Closing summary
We’re closing our live coverage of the Middle East crisis for the time being but we’ll be back with you in the coming hours. In the meantime, here are the key developments:
Three US service members have been killed during an unmanned aerial drone attack on US forces in north-east Jordan near the Syria border on Saturday night. In a statement released on Sunday, Joe Biden said that while an investigation into the attack remains underway, the US knows “it was carried out by radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq”.
The US will respond to the attack on its troops, Biden said. During a campaign event at South Carolina on Sunday following the attack which killed three US service members and injured dozens of others, Biden said: “We shall respond.” In his earlier statement he also said: “Have no doubt - we will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner of our choosing.”
A senior official with Hamas, Sami Abu Zuhri, said the attacks on US forces were tied directly to Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. Speaking to Reuters, Abu Zuhri said: “The killing of three American soldiers is a message to the US administration that unless the killing of innocents in Gaza stops, it must confront the entire nation.”
At least 165 Palestinians were killed and 290 injured over the past 24 hours, Gaza’s health ministry said on Sunday. That brings the total number of Palestinians killed in the Israeli onslaught on Gaza to 26,422 since 7 October, not including the thousands thought to be buried under the rubble of collapsed buildings. The huge death toll comes despite last week’s ICJ interim ruling that Israel must do everything possible to avoid killing Palestinian civilians.
Palestinian medics and residents said Israel continued to bomb areas around the two main hospitals in Khan Younis, hindering efforts by rescue teams to respond to desperate calls from people caught in the Israeli bombardment. “There is a complete failure of the healthcare system at Nasser and Al-Amal hospitals,” said health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra.
The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, has appealed to the 10 donor countries that have withdrawn funding from the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees to reconsider, saying the agency and Palestinians in desperate need should not be penalised due to the alleged acts of a dozen staff. Guterres said nine UNRWA staff had already been dismissed for alleged involvement in Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October and any UN employee involved in acts of terror would be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution. Aid agencies have repeatedly warned in recent weeks that ordinary Gazans are at risk of famine after Israel stopped most food aid from entering the territory and cut off water supplies.
Talks on Sunday initiated by Qatar, the US and Egypt and aimed at brokering a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas were “constructive” but “significant gaps” remain, a statement from the Israeli prime minister’s office has said. US officials have reportedly proposed an initial 30-day temporary ceasefire to allow for the remaining female, elderly and wounded Israeli hostages to be freed. This would be followed by a second 30-day pause where Israeli soldiers and male hostages would be released, in tandem with an increase in the trickle of aid permitted into Gaza.
Far-right Israeli ministers and ministers belonging to Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party have attended a conference on the resettlement of Gaza, at which the national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir said Israelis needed “to find a legal way to voluntarily emigrate [Palestinians],” Haaretz newspaper has reported. Communications minister Shlomo Karhi told the conference that in war, “‘voluntary’ is at times a state you impose [on someone] until they give their consent.’”
The Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh has called for the countries that have paused their funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), to reverse the decision.
Aid agencies had already been saying that Gazans face famine after Israel prevented most food supplies from getting through and cut off water supplies.
