Closing summary
It is 6pm in Rafah, Tel Aviv and Beirut, and 7.30pm in Tehran. We will be closing this blog soon, but you can stay up to date on the Guardian’s Middle East coverage here.
Here is a recap of the latest developments:
G7 foreign ministers on Saturday said they were worried by the risk of forcible displacement of Palestinian civilians out of Gaza and the possible consequences of an Israeli military operation in the Rafah region.
At least 120 patients and five medical teams are stuck without water, food and electricity in the Nasser hospital in Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Younis, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.
There is an “extraordinary opportunity” in the months ahead for Israel to be integrated into the Middle East as Arab countries are willing to normalise ties with the country, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Saturday. Speaking at a panel at the Munich Security Conference, Blinken also highlighted the “urgent” imperative to proceed with a Palestinian state that would also ensure the security of Israel.
German chancellor Olaf Scholz, said Germany was asking Israel to abide by international law in the conflict in Gaza and not to open a second front on its northern border with Lebanon. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Scholz also said it should be made impossible for Iran to exploit the conflict to expand its influence and urged the need for humanitarian aid to get to Gaza.
Head of the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniyeh blamed Israel for a lack of progress in achieving a ceasefire deal in Gaza in a statement issued on Saturday. Haniyeh added that Hamas “will not accept anything less than a complete cessation of the aggression, withdrawal of the occupation army from Gaza, and lifting of the unjust siege”. He also insisted that Israel must free Palestinian prisoners serving long sentences in any upcoming swap deal.
The US president, Joe Biden said he doesn’t expect an offensive on the densely populated Rafah region of Gaza. Speaking at a press conference held after the announcement by Moscow of the death of dissident Alexei Navalny, Biden said a ‘temporary ceasefire’ was necessary to evacuate hostages held in Gaza.
The US is preparing to send bombs and other weapons to Israel even as the US pushes for a ceasefire in the war on Gaza, reports The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Citing current and former US officials, the US news publication said the proposed arms delivery is estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars.
The Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said that “to address the Red Sea issue, the root cause must be resolved, and the root cause is the ongoing fighting in Gaza”. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Yi said: “China’s position is clear on that: first, an immediate ceasefire must be realised. No more fighting.”
Iran unveiled two new air defence systems on Saturday, state media reported. The Arman missile system “has a medium range and a high altitude that can identify targets at 180 kilometres and engage and destroy them at 120 kilometres,” defence minister Mohammad-Reza Ashtiani said, while the new Azarakhsh defence system can be mounted on multiple vehicle types and “uses radar, electro-optical system and thermal seekers to detect and track its target”.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) published photographs, which it said showed “the brutality with which the Israeli occupation forces treated two doctors whom they arrested a week ago from al-Amal hospital”, on its X account. The PRCS also published a post on X on Friday saying that Israel had “deliberately” created “false narratives about the work of the Palestinian Red Crescent by publishing a video of an ambulance and paramedics providing treatment to an injured fighter”.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will give a press conference this evening at 7.30 pm (5.30pm GMT), said the Times of Israel. Netanyahu’s address comes as international pressure grows on Israel to hold off launching an offensive in the southern Gaza town of Rafah and amid an apparent deadlock in talks for a hostage deal.
Israel is waging a concerted campaign aimed at destroying UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said in an interview published on Saturday. Calls for his resignation were also part of the Israeli government’s push, he told the Swiss newspaper group Tamedia.
Gaza’s largest functioning hospital was under siege on Friday in Israel’s war with Hamas, leaving patients and doctors helpless in the chaos as warplanes struck Rafah, officials said. Reuters reported that Israeli forces remained in Nasser hospital in the town of Khan Younis after raiding it early on Thursday. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said five intensive-care patients died on Friday due to power outages and lack of oxygen supply caused by the attack.
Israel has not presented specific evidence that Hamas is diverting UN aid, said David Satterfield, the Biden administration’s special Middle East envoy for humanitarian issues. He also said Israel’s recent targeted killings of Gaza police commanders safeguarding truck convoys have made it “virtually impossible” to distribute the goods safely. Israel has alleged repeatedly that Hamas is diverting aid, including fuel, after it enters Gaza, a claim denied by UN aid agencies.
Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters marched through the streets of Madrid on Saturday to demand an immediate ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas. Six ministers from Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez’s cabinet took part – all five from hard-left party Sumar, his junior coalition partners, as well as transport minister Óscar Puente of the premier’s Socialist party.
At least 28,858 Palestinians have been killed and 68,667 injured in Gaza since the 7 October, says the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.
An urgent joint statement warning of the “catastrophic” consequences of an Israeli ground offensive in Rafah has been issued by CEOs of humanitarian agencies and human rights organisations. It includes signatories from Oxfam, Amnesty International, ActionAid, War Child, the Danish Refugee Council and Handicap International. The Israeli military offensive has made it “virtually impossible for our collective agencies to meaningfully and effectively deliver humanitarian work,” they said in a joint statment, which also criticised the “silence” and “material support for Israel’s military operations by powerful nations”, which it says “signals distressing complicity in Gaza’s deepening crisis”.
A climate of fear pervades a hospital in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, where patients and doctors are reeling from last month’s deadly raid by Israeli agents disguised as medics, reports news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP). The Israeli military justified the killing inside a medical facility, which are granted special protection under international law, by saying the trio were “terrorists” who were “hiding” in the hospital, but the The World Health Organization (WHO) said it was “appalled” by the attack. As well as being afraid of a repeat of the special forces raid, the killings have also created suspicion among patients and medics, reports AFP.
Doctors have warned that patients with chronic illnesses in Gaza are failing to get treatment. The chronically ill are the hidden casualties of the war, as access to water, food and medicine is severely restricted, said Guillemette Thomas, the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) medical coordinator for Palestine.
On Friday, police killed one person as it opened fire after a crowd charged toward an aid truck that had emerged from the Rafah crossing with Egypt, Wael Abu Omar, a spokesperson for the local crossings authority said. Last week, an Israeli airstrike on a car killed three senior police commanders in Rafah, the first entry point for aid deliveries. Two other officers were killed in another strike.
Egypt has begun building an enclosed area ringed with high concrete walls along its border with Gaza that appears intended to house Palestinians fleeing a threatened Israeli assault on the southern city of Rafah. Photos and videos released by the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights (SFHR), a monitoring group, show workers using heavy machinery erecting concrete barriers and security towers around a strip of land on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing.
US Central Command (Centcom) said on Saturday that four anti-ship ballistic missiles were launched on Friday from Iranian-backed Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen into the Red Sea. At least three of the missiles were launched towards oil tanker Pollux, a Panamanian-flagged and Denmark-owned vessel, said Centcom. Earlier on Saturday, Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said that they had fired missiles at oil tanker Pollux.
At least 120 patients and five medical teams are stuck without water, food and electricity in the Nasser hospital, says health ministry
At least 120 patients and five medical teams are stuck without water, food and electricity in the Nasser hospital in Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Younis, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.
Israel has for weeks concentrated its military operations in Khan Younis, the home town of Hamas’s Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, the alleged architect of the 7 October attack that triggered the war, reports AFP.
Intense fighting has raged around the Nasser hospital – one of the Palestinian territory’s last major medical facilities that remains even partly operational.
The power was cut and the generators stopped after the raid, leading to the deaths of six patients due to a lack of oxygen, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
“Newborn children are at a risk of dying in the next few hours,” the ministry warned on Saturday.
