Summary
We’re going to pause our live reporting of the Middle East crisis for now – it’s 3.40am in Tel Aviv, Beirut and Gaza City. You can read our latest full report here on Israel’s ban of the UN relief agency Unrwa, as well as see all our Middle East coverage. Here’s a recap of the latest developments – thanks for reading.
Israel’s parliament voted on Monday to ban the UN relief and works agency (Unrwa) from the country within 90 days, in defiance of US and other international pressure to maintain the largest provider of humanitarian assistance to the country’s Palestinians. The Knesset banned the agency from conducting “any activity” or providing any service inside Israel, including the areas of annexed East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank. A second vote declared Unrwa a terror group, effectively banning any direct interaction between the UN agency and the Israeli state.
The Israeli legislation is expected to lead to the closure of Unrwa’s East Jerusalem headquarters and would effectively block the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza via Rafah in the south. The severing of diplomatic relations would preclude Israel from issuing entry and work permits to foreign Unrwa staff and prevent coordination with the Israeli military to permit aid shipments. The legislation will not come into effect immediately.
Unrwa head Philippe Lazzarini called the Israeli decision “unprecedented” and said it was “nothing less than collective punishment” for Palestinians. The bills “will only deepen the suffering Palestinians, especially in Gaza, where people have been going through more than a year of sheer hell”. An Unrwa spokesperson said the law would be a “disaster” and have a serious impact on the humanitarian operation in Gaza and in the occupied West Bank.
The US state department said it was “deeply concerned” by Israel’s move to ban Unrwa, with spokesperson Matthew Miller saying the agency plays a “critical, important role in delivering humanitarian assistance to civilians that need it in Gaza”. The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, said Britain was “gravely concerned” the bill had passed, while its foreign secretary, David Lammy, earlier on Monday suggested sanctions could be taken against Israeli politicians if Unrwa was “brought to its knees” by the Knesset’s decision. The governments of Spain, Slovenia, Ireland and Norway jointly condemned Israel’s ban on Unrwa and said it set a “very serious” precedent for the work of the UN and all organisations of the multilateral system. Belgium said it “deeply regrets” the Knesset’s vote. Germany’s commissioner for human rights policy and humanitarian assistance said the move would be “jeopardising vital humanitarian aid for millions of people”.
At least 60 people were killed and dozens wounded in Israeli strikes on Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa valley on Monday, according to reports. The country’s health ministry said the tolls covered several areas in the Baalbek region as its governor, Bachir Khodr, decried what he called the “most violent” raids on the area since the Israel-Hezbollah war erupted late last month. The Israeli military issued an evacuation order on Monday for large swathes of the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, including areas already ordered to evacuate and other new ones. Lebanon’s National News Agency reported “a series of strikes” on the ancient coastal city, beginning with a raid on a residential apartment that was reported to have killed at least seven people.
Benjamin Netanyahu has denied reports that Israel has received a proposal that would include the release of four hostages in return for a 48-hour ceasefire in Gaza. The statement from the Israeli prime minister’s office came a day after Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, said his country has proposed a two-day ceasefire in Gaza which would entail an exchange of four Israeli hostages for some Palestinian prisoners. “If such a proposal were made, the prime minister would accept it on the spot,” Netanyahu’s office said.
About 100,000 Palestinians are trapped in northern Gaza’s Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun areas without medical or food supplies, the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service warned. It said its operations had ground to a halt because of the three-week Israeli assault into the northern part of the Strip, which the Israeli military said was being conducted to stop Hamas fighters from regrouping there. Meanwhile, north Gaza’s three hospitals, where officials refused Israeli army orders to evacuate, said they were hardly operating. On Monday, Gaza’s health ministry said only one of roughly 70 medical staff – a paediatrician – was left at Kamal Adwan hospital after Israel “detained and expelled” the others.
Israel’s defence ministry said it had signed a 2bn shekel ($536m) deal with local contractors to expand production of a new laser-based “Iron Beam” missile defence system that could be operational in the next year. Eyal Zamir, the director general of Israel’s defence ministry, said the deal “heralds the beginning of a new era in warfare”.
At the United Nations in New York, Israel and Iran have accused each of endangering Middle East peace in a heated exchange at a UN meeting called after Israel’s Saturday attack on Iranian military targets.
At least 43,020 Palestinian people have been killed and 101,110 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said on Monday. Thousands of other dead people are likely lost in the rubble of the territory, the Hamas-run ministry has previously noted.
Netanyahu said Iran led an “axis of evil” and Israel was the only obstacle preventing this evil from spreading and threatening peace around the world. Speaking at the opening of Israel’s Knesset on Monday, the prime minister also referred to the war in Gaza and Lebanon, declaring that the “day after” the conflict, “Hamas will no longer rule Gaza and Hezbollah will not sit on our northern border. Total victory is an orderly and consistent work plan that we fulfil step by step.”
Palestinian prisoner rights organisations have accused Israeli prison authorities of “brutally assaulting” Marwan Barghouti, the most prominent Palestinian detainee in Israeli custody. Prison staff assaulted Barghouti in his solitary confinement cell at Megiddo prison in northern Israel on 9 September, the rights groups said. The assault “resulted in several injuries to Barghouti’s body, to his ribs … as well as bleeding of the right ear and a wound to his right arm, along with severe back pain”, they said.
Iran has executed a 69-year-old German-Iranian political scientist after years in captivity, sparking outrage in Germany and beyond. Berlin warned of “serious consequences” for Iran’s “inhumane regime” after Jamshid Sharmahd, a German citizen of Iranian descent and a US resident, was put to death on Monday. A Norway-based human rights group called the execution the “extrajudicial killing of a hostage”.
Sally Rooney, Arundhati Roy and Rachel Kushner are among more than 1,000 writers and publishing professionals who have signed a letter pledging to boycott Israeli cultural institutions that “are complicit or have remained silent observers of the overwhelming oppression of Palestinians”.
Updated
In Gaza, rescuers reported fresh strikes on Monday, while the Israeli military said it hit Jabalia refugee camp in the north, killing dozens of militants.
An Israeli military official said the goal was to clear Jabalia of militants, which “will take us at least [several] weeks” to achieve, Agence France-Presse reports.
The official – briefing reporters on condition of anonymity – said Israel was not forcing residents to leave, claiming that “the safer zone in the Gaza Strip is in the south, but it’s up to them” to decide whether to go.
But the process had left 100,000 people trapped in a “siege”, the Gaza civil defence agency’s spokesperson, Mahmud Bassal, said late on Sunday.
For 22 days, not a drop of water or bread has entered the northern Gaza Strip.
Since 6 October, the Israeli military has been carrying out a fresh air and ground assault in northern Gaza to destroy operational capabilities it says Hamas is trying to rebuild there.
