Summary of the day
Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
The Gaza Strip has been plunged into another communications blackout on Monday, the Palestinian telecoms provider Paltel said, with internet and phone service cut off across the besieged territory for the 10th time since 7 October. Communication services in Gaza partially returned on Friday after a weeklong blackout – the longest communications outage since the start of the war.
US officials have said a claim by Yemen’s Houthi forces that it carried out an attack against a US military cargo ship, Ocean Jazz, in the Gulf of Aden is not true. “The Yemeni armed forces continue to retaliate to any American or British aggression against our country by targeting all sources of threat in the Red and Arab Sea,” a Houthi miitary spokesperson said on Monday.
The Israeli foreign minister, Israel Katz, has been criticised by one of the EU’s most senior diplomats, Josep Borrell, for not properly engaging with a summit in Brussels designed to pave the way for a peace plan in the Middle East. Borrell told reporters Katz had come to the meeting to present plans for an artificial island off the coast of Gaza and a railway to India, adding: “I think the minister could have made better use of his time to worry about the security of his country and the high number of deaths in the Middle East and the high death toll in Gaza.”
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has said he is determined to pursue a two-state solution in the Middle East, as foreign ministers gathered in Brussels for talks with top Israeli and Palestinian diplomats. “What we want to do is to build a two-state solution. So let’s talk about it,” he said a day after Netanyahu reaffirmed a hardline against any Palestinian state on the grounds it would pose “an existential danger” to Israel.
Israel’s foreign ministry has denied that its foreign minister, Israel Katz, suggested that Palestinians could be housed on an artificial island in the Mediterranean during his presentation to his EU ministers in Brussels. It is understood that Katz presented a video on the concept to the 27 EU foreign ministers as an alternative to the two-state solution. EU foreign ministers were dismayed and “disappointed” that Israel Katz had come to Brussels with the suggestion to talk about plans for an artificial island off Gaza, a source said.
Israeli troops have stormed the al-Khair hospital in southern Gaza and have arrested medical staff, and placed another under siege on Monday, Palestinian officials said. Troops advanced for the first time into the al-Mawasi district near the Mediterranean coast, west of Khan Younis, the main city in southern Gaza, where the hospital is situated. The Palestinian Red Crescent said it was “extremely worried” about the safety of their teams “trapped inside” another Khan Younis hospital, al-Amal, which it said was “besieged” by Israeli forces.
At least 50 Palestinians were killed and 100 have been injured in Israeli military strikes on Khan Younis since Sunday night, a Gaza health ministry spokesperson said. “We believe that many victims are trapped under the rubble and in areas the occupation forces had invaded where the medical teams are unable to reach to them,” said Ashraf al-Qidra. A total of 25,295 Palestinians have been killed and 63,000 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said on Monday.
Family members of Israelis held hostage in the Gaza Strip have stormed a parliamentary meeting in Jerusalem to demand that Israel’s government does more to return their loved ones. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, pushed back on Monday after speculation that a new release of Gaza hostages was in the works. “There is no real proposal by Hamas. It’s not true,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office quoted him as saying.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has survived a no-confidence vote filed in protest at the “failure” to secure the return of the Israeli hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza. The motion received only 18 votes, failing to receive the necessary majority to pass in the 120-strong Knesset, and was boycotted by the coalition, the heads of which said they would “not take part in political shows during wartime”.
The US state department said it was devastated by the death of a Palestinian American teenager in the occupied West Bank, and called for an urgent investigation to determine how the 17-year-old died and to hold accountable those responsible. The death of Tawfiq Ajaq in the West Bank, where about 370 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since 7 October, came as tensions have been rising between Israel and the US.
The British prime minister’s official spokesperson said Downing Street was “disappointed” to hear of Netanyahu’s opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state, as the UK government vowed to continue its support for a two-state solution in the Middle East.
Ireland’s foreign minister, Micheál Martin, said Netanyahu’s insistence that there would be no two-state solution was “unacceptable”. Meanwhile, Stéphane Séjourné, France’s new foreign and European affairs minister, described Netanyahu’s remarks as “worrying”. Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, called on Hamas to end its terror on Israel and on Palestinian people.
Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, will visit Pakistan on 29 January, the foreign ministry has said. The countries will swap ambassadors and resume normal relations, it said, after Pakistan launched retaliatory strikes against militants in Iran in response to attacks by Tehran that targeted sites within Pakistan’s borders.
Two US Navy Seals who went missing during an operation to seize Iranian weapons bound for Yemen’s Houthi rebels have been declared dead after a 10-day search failed to locate them, the US military has said.
US denies Houthi claim that it attacked American ship in Gulf of Aden - report
US officials have said the claim by Yemen’s Houthi forces that it carried out an attack against a US military cargo ship, Ocean Jazz, in the Gulf of Aden is not true.
A US defense official, speaking to Fox News, dismissed the report as a Houthi propaganda, adding that the US military is not seeing or tracking any attacks at this time.
From Fox News’ Liz Friden:
U.S. defense officials tell Fox News reports the U.S. flagged cargo ship Ocean Jazz was targeted by Houthi's in the Gulf of Aden is not true. One of the officials dismissed this as Houthi propaganda and said the U.S. military is not seeing or tracking any attacks at this time.
— Liz Friden (@Liz_Friden) January 22, 2024
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