This blog is now closing. You can read all our coverage of the Middle East and the Israel-Gaza war here.
In Australia, New South Wales police say an independent analysis of audio and video files from a pro-Palestine protest at the Sydney Opera House last year found no evidence for claims that anyone had chanted “gas the Jews”.
People reported hearing the comments at the protest in October last year, and the reports are being investigated by Strike Force Mealing.
In a statement this morning, police said they would continue their investigation and urged anyone with information to contact Crime Stoppers. Police said:
Strike Force Mealing was established to investigate reported unlawful activity committed during an unauthorised protest at the Sydney Opera House on 9 October 2023.
Police received reports following the protest suggesting that an offensive antisemitic phrase was chanted during the event.
As a result of independent forensic analysis of audio-video files of the demonstration provided to investigators, police have no evidence that this phrase was used.
Police also obtained statements from several individuals who attended the protest indicating they heard the phrase however these statements have not attributed the phrase to any specific individual.
Turkish polish detain hostage-taker at Procter & Gamble factory
Police have detained an armed man who took staff hostage at a Procter & Gamble factory in northwestern Turkey on Thursday and rescued seven hostages, ending a protest against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, the local governor’s office has said according to Reuters. The news wire reports:
The Kocaeli governor’s office said that the hostages were unharmed, adding that the operation to rescue them was launched after negotiations with the hostage-taker failed.“Our security forces intervened and neutralised the suspect,” the statement said, adding that he was an employee of the factory who “wanted to draw attention to the ongoing occupation in Gaza.”
The hostage-taker entered the factory in Gebze industrial zone in Kocaeli province around 3 p.m. (1200 GMT), the Demiroren news agency said earlier, adding that police had then rushed to the scene and sought to persuade him to give himself up.
The hostages were six men and a woman, media reports had said.
A photo released by local media earlier showed a man inside the factory whose face was covered with a Palestinian scarf and who was wearing what looked possibly like an explosive device.
Another photo from the scene showed the man holding a gun in one hand and making a ‘V’ sign with his other hand in front of a wall on which Turkish and Palestinian flags were painted with a script that reads: “Gates will open. Either coffin rest or death for Gaza.”
US secretary of state Lloyd Austin spoke to his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant on Thursday, the Pentagon has said in a statement, to discuss Israel’s shift to “low-intensity operations in Gaza" as well as “support for a diplomatic solution along the Israel-Lebanon border, and stability in the West Bank.”
The statement came hours after Gallant said Israel would continue its military campaign in Gaza to Rafah, the occupied territory’s southernmost city, despite more than a million Gazan civilians attempting to shelter there.
Austin “reaffirmed the importance of ensuring the uninterrupted delivery of humanitarian assistance to Gaza and thanked Minister Gallant for his efforts towards this shared objective”, the Pentagon said
However, as we reported earlier, Israeli ministers have reportedly discussed limiting aid to Gaza – which the UN has said faces “inevitable famine” – still further.
Austin and Gallant also “discussed regional threats to US forces,” the Pentagon statement said. “Minister Gallant offered his condolences for the loss of three US soldiers killed in the Iran-proxy drone attack in Jordan.”
Israeli forces arrested an 82-year-old Palestinian woman with Alzheimer’s and held her in prison for almost two months as an unlawful combatant, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz is reporting.
Fahamiya Khalidi was arrested in Gaza at the beginning of December as she was sheltering at a school in Gaza City after being forced from her home due to Israeli bombing. Her full-time caregiver was also arrested.
Jailed under the Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law, she was then held in Damon prison in northern Israel which refused a request from a lawyer from the Israeli organisation Physicians for Human Rights to meet with her.
She was released two weeks ago after an appeal was filed over the refusal to meet with a lawyer, Haaretz reported, although her caregiver is believed to remain in jail.
On her release, Khalidi, who uses a wheelchair, was driven to the Kerem Shalom border crossing into Gaza with five other female prisoners and 18 male prisoners – their ages were not clear. Citing one of the other female prisoners, Haaretz reported:
They [the prisoners] were not familiar with the area, and when they began walking away, soldiers fired over their heads and yelled at them to come back so that they could be sent in the proper direction, another prisoner recounted. The soldiers, she claimed, still continued firing after they were redirected.
Khalidi, who was born in 1942 in what is now central Israel, is now in a hospital in Rafah. The Israeli prison service told Haaretz that during her detention “she was held in accordance with the law.”
Palestinians arrested by Israeli authorities have recounted allegations of torture and humiliation at the hands of Israeli officials, while other Palestinians are known to have died while in detention. The Israel Defense Forces say all allegations of improper conduct in its detention facilities are thoroughly investigated, though they rarely result in prosecutions.
Belgium is summoning the Israeli ambassador after the office building housing the Belgian Agency for Development Cooperation in Gaza was bombed and destroyed, foreign minister Hadja Lahbib has said.
“Targeting civilian buildings is unacceptable,” she said in a Twitter post.
Israel has repeatedly targeted residential and civilian buildings in its bombardments, claiming that Hamas shelters among civilians. More than 60% of Gaza’ housing units have now been destroyed or damaged, according to the UN, which says the amount of debris caused by Israel amounts to 8,000,000 metric tons and will take three years to clear.
Les bureaux d'Enabel, l'agence belge de développement, à Gaza ont été bombardés et détruits.
— Hadja Lahbib (@hadjalahbib) February 1, 2024
Viser des bâtiments civils est inacceptable.
Avec @carogennez, nous convoquons l'ambassadrice d'Israël pour faire toute la clarté. pic.twitter.com/uj5NUXp6ni
Updated
Israeli forces will continue to Rafah, defence minister says
Israeli forces will continue their Gaza military campaign to Rafah, the Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant has said, despite the huge numbers of Palestinian civilians there. In a Twitter post Gallant said:
The Khan Younis Brigade of the Hamas organization is disbanded, we will complete the mission there and continue to Rafah.
The great pressure that our forces exert on Hamas targets brings us closer to the return of the abductees, more than anything else [we can do].
We will continue until the end, there is no other way.
הערכת מצב בח׳אן יונס עם סגן הרמטכ״ל ומפקד אוגדה 98
— יואב גלנט - Yoav Gallant (@yoavgallant) February 1, 2024
חטיבת ח׳אן יונס של ארגון החמאס מפורקת, נשלים את המשימה שם ונמשיך לרפיח.
הלחץ הכביר שהכוחות מפעילים על יעדי החמאס מקרב אותנו להשבת החטופים, יותר מכל דבר אחר.
אנחנו נמשיך עד הסוף, אין דרך אחרת. pic.twitter.com/6Lt9gLgjFV
Israeli forces have continually expanded their campaign south to areas where they have previously told Palestinian to flee for safety, killing many civilians, most of them women and children.
Rafah is the southernmost city in Gaza and there is nowhere else for civilians to go as Israel and Egypt will not let them leave the territory. Eighty-five per cent of Gaza’s 2.2 million strong population is already deplaced, and Rafah, already overcrowded, is now hosting more than 1 million people.
Updated
Several members of the Palestinian-American community have refused to meet with secretary of state Antony Blinken in Washington, the Huffington Post is reporting. It quoted a statement from a group of Palestinian leaders as saying:
After nearly four unbearable months of constant US-enabled Israeli violence against our families, friends and other innocent civilians in Gaza, and throughout Palestine, we cannot imagine what Secretary Blinken could have to say or discuss with us.
Tariq Haddad, a cardiologist based in Virginia who has lost nearly 90 family members in Gaza since the Israeli onslaught began in October, was among those who declined the invitation. he said:
Where do I start trying to meet with somebody who I feel is primarily responsible for the killing of all my family, and who has had four months to make a difference to actually prevent my family from being killed?
Last week Arab and Muslim community leaders also declined to take part in a listening session with President Joe Biden’s campaign in Detroit, the Post reported, due to anger over the US administration’s support for the brutal Israeli military campaign.
This is Helen Livingstone taking over from my colleague Léonie Chao-Fong.
Summary of the day so far
Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
At least 27,019 Palestinians have been killed and 66,139 injured in the Israeli assault on Gaza since 7 October, according to the latest figures by the Gaza health ministry on Thursday. In its statement, the ministry said in the past 24 hours, 118 Palestinians were killed and 190 injured. Images from the Gaza Strip today show that the Israeli bombardment continues.
Hamas has received a proposal for a ceasefire deal that would involve the release of Israeli hostages, after US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators met Israeli intelligence officials in Paris. A Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson on Thursday said Hamas has given “initial positive confirmation” to a proposed deal, but a source close to Hamas said there is “no agreement on the framework of the agreement yet”, describing the Qatari statement as “rushed and not true”.
Joe Biden has issued an executive order targeting Israeli settlers in the West Bank who have been attacking Palestinians. The order, a rare step against the US’s closest ally in the Middle East, initially imposes financial sanctions and visa bans against four Israeli individuals. The White House said there are currently no plans to target Israeli government officials with sanctions. A statement from Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the vast majority of West Bank settlers are “law-abiding citizens” and described Biden’s order as “drastic”.
Britain could officially recognise a Palestinian state after a ceasefire in Gaza, the UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, has said. In an interview, Cameron said no recognition could come while Hamas remained in Gaza, but that it could take place while Israeli negotiations with Palestinian leaders were continuing.
The US has ordered a series of reprisal strikes to be launched over more than one day against an Iranian-backed militia, the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, has said. The attacks are expected to hit militia in Syria and possibly Iraq, though Austin did not specify the timing or precise location. They are in response to the drone strike on a US base on the Iran-Syrian border on Sunday that killed three US service personnel and injured more than 30.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said it has lost contact with a team of paramedics dispatched to rescue a six-year-old Palestinian girl trapped inside a car in north Gaza. The organisation released audio recordings between dispatchers and Hind Rajab, the only survivor trapped inside the vehicle near a petrol station in Gaza City.
Ministers in Israel’s war cabinet are reportedly considering limiting the amount of aid reaching Gaza, as rightwing protesters disrupt the entry of trucks carrying desperately needed humanitarian supplies to the besieged Palestinian territory. Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot have suggested temporarily limiting aid to weaken the Hamas, following an unverified report from Israel’s internal security service that estimated up to 66% of aid entering Gaza was being hijacked by Hamas.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) will be forced to shut down its operations across the region “by the end of February” if funding does not resume, the agency’s head has warned. More than 10 western countries including the US, UK and Germany have said they would suspend funding to UNRWA after Israel accused some of its workers of taking part in Hamas’s 7 October attack. The UN agency provides aid to more than 5.6 million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East.
Algeria has drafted a UN security council resolution to demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The draft was shared with the 15-member council on Wednesday, according to diplomats, after the UN body met to discuss a ruling by the international court of justice that ordered Israel to take action to prevent acts of genocide.
US forces have carried out strikes in Yemen against 10 attack drones and a ground control station belonging to the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, according to the US military. Early on Thursday local time, US forces targeted a “Houthi UAV ground control station and 10 Houthi one-way UAVs” that “presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and the US navy ships in the region,” Centcom said.
The UK will not send ground troops into combat against Houthi militants in Yemen, Britain’s deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, has said. Dowden said he was confident US and UK airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen were a step in degrading the Iranian-backed group’s capability to threaten the Red Sea, and part of broader measures that include sanctions on Houthi figures.
UN rights experts have voiced alarm at soaring numbers of journalists killed in the Gaza war. In a statement on Thursday, the independent experts said they had received “disturbing” reports that appeared to indicate that the killings, injury and detention of journalists are “a deliberate strategy by Israeli forces to obstruct the media and silence critical reporting”.
The US has ordered a series of reprisal strikes to be launched over more than one day against an Iranian-backed militia, the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, has said.
Austin added that while it signalled a dangerous moment in the Middle East, the US would work to avoid a wider conflict. The strikes are expected to take place in Syria and possibly Iraq after three US soldiers were killed at a base in Jordan, though Austin did not specify the timing or precise location.
Here’s the clip:
Palestinians rounded up in Gaza say they were abused in Israeli detention
Palestinians who were rounded up and detained by Israeli forces have said they were abused by their jailers and “tortured relentlessly” while in detention.
Khaled al-Nabrisse, 48, a resident of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, spoke to AFP while wearing a neck brace after he was freed from Israeli detention on Thursday. He said:
During the first 72 hours, drinking, eating or going to the toilets was banned, and we were handcuffed and blindfolded for those seven days.
The Gaza crossings authority said 114 detainees, including four women, were sent through Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing on Thursday.
The group included Mohammed al-Ran, head of the surgery department at the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza, the territory’s health ministry said. Ran was taken by soldiers who stormed the hospital two months ago, it said.
At Najjar hospital in Rafah, AFP journalists saw multiple freed Palestinians from Gaza with bandaged wrists and feet.
Abu Khamis, 50, from the central Bureij refugee camp, said he was subjected to “torture, hits and insults” while in detention. “As you see, these (wounds) happened in prison,” he said.
Asked about the allegations, the Israeli military told the news agency it had detained “individuals suspected of involvement in terrorist activity” and that they were treated “in accordance with international law”.
Israel’s war cabinet is waiting for Hamas’ response to a ceasefire proposal agreed during talks talks in Paris between officials from the US, Qatar, Egypt and Israelm according to a senior Israeli adviser.
“Everyone is waiting to see Hamas’ reaction,” the adviser told NBC, adding that it could take several days.
The Israeli war cabinet expects to start negotiations according to the principles sent to Hamas once Hamas replies, they added.
As we reported earlier, a Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson has said that Hamas has given “initial positive confirmation” to a proposed ceasefire deal that would involve the release of Israeli hostages.
But a source close to Hamas told AFP that “there is no agreement on the framework of the agreement yet”, describing the Qatari statement as “rushed and not true”.
A Hamas source told Reuters that “the current stage of negotiation is zero and at the same time we cannot say that we have reached an agreement.”
ActionAid has said it is “horrified” that al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza has been hit by bombing at least three times in the last three days.
Several people were injured, and the building also suffered damaged in these “reprehensible” attacks, the organisation said in a statement on Thursday.
The hospital is one of the only functional hospitals in the north of Gaza and the only facility able to provide maternity services.
Dr Adnan, the hospital’s head of obstetrics and gynaecology, said the staff “will never stop” working despite coming under attack. He said:
We are peaceful people, and we provide a purely medical service, and we have no relation to anything.
Updated
Algeria has drafted a UN security council resolution to demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
The draft, seen by Reuters, also “rejects the forced displacement of the Palestinian civilian population” and again demands all parties comply with international law and calls for full, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access into and throughout the entire Gaza Strip.
The draft was shared with the 15-member council on Wednesday, according to diplomats, after the UN body met to discuss a ruling by the international court of justice that ordered Israel to take action to prevent acts of genocide.
It was not immediately known when or if Algeria’s draft resolution could be put to a vote. The US – which holds a council veto power – and Israel oppose a ceasefire in Gaza, believing it would only benefit Hamas.
Updated
The UN has launched an appeal for $4bn (£3.1bn) in aid this year for Yemen, devastated by nearly a decade of war and conflict.
The UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) said in a statement that its 2024 humanitarian response plan “requires $2.7bn for live-saving assistance and protection services”. A further $1.3bn was needed for sustainable development, it said.
“Urgent support” was needed for more than 18.2 million civilians in Yemen “who have faced tremendous suffering daily for more than nine years due to conflict, economic deterioration, severely disrupted public infrastructure and services, as well as climate change”, Peter Hawkins, the acting UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, said. He added:
We must not turn our backs on the people of Yemen. I am appealing to donors for their continued and urgent support to save lives, build resilience, and also to fund sustainable interventions.
Updated
The White House has said there are currently no plans to target Israeli government officials with sanctions after Joe Biden issued an executive order targeting Israeli settlers in the West Bank who have been attacking Palestinians.
“There’s no plans to target with sanctions Israeli government officials at this time,” the White House’s national security spokesperson, John Kirby, told reporters on Thursday, CNN reported.
This was an initial set of designations; I’m not going to preview whether there will be more or not going forward, but it is a new tool that we’re going to take a look at using appropriately.
According to an Axios report, the Biden administration had considered sanctioning Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, and national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, both of whom have called for the re-establishment of Jewish settlements in Gaza and the north of the West Bank.
Updated
UK could recognise Palestinian state after Gaza ceasefire, says Cameron
Britain could officially recognise a Palestinian state after a ceasefire in Gaza without waiting for the outcome of what could be years-long talks between Israel and the Palestinians on a two-state solution, the UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, has said.
Cameron, in an interview with the Associated Press on Thursday, said no recognition could come while Hamas remained in Gaza, but that it could take place while Israeli negotiations with Palestinian leaders were continuing.
Britain’s recognition of an independent state of Palestine, including in the UN, “can’t come at the start of the process, but it doesn’t have to be the very end of the process”, he said, adding:
It could be something that we consider as this process, as this advance to a solution, becomes more real … What we need to do is give the Palestinian people a horizon towards a better future, the future of having a state of their own.
That prospect is “absolutely vital for the long-term peace and security of the region”, he said.
Cameron said the first step must be a “pause in the fighting” in Gaza that would eventually turn into “a permanent, sustainable ceasefire”.
He added that in order for the UK to recognise a Palestinian state, the leaders of Hamas would need to leave Gaza “because you can’t have a two-state solution with Gaza still controlled by the people responsible for October 7”.
Updated
Hamas says 'current stage of negotiation is zero'
Reuters also has more on Hamas’s position on the latest ceasefire proposal:
Hamas received the Paris truce proposal for a ceasefire and release of hostages in Gaza but did not give a response to any of the parties, the media adviser to the head of political bureau of the Islamist movement, told Reuters on Thursday.
‘We say that the current stage of negotiation is zero and at the same time we cannot say that we have reached an agreement,’ Taher al-Nono said.
Updated
US Central Command has said two anti-ship ballistic missiles were launched from Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen, likely towards the M/V KOI ship in the Red Sea.
The missiles landed in water without hitting the ship and there was no damage reported, the statement – carried by Reuters – said. The US said the ship was a Liberian-flagged and Bermuda-owned cargo ship.
The Houthis, meanwhile, said their naval forces targeted a “British merchant vessel” in the Red Sea, in what appears to be the same attack.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked during a briefing with reporters whether the executive order setting up sanctions against certain Israeli settlers in the West Bank was announced today to, essentially, appease Muslim Americans incensed by America’s tenacious support and funding for Israel even as its military decimates Gaza in response to the attack by Hamas on southern Israel on October 7.
The question came on an Air Force One flight to the Detroit area, which has a huge Arab American population and protests are expected during Biden’s visit today.
Jean-Pierre denied that the timing was intentional, adding that “these types of sanctions take a long time” to plan and impose.
Updated
Summary of the day so far
Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
The US has ordered a series of reprisal strikes to be launched over more than one day against an Iranian-backed militia, the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, has said. The attacks are expected to hit militia in Syria and possibly Iraq, though Austin did not specify the timing or precise location. They are in response to the drone strike on a US base on the Iran-Syrian border on Sunday that killed three US service personnel and injured more than 30.
Qatar says Hamas has given “initial positive confirmation” to a proposed ceasefire deal that would involve the release of Israeli hostages. Majed al-Ansari, a spokesperson for Qatar’s foreign ministry, said there is “still a very tough road in front of us” but that he was “hopeful that in the next couple of weeks, we’ll be able to share good news about that.”
Joe Biden has issued an executive order targeting Israeli settlers in the West Bank who have been attacking Palestinians, amid fast-growing frustration in Washington at Israel’s trajectory in the midst of its war in Gaza. The order initially imposes financial sanctions and visa bans against four individuals, and US officials said they were evaluating whether to punish others involved in attacks that have intensified during the Israel-Hamas war. A statement from Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the vast majority of West Bank settlers are “law-abiding citizens” and described Biden’s order as “drastic”.
At least 27,019 Palestinians have been killed and 66,139 injured in the Israeli assault on Gaza since 7 October, according to the latest figures by the Gaza health ministry on Thursday. In its statement, the ministry said in the past 24 hours, 118 Palestinians were killed and 190 injured. Images from the Gaza Strip today show that the Israeli bombardment continues.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said it has lost contact with a team of paramedics dispatched to rescue a six-year-old Palestinian girl trapped inside a car in north Gaza. The organisation released audio recordings between dispatchers and Hind Rajab, the only survivor trapped inside the vehicle near a petrol station in Gaza City.
Ministers in Israel’s war cabinet are reportedly considering limiting the amount of aid reaching Gaza, as rightwing protesters disrupt the entry of trucks carrying desperately needed humanitarian supplies to the besieged Palestinian territory. Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot have suggested temporarily limiting aid to weaken the Hamas, following an unverified report from Israel’s internal security service that estimated up to 66% of aid entering Gaza was being hijacked by Hamas.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) will be forced to shut down its operations across the region “by the end of February” if funding does not resume, the agency’s head has warned. More than 10 western countries including the US, UK and Germany have said they would suspend funding to UNRWA after Israel accused some of its workers of taking part in Hamas’s 7 October attack. The UN agency provides aid to more than 5.6 million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East.
US forces have carried out strikes in Yemen against 10 attack drones and a ground control station belonging to the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, according to the US military. Early on Thursday local time, US forces targeted a “Houthi UAV ground control station and 10 Houthi one-way UAVs” that “presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and the US navy ships in the region,” Centcom said.
The UK will not send ground troops into combat against Houthi militants in Yemen, Britain’s deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, has said. Dowden said he was confident US and UK airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen were a step in degrading the Iranian-backed group’s capability to threaten the Red Sea, and part of broader measures that include sanctions on Houthi figures.
Yemen’s foreign minister urged the EU to increase pressure on the Iran-aligned Houthis. “Just striking the Houthis won’t do enough. We need mid and long term solutions,” Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak told reporters on Thursday. Meanwhile, the Yemen Houthi leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, said US attempts to involve China with mediating the issue of Red Sea attacks showed that the US and UK had failed in their mission.
A federal court in California has ruled that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza “plausibly” amounts to genocide, but dismissed a case aimed at stopping US military support for Israel as being outside the court’s jurisdiction.
UN rights experts have voiced alarm at soaring numbers of journalists killed in the Gaza war. In a statement on Thursday, the independent experts said they had received “disturbing” reports that appeared to indicate that the killings, injury and detention of journalists are “a deliberate strategy by Israeli forces to obstruct the media and silence critical reporting”.
Qatar says Hamas received ceasefire proposal 'positively'
Here’s more on the report that Qatar’s foreign ministry said Hamas has given its initial approval to a proposed ceasefire deal that would involve the release of Israeli hostages.
Majed al-Ansari, the spokesperson for Qatar’s foreign ministry, said on Thursday that Hamas has given “initial positive confirmation” to the truce proposal, AFP reported. There is “still a very tough road in front of us”, he said, adding:
We are optimistic because both sides now agreed to the premise that would lead to a next pause.
The Qatari spokesperson added:
We’re hopeful that in the next couple of weeks, we’ll be able to share good news about that.
Meanwhile, a Qatari official has told Reuters:
There is no deal yet. Hamas has received the proposal positively but we are waiting for their response.
Netanyahu's office says Biden order against Israeli settlers 'drastic'
Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has said the vast majority of West Bank settlers as “law-abiding citizens” and described Joe Biden’s executive order sanctioning settler extremists as “drastic”.
A statement from the Israeli prime minister’s office says:
Israel takes action against all law-breakers everywhere, and therefore there is no need for drastic steps on this matter.
The US state department has announced the first round of sanctions under a new executive order targeting Israeli settlers in the West Bank who have been attacking Palestinians.
In a statement, the department said it is imposing financial sanctions against four Israeli nationals:
David Chai Chasdai
Einan Tanjil
Shalom Zicherman
Yinon Levi
Chasdai “initiated and led a riot, which involved setting vehicles and buildings on fire, assaulting Palestinian civilians, and causing damage to property in Huwara, which resulted in the death of a Palestinian civilian,” the department said.
Tanjil is said to have assaulted Palestinian farmers and Israeli activists by “attacking them with stones and clubs”, while Zicherman “assaulted Israeli activists and their vehicles in the West Bank, blocking them on the street, and attempted to break the windows of passing vehicles with activists inside.”
The department said Levi led a group of settlers “who engaged in actions creating an atmosphere of fear” in the West Bank, threatening Palestinian and Bedouin civilians with violence if they did not leave their homes, “burned their fields, and destroyed their property.”
Qatar’s foreign ministry said Hamas has given its initial approval to a proposed ceasefire deal that would involve the release of Israeli hostages, Israeli media reported.
The Qatari ministry said Israel has also agreed to the proposal, which emerged from talks in Paris earlier this week involving intelligence chiefs from Israel, the US and Egypt, plus the prime minister of Qatar.
Israel’s war cabinet is currently meeting, the Times of Israel reported.
Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has responded to the news that Joe Biden has issued an executive order targeting Israeli settlers in the West Bank who have been attacking Palestinians.
In a statement posted to social media, Smotrich claimed the settler violence “campaign” is an “antisemitic lie spread by Israel’s enemies to slander settlers and pioneers and the settler movement and to harm them”, adding:
This is an immoral BDS campaign that turns victims into attackers and sanctions the spilling of settler blood. It’s too bad the Biden administration is cooperating with these actions.
Fate unknown of six-year-old Palestinian girl trapped in car in Gaza and ambulance team, says Red Crescent
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said it has lost contact with a team of paramedics dispatched to rescue a terrified six-year-old Palestinian girl, Hind Rajab, trapped inside a car with her dead family in north Gaza.
The organisation said it was first contacted by Layan Hamadeh, 15, a relative of the six-year-old, who was trapped with her in the vehicle near a petrol station in Gaza City as Israeli tanks and troops approached.
“They are shooting at us. The tank is next to me,” the teenager is heard saying in an audio clip released by the PRCS. Layan and five other family members were killed, according to the Red Crescent.
Hind, the only survivor, stayed on the line with dispatchers for three hours as they waited for fighting in the area to calm before sending help. One of the dispatchers told Reuters that her emergency rescue team “felt paralysed”. She said:
Hind kept asking us to come and get her, to send someone to get her. She said it was getting dark.
🚨As of now, contact is still lost with the ambulance team 🚑that departed yesterday on the mission to rescue the 6-year-old girl Hind Rajab from #Gaza City. Information about them remains unknown, and we feel extremely concerned about their fate and whether they succeeded in… pic.twitter.com/qZPvvClWV0
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) January 30, 2024
She said she could hear shots ring out in the background during the call, adding:
I told her if night falls and we still can’t send a team, to try to close her eyes and pretend we were playing hide and seek. To close her eyes and start counting.
An ambulance was dispatched to the area but the organisation soon lost contact with it and have had no further contact with either its two crew or with Hind, it said.
Updated
The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said that without Iranian facilitation, the drone strikes that killed three American service personnel and wounded dozens on Sunday could not be mounted.
Austin, at a Pentagon press conference on Thursday, sidestepped claims that US delays in responding meant senior Iranian military advisers had left Syria for Iran where they were less likely to face a US attack.
Asked about the announcement by the Iranian-backed militia Kata’ib Hezbollah that it was suspending its attacks on US bases inside Iraq, he said:
We always listen to what people are saying, and we also watch what they do. Actions are everything so we will see what they do.
Austin acknowledged that there had been 160 strikes on US bases in Syria and Iraq since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October. He described most of them as ineffective, adding that the US was able to defend itself.
When we conduct a strike we are going to take away capability. This particular attack [on Sunday] was egregious and on the sleeping areas of our base.
Without confirming that attacks had been authorised, he said:
We will respond at a time and place of our choosing. Iranian proxy groups have been attacking our troops before 7 October.
He said there was no set formula in meeting the US’s competing objectives of holding the right people accountable, doing everything to protect its troops and avoiding escalation.
Updated
US orders reprisal strikes against Iranian-backed militia
The US has ordered a series of reprisal strikes to be launched over more than one day against an Iranian-backed militia, the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, has said.
Austin said all drones in the region attacking the US were of Iranian origin. The attacks are expected to hit militia in Syria and possibly Iraq, though Austin did not specify the timing or precise location.
Speaking at a Pentagon press conference on Thursday, Austin said:
We will have a multi-tier response and we have the ability to respond a number of times depending on the situation. We look to hold the people responsible for this accountable and we also seek to take away capability as we go forward.
Austin stressed the US was not at war with Iran and Washington did not know if Tehran was aware of the specific drone strikes on Sunday mounted by what he described as the axis of resistance. He said in a sense “it did not matter since we do know that Iran sponsors these groups and funds these groups, and in some cases trains these groups”.
Updated
A federal court in California has ruled that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza “plausibly” amounts to genocide, but dismissed a case aimed at stopping US military support for Israel as being outside the court’s jurisdiction.
“There are rare cases in which the preferred outcome is inaccessible to the court. This is one of those cases,” the US district court in the northern district of California ruled. “The court is bound by precedent and the division of our coordinate branches of government to abstain from exercising jurisdiction in this matter.
“Yet, as the ICJ [the international court of justice] has found, it is plausible that Israel’s conduct amounts to genocide,” the judge in the case, Jeffrey White, said in his ruling, in a case brought by Palestinian human rights groups and individual Palestinians against President Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, and Lloyd Austin, the defence secretary.
This court implores defendants to examine the results of their unflagging support of the military siege against the Palestinians in Gaza.
The judge explained his decision that the matter lay outside the jurisdiction of his court, because the Palestinian groups were asking it to interfere with US foreign policy.
Because any determination to challenge the decision of the executive branch of government on support of Israel is fraught with serious political questions, the claims presented by plaintiffs here lie outside the court’s limited jurisdiction.
The Palestinian groups and their lawyers said they might appeal against the dismissal of the case, but welcomed the judge’s judgment on the potential for genocide.
Biden sanctions four Israeli settlers who attacked Palestinians in the West Bank
Joe Biden has issued an executive order targeting Israeli settlers who have been attacking Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, imposing financial sanctions and visa bans in an initial round against four individuals.
Biden’s executive order establishes a system for imposing financial sanctions and visa restrictions against individuals who are found to have attacked or intimidated Palestinians or seized their property, two senior US administration officials told reporters.
The four individuals were involved in acts of violence, as well as threats and attempts to destroy or seize Palestinian property, according to the order.
The order freezes any US assets of those targeted and generally bars Americans from dealing with them. The state department also planned to announce the first four individuals hit by the order, the officials said.
UN figures show that daily settler attacks have more than doubled in the nearly four months since the Hamas attack on 7 October and Israel’s ensuing assault on the Gaza Strip.
UK has no plans to send ground troops into combat against Houthis, says deputy PM
The UK will not send ground troops into combat against Houthi militants in Yemen, Britain’s deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, has said.
Dowden, in an interview on Thursday reported by Reuters, said:
Let’s be absolutely clear from the start. We have no plans whatsoever to put boots on the ground.
He said US and UK airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen had weakened the Iranian-backed group and were aimed at reducing their ability to threaten vessels in the Red Sea, and not at ousting the group.
Dowden said he was confident the strikes were a step in degrading the Houthis’ capability to threaten the Red Sea, and part of broader measures that include sanctions on Houthi figures. He said:
We need to tighten the pressure on the Houthis because at the root of this lies a commitment from the United Kingdom to ensure stability and free trade of goods and movement.
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has warned it will be forced to shut down its operations across the region “by the end of February” if funding does not resume.
More than 10 western countries including the US, UK and Germany have said they would suspend funding to UNRWA after Israel accused some of its workers of taking part in Hamas’s 7 October attack.
UNRWA commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini warned that “if the funding remains suspended, we will most likely be forced to shut down our operations by end of February, not only in Gaza but also across the region”.
A number of donor countries suspended US$ 440 million worth of funding to @UNRWA Meanwhile the war in #Gaza is going unabated.
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) February 1, 2024
At the time the International Court of Justice calls for more humanitarian assistance, it is the time to reinforce not to weaken #UNRWA We are the…
The UN agency provides aid to more than 5.6 million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East. On Sunday, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, appealed to donor countries who have withdrawn UNRWA funding to reconsider, saying the agency and Palestinians in desperate need should not be penalised due to the alleged acts of a dozen staff.
Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said on Thursday after talks with Lazzarini that he “emphasised the immediate need for the international community to support UNRWA.” A Jordanian foreign ministry statement said:
Any reduction in financial support provided to the agency will exacerbate the suffering of the people of Gaza, who are already on the brink of mass starvation.
Meanwhile, a Norwegian politician said he has nominated UNRWA for the Nobel peace prize “for its long-term work to provide vital support to Palestine and the region in general”.
The agency’s work “has been crucial for over 70 years, and even more vital in the last three months,” Åsmund Grøver Aukrust, vice-chair of Norway’s parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told Dagbladet newspaper today.
Updated
An armed assailant took a number of Procter & Gamble factory employees in Turkey hostage in protest at the war in Gaza on Thursday, Turkish police said.
It was not immediately clear how many people were being held at the plant, which lies on Istanbul’s eastern outskirts, a police spokesperson told AFP.
A union representing workers at the US cosmetics giant plant said the assailant was holding seven people hostage. The rest of the plant’s workers have been released, it said.
A photograph circulated online showed the alleged assailant holding a gun and what appeared to be a suicide vest strapped to his chest, AFP reported. He was pictured standing next to a drawing of the Palestinian flag and the words “for Gaza” painted on the wall in red, it said.
Special operation forces and medical personnel were dispatched to the scene, Turkish media reported.
Updated
UN rights experts have voiced alarm at soaring numbers of journalists killed in the Gaza war, describing it as the deadliest, most dangerous conflict for journalists in recent history.
More than 122 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since the outbreak of war on 7 October and many other have been injured, according to UN figures.
In addition, three journalists in Lebanon were killed as a result of Israeli shelling near the border. Four Israeli journalists were killed by Hamas in the 7 October attacks. Dozens of Palestinian journalists have been detained by Israeli forces in both Gaza and in the occupied West Bank.
In a statement on Thursday, UN rights experts said:
We are alarmed at the extraordinarily high numbers of journalists and media workers who have been killed, attacked, injured and detained in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in Gaza, in recent months.
The independent experts said they had received “disturbing” reports that appeared to indicate that the killings, injury and detention of journalists are “a deliberate strategy by Israeli forces to obstruct the media and silence critical reporting”.
“Targeted attacks and killings of journalists are war crimes,” they said, adding:
Rarely have journalists paid such a heavy price for just doing their job as those in Gaza now.
Updated
Israeli ministers reportedly considering limiting aid entering Gaza
Ministers in Israel’s war cabinet are reportedly considering limiting the amount of aid reaching Gaza, as rightwing protesters disrupt the entry of trucks carrying desperately needed humanitarian supplies to the besieged Palestinian territory.
Benny Gantz, the centrist retired army general who joined an emergency wartime government formed by the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, after 7 October, and Gadi Eisenkot, a former chief of staff of the Israeli army and war cabinet observer, have suggested temporarily limiting aid to weaken Hamas, Israel’s Channel 12 reported late on Wednesday.
The two National Unity party politicians put the proposal forward in meetings this week, the station said, after receiving a report from Israel’s internal security service that estimated up to 66% of aid entering Gaza was being hijacked by Hamas. That figure cannot be independently verified, but reports of desperate people or armed men seizing aid deliveries have become common in the strip. The politicians reportedly said:
We can consider reducing the scope of supplies as part of the pressure to build a different mechanism in the Gaza Strip and as part of the efforts to free the hostages.
No final decision has been made on the issue, Channel 12 said. Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.
Updated
Britain’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, has met Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, in Beirut to discuss defusing tensions on the Lebanon-Israel border.
The pair discussed “ways to restore calm in southern Lebanon, as well as the political and diplomatic solution that is needed,” according to a statement from the Lebanese prime minister’s office.
Cameron is the latest in a succession of western politicians to visit Lebanon amid concern that the war in Gaza could spark a wider conflict involving Iranian allies around the Middle East.
The Lebanon-Israel border has seen near-daily exchanges between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah group since 7 October, with both sides firing across the border sometimes multiple times a day.
The border violence has forced tens of thousands of people to flee on both sides and raised fears the conflict could increase.
The drone used in the attack on an American military outpost in Jordan over the weekend was believed to have been made in Iran, according to a US assessment.
Joe Biden has said that he held Iran responsible for the drone strike, which killed three American soldiers on Sunday and wounded dozens more, “in the sense that they’re supplying the weapons” to Kataib Hezbollah, a pro-Iranian militia based in neighbouring Iraq.
US officials, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said the US has assessed that Iran manufactured the drone, but did not disclose details of the model of the drone.
While the initial indications were that the drone was likely Iranian, a formal assessment was made only recently after recovering fragments of the drone.
Updated
Biden to issue order targeting Jewish settler violence in West Bank – reports
Joe Biden is expected to issue an executive order targeting Jewish settlers who attack Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, according to reports.
The White House is set to announce the order later today, and is thought to include sanctions against the settlers, a senior administration official said. The expected order was first reported by Politico.
The move comes after the US president and officials have warned repeatedly that Israel must act to stop violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank. Biden has pledged that those responsible for the violence will be held accountable.
In December, the US began imposing travel bans on extremist Jewish settlers implicated in violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank have intensified in recent months as Jewish settlements have expanded, and then spiked again since the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October.
US approves strikes against Iranian targets in Iraq and Syria after Jordan attack – report
The US has approved plans for multi-day strikes in Iraq and Syria against multiple targets including Iranian personnel and facilities, according to a report.
The strikes, reported by CBS News, will come in response to drone and rocket attacks targeting US forces in the region, including the drone strike on Sunday that killed three American soldiers and wounded sozens more at Tower 22 base in northern Jordan.
The report says weather will be a major factor in the timing of strikes, with the US preferring to have better visibility of selected targets in order to avoid inadvertently hitting civilians.
Summary of the day
It is 5pm in Gaza City, Cairo and Tel Aviv, 6pm in Damascus and Sana’a, and 6.30pm in Tehran. Here are the headlines …
American forces have carried out strikes in Yemen against 10 attack drones and a ground control station belonging to the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, according to the US military. Early on Thursday local time, US forces targeted a “Houthi UAV ground control station and 10 Houthi one-way UAVs” that “presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and the US navy ships in the region,” Centcom said.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) issued a warning about a later incident in the Red Sea near Yemen when a vessel reported an explosion “a distance off” its starboard side. Italy’s defence minister has said that disruption to Red Sea shipping caused by attacks by Yemen’s Houthis risks destabilising the Italian economy.
Yemen’s foreign minister urged the EU to increase pressure on the Iran-aligned Houthis. The Yemen Houthi leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, has said today that US attempts to involve China with mediating the issue of Red Sea attacks showed that the US and UK had failed in their mission.
At least 27,019 Palestinians have been killed and 66,139 injured in the Israeli assault on Gaza since 7 October, the health ministry in Gaza has said. In its statement, the ministry said in the past 24 hours, 118 Palestinians were killed and 190 injured. Images from the Gaza Strip today show that the Israeli bombardment continues. US president Joe Biden said he was “engaged day and night” to bring “enduring peace with two states for two peoples”.
In its latest operational briefing, Israel’s military has claimed to have destroyed a long-range missile launcher and to be continuing to operate in northern and central Gaza, killing dozens of people it described as “terrorists”. Israeli media reports that Hamas representatives are again conducting talks in Cairo on the outlines of a possible hostage deal, with Egypt and Qatar mediating.
Israeli protesters have this morning been attempting to prevent trucks departing from Ashdod port the protesters believe they are carrying humanitarian aid destined for the Gaza Strip. It is an extension of demonstrations that were being held at the Kerem Shalom border crossing by Israeli campaign groups that want to see all aid blocked to Gaza until Hamas has released the remaining estimated 136 hostages held there. Haaretz correspondent Eden Solomon reported that several protesters attacked Arab truck drivers, cursing and saying “I’m the master, you’re the slave.”
Al Jazeera reports that the health ministry in Gaza has said that “more than 30,000 displaced people in schools near Nasser hospital in Khan Younis have no water, food or baby formula”.
Israel’s military reports that there were no Israeli injuries after “a number of launches from Lebanon” which have taken place “throughout the day”. It said it had returned fire at Hezbollah targets.
The Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that at least 41 Palestinians were detained by Israeli forces inside the Israeli-occupied West Bank yesterday, bring the total number detained since 7 October to nearly 6,460.
The bodies of nine labourers from Pakistan killed by gunmen in Iran last week were repatriated to their home country. It is still unclear who was behind the attack on Saturday in a home in Iran’s Sistan and Balochistan province. Iran and Pakistan exchanged airstrikes recently, with both countries claiming they were attacking Balochistan separatist militants operating freely over their border.
Updated
Biden says he is 'engaged day and night' working towards 'enduring peace with two states for two peoples'
US president Joe Biden has been speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast on Capitol Hill in Washington DC.
Biden started his remarks by honouring three US service members killed at a US base in Jordan in what the Biden administration has said was a drone attack from an Iran-backed militia.
Biden said he spoke with each of their families and would receive the dignified transfer of their bodies at Dover air force base on Friday.
“They risked it all,” Biden said. He also praised the “sacrifice and service to our country” of the dozens of servicemen and women who were injured in the attack.
Biden offered prayers for the lives lost in Israel and Gaza and said his administration was working “day and night” to secure peace in the region.
The president reasserted Washington’s assessment that the key to lasting peace in the Middle East was a two-state solution.
We value and pray for the lives taken and for the families left behind and all those who are living in dire circumstances: the innocent men, women and children held hostage, or under bombardment or displaced not knowing where the next meal will come from, or if it will come at all.
Not only do we pray for peace, we’re actively working for peace, security, dignity for the Israeli people and the Palestinian people. I’m engaged in this day and night, working as many of you in this room are to find the means to bring our hostages home, to ease humanitarian crisis and to bring peace to Gaza and Israel and enduring peace with two states for two peoples.
I also see the trauma, the death and destruction in Israel and Gaza, and understand the pain and passion felt by so many here in America and around the world.
Updated
The Yemen Houthi leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, has said today that US attempts to involve China with mediating the issue of Red Sea attacks showed that the US and UK had failed in their mission, Reuters reports.
The Houthis have been targeting what they consider to be Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea in what they say is a show of support for Palestinians in Gaza.
The US and UK have both launched strikes against Houthi targets, but the attacks have continued. Earlier this week the Houthis said they were prepared for a long battle.
The EU is also planning to send a naval mission to the region to deter attacks on commercial shipping. Italy’s defence minister said on Thursday the disruption to shipping via the Suez canal route had the potential to disrupt Italy’s economy.
Updated
Israel’s military reports that there were no Israeli injuries after “a number of launches from Lebanon” which have taken place “throughout the day”.
In a statement on its official Telegram channel, the IDF said it had “struck the sources of the fire” and also “struck a Hezbollah military site in Tayr Harfa in southern Lebanon”.
Norway’s foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, told Reuters on Thursday he was “reasonably optimistic” some countries that had paused funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, would resume payments.
The US, UK, Germany, France and Australia are among nations who stopped funding the agency after Israel accused 12 of its employees of being involved in the 7 October attack by Hamas inside southern Israel.
Reuters notes that UNRWA has said its entire operations in the Middle East, not just in Gaza, will most likely be forced to shut down by the end of February if its funding remains suspended.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the newswires from Gaza and Israel.
Updated
Al Jazeera reports that the health ministry in Gaza has said that “more than 30,000 displaced people in schools near Nasser hospital in Khan Younis have no water, food or baby formula”.
Updated
Reuters reports a Palestinian source has told the news agency that they do not expect Hamas to reject the ceasefire proposals, but it is unlikely to agree to them in their present form.
On condition of anonymity, the Palestinian official told Reuters:
I expect that Hamas will not reject the paper, but it might not give a decisive agreement either. Instead, I expect them to send a positive response, and reaffirm their demands: for the agreement to be signed, it must ensure Israel will commit to ending the war in Gaza and pull out from the enclave completely.
The proposal is understood to be that Hamas would release women, children and those over 60 who have been held hostage, in return for a pause in the fighting. But, crucially, it seems unlikely that Israel is willing to offer to pull its troops out of the Gaza Strip.
There are political as well as military implications for Israel. The hardline interior security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has threatened that he would pull out of the war cabinet and government of national unity if the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, agreed to a “reckless deal”.
Hamas officials are reported to currently be studying the proposals in Cairo.
Updated
Yemeni minister urges EU to step up pressure on Houthis
Yemen’s foreign minister urged the European Union on Thursday to increase pressure on the Iran-aligned Houthis who are attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea, a vital global trade artery.
Reuters reports:
Houthi militants, who control the most populous parts of Yemen, say their actions are a demonstration of solidarity with the Palestinians amid Israel’s war against Hamas militants in Gaza but the attacks have disrupted shipping, prompting US and British strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.
The 27-nation EU aims to launch its own Red Sea naval mission by mid-February to help protect ships there.
Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak, the foreign minister in Yemen’s Aden-based government that is backed by Saudi Arabia, told reporters ahead of talks with EU officials:
Just striking the Houthis won’t do enough. We need mid and long term solutions.
The EU has the wrong approach. They need to exercise more pressure on the Houthis such as by designating them as a terrorist group. Their argument is that if they adopt this then it will worsen the humanitarian situation.
But this approach didn’t work. The Houthis are still blackmailing the international community and the humanitarian situation has not improved.
Houthis will never stop … They have the ideology that as a group they have a divine right [to rule] in Yemen.
Mubarak added that they were also part of Iran’s regional strategy. He called for more EU support for building Yemeni institutions such as the coastguard and for humanitarian aid to be channelled through the central bank in Aden.
He said the west’s lack of a “clear path” to ending the conflict in Gaza and securing justice for the Palestinians was strengthening “all the extremists groups in our region”.
Updated
An Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing doctors working for UK charities in January, a month after the Israeli military told British counterparts the site was marked protected, MPs were told earlier this week.
Conservative MP and foreign affairs committee chair Alicia Kearns said the compound in al-Mawasi, “a supposed safe zone in Gaza”, housing the UK charity Medical Aid for Palestinians and the International Rescue Committee, was bombed by an F-16 airstrike in January.
Raising the incident during a parliamentary debate on Monday, days after the UN’s international court of justice ordered Israel to ensure its forces do not commit acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, Kearns said:
Thankfully, the four British doctors living there were only injured, although that itself is a cause for concern.
A month before that, on 22 December, it was confirmed via UK defence channels that the IDF had logged the coordinates of the humanitarian base and de-conflicted it, marking it as a protected sensitive and humanitarian site. I am gravely concerned that the airstrike still took place.
Around 6am on 18 January, the missile strike severely damaged the compound, injuring a number of team members and the compound’s security guard, according to MAP, who said following their evacuation they were unable to continue their work at Nasser hospital, the largest remaining health facility in Gaza. Last week, Médecins Sans Frontières warned the hospital in Khan Younis was no longer able to provide vital medical services.
MAP said in a statement:
The IRC and MAP are working with the UN to determine what has happened and to ensure the continued safety of our teams and viability of their vital humanitarian work.
Foreign minister and Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell acknowledged the strike and said it had been raised by the foreign secretary, David Cameron, in Israel last week, and by the UK ambassador, Simon Walters, in Tel Aviv.
Mitchell said:
We continually remind the Israeli government of their duties under international humanitarian law. The bombing of the compound is an extremely serious matter.
The incident comes as the UK Department for Business and Trade is being challenged by the Global Legal Action Network (Glan) in a judicial review over its decision not to revoke arms export licences to Israel. Last month, court documents revealed UK Foreign Office legal advisers were unable to conclude that Israel was in compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL) in its bombardment of Gaza.
According to the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), the UK provides components to US-built equipment destined for Israel, including head-up displays for F-16s.
Siobhan Allen, a senior lawyer at Glan, said:
The papers released through our legal case show that, even as the UK government continued to allow arms licences for weapons to assist Israel in its assault on Gaza, its own Foreign Office harboured ‘serious concerns’ about Israel’s compliance with IHL.
Those concerns can now only be more acute in the face of an incident of such obvious concern as this, where UK weapons appear to have been used in a direct attack on a site Israel knew to be a de-conflicted, protected, humanitarian site.
The Israeli military has been approached for comment.
Melanie Ward, CEO of Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) said:
We strongly condemn the near fatal airstrike by the Israeli military on a residential compound housing our MAP-IRC Emergency Medical Team and members of MAP’s Gaza team and their family members, which is one of many Israeli military attacks on health and related facilities. This is happening multiple times every single day to Palestinian civilians in Gaza. We need to know the facts as to why this airstrike took place and receive assurances of non-recurrence, and we look to the UK Government to support us with this. We further demand that our colleagues in Gaza, their families, and all civilians and humanitarian workers be protected from further attack.
Updated
Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein, in a phone call with his Saudi counterpart on Thursday, condemned an attack on a US military outpost on neighboring Jordanian territory near the border with Syria, state media reported.
The two ministers agreed on continuing contact between the two countries in order to assure avoidance of danger of war spreading in the region.
Summary of the day so far …
It is 2pm in Gaza City, Tel Aviv and Cairo, 3pm in Sana’a and 3.30pm in Tehran. Here are the headlines …
American forces have carried out strikes in Yemen against 10 attack drones and a ground control station belonging to the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, according to the US military. Early on Thursday local time, US forces targeted a “Houthi UAV ground control station and 10 Houthi one-way UAVs” that “presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and the US Navy ships in the region,” Centcom said.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) issued a warning about a later incident in the Red Sea near Yemen when a vessel reported an explosion “a distance off” its starboard side. Italy’s defence minister has said that disruption to Red Sea shipping caused by attacks by Yemen’s Houthis risks destabilising the Italian economy.
At least 27,019 Palestinians have been killed and 66,139 injured in the Israeli assault on Gaza since 7 October, the health ministry in Gaza has said. In its statement, the ministry said in the past 24 hours, 118 Palestinians were killed and 190 injured. Images from the Gaza Strip today show that the Israeli bombardment continues.
In its latest operational briefing, Israel’s military has claimed to have destroyed a long-range missile launcher and to be continuing to operate in northern and central Gaza, killing dozens of what it described as “terrorists”. Israeli media reports that Hamas representatives are again conducting talks in Cairo on the outlines of a possible hostage deal, with Egypt and Qatar mediating.
Israeli protesters have this morning been attempting to prevent trucks departing from Ashdod port if the protesters believe they are carrying humanitarian aid destined for the Gaza Strip. It is an extension of demonstrations that were being held at the Kerem Shalom border crossing by Israeli campaign groups who want to see all aid blocked to Gaza until Hamas has released the remaining estimated 136 hostages held there. Haaretz correspondent Eden Solomon reported that several protesters attacked Arab truck drivers, cursing and saying “I’m the master, you’re the slave.”
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that at least 41 Palestinians were detained by Israeli forces inside the Israeli-occupied West Bank yesterday, bring the total number detained since 7 October to nearly 6,460.
The bodies of nine labourers from Pakistan killed by gunmen in Iran last week were repatriated to their home country. It is still unclear who was behind the attack on Saturday in a home in Iran’s Sistan and Balochistan province. Iran and Pakistan exchanged airstrikes recently, with both countries claiming they were attacking Balochistan separatist militants operating freely over their border.
Updated
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) has issued a warning of a reported incident in the Red Sea near Yemen.
UKMTO Warning Incident 026
— United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) (@UK_MTO) February 1, 2024
ATTACK
UKMTO has received a report of an incident 57NM West of Al Hudaydah, Yemen.
Authorities are investigating.#Maritimesecurity #MarSec pic.twitter.com/7g9dUkU6NE
Reuters has a quick snap that the vessel and crew are safe, but reported an explosion “a distance off” its starboard side.
Updated
Number of Palestinians killed during Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October rises to over 27,000 – ministry
At least 27,019 Palestinians have been killed and 66,139 injured in the Israeli assault on Gaza since 7 October, the health ministry in Gaza has said.
Reuters reports that in its statement, the ministry said in the past 24 hours, 118 Palestinians were killed and 190 injured. Images from the Gaza Strip today show that the Israeli bombardment continues.
The Hamas-run ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its figures, though it claims the majority of those killed by Israel have been women and children. It does not distinguish between those killed directly by Israeli military action, and those who may have died as a result of the ensuing humanitarian and healthcare crisis in the beseiged territory.
On Friday 26 January, the international court of justice in The Hague told Israel it must “take all measures within its power” to desist from killing Palestinians in contravention of the genocide convention, and to “ensure with immediate effect” that its military forces do not engage in such acts as killing Palestinians in Gaza, “causing serious bodily or mental harm” to Palestinians in Gaza, “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”, or “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group”.
Over the same period of time, Israel has stated that it has lost more than 220 troops during the ground offensive, and has previously estimated to have killed about 9,000 Hamas fighters during its campaign.
Since 7 October, an additional 370 Palestinian deaths caused by Israeli forces or settlers have been recorded in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including the deaths of 94 children.
The Israeli campaign began after the surprise Hamas attack inside southern Israel on 7 October which killed about 1,140 people, and during which an estimated 240 people were seized and abducted into Gaza as hostages. Of those, it is estimated that 136 are still being held in captivity, with not all of them still believed to be alive.
It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify casualty figures being issued.
Updated
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that at least 41 Palestinians were detained by Israeli forces inside the Israeli-occupied West Bank yesterday. Citing advocacy group the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club (PPC), it reports that 28 of those were detained in Bethlehem.
Wafa reports “the total number of Palestinians detained since the start of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip on 7 October has risen to nearly 6,460.”
Updated
Israeli protesters inspect trucks at Ashdod port in attempt to prevent humanitarian aid entering Gaza
Israeli protesters have this morning been attempting to prevent trucks departing from Ashdod port if the protesters believe they are carrying humanitarian aid destined for the Gaza Strip.
It is an extension of demonstrations that were being held at the Kerem Shalom border crossing by Israeli campaign groups who want to see all aid blocked to Gaza until Hamas has released the remaining estimated 136 hostages held there.
Israel’s security forces have, over the course of this week, declared the Kerem Shalom and the Nitzana border crossings as closed military zones to prevent further demonstrations there.
Now in the Ashdod port: the police are saying aid to Gaza doesn’t go out from here, the right wing protesters are checking the cargo manifest of every truck pic.twitter.com/GI4ikbYsYf
— Oren Ziv (@OrenZiv_) February 1, 2024
Haaretz reports that Knesset member Zvi Sukkot has joined the protest, and correspondent Eden Solomon wrote:
Activists protesting the transfer of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip blocked a major intersection on the road to the Ashdod seaport on Thursday morning.
The police blocked the entry of vehicles to the port to prevent the protesters from blocking the passage of aid shipments through the border crossings.
Several protesters attacked Arab truck drivers, cursing and saying” “I’m the master, you’re the slave.”
Updated
Italy’s defence minister has said that disruption to Red Sea shipping caused by attacks by Yemen’s Houthis risks destabilising the Italian economy.
Citing a huge fall in traffic heading to Italy via the Suez Canal, Reuters reports Guido Crosetto said:
From a geopolitical perspective, the continuing of this situation could lead to the marginalisation of ports on the Mediterranean Sea. Not only does it threaten the security of navigation but also (Italy’s) economic stability.
Israeli media reports that Hamas representatives are again conducting talks in Cairo on the outlines of a possible hostage deal, with Egypt and Qatar mediating.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that two Palestinian men have been shot and wounded overnight by Israeli security forces during a raid on the Isreali-occupied West Bank city of Tubas.
Associated Press reports the bodies of nine labourers from Pakistan killed by gunmen in Iran last week were repatriated to their home country on Thursday.
It was still unclear who was behind the attack on Saturday in a home in Iran’s Sistan and Balochistan province. Three Pakistanis wounded in the attack were still being treated at an Iranian hospital.
Iran and Pakistan exchanged airstrikes recently, with both countries claiming they were attacking Balochistan separatist militants operating freely over their border.
Updated
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that “dozens of Palestinian civilians were killed and others were injured” in the latest Israeli attacks on Gaza.
It writes: “A number of people were killed and dozens were injured in Israeli missile and artillery shelling and gunfire in the western region of Gaza City. Ambulances were not able to reach them to transport them to al-Shifa hospital.”
It also reports that: “Israeli artillery shelling continues on the al-Amal neighbourhood and the vicinity of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, west of the city of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, for the 11th day in a row.”
The claims have not been independently verified.
Updated
In its latest operational briefing, Israel’s military has claimed to have destroyed a long-range missile launcher and to be continuing to operate in northern and central Gaza, killing dozens of what it described as “terrorists”.
In a message posted to Telegram, the Israel Defense Forces said:
IDF troops are continuing operational activities in the northern and central Gaza Strip and in the centre of Gaza City. Over the past day, the troops eliminated dozens of terrorists. In the northern Gaza Strip, IDF troops are continuing to enter Hamas military compounds and eliminate terrorists.
IDF troops are continuing extensive activities in western Khan Younis. Over the past day, IDF troops eliminated terrorists in the area in close-quarters combat. In addition, IDF troops directed several aircraft that struck and eliminated a number of terrorists in different areas.
The claims have not been independently verified.
During the course of Israel’s military assault on Gaza since 7 October more than 26,900 Palestinians have been killed, according to the ministry of health there, which is run by Hamas. It does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in the figures. Israel has said it has lost more than 220 troops during the ground campaign, which has displaced an estimated 85% of the population of Gaza.
It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify casualty figures issued during the conflict.
Updated
Here’s one of the latest images coming out of Israel, of a funeral taking place after another soldier died in the fighting in Gaza:
Updated
The United Nations office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (Ocha) has released its latest update on the Israel-Gaza war.
It noted the intense fighting taking place in Khan Younis, saying:
Hostilities were particularly intense in Khan Younis, with heavy fighting reported near Nasser and al-Amal hospitals, and reports of Palestinians fleeing to the southern town of Rafah, which is already overcrowded, despite the lack of a safe passage.
The report also noted that ground operations and fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups had been reported across much of Gaza.
Israel’s military says its troops have killed “dozens of terrorists” over the past day in battles across the Gaza Strip, according to Reuters.
Intense bombardment continues, resulting in further civilian casualties, displacement, and destruction.
— OCHA oPt (Palestine) (@ochaopt) February 1, 2024
People across Gaza need the humanitarian community to have security assurances, a predictable flow of supplies and rapid and unimpeded access.
Read the full update 👇
Updated
The leader of Hamas is expected in Cairo on Thursday for talks on a proposed truce in Gaza.
Hamas is reviewing a proposal for a six-week truce in its war with Israel, a source told Agence France-Presse, after mediators gathered in Paris, with international efforts towards a new pause in the devastating war gathering pace.
The source says the three-stage plan would start with an initial six-week halt to the fighting that would see more aid deliveries into the Gaza Strip.
Only “women, children and sick men over 60” held by Gaza militants would be freed during that stage in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel, the source said, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the talks.
There would also be “negotiations around the withdrawal of Israeli forces”, with possible additional phases involving more hostage-prisoner exchanges, said the source, adding the territory’s rebuilding was also among issues addressed by the deal.
In Gaza, fighting with Hamas and the aerial bombardment by Israel is continuing, with the current focus of combat in the main southern city of Khan Yunis, where Israel says leading Hamas militants are hiding.
Overnight, witnesses said several Israeli airstrikes hit the city, while aid and health workers have for days reported heavy fighting, particularly around two hospitals.
According to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, 119 people were killed in the latest night of strikes.
Updated
US military carries out more strikes against Houthis in Yemen
American forces have carried out strikes in Yemen against 10 attack drones and a ground control station belonging to the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, according to the US military.
Early on Thursday local time, US forces targeted a “Houthi UAV ground control station and 10 Houthi one-way UAVs” that “presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and the US Navy ships in the region,” Centcom said, using an abbreviation for unmanned aerial vehicle.
Centcom earlier announced that the USS Carney had shot down an anti-ship ballistic missile fired by the Houthis, and then downed three Iranian drones less than an hour later.
It did not specify if the drones shot down by the naval destroyer were designed for attack or surveillance.
American forces also destroyed a Houthi surface-to-air missile on Wednesday that Centcom said posed an imminent threat to “US aircraft”. Agence France-Presse reports the language is a deviation from past air raids that focused on reducing the rebels’ ability to threaten international shipping.
It did not identify the type of aircraft that were threatened or the exact location of the strike, only saying that it took place in “Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.”
The Houthis began targeting Red Sea shipping in November, saying they were hitting Israeli-linked vessels in support of Palestinians in Gaza, which has been ravaged by the war.
US and UK forces have responded with strikes on the Houthis, who have since declared American and British interests to be legitimate targets as well.
Houthi Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile and Iranian UAVs Shot Down in Gulf of Aden pic.twitter.com/hMpm561TZ1
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) February 1, 2024
Updated
Welcome and opening summary
It’s 7:45am in Gaza and Tel Aviv and 8:45am in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen. Welcome to our latest blog on the Middle East crisis. I’m Reged Ahmad and I’ll be with you for the next while.
The United States says it conducted strikes against a drone control station and up to 10 unmanned drones in Yemen that were preparing to launch. In a statement posted on X by US central command (Centcom) it said they posed an “imminent threat to US vessels and the US Navy ships in the region”.
A US Navy ship also shot down three Iranian drones and a Houthi anti-ship ballistic missile in the Gulf of Aden, according to Centcom. More on that in a moment but first, here’s a summary of the latest events so far:
A senior Hamas official has told the Reuters news agency that the group is studying a new proposal for a ceasefire and release of hostages in Gaza, presented by mediators after talks with Israel. The ceasefire proposal followed talks in Paris involving intelligence chiefs from Israel, the United States and Egypt, with the prime minister of Qatar.
In its latest operational update, Israel’s military says it continues to operate in the central and northern Gaza Strip, and claims its forces are “conducting targeted raids on terrorist infrastructure and eliminating dozens of terrorists”. In al-Shati in the north, it claims to have killed ten people and to have “located large quantities of weapons, as well as documents and military equipment belonging to the Hamas terrorist organisation”. The IDF has announced that three soldiers were killed in Gaza on Monday.
The head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) has vowed the country is not afraid of war with the US. The commander-in-chief, Maj Gen Hossein Salami, said: “We hear some threats from American officials about targeting Iran. We tell them that you tested us and we know each other. We do not leave any threat unanswered, and we do not look for war, but we are not afraid of it. This is the well-known truth.”
Security forces in Sweden have found a suspicious object at the Israeli embassy in Stockholm. A controlled detonation is to be carried out.
Israeli media reports several protesters have been detained by police at the Kerem Shalom border crossing where for days a group has been gathering attempting to prevent humanitarian aid crossing into the Gaza Strip while Hamas still holds people hostage.
The EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said on Wednesday he was hopeful it could be decided later in the day which member state could lead the forthcoming EU mission to protect vessels in the Red Sea, adding the operation could be launched before mid-February.
The head of Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd shipping company has said he does not expect disruption to Red Sea voyages caused by Yemen’s Houthis to end anytime soon.
Updated
