Summary
We are now closing the blog. Here is a round-up of events today:
The British government has formally sanctioned two far-right Israeli ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, following their conduct over the war in Gaza. The UK will join Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other nations in freezing the assets and imposing travel bans on Israel’s national security minister Ben-Gvir, and finance minister Smotrich.
Ben-Gvir expressed defiance to the UK government’s decision to impose sanctions on him and Smotrich. In a statement, Ben-Gvir said: “We survived Pharaoh, we will also survive Keir Starmer. I will continue to work for Israel and the people of Israel without fear or intimidation!”
Israel has deported Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg after she was detained along with other activists aboard a Gaza-bound aid boat. Thunberg accused Israel of “kidnapping us in international waters and taking us against our will to Israel”. She said she was flying to Sweden via France.
Israeli troops killed at least 17 Palestinians trying to reach food distribution sites on Tuesday morning, local health authorities in Gaza said.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will convene his cabinet on Thursday to discuss hostage talks, The Times of Israel reports. Netanyahu says there has been “significant progress” in hostage talks. “It’s too early to raise hopes,” he said in a video statement, “but we are working tirelessly right now, and all the time. I hope we will be able to move forward.”
The US no longer wholeheartedly endorses an independent state for Palestinians, US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, told Bloomberg News in an interview published on Tuesday.
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory says Israel’s attacks in Gaza amount to “war crimes” and “the crime against humanity of extermination.”
The United States and Israel are seeking to turn nuclear talks into a “strategic trap” for Iran, Iranian lawmakers said in a statement on Tuesday, days before a planned sixth round of Iran-US nuclear talks.
Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister between 2006 and 2009, said Trump should summon Netanyahu to the White House and, facing the cameras, tell the Israeli leader: “Bibi: enough is enough”. Olmert said: “This is it. I hope he [Trump] will do it.”
More than 300 Foreign Office staff have been told to consider resigning after they wrote a letter over fears the government had become complicit in Israel’s alleged war crimes in Gaza.
Sport in Gaza is on the brink of collapse, Asaad al-Majdalawi, vice president of the Palestinian Olympic committee, said. He told Al Jazeera that Gaza’s entire sporting infrastructure is on the brink of collapse.
Hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists taking part in a convoy crossed the Tunisian border on Tuesday into Libya, aiming to keep heading eastwards until they break Israel’s blockade on the Palestinian territory, the AFP reports.
In a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron, Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas said that Hamas “must hand over its weapons” and called for the deployment of international forces to protect “the Palestinian people”.
The international charity ActionAid UK has welcomed the UK government’s sanctions on two senior Israeli government officials, but urged for “much more” action as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is “deteriorating by the day”.
Hannah Bond, co-CEO of ActionAid UK, said there is “no justification for not taking further action immediately”, adding:
Until the government halts all arms exports to the Israeli government, the UK risks complicity in these atrocities.
There is no more time to waste: the UK must use every diplomatic lever available to it now to bring about a permanent end to the violence, release the hostages, let humanitarian supplies into Gaza and ensure accountability for all breaches of international humanitarian law.
