This blog is now closed. You can see all our coverage of the Middle East here and all our coverage of the Israel-Gaza war here.
British foreign secretary David Cameron will travel to Oman on Tuesday where he is expected to call for stability over ongoing Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and de-escalating of tensions in the Middle East, the foreign office has said according to Reuters. The news agency writes:
Cameron, on his fourth visit to the Middle East, will travel to Oman to meet his counterpart Badr Albusaidi to discuss how to diminish tensions across the region.
The Houthi attacks on international shipping lines in the Red Sea will be a major focus of his discussions, the foreign office said in a statement.
Cameron will reiterate Britain’s commitment to getting aid into Yemen, and outline the actions Britain is taking to deter the Houthis from targeting ships in the Red Sea.
In an earlier diplomatic tour, Cameron met Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and politicians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where the western-backed Palestinian Authority is based, and visited Qatar to discuss the situation in Gaza.
In his meetings in Israel, Cameron said he stressed the need for a pause in fighting to secure the release of hostages seized by Hamas militants during a cross-border attack on 7 October.
As we reported earlier, 215 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in the past 24 hours, according to the territory’s ministry of health, despite an interim ICJ ruling last week calling on Israel to do all within its power to limit civilian casualties.
Among the dead were six family members of a 6-year-old girl called Hind, who was the only survivor after Israeli forces shot at the car she was in with her family, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS). The dead included four children, the agency said.
In a Twitter post, the PRCS said Hind was trapped in the car and “remained for hours pleading for our teams to reach her and evacuate her from the area surrounded by Israeli tanks.” In a series of posts it continued:
For more than three hours, the PRCS team maintained communication with the 6-year-old girl Hind, soothing her amidst her continuous pleas for evacuation from the vehicle.
Coordination was established through the Palestinian Coordination and Liaison Office with Israeli authorities to dispatch A PRCS ambulance to the location.
Around 6:00 PM, our teams reached the area where Hind was trapped inside the vehicle, which had been shot near the Fares petrol station in Gaza. Since then, we lost contact with the team, and as of now, we are uncertain if our teams successfully reached the girl.
Hind, was with her extended family (her mother’s uncle) when the vehicle was shot. She remained alone inside the vehicle after everyone in it, including the mother, father, and four children tragically lost their lives.
It was not possible to independently verify the account.
💔This is a picture of the 6 years old girl Hind who remained trapped inside a vehicle fired upon by the occupation forces, resulting in the martyrdom of everyone inside (6 individuals). Hind remained for hours pleading for our teams to reach her and evacuate her from the area… pic.twitter.com/V3VC1GlhGg
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) January 29, 2024
Updated
The Israeli military says it has carried out airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.
“The targets included Hezbollah’s infrastructure and an observation post located in the southern Lebanese areas of Markaba, Taybeh, and Maroun al-Ras,” the army said in a statement.
The IDF army also confirmed that several projectiles had been launched from Lebanon and said forces “responded by targeting the launch sites and other locations in Lebanon”.
Israel’s army chief Herzi Halevi said earlier this month that the likelihood of war on the northern border has become “much higher”, Agence France-Presse reports.
“I don’t know when the war in the north is, I can tell you that the likelihood of it happening in the coming months is much higher than it was in the past,” Halevi said.
Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday that Israeli troops will “very soon go into action” near the country’s northern border with Lebanon. Gallant told troops near the border with the besieged Gaza Strip that others were being deployed to Israel’s north. “They will very soon go into action … so the forces in the north are reinforced,” Gallant said.
בתוך פחות משעתיים מאז התקיפה האחרונה, מטוסי קרב תקפו פעם נוספת מטרות טרור של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה בלבנון.
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) January 29, 2024
במסגרת התקיפה, הושמדו מספר תשתיות טרור של הארגון לצד עמדת תצפית במרחבים מרכבא, א- טייבה ומרון א-ראס בדרום לבנון>> pic.twitter.com/1ZEhKy9t4W
The US military (Centcom) have posted on X about the death of US troops in Jordan.
Centcom says “We are deeply saddened by the loss of our three Army Soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice while serving their country in Jordan.”
"We are deeply saddened by the loss of our three Army Soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice while serving their country in Jordan. Our prayers are with these loyal and courageous Soldiers’ families, friends, and the entire 718th Engineer Company - we honor their selfless…
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) January 29, 2024
Reged Ahmad here picking up the blog from Leonie Chao-Fong
Let’s get more on what Qatar’s prime minister sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al Thani has been saying.
He says he hopes US retaliation for an drone attack that killed three US troops in Jordan won’t undercut progress toward a new Israel-Hamas hostage release deal
I hope that nothing would undermine the efforts that we are doing or jeopardise the process
Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al Thani was speaking in front of a Washington thinktank audience and gave the response when asked if US retaliation for the attack by Iran-backed militants could scuttle an emerging deal, Reuters reports.
The Qatari prime minister said US retaliation “will definitely have an impact … one way or another it will definitely have an impact on regional security and we hope things get contained.”
The drone attack was the first deadly strike against US forces since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in October, and marked a major escalation in tensions that have engulfed the Middle East. CIA Director William Burns met sheikh Mohammed, as well as the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service and the head of Egyptian intelligence on Sunday in Paris for talks described as constructive by Israel, Qatar and the US, albeit with significant gaps remaining.
Summary of the day so far
Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the US will respond “decisively” to aggression and hold those responsible for the drone attack on a US military base in Jordan that killed three US troops and wounded dozens more to account. The three US service personnel who were killed in the drone strike have been named by the Pentagon as Sgt William Jerome Rivers, 46, Specialist Kennedy Sanders, 24, and Specialist Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23. The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, vowed that the US will take “all necessary actions” to defend its troops, while the Pentagon said it did not believe that Iran is seeking a war with the US, and that Washington doesn’t want a war either.
The enemy drone that was used in the attack on a US base in Jordan may have been confused with an American drone returning to the US installation, according to a report. In describing the drone attack, the two US officials, who were not authorised to comment and insisted on anonymity, said preliminary accounts suggest the enemy drone that struck the installation known as Tower 22 may have been mistaken for an American drone that was in the air at the same time. An Iranian-made drone was used in the deadly attack on Sunday, according to one US official.
The framework for a deal that could lead to a ceasefire and the release of hostages held in Gaza is being put to the Hamas leadership, Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said on Monday. Speaking after talks in Paris between officials from the US, Qatar, Egypt and Israel, he said: “We are in a better place than we were a few weeks ago.” The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, also voiced hope. The US believes talks are “moving in a good direction” but there is no imminent deal, the White House said.
Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine reiterated that Israel must halt its offensive and withdraw from Gaza before any prisoner exchange takes place. Israel remains opposed to a permanent ceasefire and wants to retain a right to recommence hostilities against Hamas – something the Hamas leadership wants ruled out. A senior Hamas official, Taher al-Nunu, said the Palestinian militant group wanted a “complete and comprehensive ceasefire” in Gaza.
The UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has warned it would not be able to continue operations in Gaza and across the region beyond the end of February if funding did not resume. Israel has claimed several UNRWA staff took part in the 7 October attacks or in the aftermath, including a school counsellor who allegedly kidnapped an Israeli woman. A string of western countries including the US and the UK have suspended funding to the agency, which provides aid to more than 5.6 million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East. The charity ActionAid described the withdrawal of funding for UNRWA as a “death sentence” for the population of Gaza.
At least 26,637 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza and a further 65,387 injured, according to the latest figures by Gaza’s health ministry on Monday. Two hundred and fifteen Palestinians were killed in the last 24 hours, the ministry reported.
The surgical ward at al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza has completely halted operations due to oxygen supplies running out, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said on Monday. Heavy fighting has continued around hospitals in Khan Younis over the past few days, the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA said in its latest update on the conflict, noting that only 14 of 36 hospitals in Gaza are now partially functional. Khan Younis’ Nasser hospital, until recently the largest still accepting patients in southern Gaza, is now only “minimally functioning”, OCHA said.
Israel has struck an Iran-linked site south of the Syrian capital, Damascus, killing several people on Monday. Iranian and Syrian official media said the attacks came from the Golan Heights and were attributed to Israel. They have not been regarded as a direct response to the attack on the Tower 22 base on Jordan’s border with Iraq and Syria. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes hit a farm housing members of Lebanon’s Iran-backed militant Hezbollah group and other Iran-backed factions. It said seven people were killed, including four Syrians, one of whom was the bodyguard of a member of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards.
Israeli troops will “very soon go into action” near the country’s northern border with Lebanon, the country’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has said. The Israeli minister, addressing troops near the Gaza border on Monday, also warned that the war against Hamas “will take months”, and claimed that quarter of Hamas fighters have been killed and at least another quarter have been wounded.
Five Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in four different incidents in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in the past 24 hours, the Palestinian health ministry said on Monday. Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that 378 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank since 7 October.
Israeli politicians and ministers have attended a conference calling for Israeli resettlement of the Gaza Strip and “voluntary migration” of the Palestinian population elsewhere. The prominent role of government figures in the far-right conference on Sunday appears to violate the international court of justice ruling last week that Israel must “take all measures within its power” to avoid acts of genocide in its war in Gaza, including the “prevention and punishment of genocidal rhetoric”. The White House described the comments as “irresponsible, reckless and incendiary”.
The US and the UK announced sanctions against individuals who they said targeted Iranian dissidents and activists for assassination at the direction of the Iranian regime. The UK Foreign Office announced sanctions against seven individuals and one organisation who it said were involved in threats to kill journalists on British soil, and others it said were part of international criminal gangs linked to Iran.
US government employees are planning a “day of fasting for Gaza” this week to draw attention to the humanitarian crisis in the territory and to denounce Joe Biden’s policy toward Israel.
Updated
More than 1,000 musical artists from the Eurovision host country, Sweden, have signed an open letter calling for Israel to be excluded from this year’s edition of the song contest over its “brutal warfare in Gaza”.
Published in Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, the open letter says that by allowing Israel to participate, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) “is exhibiting a remarkable double standard that undermines the organisation’s credibility”.
The letter, published late on Monday, reads:
The fact that countries that place themselves above humanitarian law are welcomed to participate in international cultural events trivialises violations of international law and makes the suffering of the victims invisible.
Signatories include internationally successful artists such as the singers Robyn and Fever Ray, the folk duo First Aid Kit, and former Swedish Eurovision contestants such as Eric Saade and Malena Ernman, the mezzo-soprano opera singer who is also the mother of the climate activist Greta Thunberg.
The letter comes after a similar petition signed by about 1,400 artists from Finland and Iceland who also called for Israel to be excluded from the song contest, which will be held in Malmö from 7 to 11 May.
Updated
Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, will meet with families of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza at the White House on Tuesday, a US official said.
Several families of the hostages are in Washington DC this week, while others may dial in to the meeting, the administration told CNN.
The meeting comes as the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, voiced hope for a new deal that could lead to the release of hostages and a ceasefire in Gaza.
The framework for such a deal is being put to the Hamas leadership, Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said earlier today after talks in Paris between officials from the US, Qatar, Egypt and Israel.
Joe Biden has vowed to hold all those responsible for the drone attack on a US military base in Jordan to account “at a time and in a manner of our choosing”.
The US president shared a picture of a meeting earlier today with his national security team, including the defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, on the attack that killed three American service personnel and wounded dozens of people.
Today, I was briefed by members of my national security team in the Situation Room on the latest developments regarding the attack on U.S. service members in northeastern Jordan.
— President Biden (@POTUS) January 29, 2024
As I've said, we'll hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner of our choosing. pic.twitter.com/pLScFuXjk2
Updated
New Zealand will not commit to its $1m NZD (£482,210) annual payment to the UNRWA, following accusations over its staff’s involvement in Hamas’s 7 October attacks, until it is satisfied with the outcome of the UN’s investigation.
Speaking to media on Tuesday morning, the prime minister, Christopher Luxon, said New Zealand would pause its contribution – due in June – until its foreign minister, Winston Peters, is happy to give it the green light.
I mean the allegations are incredibly serious, it’s important they are properly understood and investigated, we won’t be making any further contributions until the foreign minister says it’s good to do so.
Luxon said New Zealand remains committed to supporting the humanitarian response in Gaza, and will continue to call for safe and unimpeded humanitarian access.
What I’d just remind everybody is that our funding is about a million dollars a year, we’ve already offered $10m in humanitarian assistance and we’ve split that money between the International Red Cross and also the World Food Programme.
Helen Clark – a former New Zealand prime minister and former UN Development Programme administrator – has urged western countries to reinstate the funding to avoid “a harsh collective punishment of the Gazan people”.
Updated
Iranian-made drone used in Jordan attack, US official reportedly says
A US official has said that a Iranian-made drone was used in the deadly attack on Sunday against on a US military base in Jordan, according to a report.
The official told CBS that the drone used in the attack wasa “type of Shahed drone”, a one-way attack drone that Iran has been providing to Russia.
Iran has denied it was behind the drone strike, but Islamic Resistance in Iraq have claimed responsibility as part of efforts, galvanised by the Israel-Hamas war, to try to drive US troops out of Iraq and Syria.
Updated
France has condemned a conference held in Jerusalem on Sunday promoting the Israeli resettlement of the Gaza Strip and “voluntary migration” of the Palestinian population elsewhere.
The event, called the “Victory of Israel Conference: Settlement Brings Security”, hosted speeches by members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government including the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich.
In their remarks on Sunday, both Ben-Gvir and Smotrich called for the re-establishment of Jewish settlements in Gaza and the north of the West Bank, known to some Israelis as Samaria.
The conference was attended by 11 cabinet ministers and 15 members of the Knesset, some of them members of the prime minister’s Likud party.
A spokesperson for the French foreign ministry said:
We expect from the Israeli authorities a clear denunciation of these position.
US still believes genocide charge against Israel 'without merit', says Blinken
Antony Blinken was asked about the Biden administration’s response to the international court of justice (ICJ) ruling last week ordering Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent its forces from carrying out genocide against Palestinians.
The US continues to “believe clearly that allegations of genocide are without merit”, the secretary of state told reporters.
He said Washington has consistently made clear to Israel about the imperative of taking every possible step to protect civilian life in Gaza, to get humanitarian assistance to those who need it, and to address the “dehumanising” rhetoric from some individuals. Blinken added:
The court in this decision agreed with that. The court’s ruling is also very consistent with our view that Israel has the right to take action to ensure that the terrorist attacks of October 7 never happen again, in accordance with international law.
The US will continue to monitor the UN court’s proceedings as it moved forward with the case, he added.
Blinken says 'real hope' for new hostage release deal
Antony Blinken described the proposal on the table for a new hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas as “strong and compelling”.
The US secretary of state noted “the less said the better” in terms of negotiations on a new hostage deal, but that the work that is being done is “important and hopeful”.
He said Hamas “will have to make its own decisions”, and that it is his “strong assessment” that Israel would “very much like to see this process of hostages coming out”. He added:
I can say that very important, productive work has been done, and there is some real hope going forward.
The US will look hard at what steps the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) takes in response to “deeply troubling” allegations that some of its employees took part in the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel, Antony Blinken said.
The secretary of state said he had a “good conversation” with the UN secretary general, António Guterres, who had informed him of these allegations.
Blinken said the US will be “looking very hard” at the steps taken to make sure that the allegations are fully and thoroughly investigated, that there is clear accountability, and that necessary measures are put in place to prevent it from happening. He said:
It is imperative that UNRWA immediately, as it said it would, investigate, that it hold people accountable as necessary, and that it review its procedures.
He noted that while the US has not investigated the allegations, that the claims are “highly credible”.
Blinken said UNRWA has played an “absolutely indispensable” role in getting desperately needed assistance to Palestinians in Gaza, and that no one else can play that role. “It’s more than imperative that that role continues,” he added.
US response to drone attack could be 'multi-levelled and sustained over time', says Blinken
US secretary of state Antony Blinken noted that the situation in the Middle East is “incredibly volatile”, adding:
I would argue that we’ve not seen a situation as dangerous as the one we’re facing now across the region at least 1973, and arguably even before that.
The US will defend its personnel and interests, and has taken significant action to deter groups and degrade their capabilities in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, he said.
President Biden has been “very clear that we want to prevent broader escalation” in the region but has also warned that the US will respond “strongly” to anyone who will try to use the crisis to create further instability or attack American personnel, he said.
Blinken said:
As the president said yesterday, we will respond. That response could be multi-levelled, come in stages, and be sustained over time.
The secretary of state emphasised that the US “does not seek conflict” with Iran but will respond “very vigorously” to the drone attack in Jordan.
Antony Blinken said the US remains focused on its core objectives in the Middle East, ie “To build a truly durable peace and security”.
The US secretary of state noted that it is critical to find a formula for a “durable end to the cycle of violence” in the region, in which Israel can “move forward in peace and security” and a Palestinian Authority “that is reformed and a clear pathway to a Palestinian state”.
The way to durable security is through a region “that is more integrated, where the relations among its countries are normalised, and where the question of the rights of Palestinians are finally answered”, he said.
Updated
US will respond 'decisively' to aggression, says Blinken on drone attack
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is currently holding a press conference in Washington alongside the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg.
Speaking about the drone attack on a US military outpost in Jordan that killed three American service personnel, Blinken said the US has been “very clear” from the outset in warning that anyone “looking to take advantage of the conflict in the Middle East and to try and expand it: don’t do it.” He said:
The president has been crystal clear: we will respond decisively to any aggression, and we will hold responsible the people who attacked our troops at a time and a place of our choosing.
Updated
In addition to the statement from Hamas, moments ago, it is further reported that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was also behind the issuing of the statement.
It is a reiteration of the groups’ stance that Israel must halt its Gaza offensive and withdraw from the Strip before any prisoner exchange takes place, Reuters writes.
The PFLP is the second major faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) after the PLO president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement. It joined the fighting against Israel following Hamas’s 7 October attack.
The Guardian has in the past described the PFLP as a secular political movement with an armed wing that in the past carried out attacks against Israel.
Updated
Hamas says hostage release can be discussed in event of 'complete and comprehensive ceasefire' in Gaza
A senior Hamas official said on Monday that the Palestinian militant group wanted a “complete and comprehensive ceasefire” in Gaza, after mediator Qatar said a framework for a temporary truce was being proposed, Agence France-Presse reports.
We are talking first of all about a complete and comprehensive ceasefire, and not a temporary truce,” Taher al-Nunu told AFP.
The official added that once the fighting stopped:
The rest of the details can be discussed”, including a hostage release.
Qatar, along with Egypt and the United States, has led mediation efforts since war broke out on 7 October between Israel and Hamas, triggered by the Palestinian militant group’s deadly attacks on southern Israel.
Earlier on Monday the Qatari prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said that meetings in Paris with CIA chief, Bill Burns, and top Israeli and Egyptian security officials had resulted in a framework for a phased truce.
He confirmed that the framework would see women and children hostages released first, with aid also entering the besieged Gaza Strip.
The parties were:
Hoping to relay this proposal to Hamas and to get them to a place where they engage positively and constructively in the process”, Sheikh Mohammed said.
It was unclear on Monday whether Hamas had received the proposal from Qatar.
Previously, Qatar mediated a one-week break in fighting in late November that led to the release of scores of Israeli and foreign hostages, as well as aid entering the besieged Palestinian territory.
🛑 Media advisor to the head of the Hamas political bureau, Taher al-Nunu:
— Arya - آریا 🇮🇷 (@AryJeay) January 29, 2024
• Firstly, we are talking about a comprehensive and complete ceasefire, not a temporary truce.
• The fundamental point is to halt the aggression on the Gaza Strip, and when that is achieved, other… pic.twitter.com/sIK2FPsas3
Updated
US troops killed in drone strike in Jordan named
The Pentagon has now named all three of the US troops who were killed on Sunday in the drone strike in Jordan, understood to have been launched by an Iranian-backed militia mainly based in Iraq.
Those killed were army reservists from the US state of Georgia: Sgt William Jerome Rivers, 46, of Carrollton, Specialist Kennedy Sanders, 24, of Waycross and Specialist Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, of Savannah, the Associated Press reports.
All three were reservists assigned to the 926th Engineer Brigade based at Fort Moore, Georgia.
Sanders’s father Shawn said:
She was speaking with her mom the day before. It wasn’t like they were at high alert or in a secure bunker.
Joe Biden has promised that the US will respond. Shawn Sanders said he was confident Biden will make an appropriate decision. Asked what he thinks would be the correct response, the grieving father declined to say.
Out of anger for losing a child, I just can’t,” he said.
Updated
The US Department of Defense said that the number of US troops injured in the drone strike on US forces based in Jordan on Sunday has now risen to 40.
The toll of those wounded had previously been put at 34, with various levels of severity.
Meanwhile the Pentagon said that the three US soldiers who were killed in Jordan by the drone strike were from an army reserve unit based in Georgia, in the southern US. One of the dead soldiers was a 24-year-old woman from Waycross, Georgia. Details about the others are awaited, Reuters and the Associated Press report.
The family of the female army reservist revealed her identity as Kennedy Sanders, who joined the military about five years ago and volunteered to deploy to the Middle East last fall.
The soldier’s father, Shawn Sanders, said on Monday that there was no sense his daughter was in danger when she spoke to family members by phone on Saturday. They had been planning to celebrate her homecoming in June.
Updated
US does not want war with Iran – Pentagon
The Pentagon said moments ago that it does not believe that Iran is seeking a war with the United States, and that Washington doesn’t want a war either.
Echoing the White House a little earlier, the Pentagon statement came a day after an Iran-backed group killed three US soldiers and wounded dozens more in Jordan, Reuters reports.
A Pentagon spokesperson, Sabrina Singh, blamed Iran for enabling groups attacking the United States and said the latest attack carried the “footprints” of Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah.
We don’t seek war, but we will take action, and respond to attacks on our forces,” Singh said.
Updated
Summary of the day so far
Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said the US would take “all necessary actions” to defend its troops after Iran-backed militants killed three US troops and wounded dozens more in a drone attack on a US base in Jordan. The White House national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, said the US will “respond appropriately” but that Washington was not seeking direct confrontation with Iran. Joe Biden met members of his national security team on Monday to discuss the attack on US service members at a military outpost in Jordan.
Joe Biden is under pressure from Republicans to strike Iran directly, and even bomb Tehran, after the drone attack on Sunday marked the first deadly strike against US troops since the Israel-Gaza war erupted in October. Three US service personnel were killed and 34 wounded on Sunday after a drone hit a residential quarters at a military outpost in Jordan known as Tower 22, which lies on the border between Iraq and Syria. US officials have said preliminary accounts suggest the enemy drone may have been confused with an American drone returning to the US installation.
Rishi Sunak said he was concerned by the drone attack in Jordan that killed three US service personnel, as he urged Iran to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East. Downing Street has declined to comment on whether it would back any US response to the drone attack, but insisted Britain was working to “ensure regional stability”.
At least 26,637 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza and a further 65,387 injured, according to the latest figures by Gaza’s health ministry on Monday. Two hundred and fifteen Palestinians were killed in the last 24 hours, the ministry reported.
The surgical ward at al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza has completely halted operations due to oxygen supplies running out, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society has said. Heavy fighting has continued around hospitals in Khan Younis over the past two days, the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA said in its latest update on the conflict, noting that only 14 of 36 hospitals in Gaza are now partially functional. Khan Younis’ Nasser hospital, until recently the largest still accepting patients in southern Gaza, is now only “minimally functioning”, OCHA said.
Five Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in four different incidents in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in the past 24 hours, the Palestinian health ministry said on Monday. Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that 378 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank since 7 October.
Israel has struck an Iran-linked site south of the Syrian capital, Damascus, killing several people on Monday. Iranian and Syrian official media said the attacks came from the Golan Heights and were attributed to Israel. They have not been regarded as a direct response to the attack on the Tower 22 base on the weekend.
Hamas fired a barrage of rockets at Tel Aviv and nearby cities on Monday, after weeks of relative quiet in central Israel. Israel’s military said 15 rockets had been fired, six of which were intercepted. There were no reports of casualties.
Israeli troops will “very soon go into action” near the country’s northern border with Lebanon, the country’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has said.
Qatar’s prime minister has said “good progress” was made during weekend talks with US, Israeli and Egyptian officials in Paris on a way forward toward a new hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas. Jordan’s border with Iraq and Syria. Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said on Monday that he hoped to present a framework for such a deal to Hamas “and get them to a place where they engage constructively”. The US believes talks on a deal are “moving in a good direction” but that there is no imminent, the White House said on Monday.
Israeli politicians and ministers have attended a conference calling for Israeli resettlement of the Gaza Strip and “voluntary migration” of the Palestinian population elsewhere. The prominent role of government figures in the far-right conference on Sunday appears to violate the international court of justice ruling last week that Israel must “take all measures within its power” to avoid acts of genocide in its war in Gaza, including the “prevention and punishment of genocidal rhetoric”. The White House described the comments as “irresponsible, reckless and incendiary”.
The UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has warned it would not be able to continue operations in Gaza and across the region beyond the end of February if funding did not resume. Israel has claimed several UNRWA staff took part in the 7 October attacks or in the aftermath, including a school counsellor who alleged kidnapped an Israeli woman. As a result of the claims, a string of western countries including the US and the UK have suspended funding to the agency, which provides aid to more than 5.6 million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East. The charity ActionAid has described the withdrawal of funding for UNRWA as a “death sentence” for the population of Gaza.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said it received a report that a merchant vessel was “approached by three small craft” about 40 nautical miles west of Yemen’s Al-Mukha. It said the merchant vessel’s security team “fired warning shots” and “carried out self-protection measures” to deter the small craft.
The US and the UK have announced sanctions against individuals who they said targeted Iranian dissidents and activists for assassination at the direction of the Iranian regime. The UK Foreign Office announced sanctions against seven individuals and one organisation who it said were involved in threats to kill journalists on British soil, and others it said were part of international criminal gangs linked to Iran.
US government employees are planning a “day of fasting for Gaza” this week to draw attention to the humanitarian crisis in the territory and to denounce Joe Biden’s policy toward Israel.
Updated
The White House’s John Kirby did not comment on the report that the enemy drone that killed three US service people may have been confused with an American drone.
Kirby said he could not corroborate those accounts by US officials but that the defence department will discuss the forensics on the report.
He added that he was sure that the defence department is already “picking it apart and trying to figure out how this happened”.
Updated
Israeli ministers' comments on Gaza resettlement 'reckless and incendiary', says White House
The White House’s national security spokesperson, John Kirby, called comments on Gaza resettlement by some Israeli politicians “irresponsible, reckless and incendiary”.
Kirby was asked about a conference over the weekend in Jerusalem calling for Israeli resettlement of the Gaza Strip and “voluntary migration” of the Palestinian population elsewhere, that was attended by ministers and parliamentarians in Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government. Kirby said:
Some of this rhetoric and the language that that was attributed to some of these ministers at this event was irresponsible, reckless and incendiary.
He said the comments “certainly doesn’t comport” with US policy, adding that Washington “has made clear that there can be no reduction in Gazan territory”.
But he said the individual cabinet members “speak for themselves” and the US maintains an “open line of communication” with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Updated
Whether the US will resume funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) will depend on the investigation into whether several of its employees were involved in the 7 October Hamas attacks, the White House said.
John Kirby noted that UNRWA is very dependent on donor contributions and that the US has been a leading donor to the agency for many years.
The White House’s national security adviser, John Kirby, was asked if allegations that some UNRWA staff took part in the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel could be more widespread.
Kirby said he was not dismissing the seriousness of the allegations but noted that there are about 13,000 UNRWA employees in Gaza, and that we should not “impugn the good work of a whole agency because of the potential bad actions by a small number”.
The US expects the allegations to be taken seriously, adding that it was important that the investigation will be “as thorough and as transparent and as credible as possible”.
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US believes talks on Israel-Hamas hostage deal 'moving in a good direction', says White House
Talks aimed at brokering a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas are ongoing, the White House’s national security adviser, John Kirby, has said.
Kirby noted “a lot of work” is left to be done and that there is no “imminent deal”, but added:
Based on the discussions we’ve had over the weekend, and in recent days, we feel it’s moving in a good direction.
He added that discussions have been “pretty constructive”, adding that the US was working on a humanitarian pause of “sufficient duration” that would allow a large number of hostages held in Gaza to be released.
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Joe Biden has met with his national security team several times to discuss the drone attack on a US military outpost in Jordan and is “weighing the options before him”, the White House’s national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said.
The US will respond “on our schedule and our time”, Kirby told reporters, noting that the president is “fully cognisant” of the fact that Iranian-backed groups have killed American service personnel.
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US will respond 'appropriately' to drone attack but 'not looking for a war with Iran', says White House
The White House’s national security spokesperson, John Kirby, is currently briefing reporters on the drone attack hit a military outpost in Jordan, killing three US service personnel and wounded dozens.
The US president and first lady send their condolences to the families of those troops who were killed in the attack, and wish a complete recovery for those who were wounded, Kirby said.
The troops working at the desert outpost in Jordan were conducted a “vital mission” in the region aimed at helping the US work with partners to counter Isis, he said. “That mission must and will continue,” he said, adding:
We do not seek another war. We do not seek to escalate – but we will absolutely do what is required to protect ourselves to continue that mission and to respond appropriately to these attacks.
Kirby described the drone attack over the weekend as “escalatory”, adding: “Make no mistake about it, it requires a response.” He did not discuss Joe Biden’s decision making, but said “We are not looking for a war with Iran.”
Attack drone that killed US troops in Jordan was misidentified as US drone – report
US officials have said that an enemy drone that killed three US service people and wounded dozens of others in Jordan may have been confused with an American drone returning to the US installation, according to a report.
The US officials, who were not authorised to comment and insisted on anonymity, told Associated Press that preliminary accounts suggested the enemy drone that struck the installation known as Tower 22 may have been mistaken for an American drone that was in the air at the same time.
The officials said that as the enemy drone was flying in at a low altitude, a US drone was returning to the base. As a result, there was no effort to shoot down the enemy drone.
Officials said that of the 34 wounded troops, most had cuts, bruises, traumatic brain injuries and similar wounds. Eight were medically evacuated and the most seriously hurt service member is in critical but stable condition.
The possible explanation for how the enemy drone evaded US air defenses on the installation came as the White House said on Monday it was not looking for war with Iran even as Joe Biden vowed retaliatory action.
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US government employees are planning a “day of fasting for Gaza” this week to draw attention to the humanitarian crisis in the territory and to denounce Joe Biden’s policy toward Israel.
Representatives for Feds United for Peace, a group of several dozen government employees frustrated with the Gaza crisis who organized an office walkout earlier in the month, told the Guardian that on Thursday its members will stage a one-day hunger strike.
Participating federal employees are expected to show up to their offices dressed in black or wearing keffiyeh scarves or other symbols of Palestinian solidarity.
A federal employee speaking on behalf of the group said the Day of Fasting was a response to Israel’s use of “starvation as a weapon of war by intentionally withholding food from entering Gaza”, citing UN reporting that up 2 million people in the territory are at risk of famine.
The group says its members represent more than two dozen agencies, among them the departments of defense, homeland security and state, and include career public servants and political appointees. They expect hundreds of government employees to participate.
A walkout staged by the group earlier this month drew strong reactions in Washington, with national security officials from both parties criticizing their protests as insubordination.
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Qatar says ‘good progress’ made toward new Israel-Hamas hostage deal
Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, has said “good progress” was made during weekend talks with US, Israeli and Egyptian officials in Paris on a way forward toward a new hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas.
Sheikh Mohammed, speaking in Washington at an event hosted by the Atlantic Council thinktank, said he hoped to present a framework for such a deal to Hamas “and get them to a place where they engage constructively”.
He confirmed that the meetings with the CIA director, William Burns, and top Israeli and Egyptian security officials had resulted in a framework for a phased truce that would see female and child hostages released first, with an increase in the trickle of aid permitted into Gaza.
The parties were “hoping to relay this proposal to Hamas and to get them to a place where they engage positively and constructively in the process”, he said.
He said Hamas had made “a clear demand” for a permanent ceasefire before the negotiations, and that the current proposal could lead to that in the future.
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Saudi Arabia has urged countries to continue supporting UNRWA after the aid agency warned it would not be able to continue operations in Gaza and across the region if funding did not resume.
A Saudi foreign ministry statement said that “review and investigation procedures” related to Israel’s allegations of several UNRWA staff taking part in the 7 October Hamas attack should yield “facts coupled with evidence”.
The statement, carried by the official Saudi press agency, highlighted “the human sacrifices made by UNRWA workers”, including death and injuries, “due to the indiscriminate Israeli shelling of relief centres in Gaza”.
Supporters of the UN agency should “carry out their role in supporting the humanitarian tasks toward Palestinian refugees” in order to “alleviate the effects of the humanitarian crisis in the occupied Palestinian territories”, it added.
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The surgical ward at al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza has completely halted operations due to oxygen supplies running out, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society has said.
Israeli forces were continuing to target and besiege the hospital for the eighth consecutive day, targeting anyone moving near the hospital, the organisation said on Monday.
It said at least three displaced people sheltering there have been killed, and that its teams have been unable to reach them amid shelling and gunfire in the hospital’s vicinity.
“The situation inside al-Amal Hospital is tragic,” it said.
🚨Urgent: PRCS (as of 14:00 today):
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) January 29, 2024
📌The surgical ward at Al-Amal Hospital has completely ceased operations due to the depletion of oxygen supplies.
📌The Israeli occupation continues to target and besiege the hospital for the eighth consecutive day, amid ongoing shelling and… pic.twitter.com/uXzOy1oaip
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Joe Biden met members of his national security team on Monday to discuss the attack on US service members at a military outpost in Jordan, the White House has said.
Among those present were the White House’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, the director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, the homeland security adviser, Liz Sherwood Randall, and the national security council’s coordinator for the Middle East, Brett McGurk, it said.
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Israeli troops to ‘go into action very soon’ at Lebanon border, says Gallant
Israeli troops will “very soon go into action” near the country’s northern border with Lebanon, the country’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has said.
Addressing troops near the Gaza border on Monday, Gallant said Israeli forces were being deployed to Israel’s north, AFP reported. He said:
They will very soon go into action … so the forces in the north are reinforced.
He added that reservists would be gradually released “to prepare and come ready” for future operations.
He said the war against Hamas would take months, and claimed that quarter of Hamas fighters have been killed and at least another quarter have been wounded, Reuters reported. He said:
The ‘hourglass’ has flipped against [Hamas’s] favour … We will fight in terror hotspots. It will take months, not a single day. On the other hand, the terrorists don’t have supplies, they don’t have ammunition, they don’t have reinforcements.
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The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said it received a report that a merchant vessel was “approached by three small craft” about 40 nautical miles west of Yemen’s Al-Mukha.
In a statement posted to social media, the agency, which is part of the Royal Navy, said the merchant vessel’s security team “fired warning shots” and “carried out self-protection measures” to deter the small craft.
The vessel and crew were reported safe and were proceeding to the next port of call, it said.
UKMTO WARNING
— United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) (@UK_MTO) January 29, 2024
INCIDENT 024 - SUSPICIOUS APPROACH
Warnings - 2024 (https://t.co/5An1YH0JyE)#MaritimeSecurity #MarSec pic.twitter.com/cX41gqAi8p
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The suspension of funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) would be a “major disaster” for civilians in Gaza, an employee at the agency said.
“There is no change in the aid distribution mechanisms implemented by UNRWA in the Gaza Strip,” the employee told AFP. They added:
The situation is very dangerous, and if the United States and the supporting countries insist on stopping their support for UNRWA, this will be a major disaster.
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Palestinians in Gaza have warned they will die of starvation if funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) does not resume.
Several countries, including the US, France, the UK, Germany and Japan, have announced the suspension of further funding to the UN agency after Israel accused 12 UNRWA staff of having taken part in the 7 October Hamas attacks or in the aftermath.
As the Guardian reported earlier, UNRWA said it would not be able to continue operations in Gaza and across the region beyond the end of February if funding did not resume. It said the decision to freeze funding threatened vital humanitarian work.
In the southern city of Rafah, where 1.5 million displaced people have taken refuge, Palestinians said the support they received from the agency amounted to a lifeline. Sabah Musabih, 50, told AFP:
We live on aid from UNRWA. If it stopped, we would die of hunger, and no one would look at us.
Amal Abdel Moneim, a refugee from Gaza City, said there were no other organisations offering help. He said:
If UNRWA stops supporting us, our people will be lost and dead.
Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, said earlier today that he had cancelled planned meetings with UNRWA, and called on the head of the organisation, Philippe Lazzarini, to resign.
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John Kirby: US response will be 'very consequential' as Biden considering his options
The US response to the drone strike on a US military outpost in Jordan will be “very consequential”, the White House has said.
Joe Biden is considering his response options, the White House’s national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, told CNN on Monday.
Kirby would not speculate on the options being considered by the president. He said the drone attack was unacceptable, adding:
But we don’t seek a war with Iran. We’re not looking for a wider conflict in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, Kirby described talks aimed at brokering a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas as constructive. He said a new deal was not close but that there had been “very good discussions” with Qatar, Egypt and Israel.
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Sunak urges Iran to de-escalate tensions in Middle East
Rishi Sunak said he was concerned after three US service personnel were killed and dozens wounded in a drone strike on a US base in Jordan.
The UK prime minister urged Iran to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East as he spoke to broadcasters on Monday, the PA news agency reported. He said:
We are concerned and would urge Iran to continue to de-escalate tensions in the region. We absolutely condemn what has happened over the past couple of days.
We stand resolutely with our allies to bring stability and peace to the region. And that’s what we’ll continue to work towards.
Downing Street has declined to comment on whether it would back any US response to the drone attack, but insisted Britain was working to “ensure regional stability”, adding:
We will stand with our US allies in our continued and shared fight against terrorism.
The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, said those behind the drone strike should be held to account but expressed fears about the febrile situation widening. Starmer said:
I am concerned about the possibility of escalation of an already dangerous situation in the Middle East. So we have to see this in that context and do everything that we can to ensure there isn’t escalation of the conflict, and on the contrary, that we find ways to bring this conflict to the immediate end.
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Biden under pressure from Republicans to strike Iran
Joe Biden is under pressure from Republicans to strike Iran directly, and even bomb Tehran, after three US troops were killed in a drone attack on a military outpost in Jordan.
US forces have faced a near-daily barrage of drone and missile strikes in Iraq and Syria since the 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas, but Saturday’s attack on Tower 22 draws the US much closer to a direct conflict with Iran, an outcome both sides insist they wish to avoid, but may now be unable to prevent as the incidents proliferate and escalate in impact.
Iran has denied any involvement in the attacks but Islamic Resistance in Iraq have claimed responsibility as part of efforts, galvanised by the Israel-Hamas war, to try to drive US troops out of Iraq and Syria.
It is the first time American military personnel have been killed by hostile fire in the Middle East since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on 7 October.
In a statement, the US president pointedly said the US would hold all those responsible to account at a time of the US choosing, and the Pentagon made no attempt to disguise its belief that Iran is ultimately behind the attacks.
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Hamas fired a barrage of rockets at Tel Aviv and nearby cities on Monday, after weeks of relative quiet in central Israel.
As we reported earlier, rocket sirens sounded in major cities across central Israel earlier today, sending residents running for shelter.
Israel’s military said 15 rockets had been fired, six of which were intercepted. There were no reports of casualties.
Hamas has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
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A top UN official has arrived in Israel to gather details over alleged sexual violence committed by Hamas during their 7 October attacks.
Pramila Patten, the UN envoy for sexual violence in conflict, was invited by Israeli foreign ministry “so that she could receive an unmediated impression of the extent of the atrocities and then bring Hamas’s crimes to the attention of the proper international authorities”, the ministry said in a statement.
During her trip, Patten will meet survivors, witnesses and representatives of security forces to collect evidence of sexual violence committed against women and men during the 7 October attack, it says.
She will also visit the occupied West Bank, where she will meet with the Palestinian Authority, civil society organisations, and recently released hostages, according to a statement from the UN last week.
The visit was “neither intended nor mandated to be investigative in nature, a mandate which is vested in other entities of the United Nations system, which have expressed their willingness and availability to investigate”, her office said. The statement continued:
The mission of the special representative aims to give voice to survivors, witnesses, recently released hostages and those affected to identify avenues for support, including justice and accountability and to gather, analyse and verify information to inform reporting to the security council in the exercise of her mandate.
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US to take ‘all necessary actions’ after troops killed in Jordan drone attack, says Lloyd Austin
The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, has vowed the US will take “all necessary actions” to defend its troops after three servicemen were killed and dozens injured following a drone attack by Iran-backed militants on a US service base on the border of Jordan and Syria.
“Let me start with my outrage and sorrow (for) the deaths of three brave US troops in Jordan and for the other troops who were wounded,” Austin said at the start of a meeting with the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, at the Pentagon.
The president and I will not tolerate attacks on US forces and we will take all necessary actions to defend the US and our troops.
Austin’s comments came as the spectre of a direct US-Iranian military conflict drew closer following the drone attack, which marked the first time American military personnel have been killed by hostile fire in the Middle East since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on 7 October.
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Sunday’s event in Jerusalem drew horrified reaction from elsewhere in the Israeli political spectrum, as well as criticism from the US, Israel’s most important ally.
The leader of the opposition, Yair Lapid, said the coalition government, elected in 2022, had “reached a new low”, adding:
This poses international damage, undermines potential negotiations, endangers soldiers, and reflects a grave lack of responsibility.
A senior US official told the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth:
The radical right’s conference with calls to renew Jewish settlement in Gaza is simply repulsive.
“This is an awful mistake by Netanyahu, who didn’t prevent it. It raises questions as to whether Bibi has his hands on the wheel at all,” he said, using the prime minister’s well-known moniker.
Netanyahu’s office did not comment on the conference, but when asked about it the day before it said attendees were “entitled to their opinions”.
The prime minister has previously dismissed suggestions that Israel will re-establish a civilian presence in Gaza after the conclusion of the war. However, earlier this month he said he would “not compromise on full Israeli security control over all of the territory west of the Jordan [River] – and that is in opposition to a Palestinian state”.
Netanyahu’s coalition government, the most rightwing in Israel’s 75-year history, has made settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank a priority since it took office at the end of 2022. Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories are viewed as illegal by the majority of the international community, including the Biden administration.
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In their remarks on Sunday, both Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, called for the re-establishment of Jewish settlements in Gaza and the north of the West Bank, known to some Israelis as Samaria. Ben-Gvir said:
We must encourage voluntary migration. Let them leave. Part of correcting the mistake of the sin of the preconception that brought us to 7 October is to return home to Gush Katif [southern Gaza] and to northern Samaria. We have to return home, because that is the Torah, that is morality, that is historic justice, that is logic and that is the right thing.
He reiterated his support for bringing back the death penalty for terrorism offences. Smotrich said in his speech:
I took a beating in the eighth grade when we opposed the terrible folly of the Oslo accords.
“We yelled until we were hoarse: ‘Don’t give them guns,’ and they didn’t listen to us,” he said, referring to the failed peace process with the Palestinians in the 1990s.
I had the privilege of fighting against the expulsion from Gush Katif and northern Samaria. I paid for that with my own liberty.
Other members of the coalition government in attendance included: Shlomo Karhi, the Likud communications minister; Orit Strook, a member of the far-right Religious Zionist party and the minister of settlements and national missions; Yitzhak Goldknopf, the leader of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party and the housing minister; and the Likud member of the Knesset Haim Katz.
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Ministers and parliamentarians in Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government attended a conference on Sunday calling for the resettlement of the Gaza Strip and “voluntary migration” of the Palestinian population elsewhere.
The event in Jerusalem , called the “Victory of Israel Conference: Settlement Brings Security”, hosted speeches by well-known extremists in Netanyahu’s cabinet, including the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, and was attended by 1,000 people, including 11 cabinet ministers and 15 members of the Knesset, some of them being members of the prime minister’s Likud party.
The prominent role of government figures in the far-right conference appears to violate the international court of justice ruling last week that Israel must “take all measures within its power” to avoid acts of genocide in its war in Gaza, including the “prevention and punishment of genocidal rhetoric”.
Participants, who included influential rabbis, settlement leaders and families of soldiers fighting in the Gaza Strip, were presented with maps and detailed preparations for the re-establishment of a Jewish presence in the areas inside what is considered internationally as the borders of a would-be Palestinian state.
Several participants carried guns, and outside the convention centre vendors sold T-shirts reading: “Gaza is part of the land of Israel.” One speaker was Rabbi Uzi Sharbag, a former leader of the banned far-right terrorist group Jewish Underground.
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Negotiators agree on new hostage deal framework to put to Hamas today – report
Officials from Israel, the US, Egypt and Qatar have agreed on a framework for negotiations aimed at brokering a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, according to a report.
A draft is being presented to Hamas today, NBC reported, citing a source familiar with the talks.
The proposed deal would allow for the remaining American and Israeli hostages to be freed, starting with the women and children, the source said.
This would be accompanied by phased pauses in the fighting and aid deliveries to Gaza, along with the exchange of Palestinian prisoners, they said.
A statement from the Israeli prime minister’s office on Sunday said talks in Paris aimed at brokering a hostage deal were “constructive” but meaningful gaps remain. The statement said the parties would continue to hold discussions this week.
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The US and the UK have announced sanctions against individuals who they said targeted Iranian dissidents and activists for assassination at the direction of the Iranian regime.
The group, said to run “at the behest of Iran’s ministry of intelligence and security”, is alleged to have conducted assassinations and kidnappings “across multiple jurisdictions”, said the US treasury department in a statement.
It said the network has carried out “numerous acts of transnational repression” including assassinations and kidnappings in an attempt “to silence the Iranian regime’s perceived critics”.
The network is led by Naji Ibrahim Sharifi-Zindashti, who was identified as an Iranian narcotics trafficker, and includes members of his family, it said.
In a separate statement, the UK Foreign Office announced sanctions against seven individuals and one organisation who it said were involved in threats to kill journalists on British soil, and others it said were part of international criminal gangs linked to Iran. It said:
The Iranian officials designated today are members of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Unit 840, which was exposed in an ITV investigation into plots to assassinate two television presenters from news channel Iran International on UK soil. This plot was just the latest credible reporting of the regime’s attempt to intimidate or kill British nationals or UK-linked individuals.
The UK’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, said the sanctions package “exposes the roles of the Iranian officials and gangs involved in activity aimed to undermine, silence and disrupt the democratic freedoms we value in the UK”, adding:
The UK and US have sent a clear message – we will not tolerate this threat.
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Rocket sirens have been reported in Tel Aviv for the first time in more than a month.
Sirens sounded in other major cities across central Israel including Rishon LeZion, Holon and Bat Yam.
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Israel has struck an Iran-linked site south of the Syrian capital, Damascus, killing several people, two days after regional tensions rose again when three US troops were killed in a drone attack on a military outpost in Jordan.
The Israeli strikes, which also left an unspecified number injured, were not regarded as a direct response to the attack on the Tower 22 base on the Jordan-Syria border. The US has vowed to take revenge for the loss of its forces, and it is unlikely that Washington would subcontract this task to Israel.
Iranian and Syrian official media said Monday’s attacks came from the Golan Heights and were attributed to Israel. The strikes hit the area of Aqraba, on the edge of the southern Damascus suburb of Sayyida Zeinab, according to the Dama Post. There was no immediate comment from Israel.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition Syrian war monitor, said the strikes hit a farm housing members of Lebanon’s Iran-backed militant Hezbollah group and other Iran-backed factions. It said seven people were killed, including four Syrians, one of whom was the bodyguard of a member of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards. It did not give the nationalities of the others.
Israel frequently mounts strikes against Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps bases inside Syria, but the intensity of the attacks has been raised since the 7 October attack by Hamas.
Summary of the day so far …
It is 5pm in Gaza City and Tel Aviv, 6pm in Damascus, 6.30pm in Tehran and 8pm in Islamabad. Here are the headlines …
John Kirby has said that the White House is not seeking a war with Iran or regional escalation. He said: “What we want is a stable, secure, prosperous Middle East, and we want these attacks to stop.” The US president, Joe Biden, has blamed Iran-backed groups for the unmanned aerial drone attack on US forces which killed three service personnel in Jordan, the first deadly strike against US forces since the Israel-Hamas war broke out in October.
A dossier drawn up by Israel claims that a school counsellor employed by the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza was involved in kidnapping an Israeli woman during atrocities committed by Hamas on 7 October. Another employee of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), a social worker, helped to bring the body of an Israeli soldier into Gaza and distributed ammunition, the dossier claims.
They were among 12 UNRWA staff alleged by Israel to have taken part in the 7 October attacks or in the aftermath. As a result of the claims, a string of western countries including the US and the UK have suspended funding to the agency. Austria and Romania said on Monday they were also suspending funds to UNRWA, and the EU said it was considering future payments to the agency “in light of the very serious allegations”.
UNRWA said on Monday that it would not be able to continue operations in Gaza and across the region beyond the end of February if funding were not resumed. An estimated 2 million people are dependent on UNRWA services. The charity ActionAid has described the withdrawal of funding for UNRWA by some donor nations as a “death sentence” for the population of Gaza.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, appeared to confirm on Monday that Israel had circulated the intelligence dossier, and described the relief agency as “perforated with Hamas”. Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, has posted to social media that he has cancelled planned meetings with UNRWA, and directly called on the head of the organisation, Philippe Lazzarini, to resign.
The overall death toll in Gaza since 7 October has reached 26,637 Palestinians, with a further 65,387 injured in Israeli strikes, according to the Gaza health ministry. 215 Palestinians were killed in the last 24 hours, the ministry reported. On Friday, the international court of justice in The Hague told Israel it must “take all measures within its power” to desist from killing Palestinians in contravention of the genocide convention.
Hani Mahmoud, writing for Al Jazeera from Rafah, has described the situation in Khan Younis as “heart-wrenching”, reporting “large-scale bombings in densely populated areas, more evacuation orders, and mass arrests” by Israeli forces. Israel’s military has issued a statement in which it claims to have killed “dozens of armed terrorists in battles in the central Gaza Strip”, and says that activities “against terrorist operatives and infrastructure are continuing in Khan Younis and Gaza City”.
Five Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in four different incidents in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in the past 24 hours, the Palestinian health ministry said on Monday. Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that 378 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank since 7 October.
Protesters, including some relatives of those being held hostage in Gaza by Hamas, have gathered again at the Kerem Shalom border crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, with the intention of blocking humanitarian aid entering Palestinian territory. OCHA’s latest update on the Gaza-Israel conflict said aid deliveries to northern and central Gaza are increasingly being denied by Israel.
Far-right Israeli ministers and ministers belonging to Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party have attended a conference on the resettlement of Gaza, at which the national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, said Israelis needed “to find a legal way to voluntarily emigrate [Palestinians]”
Media in Syria said an apparent Israeli airstrike on a Damascus suburb where Iran-backed fighters have a presence killed two people on Monday.
The UK added eight designations under its Iran sanctions regime.
Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, held talks in Islamabad with his Pakistan counterpart, Jalil Abbas Jilani. Jilani said the two countries were able to bring the “situation back to normal in the shortest possible time” after the recent exchange of airstrikes because both sides had agreed to resume dialogue to resolve all issues.
US officials have rejected a claim by Yemen’s Houthis that they attacked US navy vessel the USS Lewis B Puller.
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Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the newswires from inside the Gaza Strip.
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Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, has posted to social media that he has cancelled planned meetings with UNRWA, and called on the head of the organisation, Philippe Lazzarini, to resign.
Katz added: “Supporters of terrorism are not welcome here.”
I have just canceled the meetings of @UNRWA head, @UNLazzarini, with officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Israel on Wednesday.@UNRWA employees participated in the massacre of October 7.
— ישראל כ”ץ Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) January 29, 2024
Lazzarini should draw conclusions and resign. Supporters of terrorism are not…
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The Palestinian new agency Wafa reports that Jordan’s king, Abdullah II, and Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, have spoken by phone today, and reiterated that both countries were pushing for a ceasefire, the delivery of more humanitarian aid to Gaza, and that “no peace or stability would be achieved in the region without a just solution to the Palestinian issue based on the two-state solution”.
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The UK added eight designations under its Iran sanctions regime, Reuters reports a government notice showed on Monday.
26,637 Palestinians killed since 7 October, says Gaza health ministry
The overall death toll in Gaza since 7 October has reached 26,637 Palestinians, with a further 65,387 injured in Israeli strikes, according to the Gaza health ministry.
215 Palestinians were killed in the last 24 hours, the ministry reported.
Updated
A Palestinian academic who had worked as a visiting fellow at the University of Manchester has been killed in Gaza, the university has confirmed.
Dr Wiesam Essa, of Al-Aqsa University in the Gaza Strip, worked in the geography department at Manchester between June 2019 and March 2021.
He died earlier this month when his apartment block was badly damaged by Israeli bombs, the university said. His wife and four children survived the attack and are staying with extended family in Gaza.
In early December, the Council for At-Risk Academics (CARA) and the Institute of International Education’s Scholar Rescue Fund (IIE-SRF) secured a new academic placement for Essa and were hoping to place him the UK, the university said, but it proved impossible to get him out of Gaza.
Prior to his placement in Manchester, Essa said:
The University of Manchester and the department of geography will be an oasis for me after years of wandering in both human and academic crises within the Gaza Strip.
A statement by the University of Manchester said:
Wiesam is fondly remembered by colleagues in geography – he was a regular and cheerful presence in the department, contributing enthusiastically to the mapping, culture and geographical information science research group.
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Netanyahu appears to confirm Israeli intelligence dossier with UNRWA allegations
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, appeared to confirm on Monday that Israel had circulated an intelligence dossier alleging that some UNRWA staffers participated in the October 7 attack from Gaza, and described the the relief agency as “perforated with Hamas”.
Netanyahu told Britain’s TalkTV:
We discovered that there were 13 UNRWA workers who actually participated, either directly or indirectly, in the October 7 massacre.
In UNRWA schools they’ve been teaching the doctrines of extermination for Israel – the doctrines of terrorism, glorifying terrorism, lauding terrorism.
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UK says it will not be providing further aid to UNRWA while claims about links to Hamas being investigated
The UK will not provide further aid to UNRWA while claims about links to Hamas are being investigated, the prime minister’s spokesperson has said.
Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson said this morning that the government did not think any UK aid funding had gone to Hamas.
Asked about claims that up to a dozen staff at the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which is part-funded by Britain, were involved in the Hamas massacre of Israelis on 7 October, the spokesperson said:
We have tight controls and agreements and due diligence on how the funding is used, as you would expect, but it’s right in light of these allegations that we conduct a further investigation with our allies and seek the reassurance that will be required in order to allow funding to continue.
The spokesperson said that the UK committed £16m to UNRWA after the Hamas attack, but that that money had now been disbursed. He said no further money would be allocated while the Hamas link was being investigated.
You can follow the detail over at our UK Politics blog.
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A dossier drawn up by Israel claims that a school counsellor employed by the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza was involved in kidnapping an Israeli woman during atrocities committed by Hamas on 7 October, the Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood writes.
Another employee of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), a social worker, helped to bring the body of an Israeli soldier into Gaza and distributed ammunition, the dossier claims, the New York Times reported on Monday.
They were among 12 UNRWA staff alleged by Israel to have taken part in the 7 October attacks or in the aftermath. As a result of the claims, a string of western countries including the US and the UK have suspended funding to the agency, which provides aid to more than 5.6 million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East.
Austria and Romania said on Monday they were also suspending funds to UNRWA, and the EU said it was considering future payments to the agency “in light of the very serious allegations”.
The full story is here:
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US: 'We are not looking for a war with Iran'
John Kirby, in an interview on NBC television in the US, has said that the White House is not seeking a war with Iran or regional escalation.
The national security council spokesperson said:
We are not looking for a war with Iran. We are not looking to escalate the conflict in the region. Obviously, these attacks keep coming. We’ll keep looking at the options. I can’t speak for the Supreme Leader or what he wants or he doesn’t want. I can tell you what we want. What we want is a stable, secure, prosperous Middle East, and we want these attacks to stop.
On the accusations made by Israel against 12 staff at the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), which has led to the US pulling funding for the agency, Kirby said
It’s important to remember that UNRWA does important work across the region, certainly in Gaza. They have helped save thousands of lives, and we shouldn’t impugn the good work of a whole agency because of the terrible, just terrible allegations lobbied against just a small number of their employees. So I think we have decision points that we’re going to have to make going forward here, but I don’t want to get ahead of the investigation and what it’s going to find.
Protesters, including some relatives of those being held hostage in Gaza by Hamas, have gathered again at the Kerem Shalom border crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, with the intention of blocking humanitarian aid entering Palestinian territory.
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday declined to join critics who accuse Israel of genocide in its actions in Gaza, but said American society should not “toss someone out of our public discourse” for doing so.
Following the international court of justice’s order to Israel to work to prevent genocidal acts against Palestinians in Gaza, the Democratic representative from New York argued on Meet the Press that “large amounts of Americans” think “genocide” is the right term for what is happening in Gaza.
“The fact that [the ICJ] said there’s a responsibility to prevent it, the fact that this word is even in play, the fact that this word is even in our discourse, I think demonstrates the mass inhumanity that Gazans are facing,” she said.
Read more here: AOC says no one should be ‘tossed out of public discourse’ for accusing Israel of genocide
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Syrian media said an apparent Israeli airstrike on a Damascus suburb where Iran-backed fighters have a presence killed two people on Monday. An official from an Iranian-backed group said the strike also caused some material damage.
Associated Press reports Monday’s strike hit the area of Aqraba, according to the pro-government Dama Post.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said the strike hit a farm housing members of Lebanon’s Iran-backed militant Hezbollah group and other Iran-backed factions.
An official with one of the Iranian-backed groups, speaking to AP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to discuss military activities, said two Syrian citizens were killed in Monday’s strike. No Hezbollah members were hurt, the official said.
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Hani Mahmoud, writing for Al Jazeera from Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip, has described the situation in Khan Younis as “heart-wrenching”, reporting “large-scale bombings in densely populated areas, more evacuation orders, and mass arrests” by Israeli forces.
He writes:
People have been under military siege for the past eight days, and the Israeli military is pushing deeper into the western and central parts of [Khan Younis]. This leaves no other path for people to flee the horror of the ongoing bombing except through security checkpoints set up on the western side of the city. Hundreds of thousands of people have had to go through these, risking being arrested by the Israeli military or taken to unidentified locations.
We reported earlier that Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, held talks in Islamabad with his Pakistan counterpart, Jalil Abbas Jilani.
Associated Press is carrying some quotes from their joint media appearance.
Amir-Abdollahian and Jilani said they would work through existing channels in their leadership, diplomatic and military levels to cooperate with each other.
Jilani said the two countries were able to bring the “situation back to normal in the shortest possible time” after the recent exchange of airstrikes because both sides had agreed to resume dialogue to resolve all issues.
“Terrorism poses a common challenge to our countries,” Jilani said and stressed that “respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity remains the immutable and foundational principle of this cooperation” between the neighbours.
Iran and Pakistan “strongly respect sovereignty and territorial integrity of each other,” Amir-Abdollahian said. “We will tell all terrorists that we will not … provide them with any opportunity to endanger our common security.”
Amir-Abdollahian said Pakistan and Iran will also set up free trade economic zones near the border regions to enhance their bilateral trade.
The Iranian foreign minister also met with Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister Anwaarul-Haq-Kakar.
EU considering future of payments to UNRWA 'in light of very serious allegations'
Lisa O’Carroll is the Guardian’s Brussels correspondent
The EU has said it is considering the future of payments to UNRWA “in light of the very serious allegations” made last week alleging involvement of staff in the 7 October attacks.
“The Commission will review the matter in light of the outcome of the investigation announced by the UN and the actions it will take. The Commission welcomes the information provided by UNRWA as well as the launch of the investigation,” it said in a statement on Monday.
It added the decision did not impact humanitarian aid.
“Humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank will continue unabated through partner organisations,” it said.
No money is due to UNRWA under current programmes until February, a spokesperson for the Commission said on Monday.
“We have extremely serious allegations against staff working for UN. It is absolutely obvious that these investigations these allegations need to be investigated seriously, and without delay
“Secondly, UNRWA is a partner with which the Commission works intensively on the ground, both for humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and also more generally for development aid. And as such, it is absolutely normal, that we would request that these allegations are investigated and clarified since we are one of the major donors,” said the spokesperson.
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Romania has become the latest country to announce that it is suspending payments to the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA. Israel has accused 12 of its staff of being involved in the 7 October Hamas attack inside southern Israel. UNRWA has said that without funding, it cannot continue to support the Palestinian population beyond February.
Reuters has a quick snap, citing Iranian state media, that two people have been killed in strikes near the site of the Sayyeda Zeinab shrine complex on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus.
More details soon …
Five Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in occupied West Bank – ministry
Five Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in four different incidents in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in the past 24 hours, the Palestinian health ministry said on Monday, Reuters reports.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that 378 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank since 7 October.
It names one of those killed today as Obaida Hassan Abdel Rahman Hamed, who was 18, and died after being shot in the chest during a confrontation in the town of Silwad, east of Ramallah.
Another 18-year-old, Muhannad Ismail Al-Fasfous, has also died after being shot by Israeli forces, in the town of Dura, south of Hebron. Rani Yasser Khalaf Al-Shaer, 16, was killed in the town of Tuqu, south-east of Bethlehem. Local witnesses told Wafa that Israeli forces prevented an ambulance from reaching him.
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UNRWA says unable to assist Gaza beyond February if funding does not resume
The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) said on Monday that it would not be able to continue operations in Gaza and across the region beyond the end of February if funding were not resumed.
“If the funding is not resumed, UNRWA will not be able to continue its services and operations across the region, including in Gaza, beyond the end of February,” Reuters reports a spokesperson for the agency said.
A string of countries including the US, UK and Germany have paused their funding to the aid agency in the wake of allegations that 12 UNRWA staff were involved in the 7 October attacks by Hamas in southern Israel.
An estimated 2 million people are dependant on UNRWA services. About 3,000 of the agency’s 13,000 staff continue to work in Gaza despite the continual Israeli bombardment.
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There are unconfirmed reports that explosions have been heard near the site of the Sayyeda Zeinab shrine complex on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus.
A source in Iran’s regional alliance told Reuters that a strike had hit a location used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
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Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that the maternity wing of a hospital in Jenin in the Israeli-occupied West Bank was damaged this morning during a raid by Israel’s security forces.
It reports:
The occupation forces fired at the maternity ward at Jenin Governmental hospital, while nearby streets were destroyed, during the ongoing military operation in the city of Jenin and its camp, which has so far left a young man injured by a bullet in his leg. The eastern neighbourhood of the city of Jenin saw widespread raids and searches on homes, while their residents were detained, interrogated, and beaten.
The charity ActionAid has described the withdrawal of funding for UNRWA by some donor nations as a “death sentence” for the population of Gaza.
In a statement, it said:
ActionAid welcomes UNRWA’s investigation related to the allegations involving a small group of UNRWA staff members in the 7 October attacks, however, we vehemently denounce the callous choice to punish an entire population by some of the very nations that previously called for increased aid and protection for humanitarians in Gaza.
The withdrawal of funding by these donor countries is nothing short of a death sentence for approximately two million civilians, with over half of them being children who depend on UNRWA aid in Gaza to survive.
Patrick Wintour is the Guardian’s diplomatic editor
The claim by Yemen’s Houthis to have attacked the USS Lewis B Puller [See 9.13 GMT] was made by Brig Gen Yahya Saree. He said: “Among the tasks of this ship is to provide logistical support to the American forces participating in the aggression against [Yemen]. The targeting process comes within the military measures taken by the Yemeni armed forces in defence of dear Yemen and in confirmation of the decision to support the oppressed Palestinian people.
“The Yemeni armed forces continue to implement the decision to prevent Israeli navigation or navigation to the occupied ports of Palestine in the Red and Arab Seas until the aggression stops and the siege on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip is lifted.”
The statement referred only to the targeting of the ship, and did not claim any damage was inflicted. But it is a sign that the Houthis have not been discouraged from maintaining its assault on Israeli linked shipping.
The news came as the chair of the UN-backed Yemeni presidential command council, Rashad Al-Alimisaid, said his forces were preparing to mount defensive stikes against Houthi positions, the first time the Aden-based government has vowed to take military action to stop the rival Houthi government’s efforts to stop ships reaching Israeli ports.
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The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, agreed in a phone call the importance of allowing humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, a German government spokesperson said on Monday.
“The chancellor and the president agreed that in the conflict between Israel and Hamas there is an urgent need to significantly improve access for humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and the provision of supplies to the Palestinians,” Reuters reports the spokesperson said in a statement.
Germany is among the countries to have halted funding UNRWA, the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees, after Israel accused some of its staff of being involved in the 7 October Hamas attack inside Israel.
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Pakistan and Iran’s foreign ministers have met in Islamabad today. In public statements they said they respected each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and resolved to expand security cooperation. The meeting comes days after the two countries exchanged airstrikes inside each other’s territory, both claiming their targets were terrorists and militants operating inside their neighbour.
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If you were looking for some more background information on the attack on US troops stationed in Jordan that killed three service personnel, we have just published this explainer: Jordan drone strike – who are Islamic Resistance in Iraq and what is Tower 22?
US officials have rejected a claim by Yemen’s Houthis that they attacked a US navy vessel.
Earlier a Houthi spokesperson said it had targeted the USS Lewis B Puller with a missile.
A US defence official, speaking to Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said there had been no reported attack.
Images from Rafah this morning show smoke rising over the Gaza Strip as Israel continues its military assault.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that “dozens of civilians, mostly children and women” have been killed in the latest Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
It writes:
Israeli military force carried out intense and fierce airstrikes targeting Al-Zaytoun neighbourhood, south of Gaza City, and the Tal Al-Hawa area, west of the city, resulting in the killing of several people and causing multiple causalities.
Earlier last night, at least 23 civilians were killed and others injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting an inhabited house belonging to the Al-Mutwi family west of Nuseirat camp.
The claims have not been independently verified.
On Friday, the international court of justice in The Hague told Israel it must “take all measures within its power” to desist from killing Palestinians in contravention of the genocide convention.
Reuters has a quick snap that Austria has announced it is the latest country to suspend payments to UNRWA, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.
Israel alleges that as many as 12 UNRWA staff had been involved in the 7 October Hamas attack inside southern Israel.
The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, has said Palestinians in desperate need should not be penalised due to the alleged acts of a dozen staff. He said nine UNRWA staff had already been dismissed for alleged involvement in Hamas’s attack.
The US, UK, France and Germany are among countries who have already suspended funding to UNRWA.
Israel’s military has issued a statement in which it claims to have killed “dozens of armed terrorists in battles in the central Gaza Strip”, and says that activities “against terrorist operatives and infrastructure are continuing in Khan Younis and Gaza City”.
Listing several engagements, it claims that it has “located large quantities of weapons, including an RPG, military equipment, and technological assets” inside the Gaza Strip, and killed what it claimed were “four terrorists who were preparing to carry out an attack on IDF troops adjacent to the Al-Amal Hospital”.
The claims have not been independently verified.
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Medical sources in the West Bank have said that the man killed by Israeli military fire in the village of Yamoun, near Jenin, was 21-year-old Tair Hamo, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz has reported.
As we reported earlier, the Israeli military carried out raids on the occupied West Bank city of Jenin overnight, as well as a nearby town and village.
Israeli ministers call for resettlement of Gaza, 'voluntary resettlement' of Palestinians
Far-right Israeli ministers and ministers belonging to Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party have attended a conference on the resettlement of Gaza, at which the national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, said Israelis needed “to find a legal way to voluntarily emigrate [Palestinians]”, Haaretz newspaper has reported.
The conference held in Jerusalem on Sunday was attended by thousands of people including the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, as well as other members of the Knesset and coalition government, rabbis, settlement activists and families of soldiers fighting in Gaza.
In his speech, Ben Gvir said:
If we don’t want another October 7, we need to go back home and control [Gaza]. We need to find a legal way to voluntarily emigrate [Palestinians] and impose death sentences on terrorists … I turn to you, prime minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu: this is time for brave decisions.
Members of the Likud party, who have talked openly about the “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians since the war began, returned to the theme at the conference, according to Haaretz.
The communications minister, Shlomo Karhi, said that in war, “‘voluntary’ is at times a state you impose [on someone] until they give their consent”.
The tourism minister, Haim Katz, meanwhile, said: “Today, after 18 years [from disengagement from Gaza], we have the opportunity to rebuild and expand the land of Israel. This is our final opportunity.”
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Aid deliveries to northern Gaza increasingly denied by Israel, UN says
A bit more from the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA’s latest update on the Gaza-Israel conflict, in which it says aid deliveries to northern and central Gaza are increasingly being denied by Israel. It said:
In the second half of January, humanitarian partners continue to observe a declining trend in their attempts to access the northern and central areas of Gaza.
The reasons include excessive delays for humanitarian aid convoys before or at Israeli checkpoints and heightened military activity in central Gaza.
It said 51 aid delivery missions were planned between 1 and 25 January but only eight were allowed and 29 denied, while others were only “partially facilitated” or postponed. It said that most of the approved missions related to the delivery of food aid but that support for hospitals was “largely denied”.
It added that in an “emerging pattern” another eight planned missions were initially approved but then “impeded” as routes designated by the Israeli military turned out to be impassable or the missions had excessive delays applied to them before departure or at checkpoints.
It also said humanitarian deliveries to central Gaza had increasingly been postponed since mid-January due to increased military activity. It added:
None of the 22 requests by the United Nations to the Israeli military to open checkpoints early to access areas north of Wadi Gaza [in January] were facilitated. Given the heavy congestion around UN warehouses and the high levels of needs, early movement is essential for security, programmatic and protection reasons.
It also noted “widespread attacks on health care facilities and workers”.
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Iran views claims it was involved in an attack that killed three US service members in north-eastern Jordan near Syria’s border as “baseless”, foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani has said, according to Reuters.
Kanaani also said the continuation of US strikes on Syria and Iraq as well as the war in Gaza would only intensify a cycle of instability in the region.
The US president, Joe Biden, has blamed Iran-backed groups for the unmanned aerial drone attack on US forces, the first deadly strike against US forces since the Israel-Hamas war broke out in October.
Kanaani said “resistance groups” did not take orders from the Islamic Republic.
His comments came after the Iranian mission to the UN issued a statement saying Tehran had “nothing” to do with Saturday’s drone attack, as we reported earlier.
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Heavy fighting around Khan Younis hospitals, UN agency reports
Heavy fighting has continued around hospitals in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis over the past two days, the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA has said in its latest update on the conflict, noting that only 14 of 36 hospitals in Gaza are now partially functional.
Khan Younis’ Nasser hospital, until recently the largest still accepting patients in southern Gaza, is now only “minimally functioning,”, OCHA said, “providing available services to patients in its care, but no longer able to receive patients or supplies, as it is surrounded by the Israeli military and experiencing intense fighting.”
It said hostilities were also intense around al-Amal hospital, also in Khan Younis, with the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) on Saturday reporting that Israeli forces were continuing to bombard its vicinity as well as the PRCS branch headquarters in Khan Younis. OCHA wrote:
The PRCS stated that dozens had been killed and injured inside, and in the vicinity of the two facilities amid ongoing fighting over the previous four weeks.
OCHA also said that on Sunday morning “shells were reportedly fired towards the vicinity of the European Hospital in Khan Younis, with casualties reported, amid intense fighting in the area.”
In a tweet on Sunday, the PRCS said its teams had buried the bodies of three people in the courtyard of al-Amal hospital “due to the difficulty of transporting them to an official cemetery due to the ongoing blockade imposed on the hospital.”
It said two had been killed on Sunday in front of the PRCS’s building, and the third was killed on Saturday at the entrance to the reception and emergency department of al-Amal.
🚨Today, PRCS teams are burying the bodies of three martyrs among the displaced in the besieged courtyard of Al-Amal Hospital in #KhanYunis.
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) January 28, 2024
📍This is due to the difficulty of transporting them to an official cemetery due to the ongoing blockade imposed on the hospital. 🔴Two of… pic.twitter.com/rPkxPIGNQ7
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The former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark has urged Australia and other western countries to reinstate funding to a key UN agency to avoid “a very, very harsh, collective punishment of the Gazan people”.
Over the weekend, more than 10 donor countries – including Australia, the US and the UK – suspended funding to UNRWA after Israel provided the agency with information alleging that as many as 12 of its staff were involved in Hamas’s 7 October attack on southern Israel.
Clark said that given the allegations related to 12 people out of a UNRWA workforce of 13,000, the decision to suspend aid funding was “completely disproportionate”.
She said the UNRWA chief had “immediately dismissed the nine people of the 12 that he could find – one is dead and two others are untraced”.
Clark said the suspension could have a “catastrophic” impact because UNRWA was the biggest deliverer of services, including emergency relief, in Gaza.
“If UNRWA is crippled financially it has devastating impacts for the families living in Gaza,” she said.
Iran has executed four people it says were linked to an Israeli intelligence operation, after the Supreme Court rejected their appeal, Iranian state media has reported according to Reuters. The news wire writes:
The defendants were accused of illegally entering Iranian territory from Iraq’s Kurdistan region to carry out a bombing operation in an Isfahan-based factory producing equipment for Iran’s Ministry of Defence.
Their operation was meant to take place in the summer of 2022 on behalf of Israel’s Mossad and was averted by Iranian intelligence, according to the reports.
Iran and Israel are longtime foes and are currently locked in a row over Iran’s nuclear programme. Israel accuses Iran of backing militant attacks against it, while Iran says Israel has carried out a number of killings of Iranian officials and scientists. Israel does not confirm nor deny such actions.
A man has been shot dead in the occupied West Bank town of Yamoun, west of Jenin, Al Jazeera is reporting.
The broadcaster had earlier reported that Israeli forces were raiding Jenin and that clashes had also erupted in the nearby village of Muthalath al-Shuhada and that Israeli soldiers had stormed residential neighbourhoods in the town of Ya’bad, south-west of Jenin.
The Qatar-based broadcaster said it had also verified footage circulating on social media showing Israeli soldiers beating a man who was said to be a paramedic with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, even as he held his hands in the air.
According to the UN, 362 Palestinians including 92 children had been killed in the occupied West Bank by the Israeli military and settlers as of Sunday.
Iran denies involvement in deadly Jordan drone attack on US base
Tehran has denied any involvement in a drone strike that killed three US troops at a base in Jordan, near the border with Syria, after US President Joe Biden blamed Iran-backed militia and vowed revenge.
In a statement published by the state news agency Irna, Tehran’s UN mission said: “Iran had no connection and had nothing to do with the attack on the US base,” adding: “There is a conflict between US forces and resistance groups in the region, which reciprocate retaliatory attacks.”
Saturday’s unmanned aerial drone attack on the military outpost Tower 22 was the first deadly strike against US forces since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in October and sent shock waves throughout the Middle East.
Responsibility for the strike was claimed by the Iranian-backed umbrella group Islamic Resistance, which have long been trying to drive the US troops out of Iraq and Syria, and have used the war in Gaza as the backdrop to intensify these efforts and broaden the battleground.
US forces have faced a near-daily barrage of drone and missile strikes in Iraq and Syria since the 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas. But this incident draws the US much closer to a direct conflict with Iran, an outcome both sides insist they wish to avoid, but may now be unable to prevent as the incidents proliferate and escalate in impact.
Here’s the Guardian’s full report on the drone attack:
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the crisis in the Middle East with me, Helen Livingstone.
Iran has denied any involvement in a drone strike that killed three US soldiers and injured dozens of others at a base in Jordan near the Syrian border.
In a statement published by the state news agency Irna, Tehran’s UN mission said: “Iran had no connection and had nothing to do with the attack on the US base.”
The mission added that “There is a conflict between US forces and resistance groups in the region, which reciprocate retaliatory attacks.”
The statement came after US President Joe Biden blamed Iran-backed groups for the attack, the first fatal strike on US forces in the region since the Israel-Gaza war broke out in October.
More on that soonest. In other key developments:
The US will respond to the attack on its troops, Biden said. During a campaign event at South Carolina on Sunday following the strike, Biden said: “We shall respond.” In his earlier statement he also said: “Have no doubt - we will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner of our choosing.”
Responsibility for Saturday’s attack on Tower 22, a military outpost on the Jordanian Syrian Iraqi borders was claimed by the Iranian-backed umbrella group Islamic Resistance. The groups have long been trying to drive the US troops out of Iraq and Syria, but have used the war in Gaza as the backdrop to intensify these efforts and broaden the battleground.
A senior official with Hamas, Sami Abu Zuhri, said the attacks on US forces were tied directly to Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. Speaking to Reuters, Abu Zuhri said: “The killing of three American soldiers is a message to the US administration that unless the killing of innocents in Gaza stops, it must confront the entire nation.”
At least 165 Palestinians were killed and 290 injured over the past 24 hours, Gaza’s health ministry said on Sunday. That brings the total number of Palestinians killed in the Israeli onslaught on Gaza to 26,422 since 7 October, not including the thousands thought to be buried under the rubble of collapsed buildings. The huge death toll comes despite last week’s ICJ interim ruling that Israel must do everything possible to avoid killing Palestinian civilians.
Palestinian medics and residents said Israel continued to bomb areas around the two main hospitals in Khan Younis, hindering efforts by rescue teams to respond to desperate calls from people caught in the Israeli bombardment. “There is a complete failure of the healthcare system at Nasser and Al-Amal hospitals,” said health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra.
The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, has appealed to the 10 donor countries that have withdrawn funding from the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees to reconsider, saying the agency and Palestinians in desperate need should not be penalised due to the alleged acts of a dozen staff. Guterres said nine UNRWA staff had already been dismissed for alleged involvement in Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October and any UN employee involved in acts of terror would be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution. Aid agencies have repeatedly warned in recent weeks that ordinary Gazans are at risk of famine after Israel stopped most food aid from entering the territory and cut off water supplies.
Talks on Sunday initiated by Qatar, the US and Egypt and aimed at brokering a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas were “constructive” but “significant gaps” remain, a statement from the Israeli prime minister’s office has said. US officials have reportedly proposed an initial 30-day temporary ceasefire to allow for the remaining female, elderly and wounded Israeli hostages to be freed. This would be followed by a second 30-day pause where Israeli soldiers and male hostages would be released, in tandem with an increase in the trickle of aid permitted into Gaza.
Far-right Israeli ministers and ministers belonging to Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party have attended a conference on the resettlement of Gaza, at which the national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir said Israelis needed “to find a legal way to voluntarily emigrate [Palestinians],” Haaretz newspaper has reported. Communications minister Shlomo Karhi told the conference that in war, “‘voluntary’ is at times a state you impose [on someone] until they give their consent.’”
