Closing summary
Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
The Israeli army said Iran will not get off “scot-free” after Tehran’s missile and drone attack over the weekend. “We will respond in our time, in our place, in the way that we will choose,” Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari told reporters on Tuesday. On Monday, the Israeli military chief, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, said Israel was considering its next steps but that the Iranian strike “will be met with a response”.
The US and the EU are considering rapid new sanctions against Iran in the wake of Tehran’s large-scale air attack on Israel at the weekend. The US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, said Washington would use its sanctions authority and work with allies to “continue disrupting the Iranian regime’s malign and destabilising activity”. Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, noted a European appetite for quickly expanding sanctions against Tehran, perhaps within days.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it has killed a Hezbollah commander in an airstrike in the southern Lebanese town of Ain Baal. The individual was named as Ismail Yousef Baz, who was described as “a senior and veteran official in the military wing of Hezbollah”. A source close to Hezbollah said the “field commander in charge of the Naqura region” was killed in an Israeli strike.
Vladimir Putin urged all sides in the Middle East to refrain from action that would trigger a new confrontation which he warned would be fraught with catastrophic consequences for the region, the Kremlin said. Putin spoke to Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, by phone about what the Kremlin called “retaliatory measures taken by Tehran”.
Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly avoiding a call from the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, after the pair were scheduled to speak on Monday, according to a report. Sunak, addressing the House of Commons on Monday, said he would “shortly be speaking to prime minister Netanyahu” to “discuss how we can prevent further escalation” in the face of the weekend’s attack by Iran.
The Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus violated international law, a group of independent experts appointed by the UN human rights council said. In the report, special rapporteurs and independent experts said “retaliatory military attacks between Israel and Iran violate the right to life and must cease immediately.”
At least 33,843 Palestinians and 76,575 wounded in the Gaza Strip since 7 October, according to the latest figures by the territory’s health ministry on Tuesday. The ministry, which is led by Hamas, stated there had been 46 Palestinians killed and 110 injured in the past 24 hours.
Israeli tanks pushed back into some areas of the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday which they had left weeks ago, while warplanes conducted airstrikes on Rafah, the Palestinians’ last refuge in the south of the territory, killing and wounding several people, medics and residents said.
More than 10,000 women have been killed in Gaza since Israel’s war with Hamas began in October, according to a new report by UN Women. Among those women killed in the Palestinian territory are an estimated 6,000 mothers, leaving 19,000 children orphaned, the report published on Tuesday said.
The UN has voiced grave concern over escalating violence in the West Bank, demanding that Israeli security forces “immediately” stop supporting settler attacks on Palestinians in the occupied territory. The statement was issued after two Palestinian men were killed by Israeli settlers in a northern village south of Nablus, in the latest violent attack involving settlers in the increasingly tense West Bank.
More than a dozen humanitarian groups have signed a letter warning that the escalating tensions in the Middle East are “unprecedented” and risk “threatening the lives of millions of civilians”.
The artists and curators of the Israeli national pavilion at the Venice Biennale have announced their decision not to open until “a ceasefire and hostage release agreement is reached” in the conflict in Gaza, on the opening preview day of the largest and most prominent global gathering in the art world.
Updated
Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly avoiding a call from the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, after the pair were scheduled to speak on Monday, according to a report by Israel’s Kann public broadcaster.
The Israeli prime minister’s office denied the report, but it did not say whether the two leaders have spoken yet.
Sunak, addressing the House of Commons yesterday, said he would “shortly be speaking to prime minister Netanyahu” to “discuss how we can prevent further escalation” in the face of the weekend’s attack by Iran.
Sunak has been seeking to speak to the Israeli leader for more than 36 hours, the Telegraph reported.
