Closing summary
It is just past 6pm in Tel Aviv and Gaza. Here is a roundup of the main headlines so far today:
Lebanon’s Hezbollah armed group said on Monday afternoon that it had launched a squadron of drones towards the headquarters of the Israel military’s Galilee formation. The IDF said in comments reported in the Israeli media that the attack had caused no injuries.
The Rafah border crossing critical to aid deliveries into Gaza from Egypt cannot operate again unless Israel relinquishes control and hands it back to Palestinians on the Gaza side, Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry said. “It is difficult for the Rafah crossing to continue operating without a Palestinian administration,” he said in a press conference with his Spanish counterpart in Madrid.
A group of UN experts has called for all countries to recognise a Palestinian state to ensure peace in the Middle East. The experts, including the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories, said recognition of a Palestinian state was an important acknowledgment of the rights of the Palestinian people and their struggle towards freedom and independence.
Benny Gantz said he made it clear to the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, in their phone call yesterday that he views returning hostages as a “priority on the war’s timeline”. Gantz – part of the Israeli war cabinet, alongside prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant – said Israel will do “whatever is necessary” to achieve this goal.
Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, later accused Netanyahu of trying to “whitewash” a deal to wind down the war on Gaza that is being advanced by the US president, Joe Biden, and repeated a threat to quit the government. He told his parliamentary faction that Netanyahu invited him to read the proposal but the prime minister’s aides twice failed to produce the document.
The Israeli prime minister said that Biden, in advancing a plan to wind down the war in Gaza, had published only some of the details. “The war will be stopped for the purpose of returning hostages and then we will proceed with other discussions,” David Mencer, an Israeli government spokesperson, quoted Netanyahu as saying.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, praised Hamas’s 7 October attack against Israel and predicted the “destruction” of Israel. He was quoted as saying the attack, in which about 1,200 people were killed, “was a decisive blow to the Zionist regime” and put Israel “on the path that will only end in its destruction”.
About 55% of all structures in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed, damaged or possibly damaged since the war erupted in October, according to preliminary satellite analysis by the UN. The analysis showed more than 137,000 buildings affected, according to Unosat, the UN satellite analysis agency.
At least 36,479 Palestinian people have been killed and 82,777 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said.
Rockets launched from Lebanon hit 'open areas' and caused no injuries, IDF reportedly says
Thirty rockets launched from Lebanon at the northern Golan Heights struck open areas and caused no injuries, the Israeli military has said in a story reported by The Times of Israel.
The IDF reportedly said no sirens sounded.
Updated
