Middle East crisis live: Hamas reportedly studying new ceasefire proposal; WHO outlines ‘hellish conditions’ in Gaza
Joe Biden has said he has decided how to respond to a drone attack on a US service base on Sunday that killed three US service personnel and injured dozens in Jordan. The US president did not elaborate on his decision but said he wasn’t looking for a wider war in the Middle East. The US could opt for a tiered response involving “multiple actions”, the White House’s national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said.
Biden’s statement came as the Iran-backed militia that Washington blamed for the attack said it had suspended anti-US operations. Kataib Hezbollah said its the decision was intended to prevent “embarrassment” to the Iraqi government.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said he will not accept any ceasefire deal that requires the departure of Israeli troops from Gaza or the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners. Netanyahu poured cold water on any deal that required Israeli soldiers to leave Gaza permanently without a clear military victory, saying the war in Gaza was not “another round” with Hamas and he would not end it without achieving Israel’s goals.
The Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said he was willing to travel to Cairo to discuss proposals for a potential new deal. Haniyeh said the group’s aim remained to end Israel’s military offensive in Gaza and secure a full pullout of Israeli forces from the territory. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad secretary general, Ziad al-Nakhala, ruled out the group engaging in any ceasefire that does not involve the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip.
Egypt, Qatar and the US are hoping to see if the two sides can be persuaded to accept a ceasefire lasting at least a month, which would offer the chance for almost all the hostages to be released. The proposal, described as a framework, was hammered out during talks in Paris. Leaks suggest the first phase of the proposed ceasefire would include the release of about 35 hostages including civilian women, older men and hostages who are ill or injured, in return for a six-week pause of the fighting. The second stage would be focused on male and female soldiers, and the third stage would see the release of the bodies of dead hostages.
Israeli forces dressed in doctors’ scrubs and women’s clothes killed three Palestinian militants in an undercover operation in a hospital in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin. The units entered Ibn Sina hospital on the outskirts of the city’s refugee camp early on Tuesday, CCTV footage of the aftermath of the operation showed. The hospital’s medical director said the three killed were “executed in cold blood”.
The Israel Defense Forces denied reports that its forces stormed al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, or that it ordered people inside to evacuate at gunpoint. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) on Tuesday said Israeli forces had demanded displaced people and its teams to evacuate the building “under the threat of arms”. A later update said Israeli tanks were stationed in the front yard of the hospital as Israeli forces were firing live ammunition and smoke grenades at displaced individuals and its staff.
The Israeli military said it had channelled seawater into Gaza’s tunnels in an effort to destroy the sprawling underground network used by Hamas militants. An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) statement said it was “part of a range of tools deployed by the IDF to neutralise the threat of Hamas’s subterranean network of tunnels.” Israeli officials have said Hamas’s underground system has been key to its operations on the battlefield.
A total of 26,751 Palestinians have now been killed and 65,636 wounded by Israeli military action in Gaza since 7 October, according to the latest figures from the Gaza health ministry on Tuesday. The figures include 114 Palestinians killed and 249 injured in the past 24 hours. Israel claims it has killed about 9,000 enemy combatants while losing 221 of its own forces in the ground campaign inside the territory.
Israel has handed over to Palestinian authorities the bodies of dozens of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in recent weeks, health officials in the Palestinian territory have said. The bodies, which had been held in Israel, were handed over on Tuesday through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing and would be buried in mass graves in the city of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip, the officials said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has urged donors not to suspend funding to the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA after Israel accused some of its workers of taking part in Hamas’s 7 October attack. “Cutting off funding will only hurt the people of Gaza who desperately need support,” the WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said at a briefing in Geneva on Tuesday.