Closing summary
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Saturday there could be no permanent ceasefire in Gaza until Hamas was destroyed, casting doubt on a key part of a truce proposal that the US president, Joe Biden, said Israel itself had made. Biden said on Friday that Israel had proposed a deal involving an initial six-week truce with a partial Israeli military withdrawal and the release of some hostages while the two sides negotiated “a permanent end to hostilities”. However, Netanyahu’s statement said any notion that Israel would agree a permanent ceasefire before “the destruction of Hamas’ military and governing capabilities” was “a non-starter”.
The families of some Israeli hostages held by Hamas called for all parties to immediately accept the ceasefire proposal. Israel’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, also said Netanyahu should accept the proposal.
Egypt’s state-run Al-Qahera News said that officials from Egypt, the US and Israel would meet in Cairo over the weekend for talks about the Rafah crossing, which has been closed since Israel took over the Palestinian side in early May.
Residents reported tank fire in the Tal al-Sultan neighbourhood in west Rafah, while witnesses in the east and centre of the southern city described intense artillery shelling. “From the early hours of the night until this morning, the aerial and artillery bombardment has not stopped for a single moment,” a resident from west Rafah told Agence France-Presse (AFP). “There are a number of occupation (Israeli) snipers in high-rise buildings overseeing all areas of Tal al-Sultan … making the situation very dangerous.”
At least 36,379 Palestinian people have been killed and 82,407 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement. An estimated 95 Palestinians were killed and 350 injured in the past 24 hours alone, the ministry said.
Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said it launched a series of attacks on Israeli military positions on Saturday after state media reported Israel had stepped up its own strikes the night before. On Saturday morning, Hezbollah said it had carried out “an air assault using explosive drones against … the Yiftah barracks, targeting the positions of enemy officers and soldiers”. It said the attack was in retaliation for a drone strike on a motorcycle in Majdal Selm earlier in the day. The Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Committee said two people were injured in the drone strike.
We are closing this blog now, but you can stay up to date on the Guardian’s Middle East coverage here.
Updated
Israeli armed forces have detained 20 Palestinians, including a woman and former detainees, according to the latest joint statement issued by the Detainees’ Affairs Authority and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society.
The detentions took place across various West Bank areas, including Jenin, Nablus, Qalqilya, Bethlehem, Hebron, and Jerusalem, the statement said.
Since 7 October, the total number of Palestinians arrested in the occupied West Bank has risen to over 8,975, Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, reported.
Updated
