Summary of the day so far
It’s 4:33am in Gaza, Tel Aviv and Beirut. This blog is now closing – but first – a summary of the day’s events so far:
The UN security council has voted to approve a resolution drafted by the US and Japan to demand an end to attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea by Houthi rebels. The council voted down proposed amendments from Russia that would have weakened the resolution. The vote passed with 11 votes in favour, zero objections and four abstentions, including Russia, China and Algeria.
The head of Yemen’s Houthi supreme revolutionary committee, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, has reacted to the UN resolution on navigation in the Red Sea. Al-Houthi said in a post on X that what Yemeni armed forces were doing comes within the framework of legitimate defence, and that any action they face will have a reaction. He also described the resolution as a “political game”. “We call on the Security Council to immediately release 2.3 Million people from the Israeli-American siege in Gaza,” he said.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has condemned attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea as “reckless and dangerous” during a meeting with Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa in Manama, the penultimate stop of the diplomat’s whistle stop Middle East tour. Earlier on Wednesday he met the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, in the West Bank, where they discussed “ongoing efforts to minimise civilian harm in Gaza, accelerate the delivery of humanitarian aid, end extremist violence, and work towards an independent Palestinian state”.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has posted on X his views about the future of Gaza. He says “I want to make a few points absolutely clear: Israel has no intention of permanently occupying Gaza or displacing its civilian population. Israel is fighting Hamas terrorists, not the Palestinian population, and we are doing so in full compliance with international law.” The comments come as the international court of justice case against Israel is set to get under way on Thursday.
Pramila Patten, the United Nations special representative on sexual violence, will visit Israel this month to look at allegations of rape and other sexual offences committed by Hamas fighters on and after 7 October. Patten has been granted investigative authority by Israel’s foreign ministry that will allow her to speak with survivors and released Israeli hostages who were raped or sexually assaulted. Her office portrayed the visit as an “information gathering mission”.
The Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff said no village in Lebanon was out of the military’s reach, after an escalation in violence between Israeli forces and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group based there. Herzi Halevi told a gathering of soldiers in Gaza that their actions in the besieged Palestinian territory had convinced him that they could take the fight into Lebanese territory if needed, AFP reported.
The World Health Organization (WHO) director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said there were nearly “insurmountable obstacles” to delivering humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, saying the situation was “indescribable”. He said six planned missions to northern Gaza had been cancelled because Israel had rejected requests and not given assurances of safe passage, adding that a mission planned for today also had to be cancelled.
Britain warned of severe consequences after US and UK warships were forced to repel a barrage of 20 Houthi rockets, drones and cruise missiles fired at ships in the Red Sea. American and British forces say they shot down 18 drones and three missiles on Tuesday. The Italian defense minister, Guido Crosetto, has said that Yemen’s Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping must be stopped without triggering a new war.
A total of 23,357 Palestinians have been killed and 59,410 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said. The ministry, which is run by Hamas, said 147 Palestinians were killed and 243 injured in the past 24 hours. About 1.9 million people, or nearly 85% of the total population of Gaza, are estimated to have been displaced from their homes. Only 15 out of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are partially functional. Three hundred and thirty Palestinians have also been killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank over the same period, including 84 children, and nearly 4,000 people have been injured by Israeli security forces during that time.
The IDF announced the death of another member of Israel’s troops inside Gaza, taking the total toll of the ground offensive to 186. The Israeli military has said that 1,065 of its soldiers have been injured in Gaza. Israel launched its military campaign after the 7 October surprise Hamas attack during which about 1,200 people were killed. An estimated 240 people were seized as hostages. About 130 are still believed to be in captivity. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty counts being issued during the conflict.
Israel’s military claims to have “uncovered more than 15 underground tunnel shafts in the area” of Maghazi in central Gaza, where it says that its troops directed airstrikes that killed “several terrorists”. In Khan Younis, it claims that “in battles in the area over the last day, dozens of terrorist operatives were killed by IDF troops”, adding that “a total of approximately 150 terror targets were struck by IDF troops over the last day”. The claims have not been independently verified.
Israel’s military has also said that it is has again struck at what it described as Hezbollah terrorist targets inside southern Lebanon.
The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported Israel detained a further 26 Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. It brings the total number of detainees since 7 October to more than 5,780.
Israeli politician Nissim Vaturi reiterated his call for Gaza to be burned down, saying “there are no innocents there”. Referring to Palestinians still in northern Gaza after repeated orders from the Israeli military for them to flee, Vaturi said: “One hundred thousand remain. I have no mercy for those who are still there. We need to eliminate them.” The comments came ahead of a hearing on Thursday at the international court of justice, where South Africa has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza.
Here’s our full report on that UN resolution that has passed in the last few hours:
The UN security council has called for an immediate end to attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on shipping in the Red Sea, adopting a resolution despite abstentions from Russia and China.
The resolution also called on the Houthis to release the Galaxy Leader, a Japanese-operated vehicle carrier linked to an Israeli businessman that the group commandeered on 19 November, along with its 25 crew.
US Central Command said there have been 26 Houthi strikes on shipping since then, causing shipping companies to bypass the route and instead divert around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, significantly adding to journey times and cost.
Read the rest of our report here:
Here are some of the latest images coming out of the US secretary of state’s meeting the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, and with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday.
The United Nations office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (Ocha) has posted its latest update on the Israel-Gaza war.
In their wide-ranging report they note the difficulty of delivering aid to Gaza:
Between 1 and 10 January, only 14 per cent (3 of 21) planned aid deliveries of food, medicines, water, and other lifesaving supplies to the north of Wadi Gaza proceeded.
Humanitarian partners were forced to cancel or delay missions in two instances due to excessive delays at Israeli checkpoints or because the agreed routes were unpassable.
Humanitarian partners’ ability to respond to extensive needs in the northern side of Gaza is being curtailed by recurring denials of access for aid delivers and lack of coordinated safe access by the Israeli authorities.
These denials and severe access constraints paralyze the ability of humanitarian partners to respond meaningfully, consistently and at-scale.
Martin Griffiths, the UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, has posted on X some reaction to the deaths of four employees with the Palestine Red Crescent’s ambulance crew.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society has alleged in a statement that they were killed after Israel targeted an ambulance in the city of Deir al-Balah in Gaza.
Griffiths says “The rules of war are clear: Parties must protect civilians, including humanitarian workers. These rules must be upheld.”
Such devastating news. We mourn the loss of these brave colleagues.
— Martin Griffiths (@UNReliefChief) January 11, 2024
The rules of war are clear: Parties must protect civilians, including humanitarian workers.
These rules must be upheld.
The fighting must end. https://t.co/MLtZSFHJBb
Yemen's Houthis respond to UN resolution
The head of Yemen’s Houthi supreme revolutionary committee, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, has reacted to the UN resolution on navigation in the Red Sea.
The UN security council on Wednesday demanded Yemen’s Houthis immediately end attacks on ships in the Red Sea and implicitly endorsed a US-led taskforce that has been defending vessels while cautioning against escalating tensions.
Al-Houthi said in a post on X that what Yemeni armed forces were doing comes within the framework of legitimate defence, and that any action they face will have a reaction. He also described the resolution as a “political game”.
“We call on the Security Council to immediately release 2.3 Million people from the Israeli-American siege in Gaza,” he said.
نطالب بأن يكف الكيان الإسرائيلي فورا عن جميع الهجمات التي تعيق الحياة واستمرارها في غزة وتقوض الحقوق والحريات والسلم والأمن الإقليميين
— محمد علي الحوثي (@Moh_Alhouthi) January 10, 2024
. كما نطالب مجلس الامن بالإفراج فورا عن مليونين وثلاثمائة انسان من الحصار الإسرائيلي الامريكي الذي بات سلاحا قاتل وباتت غزة بسببه تمثل أكبر سجن…
Updated
The Israeli military says it has found evidence that hostages were present in an underground tunnel in Gaza.
Associated Press reports that the military showed the tunnel to journalists who were escorted into a neighbourhood near the ruins of destroyed homes and streets. It reports:
A corrugated tin hut covered the tunnel’s entrance in a residential yard.
A makeshift ladder led to the narrow underground pathway, about 2.5 meters (8 feet) below. The tunnel was hot and humid, with walls lined with concrete and electrical wires. Farther inside was a bathroom, where the military said it found evidence that hostages had been there, including their DNA.
“Hostages were held here in this tunnel system,” said Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the army’s chief spokesperson.
Hagari offered no details on what exactly was found in the tunnel, nor did he say when the hostages were there or identify them. He did not say if they were known to be dead or alive.
In a later statement to the media, he said the captives were held in “difficult conditions,” without elaborating.
International journalists have struggled to get into Gaza unless they embed with the Israeli military.
Some more analysis of the UN security council vote is coming through.
The key provision of the resolution, sponsored by the US and Japan, noted the right of UN member states, in accordance with international law, “to defend their vessels from attack, including those that undermine navigational rights and freedoms.”
Reuters is reporting that the provision amounted to an implicit endorsement of Operation Prosperity Guardian, a US-led multinational naval taskforce that has been defending commercial ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden from Houthi missile and drone attacks.
The Houthis, a group that seized much of Yemen in a civil war, have vowed to attack ships linked to Israel or bound for Israeli ports to show support for Hamas battling the Israeli offensive in Gaza. However, many of the targeted ships have had no links to Israel.
The council voted after rejecting amendments proposed by Russia that would have stripped out the implicit endorsement of the US-led taskforce and included the war in Gaza among the “root causes” of the Houthi strikes, says Reuters.
Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia questioned the legitimacy of the taskforce and said the resolution as drafted was “an open-ended blessing of it.”
The Houthi attacks have disrupted maritime commerce, prompting some shipping lines to divert vessels from the Red Sea to longer routes, threatening to increase energy and food prices.
In the latest strikes, Washington said US and British warships on Tuesday shot down 21 drones and missiles fired by the Houthis at southern Red Sea shipping lanes in what London called the largest such attack in the area.
Let’s get more on the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and his meeting with the Palestinian Authority (PA) president, Mahmoud Abbas.
Blinken pressed Abbas to reform his government, the Associated Press reports.
In their meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Blinken told Abbas that the US supports “tangible steps” toward a Palestinian state, according to state department spokesperson Matthew Miller.
Blinken said later that they discussed reforming the Palestinian Authority so “it can effectively take responsibility for Gaza”. Abbas appeared ready to “engage in all of these efforts”, Blinken said at his next stop, the Bahraini capital of Manama.
Abbas spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh said they heard “good statements” from the Americans. “But nothing has happened,” he said. “The priority now is to stop the war on Gaza.”
Updated
Reuters is reporting some initial reaction from the Houthis to the UN security council vote.
The security council has voted to approve a resolution drafted by the US and Japan to demand an end to attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea by Houthi rebels.
The Houthi spokesperson in Yemen, Mohammed Abdul Salam, has described the resolution as a “political game”.
The spokesperson has accused the US of violating international law, instead.
Updated
Reged Ahmad here picking up the blog from Richard Luscombe
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has posted on X a thread which includes his views about the future of Gaza.
He says:
I want to make a few points absolutely clear: Israel has no intention of permanently occupying Gaza or displacing its civilian population. Israel is fighting Hamas terrorists, not the Palestinian population, and we are doing so in full compliance with international law.
The comments come as the international court of justice case against Israel is set to get under way on Thursday.
Read the rest of Netanyahu’s thread here:
"I want to make a few points absolutely clear:
— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) January 10, 2024
Israel has no intention of permanently occupying Gaza or displacing its civilian population.
Israel is fighting Hamas terrorists, not the Palestinian population, and we are doing so in full compliance with international law. pic.twitter.com/amxFaMnS0P
Updated
Summary of the day:
It’s 1:08am on Thursday in Gaza City, Tel Aviv and Beirut. Here’s where things stand in the Middle East crisis:
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has condemned attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea as “reckless and dangerous” during a meeting with Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa in Manama, the penultimate stop of the diplomat’s whistle stop Middle East tour. Earlier on Wednesday he met the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, in the West Bank, where they discussed “ongoing efforts to minimise civilian harm in Gaza, accelerate the delivery of humanitarian aid, end extremist violence, and work towards an independent Palestinian state”.
The UN security council has voted to approve a resolution drafted by the US and Japan to demand an end to attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea by Houthi rebels. The council voted down proposed amendments from Russia that would have weakened the resolution. The vote passed with 11 votes in favour, zero objections and four abstentions, including Russia, China and Algeria.
Pramila Patten, the United Nations special representative on sexual violence, will visit Israel this month to look at allegations of rape and other sexual offences committed by Hamas fighters on and after 7 October. Patten has been granted investigative authority by Israel’s foreign ministry that will allow her to speak with survivors and released Israeli hostages who were raped or sexually assaulted. Her office portrayed the visit as an “information gathering mission”.
The Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff said no village in Lebanon was out of the military’s reach, after an escalation in violence between Israeli forces and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group based there. Herzi Halevi told a gathering of soldiers in Gaza that their actions in the besieged Palestinian territory had convinced him that they could take the fight into Lebanese territory if needed, AFP reported.
The World Health Organization (WHO) director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said there were nearly “insurmountable obstacles” to delivering humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, saying the situation was “indescribable”. He said six planned missions to northern Gaza had been cancelled because Israel had rejected requests and not given assurances of safe passage, adding that a mission planned for today also had to be cancelled.
The British defense secretary, Grant Shapps, hinted there could be further western military action against the Houthis in Yemen, telling reporters to “watch this space” when asked about possible further action after last night’s drone attack in the Red Sea.
Britain warned of severe consequences after US and UK warships were forced to repel a barrage of 20 Houthi rockets, drones and cruise missiles fired at ships in the Red Sea. American and British forces say they shot down 18 drones and three missiles on Tuesday. The Italian defense minister, Guido Crosetto, has said that Yemen’s Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping must be stopped without triggering a new war.
A total of 23,357 Palestinians have been killed and 59,410 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said. The ministry, which is run by Hamas, said 147 Palestinians were killed and 243 injured in the past 24 hours. About 1.9 million people, or nearly 85% of the total population of Gaza, are estimated to have been displaced from their homes. Only 15 out of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are partially functional. Three hundred and thirty Palestinians have also been killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank over the same period, including 84 children, and nearly 4,000 people have been injured by Israeli security forces during that time.
The IDF announced the death of another member of Israel’s troops inside Gaza, taking the total toll of the ground offensive to 186. The Israeli military has said that 1,065 of its soldiers have been injured in Gaza. Israel launched its military campaign after the 7 October surprise Hamas attack during which about 1,200 people were killed. An estimated 240 people were seized as hostages. About 130 are still believed to be in captivity. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty counts being issued during the conflict.
Israel’s military claims to have “uncovered more than 15 underground tunnel shafts in the area” of Maghazi in central Gaza, where it says that its troops directed airstrikes that killed “several terrorists”. In Khan Younis, it claims that “in battles in the area over the last day, dozens of terrorist operatives were killed by IDF troops”, adding that “a total of approximately 150 terror targets were struck by IDF troops over the last day”. The claims have not been independently verified.
Israel’s military has also said that it is has again struck at what it described as Hezbollah terrorist targets inside southern Lebanon.
The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported Israel detained a further 26 Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. It brings the total number of detainees since 7 October to more than 5,780.
Israeli politician Nissim Vaturi reiterated his call for Gaza to be burned down, saying “there are no innocents there”. Referring to Palestinians still in northern Gaza after repeated orders from the Israeli military for them to flee, Vaturi said: “One hundred thousand remain. I have no mercy for those who are still there. We need to eliminate them.” The comments came ahead of a hearing on Thursday at the international court of justice, where South Africa has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza.
Updated
Barbara Woodward, the UK ambassador to the UN, welcomed the passing of the resolution. She said:
The UK condemns in the strongest terms the illegal and unjustified attacks in the Red Sea by Houthi militants. Yesterday, the Houthis attempted their largest attack yet, launching at least 21 missiles and drones towards international shipping lanes.
Fifteen percent of all global seaborne trade passes through the Red Sea. These attacks threatened to spike the availability and prices of food and energy, which would inevitably hit the world’s poorest, the hardest. Yesterday’s was the 26th such attack since the 19th of November.
This was despite the council’s demand on the first of December for the Houthis to stop all such attacks immediately. On 3 January, the UK joined 11 countries in a statement warning against further attacks.
So we’re using all diplomatic means possible to deter these attacks. And that is why we voted in favor of this resolution.
Updated
Here are details of the resolution just passed by the UN security council demanding an end to attacks on Red Sea shipping, courtesy of the independent security council report.
It says language specifically referencing Gaza that Algeria and Russia apparently proposed was not accommodated, and the draft resolution was updated to emphasize the need to address “the root causes, including the conflicts contributing to regional tensions and the disruption of maritime security”.
Russia and Algeria were two of the abstentions in the security council vote.
Updated
UN security council approves resolution demanding end to Red Sea attacks
The UN security council has just voted to approve a resolution drafted by the US and Japan to demand an end to attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea by Houthi rebels.
The council voted down proposed amendments from Russia that would have weakened the resolution.
The vote passed with 11 votes in favour, zero objections and four abstentions, including Russia, China and Algeria.
Updated
Blinken: Red Sea attacks 'reckless and dangerous'
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has told King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain that Houthi attacks in the Red Sea are “reckless and dangerous” during the latest stopover on the senior diplomat’s whistle-stop tour of the Middle East.
The two met in Manama on Wednesday evening, where they discussed the attacks on commercial shipping and “reaffirmed their shared commitment to international law and freedom of navigation”, according to a state department readout.
Blinken expanded on the issue in comments during a press availability following the meeting:
We know all about the hostages in Gaza; well, the Houthis have taken more than 25 hostages from the ships that they’ve seized since this fall. So all of this has required us – this challenge, this threat to the interests of countries around the world, has required us to respond.
We put together Operation Prosperity Guardian with more than 20 countries, including Bahrain, to do everything we can to preserve freedom of navigation, freedom of shipping in the Red Sea.
A UN security vote was expected later on Wednesday on a US-drafted resolution demanding an end to the Red Sea attacks. As of 5pm ET, there was no indication of what time the vote might take place.
Earlier on Wednesday, Blinken met the Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank, where he restated the US commitment to a Palestinian state.
Blinken will wrap up his trip in Egypt on Thursday. He visited Turkey, Greece, Jordan, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the West Bank before his penultimate stopover in Bahrain.
Read our earlier report on Blinken’s travels by the Guardian’s Jason Burke and Sufian Taha:
Updated
Two videos from the West Bank showing Israeli troops shooting a 17-year-old boy and security forces repeatedly running over the body of a man they had shot have added to concerns about the Israeli military’s rules of engagement, the Guardian’s Emma Graham-Harrison reports from Jerusalem.
The shooting of 17-year-old Osaid Rimawi in the early hours of last Friday is shown in footage from a security camera in a local shop that was obtained by the Associated Press news agency. The video also shows two earlier rounds of gunfire that injured two unarmed men. Rimawi was killed when he tried to rush to their aid.
The only weapons visible in the footage are guns held by Israeli soldiers. Soldiers gathered round the dead and injured bodies; one prodded Rimawi with his foot, then drove away. They did not make any arrests.
The Israeli military said troops in Beit Rima had opened fire on suspects who had thrown explosives and firebombs, AP reported. Local residents said the killings were unprovoked, and no one had thrown explosives.
The Israeli military has repeatedly been accused of using deadly violence without provocation. Most of the victims have been Palestinians, but they include three Israeli hostages, who were killed after they escaped Hamas captivity in December. They were bare-chested, waving white flags and at least one was shouting in Hebrew.
Earlier this week, footage from Gaza emerged that appeared to show a sniper killing a woman as she led a column of civilians trying to reach a safe zone in November. She was waving a white flag and walking beside a young child.
Read the full story here:
Updated
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has posted to Twitter/X a powerful video message urging Israel to allow it to deliver humanitarian aid in Gaza.
“Delivering humanitarian aid in Gaza continues to face nearly insurmountable challenges. We have the supplies, the teams and the plans in place. What we don’t have is access,” Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director-general, said in the message posted Wednesday afternoon.
“We call on Israel to approve requests by WHO and other partners to deliver humanitarian aid.”
Delivering humanitarian aid in #Gaza continues to face nearly insurmountable challenges.
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) January 10, 2024
We have the supplies, the teams and the plans in place. What we don’t have is access.
We call on #Israel to approve requests by @WHO and other partners to deliver humanitarian aid. pic.twitter.com/nM6cTNbVGB
Updated
Here are more of images from the Middle East crisis, sent to us over the news wires on Wednesday:
Updated
Israel's army chief: 'No Lebanon village out of our reach'
The Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff says no village in Lebanon is out of the military’s reach, after an escalation in violence between Israeli forces and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group based there.
Herzi Halevi told a gathering of soldiers in Gaza that their actions in the besieged Palestinian territory had convinced him that they could take the fight into Lebanese territory if needed, AFP reports:
We’ve fought in Gaza, so we know how to do it in Lebanon if we have to. After what you did [in Gaza], there is not a village in Lebanon that you cannot enter and destroy.
Since the start of the border escalation following Hamas’s attack on Israel, 188 people have been killed in Lebanon, including 141 Hezbollah members and more than 20 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
On Wednesday, the mayor of the southern Lebanon village of Kfarkela told AFP that a civilian “was killed during an Israeli artillery strike while he was in his garden”.
Officials in Tel Aviv say 14 Israelis have been killed in Lebanon, including nine soldiers, during the almost daily missile exchanges with Hezbollah.
Updated
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has a few more details on new efforts to free hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.
As we reported earlier, Israel’s security cabinet will discuss a deal mediated by Qatar to release all the Israeli hostages. Haaretz says the proposal would see hostages freed in several batches in exchange for safe passage out of Gaza into exile for Hamas leaders, and a retreat by the Israeli Defense Forces from the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli cabinet was meeting on Wednesday night, Haaretz said.
Separately, it reports that an Israeli delegation visited Cairo on Wednesday for discussions with Egyptian politicians on a possible swap of hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners and detainees held by Israel. It cites an Egyptian official.
More than 100 hostages were released by Hamas during a seven-day ceasefire in November, but efforts to negotiate freedom for the estimated 136 who remain in captivity have stalled since.
Updated
UN sex crimes investigator to visit Israel
The United Nations chief investigator on sex crimes has accepted an invitation from Israel to visit the country later this month to look at allegations of rape and other sexual offenses committed by Hamas fighters on and after 7 October.
Pramila Patten, the UN’s special representative on sexual violence in conflict, has been granted investigative authority by Israel’s foreign ministry that will allow her to speak with survivors and released Israeli hostages.
Hamas is accused of widespread sexual crimes against women at the beginning of the conflict, highlighted in a New York Times investigation published last month. It found “a pattern of rape, mutilation and extreme brutality against women in the attacks on Israel”.
Patten’s role in Israel is not specifically investigative in nature, according to her office, which portrayed the visit as more of an information gathering trip. It said Patten would brief the media in New York following the visit.
That statement prompted concern from Mark Regev, special adviser to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, during an appearance on CNN on Wednesday afternoon:
The feeling of much of Israel, and especially among the women’s organizations, is that the UN is late to the game here, but I suppose we could say better late than never.
The evidence has come out of Hamas using rape as a weapon of war [and] brutalizing women. One of the tragedies, the horrors of this situation is most of the women who are raped are murdered or their bodies mutilated. [These are] terrible, terrible crimes against women, terrible crimes against humanity.
The Times quoted a Hamas spokesman, Basem Naim, as saying the group welcomed in principle “any neutral, fair, transparent and professional investigation” but insisted that evidence of sexual assault should come from “biological samples” obtained through forensic examinations.
Such evidence is notoriously difficult to collect during times of armed conflict.
Updated
Germany has pledged €15m to strengthen the Lebanese armed forces as tensions escalate on Lebanon’s border with Israel, AFP reports.
Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister, made the announcement Wednesday during a visit to Beirut, saying the money was to help fortify border security. She said the Lebanese army must be able to exercise “effective control” over the area to “contain armed militias and terrorist organizations”.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, has been exchanging near-daily fire across the border with Israel since the Israel-Gaza war broke out on 7 October, prompting fears of a wider regional conflict.
Baerbock’s visit Wednesday was the latest of a succession of western diplomats heading to Beirut to urge restraint and discuss political solutions. She spoke with Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati and said an escalation of the conflict “would be a catastrophe for the two countries”.
Updated
Defense systems shot down an armed drone on Wednesday over Erbil airport in northern Iraq, where US and other international forces are stationed, Reuters is reporting, citing Iraqi Kurdistan’s counter-terrorism service.
A statement from the service did not say if there were any casualties or damage to infrastructure as a result of the attack, the news agency said.
A group called the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-aligned Iraqi militias, said in a statement that it had carried out a drone attack on the US base at Erbil airport.
US officials have yet to comment. More than 100 attacks against US interests in Iraq and Syria have taken place since mid-October, most claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq over Washington’s backing of Israel in its war in Gaza.
Interim summary
It’s 9pm in Gaza City, Tel Aviv and Beirut. We will continue to bring you the news as it happens, so stick with the Guardian’s global blog covering the conflict in Gaza and wider events in the Middle East.
Here’s where things stand:
The United Nations security council is planning a vote on a resolution to demand that attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels against ships in the Red Sea stop. The US draft resolution, obtained by The Associated Press, says at least two dozen Houthi attacks are impeding global commerce “and undermine navigational rights and freedoms as well as regional peace and security.”
US secretary of state Antony Blinken shared an update about his meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in a post to X, formerly known as Twitter. He said: “Met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to discuss ongoing efforts to minimize civilian harm in Gaza, accelerate the delivery of humanitarian aid, end extremist violence, and work towards an independent Palestinian state.”
World Health Organization (WHO) director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said there are nearly “insurmountable obstacles” to delivering humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, saying the situation was “indescribable”. He said six planned missions to northern Gaza had been cancelled because Israel had rejected requests and not given assurances of safe passage, adding that a mission planned for today had also had to be cancelled.
British defence secretary Grant Shapps hinted there could be further western military action against the Houthis in Yemen, telling reporters to “watch this space” when asked about possible further action after last night’s drone attack in the Red Sea.
Britain has warned of severe consequences after US and UK warships were forced to repel a barrage of 20 Houthi rockets, drones and cruise missiles fired at ships in the Red Sea. American and British forces say they shot down 18 drones and three missiles on Tuesday. Italian defence minister Guido Crosetto has said that Yemen’s Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping must be stopped without triggering a new war.
The US state department has said that the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is to make an additional previously unannounced stop in Bahrain during his tour of the region. Blinken met the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday morning in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
A total of 23,357 Palestinians have been killed and 59,410 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said. The ministry, which is run by Hamas, said 147 Palestinians were killed and 243 injured in the past 24 hours. 1.9 million people, or nearly 85% of the total population of Gaza, are estimated to have been displaced from their homes. Only 15 out of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are partially functional. 330 Palestinians have also been killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank over the same period, including 84 children, and nearly 4,000 people have been injured by Israeli security forces during that time.
The IDF announced the death of another member of Israel’s troops inside Gaza, taking the total toll of the ground offensive to 186. The Israeli military has said that 1,065 of its soldiers have been injured in Gaza. Israel launched its military campaign after the 7 October surprise Hamas attack during which about 1,200 people were killed. An estimated 240 people were seized as hostages. About 130 are still believed to be in captivity. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty counts being issued during the conflict.
Israel’s military claims to have “uncovered more than 15 underground tunnel shafts in the area” of Maghazi in central Gaza, where it says that its troops directed airstrikes that killed “several terrorists”. In Khan Younis, it claims that “in battles in the area over the last day, dozens of terrorist operatives were killed by IDF troops”, adding that “a total of approximately 150 terror targets were struck by IDF troops over the last day”. The claims have not been independently verified.
Israel’s military has also said that it is has again struck at what it described as Hezbollah terrorist targets inside southern Lebanon.
The Palestinian news agency Wafa has reported this morning that Israel has detained a further 26 Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. This brings the total number of detainees since 7 October to more than 5,780.
Israeli politician Nissim Vaturi has reiterated his call for Gaza to be burned down, saying “there are no innocents there”. Referring to Palestinians still in northern Gaza after repeated orders from the Israeli military for them to flee, Vaturi said: “One hundred thousand remain. I have no mercy for those who are still there. We need to eliminate them”. The comments come ahead of a hearing on Thursday at the international court of justice, where South Africa has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza.
US national security spokesman John Kirby has reiterated the American position that the claim in the international court of justice from South Africa that Israel is committing war crimes in its devastating military offensive in Gaza is “without merit”.
Kirby was asked at the White House daily media briefing in Washington, DC, if he had read the indictment prepared against Israel, and whether depriving the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza of food, water, fuel and electricity did, indeed, resemble a war crime.
Bearing in mind that the World Health Organization and various United Nations agencies have been warning for many days of the deepening humanitarian crisis for Gazans, the vast majority of whose population has been internally displaced within the besieged territory.
“Yes, I have read the indictment. We find it without merit, we find it counterproductive,” Kirby said.
The US will do “everything” it can to protect shipping in the Red Sea from attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the White House said moments ago.
The Houthis fired one of their largest barrages of drones and missiles targeting shipping in the Red Sea, forcing the American and British navies to shoot down the projectiles in a major engagement, authorities said earlier today.
The US national security committee coordinator for strategic communications, John Kirby, is talking to the press at the daily White House media briefing now.
He reiterated a message the US has been pumping out of late.
“The Houthis have a choice to make, we have warned ‘em, we have put ships in the Red Sea,” Kirby said.
The White House said the Houthis must stop attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, in which the Iran-backed group is seeking to prevent supplies reaching Israel as well as deterring western warships providing protection to Israel.
“They will bear the consequences for failing to do so,” Kirby said, echoing a similar message stated by the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken.
Updated
Here is more information on the latest Houthi rebel attack and the upcoming UN security council vote, from Nicola Slawson for the Guardian.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired one of their largest barrages of drones and missiles targeting shipping in the Red Sea, forcing the American and British navies to shoot down the projectiles in a major engagement, authorities said today.
No damage or injuries were immediately apparent.
The attack by the Iran-backed Houthis came despite a planned UN security council vote later today to potentially condemn and demand an immediate halt to the attacks by the rebels, who say their assaults are aimed at stopping Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
However, their targets have increasingly tenuous or no relationship with Israel and imperil one of the world’s crucial trade routes linking Asia and the Middle East to Europe. That raises the risk of a US retaliatory strike on Yemen that could upend an uneasy ceasefire that has held in the Arab world’s poorest country…
Read the full article here.
UN security council to vote on US-drafted resolution on Houthi attacks in Red Sea
The United Nations security council will be voting on a resolution to demand that attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels against ships in the Red Sea stop, the Associated Press reported.
More from AP:
The U.S. draft resolution, obtained by The Associated Press, says at least two dozen Houthi attacks are impeding global commerce “and undermine navigational rights and freedoms as well as regional peace and security.”
U.S. Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood told reporters Wednesday ahead of the vote that the purpose of the resolution is to send a message that attacking commercial shipping is unacceptable and must stop. “Freedom of navigation, freedom of commercial activity on the seas is critically important to commerce and to national security of a number of states,” he said.
“We’re hoping that it will pass,” he said, “I don’t know how ... one Security Council member is going to vote.”
Wood was referring to Russia, which raised questions last week about the impact of a resolution on peace efforts in Yemen and the spread of the Israel-Hamas war. It could abstain or veto the resolution…
Updated
In a separate statement, the Egyptian president, Fatah al-Sisi, said that the international community must take a “decisive stance” on a ceasefire in Gaza in order to get more aid to Palestinians.
His comments on Wednesday come after al-Sisi met with leaders from Jordan and the Palestinian Authority in Jordan’s city of Aqaba over Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Palestine.
The three leaders said they rejected all proposals attempting to “[liquidate] the Palestinian cause”.
Updated
The leaders of Jordan and Egypt have said that pressure must be added to demand Israel end its “aggression” against Gaza and its civilians, Reuters reported.
In a statement, Jordan’s King Abdullah and Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi said they did not support any plan from Israel that would separate the fate of Gaza from the that of the West Bank.
Both leaders attended a meeting with Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas.
Israel’s war cabinet is reportedly discussing a new proposal from Qatar over the release of hostages being held by Hamas.
From journalist Amichai Stein:
Israel War cabinet will discuss a new Qatari proposal regarding the release of hostages held by Hamas
Israel War cabinet will discuss a new Qatari proposal regarding the release of hostages held by Hamas
— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) January 10, 2024
Updated
Four employees with the Palestine Red Crescent’s ambulance crew were killed after Israel targeted an ambulance in the city of Deir al-Balah in Gaza, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said in a statement.
The humanitarian organization posted the update to X, formerly known as Twitter.
The statement read:
Four members of the Palestine Red Crescent ambulance crews martyred due to the targeting by the occupation of an ambulance vehicle on Salah al-Din Street at the entrance of Deir al-Balah in the middle of the Gaza Strip.
🚨Four members of the Palestine Red Crescent ambulance crews 🚑martyred due to the targeting by the occupation of an ambulance vehicle on Salah al-Din Street at the entrance of Deir al-Balah in the middle of the Gaza Strip.#NotATarget ❌#IHl#Gaza
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) January 10, 2024
Motaz Azaiza, a photojournalist with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, wrote on X that Israel “bombed” the ambulance carrying the four healthcare workers.
Israel just killed 4 of my colleagues in the Palestine Red Crescent while they was doing their job by bombing the ambulance they were riding
Israel just killed 4 of my colleagues in the Palestine Red Crescent while they was doing their job by bombing the ambulance they were riding
— MoTaz (@azaizamotaz9) January 10, 2024
Blinken meets with Palestinian Authority on minimizing civilian harm in Gaza
Antony Blinken shared an update about his meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in a post to X, formerly known as Twitter.
Met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to discuss ongoing efforts to minimize civilian harm in Gaza, accelerate the delivery of humanitarian aid, end extremist violence, and work towards an independent Palestinian state.
Met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to discuss ongoing efforts to minimize civilian harm in Gaza, accelerate the delivery of humanitarian aid, end extremist violence, and work towards an independent Palestinian state. pic.twitter.com/c60d5ISLnT
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) January 10, 2024
The latest update comes as sources inside the meeting described a tense atmosphere “marred by quarrels”.
One source of conflict between the two parties is Israel’s ongoing refusal to release tax money to the Palestinian Authority on imports and exports.
Updated
WHO chief calls on Israel to provide access for humanitarian aid in Gaza
In a press conference, the World Health Organization (WHO) director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has said there are nearly “insurmountable obstacles” to delivering humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, saying the situation was “indescribable”.
He said six planned missions to northern Gaza had been cancelled because Israel had rejected requests and not given assurances of safe passage, adding that a mission planned for today had also had to be cancelled.
He said:
Intense bombardment, restrictions on movement, a fuel shortage and interrupted communications make it impossible for WHO and our partners to reach those in need.
We have the supplies, the teams and the plans in place. What we don’t have is access.
WHO has had to cancel six planned missions to northern Gaza since 26 December, when we had our last mission, because our requests were rejected, and assurances of safe passage were not provided.
A mission planned for today has also been cancelled.
The barrier to delivering humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza is not the capabilities of the UN, WHO, or our partners. The barrier is access.
We call on Israel to approve requests by WHO and other partners to deliver humanitarian aid.
Saying that the situation on the ground was “indescribable”, Tedros said:
Almost 90% of the population of Gaza – 1.9 million people – have been displaced, and many have been forced to move multiple times.
People are standing in line for hours for a small amount of water, which may not be clean. Or bread, which alone is not sufficiently nutritious.
Only 15 hospitals are functioning, even partially.
The lack of clean water and sanitation and overcrowded living conditions are creating the ideal environment for disease to spread.
Tedros finished his comments about the conflict in Gaza and Israel with an appeal for peace, and for all parties in the conflict to respect healthcare provision and facilities, saying:
We continue to call for a ceasefire, but even without one, corridors can be established to allow the safe passage of humanitarian aid and workers.
We continue to call for the release of the remaining hostages.
And we continue to call on all sides to protect health care in accordance with their obligations under international humanitarian law.
Health care must always be protected and respected.
It cannot be attacked and it cannot be militarised.
Earlier today, Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy on social media accused WHO of being “complicit” with Hamas and covering up that Hamas had converted hospitals in Gaza into military bases, a claim which Israel has repeatedly made and which Hamas denies.
Hamas converted Gaza’s hospitals into military bases, with the complicity of the @WHO that’s covering it up.
— Eylon Levy (@EylonALevy) January 10, 2024
We’re committed to helping international actors set up field hospitals in Gaza where Hamas can’t hide.
Civilians must be protected from Hamas. https://t.co/FWDXdvQEPo
Yesterday, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said Israel struck a shelter that over 100 staff and their families were using, causing injuries to four people including a five-year-old child of one of the staff members, who subsequently died of her injuries.
MSF said “that it doesn’t matter where you are in Gaza, nowhere is safe,” and reiterated a call for an immediate and sustained ceasefire.
Updated
Tomorrow will see South Africa take its genocide case against Israel to the United Nations’ top court, the international court of justice (ICJ).
Associated Press reports that South Africa’s delegation to The Hague will be led by the minister of justice, Ronald Lamola, and will also include senior figures from the office of president, Cyril Ramaphosa.
“We are determined to see the end of the genocide that is currently taking place in Gaza,” Lamola said.
South Africa’s decision to open a case against Israel is a reflection of its historic support for the Palestinians that dates back to the days of the late anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela.
Mandela compared the plight of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank with that of Black South Africans under the apartheid system of forced racial segregation in his own country, which ended in 1994. South Africa has for years referred to Israel as an “apartheid state.”
Reuters notes that in a 84-page filing, South Africa cites Israel’s failure to provide essential food, water, medicine, fuel, shelter and other humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip. It also points to the sustained bombing campaign which has destroyed hundreds of thousands of houses of civilians.
A panel of 17 judges, including one ad hoc justice each from Israel and South Africa, will hear three hours of arguments from each side. A ruling on the provisional measures was expected later this month. The ICJ’s rulings are binding but the court has no way to enforce them.
Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy dismissed South Africa’s on Wednesday, describing it as an “absurd blood libel” and claiming that “Pretoria gives political and legal cover to the Hamas rapist regime”.
A different court in The Hague, the international criminal court (ICC), is separately investigating alleged atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank and the 7 October attacks in Israel, but has not named any suspects. Israel is not a member of the ICC and rejects its jurisdiction.
Updated
Robert Mardini, director of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), has told Al Jazeera: “The medical supplies in the Gaza Strip are absolutely insufficient to provide relief to the wounded and sick. Hospitals in northern Gaza are no longer able to provide any surgical services.”
The World Health Organization has assessed that only 15 out of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are partially functional. The Gaza health ministry, which is run by Hamas, has said that nearly 60,000 Palestinians have been injured in Israeli airstrikes since 7 October.
Updated
Sky News Arabia is reporting that sources have told it that the meeting between Antony Blinken and Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah in the Isreali-occupied West Bank was “tense and marred by quarrels”.
It suggests that one of the sources of the dispute was Israel’s failure to release tax money to the Palestinian Authority, with Abbas arguing that if the US was unable to apply pressure to remedy this situation, it could not be expected to able to pressure Israel about anything else.
Israel collects tax revenues on behalf of the Palestinian Authority on imports and exports, but the money has recently been withheld. Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich has said he would not allow “even one shekel” to be passed on to Gaza via the Palestinian Authority.
Saleh Salem of Reuters has been speaking to children in Gaza displaced by the war and reports that three months of war have been devastating for them. Health authorities in the Hamas-run territory have estimated that about 40% of those confirmed killed – a figure they now put at 23,357 – were aged under 18.
Most of those who survive have lost their homes. They live in shelters in schools, in tents or shanties, or crammed into still-standing houses, whole families living in single rooms. With very little food in Gaza, children are always hungry.
“We are still unable to count the numbers, but we have initial estimates of thousands of orphans. The figures are high and the challenges are big,” said Ahmed Majdalani, the Palestinian social development minister in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, told Reuters.
The hardship – and fear in a conflict where intense Israeli bombing of civilian areas continues relentlessly – is made worse by their sadness. Seven-year-old Laila al-Sultan described a father she loved “as much as there are fish and skies and everything”, who used to take her to the park and the zoo.
“My father was martyred … my uncle Awad was martyred as well as my uncles Ibrahim, Suhaib and Baha. All of us were injured, and here I am, with a leg injury,” she told Reuters. Her father was killed in the same Israeli airstrike that injured her leg.
She and her brother Khaled, four, now live in a tent city of homeless people, facing up to a life with no father as their mother struggles to cope in the rubble of the ruined territory.
In another tent in Rafah, Ahmed al-Saker, 13, cried as he stoked a fire under a cooking pot and recalled his father, killed in a strike on their house. “He used to sing to me at bedtime and hug me and hold me before I slept,” he said, wiping away tears.
“My mother cannot bear all these worries and burdens and she can’t carry my injured brother on her own,” he said.
Updated
UK defence secretary: 'watch this space' over further military action against Yemen's Houthis
Dan Sabbagh is the Guardian’s defence and security editor
British defence secretary Grant Shapps hinted on Wednesday lunchtime there could be further western military action against the Houthis in Yemen at a press briefing, telling reporters to “watch this space” when asked about possible further action after last night’s drone attack in the Red Sea.
The UK minister, in a press briefing, said Britain, its western allies and Saudi Arabia “are all agreed” that the series of attacks on warships and merchant shipping in the southern Red Sea “cannot continue” and did not rule out striking Houthi military targets on land. “Watch this space,” Shapps added.
Shapps said a previous warning, earlier this month, had appeared to halt the Houthi attacks until last night, when 18 drones and three missiles were shot down by US and a British warship operating in the area. But the minister acknowledged that “what happened last night changes that again” and, ratcheting up the rhetoric, said people should draw “natural conclusions from that”.
There has been speculation that the US and its allies, which have so far only been responding to Houthi attacks, could try to prevent the maritime disruption with strikes on the rebel group’s command and control, and the bases from which drones and missiles are launched.
Earlier on Wednesday, Shapps had warned of severe consequences following the overnight drone and missile attack – again hinting at possible further military action – as a way of trying to end a crisis which has affected shipping on a maritime route that accounts for an estimated 15% of world trade.
The defence secretary also directly accused Iran of helping the Houthis, saying: “I am in no doubt whatsoever that the Iranians are heavily behind what they are doing, including ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] eyes and ears.”
Previous intelligence leaks from the US have suggested that an Iranian paramilitary surveillance vessel is providing intelligence about shipping movements in the southern Red Sea to the Houthis.
Updated
While Antony Blinken has been attending his meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, there have been demonstrations against his trip on the streets of Ramallah against the visit, with riot police being deployed.
Updated
US secretary of state Antony Blinken and Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, discussed US efforts to address extremist violence in the West Bank and minimise civilian harm in Gaza in their meeting on Wednesday, the state department said.
Reuters reports that the two officials also discussed “administrative reforms, which, if implemented, would benefit the Palestinian people”, state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.
Updated
British defence minister Grant Shapps said on Wednesday the Royal Navy warship HMS Diamond had potentially been targeted in an attack by Yemen-based Houthi militants in the Red Sea, which was repelled by US and British forces on Tuesday.
According to Reuters, Shapps told reporters:
My understanding is that both the ship itself potentially was targeted … but also that there’s a generalised attack on all shipping [in the region].
Updated
Yemen’s Houthis attacked a US ship “providing support” to Israel with a large number of ballistic and naval missiles and drones, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said in a televised speech on Wednesday.
He did not say what damage, if any, the vessel had suffered, Reuters reports.
The operation was a “preliminary response” to a previous US attack that killed 10 Houthi militants, he added.
Updated
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, told the visiting US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, on Wednesday that Gaza is integral to Palestinian statehood hopes and should not be cut off as a result of Israel’s war with Hamas, an official statement said.
The statement, published by the Palestinian news agency WAFA, further quoted Abbas as saying that Palestinians must not be displaced from Gaza or the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where he wields limited governance after a 2007 schism with Hamas, Reuters reports.
Abbas further called for the “convening an international peace conference to end the Israeli occupation of the land of the State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, which achieves peace and security for all,” according to WAFA.
Updated
Summary of the day so far …
It has just gone 2pm in Gaza City, Tel Aviv and Beirut. Here are the latest headlines …
Britain has warned of severe consequences after US and UK warships were forced to repel a barrage of 20 Houthi rockets, drones and cruise missiles fired at ships in the Red Sea. American and British forces say they shot down 18 drones and three missiles on Tuesday. Italian defence minister Guido Crosetto has said that Yemen’s Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping must be stopped without triggering a new war.
The US state department has said that the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is to make an additional previously unannounced stop in Bahrain during his tour of the region. Blinken met the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday morning in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
A total of 23,357 Palestinians have been killed and 59,410 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said. The ministry, which is run by Hamas, said 147 Palestinians were killed and 243 injured in the past 24 hours. 1.9 million people, or nearly 85% of the total population of Gaza, are estimated to have been displaced from their homes. Only 15 out of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are partially functional. 330 Palestinians have also been killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank over the same period, including 84 children, and nearly 4,000 people have been injured by Israeli security forces during that time.
The IDF announced the death of another member of Israel’s troops inside Gaza, taking the total toll of the ground offensive to 186. The Israeli military has said that 1,065 of its soldiers have been injured in Gaza. Israel launched its military campaign after the 7 October surprise Hamas attack during which about 1,200 people were killed. An estimated 240 people were seized as hostages. About 130 are still believed to be in captivity. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty counts being issued during the conflict.
Israel’s military claims to have “uncovered more than 15 underground tunnel shafts in the area” of Maghazi in central Gaza, where it says that its troops directed airstrikes that killed “several terrorists”. In Khan Younis, it claims that “in battles in the area over the last day, dozens of terrorist operatives were killed by IDF troops”, adding that “a total of approximately 150 terror targets were struck by IDF troops over the last day”. The claims have not been independently verified.
Israel’s military has also said that it is has again struck at what it described as Hezbollah terrorist targets inside southern Lebanon.
The Palestinian news agency Wafa has reported this morning that Israel has detained a further 26 Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. This brings the total number of detainees since 7 October to more than 5,780.
Israeli politician Nissim Vaturi has reiterated his call for Gaza to be burned down, saying “there are no innocents there”. Referring to Palestinians still in northern Gaza after repeated orders from the Israeli military for them to flee, Vaturi said: “One hundred thousand remain. I have no mercy for those who are still there. We need to eliminate them”. The comments come ahead of a hearing on Thursday at the international court of justice, where South Africa has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet will meet at 7pm on Wednesday (5pm GMT) to discuss Israeli plans for the Gaza Strip when the war has finished.
Israeli strikes in southern and central Gaza have intensified. Reuters reports that in Rafah, on the southern edge of the territory, relatives wept by the bodies of 15 members of the Nofal family laid out at a hospital morgue after their home was obliterated by an Israeli airstrike overnight.
Most of the white shrouds were tiny, with children inside, the agency reports. It said a man partly opened one and caressed the face of a small boy. Relatives gently restrained another man who was wailing at the feet of the bodies.
At the site of the strike, where a huge crater had been blasted in the floor of a building, neighbours clambered through the ruins, strewn with bloodsoaked mattresses and broken toys.
Um Ayman al-Najjar, whose daughter and niece were killed, was bundled against the cold in the wreckage, told Reuters: “We woke up surrounded by all this rubble on top of our heads, hit after hit. I don’t know how we got out, stepping above things, blood shedding from us.”
In Nusseirat, a new wave of displacement was under way, a day after Israel dropped new warning leaflets for residents of several districts to evacuate their homes and head west to Deir al-Balah.
Israeli bombing was also taking place there, with the Palestinian Red Crescent releasing video showing ambulances arriving at a hospital with the dead and wounded, including children.
Updated
23,357 Palestinians killed in Gaza by Israeli strikes since 7 October - ministry
A total of 23,357 Palestinians have been killed and 59,410 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement.
Reuters reports that the ministry, which is run by Hamas, said 147 Palestinians were killed and 243 injured in the past 24 hours.
1.9 million people, or nearly 85% of the total population of Gaza, are estimated to have been displaced from their homes, with many of them sheltering in desperately overcrowded UN facilities in the south of the territory. Since 11 October, the Gaza Strip has been under an electricity blackout, and the World Health Organization states that only 15 out of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are partially functional.
330 Palestinians have also been killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank over the same period, including 84 children, and nearly 4,000 people have been injured by Israeli security forces during that time.
Counting casualties has been complicated by the continued bombardment and the near collapse of the health system within the Gaza Strip.
Earlier on Wednesday Hani Mahmoud, reporting for Al Jazeera from inside Gaza, wrote that families in the Maghazi camp in central Gaza had been forced to bury their loved ones in the grounds of the school where they were sheltering, as the fighting was so intense.
Today the IDF announced the death of another member of Israel’s troops inside Gaza, taking the total toll of the ground offensive to 186. The Israeli military has said that 1,065 of its soldiers have been injured in Gaza.
Israel launched its military campaign after the 7 October surprise Hamas attack inside southern Israel, during which about 1,200 people were killed. An estimated 240 people were seized as hostages and abducted into Gaza, with about 130 of them still believed to be held in captivity there, although their status is unclear.
It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty counts being issued during the conflict.
Updated
The Palestinian news agency Wafa has reported this morning that Israel has detained a further 26 Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Wafa writes that this brings the total number of detainees since 7 October to “more than 5,780, targeting all groups, including former detainees, the sick, and the elderly.”
The Italian defence minister has said that Yemen’s Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping must be stopped without triggering a new war.
Guido Crosetto told Reuters: “It is a huge problem, it is a consequence of other outbreaks. I would not like to open a third front of war at this time,” in a reference to current conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.
Italy has yet to sign up to Operation Prosperity Guardian, the international naval mission to protect civilian vessels in the one of the most important trade routes in the world.
“There is a thing called a constitution, and there are laws for which a new international mission needs parliamentary approval, needs separate funding,” Crosetto said.
“If we decide to do so, it will be a decision that goes through a cabinet meeting, reaches parliament and is voted on.”
Updated
The US state department has said that the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is to make an additional previously unannounced stop in Bahrain during his tour of the region.
Updated
Dan Sabbagh is the Guardian’s defence and security editor
Britain’s HMS Diamond is understood to have shot down seven of the 18 Iranian-designed drones fired by the Houthis on western warships last night using a mixture of gunfire and Sea Viper / Aster missiles which cost around £1m-£2m ($1.2-$2.4m) each.
Although the number of missiles fired is not yet clear, the one way attack drones likely to have been used by the Houthis will cost far less, with £15,800 frequently cited as a cost for the Shaheed 136 drone and its variants.
Updated
Patrick Wintour is the Guardian’s diplomatic editor:
Britain has warned of severe consequences after US and UK warships were forced to repel a barrage of 20 Houthi rockets, drones and cruise missiles fired at ships in the Red Sea.
American and British forces say they shot down 18 drones and three missiles on Tuesday. “Iranian-backed Houthis launched a complex attack of Iranian designed one-way attack UAVs … anti-ship cruise missiles, and an anti-ship ballistic missile from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen into the Southern Red Sea,” the US Central Command (Centcom) said in a statement.
The drones and missiles were downed by a combination of F/A-18 warplanes operating from the USS Dwight D Eisenhower aircraft carrier and one British and three American destroyers, Centcom said, adding that there were no injuries or damage reported.
The US set up a multinational naval taskforce last month to protect Red Sea shipping from Houthi attacks, which are endangering a transit route that carries up to 12% of global trade.
Read more of Patrick Wintour’s report here: Britain warns of severe consequences after Houthi attack in Red Sea repelled
Israeli politician Nissim Vaturi has reiterated his call for Gaza to be burned down, saying “there are no innocents there”.
Vaturi, a member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, had said in November that Israel had to do “no less than burn Gaza” and “we have to crush Gaza, Gaza is Hamas”.
A deputy speaker in the Knesset, the Times of Israel quotes him today telling Hakol Baramah radio he had no regrets and stood by his words, adding: “It is better to burn down buildings rather than have soldiers harmed. There are no innocents there.”
Referring to Palestinians still in northern Gaza after repeated orders from the Israeli military for them to flee, Vaturi said: “One hundred thousand remain. I have no mercy for those who are still there. We need to eliminate them.”
The statement comes a day before this week’s hearings at the international court of justice, where South Africa has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza.
Updated
As well as issuing photographs from the incident, the UK defence secretary has made a statement about the Houthi attack on shipping.
In it, Grant Shapps said:
Overnight, HMS Diamond, along with US warships, successfully repelled the largest attack from the Iranian-backed Houthis in the Red Sea to date.
Deploying Sea Viper missiles and guns, Diamond destroyed multiple attack drones heading for her and commercial shipping in the area, with no injuries or damage sustained to Diamond or her crew.
The UK, alongside allies, have previously made clear that these illegal attacks are completely unacceptable and if continued the Houthis will bear the consequences.
We will take the action needed to protect innocent lives and the global economy.
Updated
The UK Ministry of Defence has issued a photograph of it responding to the Houthi attack on shipping in the Red Sea overnight.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired one of their largest barrage of drones and missiles targeting shipping, forcing US and British forces to shoot them down in a major escalation of the threat in the region.
Some major shipping companies have been re-routing cargo via the Cape of Good Hope to avoid the area.
The US secretary of state, Antonty Blinken, has met the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
AFP reports that the Jordanian royal palace has said Abbas is later set to discuss a “push for an immediate ceasefire” in talks with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Egyptian president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi in the Red Sea port city of Aqaba.
Updated
Ziad, a 35-year-old Palestinian, has been writing a diary from inside Gaza for the Guardian. Here is an excerpt from the latest entry:
On my way to see a friend, I notice two women and some children sitting on the pavement. It is no longer a surprise to see people in the street with no place to go. I feel terrible because they are homeless, and I wonder: aren’t we all homeless right now? Many people have evacuated for the third or fourth time and there is no space left for them to go.
When I meet my friend, I tell him about the two women, and we go to see if we can help. They tell us they couldn’t even find a tent to stay in and they had no place to go. My friend decided to knock on the door of the nearest house. He talked to the owner and told him about the situation. After much discussion, the owner agreed to let them stay in the entrance leading to the house. I asked to talk to his wife to make sure there are women inside and the place is safe. She came, greeted us and said they would provide the space for the women.
When the women heard that, they started crying. One of them said that she was relieved she would be able to breastfeed her son. My friend promised to try to find them a better place.
Read more here: Gaza diary part 40 – ‘I hate darkness because it intensifies the despair’
Israel’s military has said that it is has again struck at what it described as Hezbollah targets inside southern Lebanon.
In a statement posted to the Telegram messaging app, the IDF said:
A short while ago, an IDF fighter jet struck terrorist infrastructure and a military compound in the area of Labbouneh in southern Lebanon. In addition, an IDF fighter jet struck a military command center in the area of Kfarchouba overnight.
The statement concludes “Hezbollah’s ongoing terrorist activity and attacks against Israel violate UN security council resolution 1701. The IDF will continue to defend its borders from any threat.”
Israel and Lebanon have been separated by the UN-drawn blue line since 2000. UN security council resolution 1701 was passed in 2006, and calls for “the full cessation of hostilities” and “the establishment of a demilitarised zone between the blue line and the Litani river.”
The Times of Israel reports that Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet will meet at 7pm tonight (5pm GMT) to discuss Israeli plans for the Gaza Strip when the war has finished.
The Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that at least five Palestinians were injured and one detained in an Israeli security raid on Nablus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. It cites the Palestine Red Crescent Society saying a child and an elderly woman were among the injured.
In a separate development, Wafa reports that Israeli troops raided a medical clinic in a village east of Bethlehem, during which it is claimed they caused “damages to medicines and medical tools”.
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Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the news wires from Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, one of the areas where Israel’s military has repeatedly insisted that Palestinians flee to.
Hani Mahmoud, reporting for Al Jazeera from Rafah inside the Gaza Strip, writes: “We are seeing a surge in the sheer level of destruction, particularly in Khan Younis and Rafah city. In central Gaza, where some of the most intense bombing is taking place, al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir el-Balah is overwhelmed with the number of injured streaming in.”
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In its latest operational update, Israel’s military claims to have “uncovered more than 15 underground tunnel shafts in the area” of Maghazi in central Gaza, where it says that its troops directed airstrikes that killed “several terrorists”.
In Khan Younis, it claims that “in battles in the area over the last day, dozens of terrorist operatives were killed by IDF troops”.
Additionally, in the statement on its Telegram channel, the IDF says: “In separate operational activity in Khan Younis, IDF troops identified a terrorist who planted an explosive device in the vicinity of a route used for the movement of troops. In response, IDF troops directed IAF aircraft to strike and eliminate the terrorist.”
It adds: “A total of approximately 150 terror targets were struck by IDF troops over the last day.”
The claims have not been independently verified.
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Nancy Faraj was eating lunch with her family at her home in the village of Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon when Israel bombed the house next door, killing two of her neighbours.
Within hours she and her family had grabbed a handful of possessions and headed north-west for the city of Tyre, 80km (50 miles) south of Beirut, where they are now living in a school with several hundred others.
For Faraj, 25, it marks the second time she has been displaced by war with Israel. In the 2006 conflict, when she was seven, she fled with her mother to Beirut. Now she has been displaced again, this time with her own children.
“It feels like the fighting is getting worse,” she says, adding that the family no longer wants to live close to the boundary.
In three months, about 76,000 people have been driven from southern Lebanon, according to figures released last week by the International Organisation for Migration.
Exchanges of fire between Israeli and Hezbollah forces across the blue line separating Israel and Lebanon have become constant, observers say.
See the full report here:
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is due to hold talks on Wednesday with the head of the Palestinian Authority, which Washington hopes could govern Gaza after Israel’s war with Hamas ends.
The US’s top diplomat is on his fourth crisis visit to the Middle East since the war began and met with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Tel Aviv on Tuesday.
Agence France-Presse reports that Blinken told a news conference afterwards that the US would continue to support its ally, but also called on Israel to do more to protect those trapped in the Palestinian territory, saying the “daily toll on civilians in Gaza, particularly children, is far too high”.
Washington has floated a post-war scenario in which a reformed Palestinian Authority, currently led by president Mahmoud Abbas, governs Gaza in addition to the West Bank. The authority currently exercises limited rule in the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967.
“Israel must stop taking steps that undercut Palestinians’ ability to govern themselves effectively,” Blinken said on Tuesday, emphasising the importance of progress towards a two-state solution.
The Palestinian Authority also has a responsibility to reform itself, to improve its governance – issues I plan to raise with president Abbas.
Netanyahu, however, has shown no interest in reviving negotiations towards a Palestinian state, and an early post-war plan outlined by the defence minister, Yoav Gallant, envisions local “civil committees” governing Gaza after Israel has dismantled Hamas.
Jordan’s royal palace, meanwhile, said King Abdullah II would host Abbas and the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, on Wednesday for talks on Gaza, including efforts to “push for an immediate ceasefire”.
Here’s more on the UN security council’s vote scheduled for Wednesday on a resolution that would demand an immediate halt to attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on merchant and commercial vessels in the Red Sea area.
The US draft resolution says at least two dozen Houthi attacks are impeding global commerce “and undermine navigational rights and freedoms as well as regional peace and security”, reports the Associated Press.
The Iranian-backed Houthis, who have been engaged in a civil war with Yemen’s internationally recognised government since 2014, have said they launched the attacks with the aim of ending Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
The resolution would condemn the assaults and demand the immediate release of the first ship the Houthis attacked, the Galaxy Leader, a Japanese-operated cargo ship with links to an Israeli company that it seized on 19 November along with its crew.
However, the links to the ships targeted in the rebel assaults have grown more tenuous as the attacks continue. In the latest incident, a barrage of drones and missiles fired by the Houthis late on Tuesday targeted shipping in the Red Sea, though the US said no damage was reported.
The Red Sea links the Middle East and Asia to Europe via the Suez Canal, and its narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Nearly 10% of all oil trade and an estimated $1tn in goods pass through the strait annually. The Houthi attacks have forced many shipping companies to bypass this route and use the much longer and more expensive route around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa.
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US and UK 'shoot down' barrage of Houthi airstrikes in Red Sea
Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired one of their largest barrage of drones and missiles targeting shipping in the Red Sea, forcing the American and British navies to shoot down the projectiles in a major engagement, authorities said on Wednesday.
No damage or injuries were immediately apparent.
The Associated Press reports that the attack by the Iran-backed Houthis came despite a planned UN security council vote later on Wednesday to potentially condemn and demand an immediate halt to the attacks by the rebels, who say their assaults are aimed at stopping Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
However, their targets have increasingly tenuous or no relationship with Israel and imperil one of the world’s crucial trade routes linking Asia and the Middle East to Europe. That raises the risk of a US retaliatory strike on Yemen that could upend an uneasy ceasefire that has held in the Arab world’s poorest country.
The assault happened off the Yemeni port cities of Hodeida and Mokha, according to the private intelligence firm Ambrey. In the Hodeida incident, Ambrey said ships described over radio seeing missiles and drones, with US-allied warships in the area urging “vessels to proceed at maximum speed”.
Off Mokha, ships saw missiles fired, a drone in the air and small vessels trailing them, Ambrey said early on Wednesday. The British military’s United Kingdom Marine Trade Operations also acknowledged the incident off Hodeida.
The US military’s Central Command (Centcom) said the “complex attack” launched by the Houthis included bomb-carrying drones, anti-ship cruise missiles and one anti-ship ballistic missile.
It said 18 drones, two cruise missiles and the anti-ship missile were downed by F-18s from the USS Eisenhower, as well as by American Arleigh Burke-class destroyers the USS Gravely, the USS Laboon and the USS Mason, as well as the UK’s HMS Diamond.
Centcom said:
This is the 26th Houthi attack on commercial shipping lanes in the Red Sea since Nov 19 … Vessels are advised to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity.
The Houthis, a Shia group that has held Yemen’s capital since 2014, did not formally acknowledge launching the attacks. However, Al Jazeera quoted an anonymous Houthi military official saying their forces “targeted a ship linked to Israel in the Red Sea”, without elaborating.
Iran has rejected US and British calls to end its support for Houthi attacks on Israeli-linked vessels. A US-led coalition of nations has been patrolling the Red Sea to try to prevent the strikes.
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Opening summary
Hello and welcome to our live reporting of the Israel-Gaza war and the wider Middle East crisis. I’m Adam Fulton and here’s a rundown on the latest news.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels have fired one of their largest barrages of drones and missiles targeting shipping in the Red Sea, forcing the US and British navies to shoot down the projectiles in a major engagement, the US military says.
No damage or injuries were immediately reported in the attack with 18 drones and three missiles, which came despite a planned UN security council vote later on Wednesday to potentially demand a halt to the strikes by the rebels, who say the assaults are aimed at stopping Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza.
More on that story soon. In other key developments as it turns 7.30am in Gaza City, Tel Aviv and Beirut:
Israel and Hezbollah edged closer towards full scale war on Tuesday, as the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group launched explosive drones at a key Israeli command base, declaring the attack part of its response to recent high-level Israeli assassinations in Lebanon. Hezbollah said it launched “a number of explosive attack drones” at the Israeli northern military command base in Safed, the first time it has targeted the site. An Israeli army spokesperson said there were no casualties or damage.
Israeli aircraft, drones and artillery struck multiple targets inside southern Lebanon, including a strike on a car during the funeral of a senior commander in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force, Wissam Hassan al Tawil, who had been killed the day before. Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, said his country was open to negotiations but was being threatened with war.
Hezbollah denied a claim by the Israeli military that it killed the southern Lebanon commander of Hezbollah’s aerial unit in an airstrike on Tuesday. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said Ali Hussein Barji had led dozens of drone attacks on Israel. But Hezbollah said that “the commander was never subjected to any assassination attempt as the enemy claimed”.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has dismissed South Africa’s genocide charge against Israel as “meritless”, but said the daily toll of war on civilians in Gaza was “far too high”. At a press conference in Tel Aviv, Blinken urged Israeli leaders to work with moderate Palestinian leaders, saying regional countries would only invest in the reconstruction of Gaza if there is a “pathway to a Palestinian state”. He was “crystal clear” that Palestinians must be able to return to their homes “as soon as conditions allow”, he said.
Intense fighting, shelling and aerial bombardment continued across the south and centre of Gaza as Blinken met top officials in Israel on a regional tour aimed at reaching a consensus on the Palestinian territory’s future and stopping an escalation of the war across the Middle East. US officials said Blinken told the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that his forces must avoid inflicting further harm on civilians in Gaza. But there was no sign of any letup in the violence in Gaza as the two men met.
A total of 23,210 Palestinians have been killed and 59,167 have been wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, according to the latest figures by the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry on Tuesday. About 126 Palestinians were killed and 241 were wounded over the previous 24 hours, it said.
The leaders of Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, will meet on Wednesday to discuss the war in Gaza and surging violence in the West Bank. Jordan’s King Abdullah II will host a summit with the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, in the southern Red Sea city of Aqaba, Jordan’s royal court said.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has condemned “in the strongest possible terms” a strike on an MSF shelter in Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Monday. A five-year-old daughter of an MSF staff worker was critically injured by the strike and died of her injuries on Tuesday, the charity said. It had notified Israeli forces that the shelter was housing MSF staff and their families, it said.
Hamas’s most senior political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, has called on Muslim states to provide Palestinian militants with weapons, saying the group’s war with Israel is “not the battle of the Palestinian people alone”. At a conference in Doha, Haniyeh said Israel had “failed to achieve any of its goals” after nearly 100 days of its war in Gaza, and argued that the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October “came after an attempt to marginalise the Palestinian cause”.
The UK maritime trade operations said it received a report of an incident in the Red Sea near Yemen. The reported incident was about 50 nautical miles (93 km) west of Yemen’s Hodeidah and authorities were investigating, it said on Tuesday. A Yemeni military source told Al Jazeera that Houthis had targeted a ship linked to Israel. in the Red Sea.
The previous UK Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, will join a South African delegation for this week’s hearings at the international court of justice, where the country has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza. Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, said “there is nothing more atrocious and preposterous” than the lawsuit as he censured South Africa for bringing the case, which is due to begin hearings on Thursday. Belgium’s deputy prime minister, Petra De Sutter, also expressed support for South Africa’s case.
The British foreign secretary, David Cameron, admitted he was “worried” that Israel might have taken action in Gaza that could breach international law. Cameron also confirmed to parliament’s foreign affairs committee that two British nationals are still being held hostage in Gaza. The UK government accepted that Israel as an occupying power had a duty under international humanitarian law to provide basic supplies to the people of Gaza.
The international criminal court confirmed it was investigating potential crimes against journalists since the war broke out. At least 79 journalists and media workers – the vast majority of them Palestinian – have been killed in the past three months, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
UN international law experts have criticised the killing of Hamas’s deputy leader, Saleh al-Arouri, and other fighters in drone strikes in Lebanon. UN special rapporteurs Ben Saul and Morris Tidball-Binz said killings in foreign territory were arbitrary when they were not authorised under international law.
The planet-warming emissions generated during the first two months of the war in Gaza were greater than the annual carbon footprint of more than 20 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations, new research reveals.
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