Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.
Israel has rejected EU and UK criticism of its intensified campaign in Gaza, where rescuers said fresh attacks on Tuesday including strikes on a family home and a school-turned-shelter had killed scores of people, among them many children.
Israel said that 93 trucks of aid – a fraction of what is needed – had entered Gaza from Israel on Tuesday but the UN said none of that aid had actually reached Palestinians. UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said that although the aid had entered Gaza, aid workers were not able to bring it to distribution points where it is most needed, after the Israeli military forced them to reload the supplies on to separate trucks and workers ran out of time.
The UN announced on Monday that it had been cleared to send in aid for the first time since Israel imposed a total blockade on 2 March, sparking severe shortages of food and medicine. UN-backed experts said last week Gaza was at “a critical risk of famine”.
The humanitarian crisis caused by Israel has prompted international anger, with the European Union saying it would review its trade cooperation deal with Israel over the blockade, while the UK suspended free-trade negotiations with Israel, summoned the Israeli ambassador and said it was imposing sanctions on settlers in the occupied West Bank in its toughest actions so far against Israel’s conduct of the war.
The EU action “reflects a total misunderstanding of the complex reality Israel is facing,” Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein said. Responding to Britain, Marmorstein said “external pressure will not divert Israel from its path in defending its existence and security.”
The UK suspended trade negotiations with Israel over its Gaza blockade, the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, told parliament on Tuesday. He said the Israeli ambassador had been summoned. The UK’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, described the situation in Gaza as “horrific” and “utterly intolerable”. It comes after the UK, France and Canada on Monday issued their strongest condemnation yet of the way Israel is conducting its war on Gaza and repeated calls for a ceasefire.
The European Union has agreed to review its trade agreement with Israel over alleged human rights abuses in Gaza, the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said on Tuesday. The decision comes almost 15 months after Irish and Spanish leaders called on the European Commission’s chief, Ursula von der Leyen, to make such a move. The change comes after a proposal from the Netherlands last week gained widespread support amid growing alarm about the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and the West Bank.
The former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has said that what Israel “is doing now in Gaza, is very close to a war crime” during an interview with the BBC.
No humanitarian aid has been distributed yet in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, according to a spokesperson for the United Nations, Stéphane Dujarric. Separately, Cogat, the Israeli defence ministry body that oversees civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, claimed 93 UN aid trucks entered Gaza on Tuesday.
At least 87 Palestinians were killed and more than 290 injured by Israeli attacks in Gaza over the past 24 hours, Gaza’s health ministry said on Tuesday. At least 53,573 Palestinian people have been killed and 121,688 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the ministry said. Gaza City, Deir el-Balah, the Nuseirat refugee camp, the Jabalia refugee camp and the Bureij refugee camp were among the places targeted in deadly Israeli strikes on Tuesday, according to reports.
Benjamin Netanyahu ordered part of his country’s delegation negotiating a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Doha to return to Israel, according to Israeli media reports. Separately, Qatar’s prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani said Israel’s continuing assault on Gaza had undermined peace efforts. “This irresponsible, aggressive behaviour undermines any potential chance for peace,” the Qatari leader said.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said Washington has not discussed the deportation of Palestinians from Gaza to Libya, but he said Washington had asked other countries in the region if they would be open to accepting Palestinians who want to move voluntarily. Rubio was testifying before the Senate foreign relations committee on Tuesday on Tuesday, when a pro-Palestine protester disrupted the hearing.
Australia joined 22 other nations in condemning Israel over its decision to only allow limited aid into Gaza. 23 countries, including the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, urged Israel not to politicise humanitarian aid for the starving population.
The Lebanese health ministry said an Israeli airstrike injured nine people in a drone attack on the coastal Tyre district in the south of the country. Three people are now in “critical condition”, the ministry said, adding that two children were among the injured.