the 1980s, a claim he has denied.
Turkey is sending search and rescue equipment to help find the Iranian president and foreign minister.
A night vision search and rescue helicopter, 32 personnel and six vehicles have been sent to the country, the country’s disaster agency said.
A further 15 rescuers have been placed on alert in case they are needed, it added.
Iran’s Red Crescent humanitarian movement has denied the state TV report about the crashed helicopter being found.
The Turkish foreign ministry said it was following developments in Sunday’s Iran helicopter accident with sadness and hoping for the president’s wellbeing, adding that action had been taken to provide all kinds of support to search and rescue activities.
“We hope that the Iranian officials, including Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian are safe and healthy,” it said in a statement.
Crashed helicopter found by search teams, state TV reports
The helicopter that crashed has been found by search teams, Iranian state TV reported. There is no update yet on the condition of those onboard.
Updated
Qatar is ready to provide “all forms of support” for Iran’s search efforts, the Qatari foreign ministry said in a statement.
Saudi Arabia and Russia have also released statements offering similar support.
Janez Lenarčič, the European Commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis management, said the EU is activating its Copernicus emergency mapping service in response to an Iranian request for assistance.
Upon Iranian request for assistance we are activating the 🇪🇺's @CopernicusEMS rapid response 📡 mapping service in view of to the helicopter accident reportedly carrying the President of #Iran and its foreign minister. #EUSolidarity
— Janez Lenarčič (@JanezLenarcic) May 19, 2024
Iranian official: Contact made with passenger and crew member
Contact has been made with one passenger and one crew member who were on the helicopter, an unnamed Iranian official told state TV.
The official said contact has been made on several occasions.
Rescuers have not reached crash site yet due to weather conditions
Rescuers have not yet reached the crash site of a helicopter carrying Iran’s president and foreign minister and are “experiencing difficult and complicated conditions”, an Iranian government spokesperson said.
In a post on X, Ali Bahadori Jahromi said there was still no update on Ebrahim Raisi and Hossein Amirabdollahian condition.
“It is the right of the people and the media to be aware of the latest news about the president’s helicopter accident, but according to the coordinates of the accident site and the weather conditions, there is “no” new news until now,” Jahromi added.
“In these moments, patience, prayer, and trust in relief groups are the way forward.”
Updated
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the nation “should pray” for Raisi’s health, state broadcaster IRIB reported.
“If the people of Iran do not worry, there will be no disruption in the work of the country”, he added.
“We are closely following reports of a possible hard landing of a helicopter in Iran carrying the Iranian president and foreign minister,” a US state department spokesperson said in a statement.
A spokesperson for President Biden, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters aboard Air Force One that the president had been briefed on the situation.
The president of Azerbaijan said he was “seriously worried” after hearing about Ebrahim Raisi’s helicopter crash.
Ilham Aliyev had met the Iranian president earlier today for the inauguration of a dam in Azerbaijan.
“Today, after meeting with the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ibrahim Raisi we were seriously worried by the news that the helicopter carrying the high delegation made an emergency landing in Iran,” he posted on X.
“Our prayers to almighty God are with President Ibrahim Raisi and his accompanying delegation.”
He added Azerbaijan was ready to provide any necessary support to Iran.
Today, after bidding a friendly farewell to the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, we were profoundly troubled by the news of a helicopter carrying the top delegation crash-landing in Iran. Our prayers to Allah Almighty are with President Ebrahim Raisi and…
— Ilham Aliyev (@presidentaz) May 19, 2024
A summary of today's developments
Rescuers in Iran are trying to reach a helicopter which had a “hard landing”, state media reported, while traveling with an entourage including the Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi. The incident, which involved one helicopter in a convoy of three, was reported by Iranian state television on Sunday, which described it as an accident.
An unnamed Iranian official told Reuters that the lives of the president and his foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, were “at risk” following a “crash” as it was crossing mountain terrain in heavy fog.
The Red Crescent humanitarian movement had reported three of its workers were missing but later said they were accounted for. The search teams are close to the where the helicopter may have crashed, the BBC reported. The Red Crescent spokesperson added the search and rescue operation will slow down as the weather is expected to get “severely cold” soon with more rain forecast.
Raisi was traveling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province, with state TV describing the area of the helicopter incident as being near Jolfa, a city on the border with Azerbaijan. The president had been in Azerbaijan earlier on Sunday to inaugurate a dam with Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev. The dam is the third one that the two nations have built on the Aras river.
All army resources will be utilised for the search and rescue operations Iranian’s army chief of staff said, state TV reported. Major general Mohammad Bagheri has also ordered guards to take part in the search efforts, it said.
Iraq has instructed its interior ministry, the Red Crescent and other relevant bodies to offer help to neighbouring Iran and assist in the search.
Updated
The Red Crescent humanitarian movement had said that three of its workers were missing but later said they were accounted for.
The search teams are close to the where the helicopter may have crashed, the BBC reported.
The Red Crescent spokesperson added the search and rescue operation will slow down as the weather is expected to get “severely cold” soon with more rain forecast.
Updated
Iraq has instructed its interior ministry, the Red Crescent and other relevant bodies to offer help to neighbouring Iran and assist in the search after the Iranian president’s helicopter crashed in mountainous terrain, the Iraqi government said in a statement.
Unnamed official: Helicopter crashed in mountain terrain in heavy fog
The helicopter carrying Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi and his foreign minister crashed as it was crossing mountain terrain in heavy fog, an unnamed official told Reuters.
“We are still hopeful but information coming from the crash site is very concerning,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
All army resources will be utilised for the search and rescue operations Iranian’s army chief of staff said, state TV reported.
Major general Mohammad Bagheri has also ordered guards to take part in the search efforts, it said.
The dispatched rescue teams will reach the probable coordinates of president Raisi’s helicopter within half an hour, state media is reporting.
Iran’s interior minister Ahmad Vahidi said “various rescue teams” are still searching for the helicopter.
Speaking to Iranian state television, Vahidi added it will take “time to get to the location” of the crash site because of the “bad weather conditions and fog in the area”.
“Things are under control and rescue teams are doing their work. We hope it will be done as soon as possible,” he added.
Unnamed official: lives of president and foreign minister “at risk” following “crash”
An unnamed Iranian official told Reuters that the lives of the president and his foreign minister were “at risk” following a “crash”.
So far, Iranian state media had been reporting that Ebrahim Raisi’s helicopter was forced to make a “hard landing”.
Updated
A rescue operation is under way in the mountains close to the Iranian-Azerbaijani border after one of the helicopters in a convoy carrying Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, was involved in a “hard landing” on Sunday, according to Iranian state media.
Neither the state-run IRNA news agency nor state television offered any information on Raisi’s condition, but prayers were broadcast for the safety of the president, who had been travelling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province.
State TV said the incident happened near Jolfa, a city on the border with Azerbaijan, about 375 miles (600km) north-west of the Iranian capital, Tehran.
Traveling with Raisi were Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, the governor of East Azerbaijan and other officials, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. A local government official used the word “crash” to describe the incident, but he acknowledged to an Iranian newspaper that he had yet to reach the site.
BBC News reports that Ahmad Alirezabeigi, an Iranian MP for the city of Tabriz, said that emergency rescue workers have yet to find the location of the helicopter carrying Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi.
He said the other two helicopters in the convoy landed safely.
State TV said the incident happened near Jolfa, a city on the border with Azerbaijan, about 375 miles (600km) north-west of the Iranian capital, Tehran.
The semi-official Fars news agency urged Iranians to pray for the country’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, and state TV carried prayers for his safety.
State TV also aired images of people praying at Imam Reza Shrine in the city of Mashhad, one of Shiite Islam’s holiest sites.
This is after state media reported that a helicopter in a convoy carrying Raisi had been involved in an accident.
Updated
Who is Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s president?
Raisi has been president of the Islamic Republic since June 2021, succeeding the moderate Hassan Rouhani.
He took the reins of a country in the grip of a deep social crisis and an economy strained by US sanctions against Tehran over its contested nuclear programme.
Iran saw a wave of mass protests triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini in September 2022. In March 2023, regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia signed a surprise deal that restored diplomatic relations.
Israel’s war on Gaza has sent regional tensions soaring again and a series of tit-for-tat escalations led to Tehran launching hundreds of missiles and rockets directly at Israel from Iran in April 2024.
Raiasi, born in 1960 in northeast Iran’s holy city of Mashhad, rose early to high office. Aged just 20, in the wake of the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the US-backed monarchy, he was named prosecutor-general of Karaj next to Tehran.
He served as Tehran’s prosecutor-general from 1989 to 1994, deputy chief of the Judicial Authority for a decade from 2004, and then national prosecutor-general in 2014.
We have a statement from Iranian state television about the reported accident involving a helicopter in a convoy carrying the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi.
There are unconfirmed reports about whether Raisi was on board the helicopter that state media say experienced a hard landing.
“Some unconfirmed reports say that the helicopter carrying President Raisi has had an accident in East Azerbaijan province,” state television said.
“The harsh weather conditions and heavy fog have made it difficult for the rescue teams to reach the accident site,” state TV said in an on-screen news alert.
Updated
Israeli forces 'besieging' al-Awda hospital in Jabalia - medical sources
Israeli forces are besieging al-Awda hospital in Jabalia, north of the Gaza Strip, and treatment services cannot be provided to the injured and sick, medical sources told Wafa, the Palestinian news agency.
The sources added that the occupation artillery bombed the hospital with several shells before surrounding it, preventing civilians and medical teams from entering or leaving it, which caused difficulty in providing treatment services to the injured and sick.
Press sources said that the occupation army bulldozed the vicinity of al- Awda hospital …
Al-Awda hospital is considered the only hospital that provides orthopedic, gynaecological, and obstetrics services in the northern Gaza Strip, as well as general surgery, reception, emergency, specialized clinics, radiology, and the laboratory.
Updated
Minister confirms that helicopter in convoy carrying Iran's president was involved in 'rough landing'
Iran’s interior minister, Ahmed Vahidi, has confirmed to state TV that one of the helicopters in a convoy carrying the country’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, had a rough landing.
He said that rescue teams are being hampered by difficult weather conditions and that officials are awaiting further details on the incident.
Updated
Traveling with Ebrahim Raisi were Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, the governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province and other officials, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.
One local government official used the word “crash” to describe the incident, the Associated Press reports, but he acknowledged to an Iranian newspaper that he had yet to reach the site himself.
Neither IRNA nor state TV offered any information on Raisi’s condition.
Rescuers were attempting to reach the site, state TV said, but had been hampered by poor weather conditions. There had been heavy rain and fog reported with some wind. IRNA called the area a “forest”.
Iranian state television is now reporting the helicopter carrying president Ebrahim Raisi had a “hard landing”, without elaborating.
Raisi was traveling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province, with state TV describing the area of the helicopter incident as being near Jolfa, a city on the border with Azerbaijan.
Raisi had been in Azerbaijan early on Sunday to inaugurate a dam with Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev. The dam is the third one that the two nations have built on the Aras river.
The Associated Press reports that international sanctions make it difficult to obtain parts for helicopters in Iran. Its military air fleet largely dates back to before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, it said.
Updated
Helicopter in Iranian president's convoy in accident - reports
Rescuers in Iran are trying to reach a helicopter involved in “an incident” while traveling with an entourage including the Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, the Associated Press (AP) reports.
The incident, which involved one helicopter in a convoy of three, was reported by Iranian state television on Sunday, which described it as an accident.
There was no immediate elaboration on what happened to the helicopter, or who was on board.
Raisi had been traveling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province, AP reports.
Updated
Gaza’s health ministry said at least 34,456 Palestinians have been killed and 79,476 injured in Israel’s war in the enclave since 7 October.
Updated
Summary of the day so far...
Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Sunday that an Israeli airstrike targeting a house at Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed at least 31 people, updating an earlier toll. “The civil defence crew were able to recover 31 martyrs and 20 wounded from a house belonging to the Hassan family, which was targeted by the Israeli occupation forces in the Nuseirat camp,” Gaza civil defence agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told journalists. He said rescue workers were continuing to search for missing people under the rubble.
The stranglehold on aid reaching Gaza threatens an “apocalyptic” outcome, the UN’s humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told Agence France-Presse (AFP). Speaking on the sidelines of meetings with Qatari officials in Doha, he said: “If fuel runs out, aid doesn’t get to the people where they need it, that famine, which we have talked about for so long, and which is looming, will not be looming any more. It will be present.” “And I think our worry, as citizens of the international community, is that the consequence is going to be really, really hard. Hard, difficult, and apocalyptic,” he added.
Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said the kingdom demanded an international investigation into what it said were many war crimes committed during Israel’s war in Gaza. In remarks made during a press conference with the head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa), Safadi said those responsible for documented crimes should be brought to justice.
The Gaza Civil Emergency Service said rescue teams have recovered the bodies of 150 Palestinians killed by the Israeli army in recent days.
In the early hours of Sunday morning, Al Jazeera Arabic’s journalists on the ground reported Israeli raids in Rafah in the south of enclave and in the vicinity of the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, where raids were also reported in the sheikh Zayed and Zeitoun neighbourhoods.
Updated
Gaza officials say death toll from Israeli strike on Nuseirat refugee camp rises to 31
Gaza’s civil defence agency has said that an Israeli airstrike targeting a house at Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed at least 31 people, updating an earlier toll.
“The civil defence crew were able to recover 31 martyrs and 20 wounded from a house belonging to the Hassan family, which was targeted by the Israeli occupation forces in the Nuseirat camp,” Gaza civil defence agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told journalists.
He said rescue workers were continuing to search for missing people under the rubble.
Earlier on Sunday, the al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital had said it had received the bodies of 20 people killed in the strike which witnesses said occurred about 3am local time.
Updated
UN aid chief warns of 'apocalyptic' consequences of aid and fuel shortages in Gaza
The stranglehold on aid reaching Gaza threatens an “apocalyptic” outcome, the UN’s humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths has told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Speaking on the sidelines of meetings with Qatari officials in Doha, he said:
If fuel runs out, aid doesn’t get to the people where they need it, that famine, which we have talked about for so long, and which is looming, will not be looming any more. It will be present.
And I think our worry, as citizens of the international community, is that the consequence is going to be really, really hard. Hard, difficult, and apocalyptic.
Griffith, the UN’s undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, said about 50 trucks of aid a day could reach the hardest-hit north of Gaza through the reopened Erez crossing.
But battles near the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings in Gaza’s south meant the vital routes were “effectively blocked”, he explained (see earlier post at for more details about these crossings at 09.54).
“So aid getting in through land routes to the south and for Rafah, and the people dislodged by Rafah is almost nil,” Griffiths added.
As Israeli forces pushed further into Rafah, which had been the main gateway for aid into all of Gaza, humanitarian organisations have warned that not enough food was getting into an enclave which the US says faces an imminent famine.
Here is a video of the Israeli war cabinet minister, Benny Gantz, threatening to resign if Benjamin Netanyahu fails to adopt an agreed plan for Gaza:
Here are some of the latest images coming out from the newswires:
Jordan demands investigation of 'war crimes' in Gaza
Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, has said the kingdom demanded an international investigation into what it said were many war crimes committed during Israel’s war in Gaza.
In remarks made during a press conference with the head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa), Safadi said those responsible for documented crimes should be brought to justice.
Last month, the UN human rights council adopted a resolution calling for Israel to be held accountable for possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Gaza Strip.
Twenty-eight countries voted in favour, 13 abstained and six voted against the resolution, including the US and Germany.
The resolution emphasised “the need to ensure accountability for all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in order to end impunity”.
It also expressed “grave concern at reports of serious human rights violations and grave breaches of international humanitarian law, including of possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in the occupied Palestinian territory”. Israel has denied carrying out war crimes.
Iran has confirmed that it held indirect talks with the US in Oman despite the two countries having no diplomatic relations, state media reported.
Washington and Tehran have long been sharply at odds with tensions centred on Iran’s contested nuclear programme and heightened by the Gaza war between their respective allies Israel and Hamas.
On Friday, Axios reported that US and Iranian officials held indirect talks in Oman “on how to avoid escalating regional attacks”.
The official IRNA news agency confirmed on Saturday evening that “the representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations confirmed indirect negotiations between Iran and the United States in Oman”.
It quoted him as saying that “these negotiations were not the first and will not be the last”, without giving the time and place of the talks.
The discussions were held after Iran launched a drone and missile attack on Israel in mid April.
The barrage came in response to a deadly 1 April airstrike, widely blamed on Israel, that levelled Iran’s consulate in Damascus and killed seven Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals.
US national security adviser due to hold talks with Israel on Sunday
The White House has said the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, is due to hold talks with senior Israeli government officials on Sunday and will stress the need to target Hamas in a specific way, not with a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, according to reports.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled Rafah over the past fortnight after Israeli warnings to evacuate.
Sullivan is set to meet with Israeli national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, followed by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and security officials, an Israeli official told the Washington Post. Earlier on Sunday, Sullivan met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia (see opening summary for more details).
Netanyahu has previously suggested he will reject US pressure to hold off on a full-scale attack on Rafah, where about 1 million Palestinians had sought shelter after fleeing fighting earlier in the conflict. The Israeli prime minister says the city is Hamas’ last stronghold.
Updated
Officials say they have recovered bodies of 150 Palestinians killed by Israeli army in recent days
The Gaza Civil Emergency Service said rescue teams have recovered the bodies of 150 Palestinians killed by the Israeli army in recent days.
On Saturday, Israeli troops and tanks pushed into parts of a congested northern Gaza Strip district, killing and inuring dozens of Palestinians, medics and residents said.
Separately, residents said Israeli planes and tanks have struck areas across the Gaza Strip overnight, and that Israeli forces have pushed deeper into Jabalia in northern Gaza, returning to an area that they said they had cleared earlier in the war.
Israel is reportedly continuing the closure of the Rafah border crossing (located between Egypt and southern Gaza).
It has been a vital route for aid to the coastal territory, where an acute humanitarian crisis has deepened with many Palestinians at risk of famine.
On 7 May, Israel seized control of the crossing as it intensified its long-threatened offensive around the southern city of Rafah. Since then aid has accumulated on the Egyptian side.
Israel said it was up to Egypt to reopen the crossing and allow humanitarian relief into Gaza, prompting Cairo to denounce what it described as “desperate attempts” to shift blame for the blockage of aid.
The UN and other international aid agencies said the closing of two crossings into southern Gaza – Rafah and Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom – had virtually cut off the territory from outside aid.
Updated
At least nine Palestinians, including two children, have been arrested by Israeli occupation forces in the occupied West Bank, Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, reported.
In the months since the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed, the Palestinian prison population has almost doubled after Israeli forces began conducting regular raids across the West Bank, detaining more than 8,755 people, according to the Palestinian prisoners and ex-detainees commission.
Most were held under administrative detention, meaning without charge.
Updated
In the early hours of Sunday morning, Al Jazeera Arabic’s journalists on the ground reported Israeli raids in Rafah in the south of enclave and in the vicinity of the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, where raids were also reported in the sheikh Zayed and Zeitoun neighbourhoods.
Updated
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza and the wider crisis in the Middle East.
The al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, in central Gaza, said on Sunday that an Israeli airstrike targeting a house at a refugee camp killed at least 20 people.
“We received 20 fatalities and several wounded after an Israeli airstrike targeted a house belonging to the Hassan family in al-Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza,” the hospital said.
Witnesses said the strike occurred about 3am local time. Palestinian official news agency Wafa reported that several children were among the injured people, and that rescuers were searching for missing people trapped under the rubble.
Fierce battles and heavy Israeli bombardments have been reported in the central Nuseirat camp since the military launched an offensive on Rafah in early May.
Meanwhile, the United Nations said 800,000 people had been “forced to flee” Israel’s offensive in Rafah, the southern city where hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians had sought refuge from Israeli bombardments. Israel’s military says Hamas militants are located there.
“800,000 people are on the road having been forced to flee since the Israeli forces started the military operation in the area on 6 May”, the Unrwa chief said on X.
Here is a recap of the other latest developments:
Two Israeli soldiers were killed in a battle in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military said on Sunday. It said airstrikes hit more than 70 targets across Gaza with ground troops conducting raids in eastern Rafah, killing 50 militants.
Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan met early on Sunday with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to discuss what the kingdom described as the “semi-final” version of a security agreement between the countries. “The semi-final version of the draft strategic agreements between the kingdom and the United States of America, which are almost being finalized – and what is being worked on between the two sides in the Palestinian issue to find a credible path – were discussed,” the statement released after the talks said. That included “a two-state solution that meets the aspirations and legitimate rights of the Palestinian people” and “the situation in Gaza and the need to stop the war there and facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid,” the statement added.
Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, said it fired a barrage of rockets towards Israel’s port of Ashkelon and targeted an Israeli command centre at the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza. On Saturday evening, Israel’s military issued new evacuation orders for parts of northern Gaza, saying militants in the area had fired rockets at Israel.
In northern Gaza’s Beit Lahia, witnesses reported airstrikes near Kamal Adwan hospital.
Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz demanded on Saturday that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu commit to an agreed vision for the Gaza conflict that would include stipulating who might rule the territory after the war. In a news conference, Gantz said he wanted the war cabinet to form a six-point plan by 8 June. If his expectations are not met, Gantz said he would withdraw his centrist party from the emergency government. Netanyahu hit back, calling the threat “washed-up words” that would mean “defeat for Israel”.
Aid has begun entering Gaza via a temporary US-built floating pier. The Israeli army said 310 pallets began moving ashore in “the first entry of humanitarian aid through the floating pier”. Satellite pictures showed more than a dozen trucks lining up Saturday on its approach road. In the coming days, about 500 tonnes of aid are expected to be delivered via the pier, according to US Central Command.
British security firm Ambrey said on Saturday it had received information that a Panama-flagged crude oil tanker had been attacked approximately 10 nautical miles southwest of Yemen’s Mokha. Ambrey later added that the tanker had received assistance and one of its steering units was reportedly functional. It did not indicate who provided the assistance.
Austria said on Saturday it will restore its funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) after suspending it over allegations that staff were involved in the 7 October Hamas attacks. A total of €3.4m ($3.7m) in funds have been budgeted for 2024, and the first payment is expected to be made in the summer, Austria’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
Updated
