Israel-Gaza war live: Israel warns it could take Lebanon ‘back to the Stone Age’ as defence minister wraps up Washington trip

Anti-government protesters have again attempted to block a highway inside Israel, calling for Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to strike a hostage release deal and call elections.

As well as the protest on the highway, demonstrations are planned outside the homes of significant figures in the Israeli government, and there are continued calls for a general strike.

Haaretz quotes the Kaplan Force, which it says is leading the protests in Jerusalem, saying:

We will protest until he falls. The failed and most provocative prime minister will not stop the citizens’ demand to return the mandate to the people. Demonstrations at Netanyahu’s home were pivotal in dismantling his previous government, and will be again.

Herbew media outlet Ynet is carrying a story today that the IDF disputes the extent to which it has destroyed permanent buildings in Gaza during Israel’s months-long relentless bombardment of the territory.

Earlier this month the United Nations satellite analysis agency Unosat said its imagery suggested that more than 137,000 buildings had been possibly affected, which amounted to 55% of the structures in Gaza. Other satellite imagery projects have put the level of destruction even higher.

In Ynet today it says that the IDF, which claims its figures are more accurate, says that it has destroyed 16% of Gaza’s permanent structures and 36% of temporary structures, that is “35,952 permanent structures that the IDF destroyed in the Gaza Strip, and 84,276 temporary structures that were destroyed.”

The UN estimate is based on a satellite image taken on 3 May this year, and compared with images of Gaza taken a year earlier. Ynet reports the IDF figures are claimed to be more accurate on the basis “the IDF’s data is based on an almost daily visual collection, which is dedicated to this purpose and is done by advanced drones, large drones and close and sophisticated technological documentation in 3D, some of it also at street level.”

It continued, saying the figures may have a future use for the IDF:

They may also be presented to the international tribunals and foreign commissions of inquiry that will investigate the IDF and the state of Israel at the end of the hostilities, a stage when foreign investigative bodies from international organizations will also be allowed to enter the Gaza Strip.

Thousands of the buildings destroyed by the IDF do not necessarily belong to terrorists or Hamas, but are located near the border with Israel, and the IDF is destroying them to create a buffer zone between the western Negev and the cities and villages of the Gaza Strip.

Many Palestinians have been forced to flee their homes and live in makeshift tent camps with poor sanitation facilities for months on end while the IDF carries out its military assault on Gaza.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports three people have been killed and 11 wounded in a reported Israeli strike on south of Damascus.

More details soon …

Al Jazeera is reporting that one Israeli soldier has been killed in a blast in the Jenin refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. It states that 17 were injured. There has been no comment yet from Israel’s security forces.

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the Israel-Gaza war and the wider crisis in the Middle East.

Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has warned that Israel’s military is capable of taking Lebanon “back to the stone age” in any war with Hezbollah militants, but insisted his government prefers a diplomatic solution on the Israel-Lebanon border.

Speaking to reporters as his trip to Washington wrapped up, Gallant also said he discussed with senior US officials his “day after” proposals for governance of postwar Gaza that would include local Palestinians, regional partners and the US, but that it would be “a long and complex process.”

More on that in a moment, first here’s a summary of the day’s other main events.

• US president Joe Biden’s top aides told Gallant that Washington would maintain a pause on a shipment of heavy bombs for Israel while the issue is under review, a senior US official told the Reuters news agency. The official said the allies remain in discussions about the single shipment of powerful munitions, which was paused by Biden in May over concerns they could cause more Palestinian civilian deaths in Gaza.

• Israeli forces pounded several areas across Gaza on Wednesday, and residents reported fierce fighting overnight in Rafah. Residents said fighting intensified in the Tel Al-Sultan neighbourhood in western Rafah, where tanks were also trying to force their way north amid heavy clashes. The armed wings of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said fighters attacked Israeli forces with anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs.

• Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has accused western powers of backing what he said were Israeli plans to attack Lebanon and “spread war” throughout the region. “Israel is now setting its sights on Lebanon and we see that western powers behind the scenes are patting Israel on the back and even supporting them,” he told lawmakers from his ruling AKP party.

• Vatican secretary of state, Pietro Parolin, on Wednesday urged warring parties in the Middle East to accept “peace proposals”, saying the region including Lebanon “doesn’t need war”. He told a press conference in Beirut, “the Middle East is going through a critical moment.”

• The outgoing United Nations humanitarian chief warned that a spread of the war to Lebanon would be “potentially apocalyptic”. Martin Griffiths described Lebanon as “the flashpoint beyond all flashpoints”. A war involving Lebanon “will draw in Syria … it will draw in others”, he told reporters in Geneva. “It’s very alarming.”