Closing summary
Diplomatic efforts increased on Sunday to reach a long sought-after truce and hostage-release deal in Gaza. The World Economic Forum (WEF) summit opened in the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh, which US secretary of state Antony Blinken and high-ranking officials from other countries trying to broker a ceasefire are also due to attend. While there is no Israeli participation, the other key players will discuss Israel’s war in Gaza, WEF president Borge Brende has said.
Speaking at the WEF summit, Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, said only the US could stop Israel attacking Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, where more than 1 million people are sheltering. Abbas added that he expected an assault on the city in the next days. “We call on the United States of America to ask Israel to not carry on the Rafah attack. America is the only country able to prevent Israel from committing this crime,” he was quoted as saying. “What will happen in the coming few days is what Israel will do with attacking Rafah because all the Palestinians from Gaza are gathered there,” Abbas said. He added that only a “small strike” on Rafah would force the Palestinian population to flee the Gaza Strip. “The biggest catastrophe in the Palestinian people’s history would then happen,” Abbas warned.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby later said that Israel had agreed to listen to US concerns and thoughts before it launches an invasion of Rafah. “They’ve assured us that they won’t go into Rafah until we’ve had a chance to really share our perspectives and our concerns with them,” Kirby told ABC. “What we’re hoping is that after six weeks of a temporary ceasefire, we can maybe get something more enduring in place,” Kirby said. “The Israelis have started to meet the commitments that (US) President (Joe) Biden asked them to meet,” he said. Biden has previously said that Israel should not go into Rafah without credible plans to protect civilians.
At least 34,454 Palestinian people have been killed and 77,575 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement. An estimated 66 people have been killed and 138 others injured over the past 24 hours, the ministry said.
A Hamas delegation will arrive in Egypt on Monday to deliver the group’s response to Israel’s new hostage and truce counterproposal, a senior official of the Palestinian militant group told Agence France-Presse (AFP). Hamas has previously insisted on a permanent ceasefire – a condition that Israel has rejected. However, the Axios news website, citing two Israeli officials, reported that Israel’s latest proposal includes a willingness to discuss the “restoration of sustainable calm” in Gaza after hostages are released.
During a visit to the headquarters of the United Nations’ peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon (UNIFIL), France’s foreign minister, Stéphane Séjourné, said that Paris had been making proposals to “avoid war in Lebanon”. “I will head to Beirut to meet political authorities to … make proposals,” he said. “Our responsibility is to mitigate escalation, and that is also our role in UNIFIL. We have 700 soldiers here.” Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group have exchanged near-daily fire since Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on 7 October, in which about 1,200 people were killed.
We are closing this blog now, but you can stay up to date on the Guardian’s Middle East coverage here.
Updated
Here are the quotes from White House national security spokesperson, John Kirby, about Israel having apparently agreed to listen to US concerns before it launches its planned invasion of Rafah (see earlier post at 14.43).
Washington has said it could not support a Rafah operation without an appropriate and credible humanitarian plan.
“They’ve assured us that they won’t go into Rafah until we’ve had a chance to really share our perspectives and our concerns with them,” Kirby told ABC.
“What we’re hoping is that after six weeks of a temporary ceasefire, we can maybe get something more enduring in place,” said Kirby, who also noted that the number of aid trucks into the north of Gaza was starting to increase.
“The Israelis have started to meet the commitments that (US) President (Joe) Biden asked them to meet,” he said.
