Israel-Gaza war live: Israeli minister calls for return of Jewish settlers to Gaza Strip after war | Israel-Gaza war

• Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, reportedly called for the return of Jewish settlers to the Gaza Strip after the war and said Gaza’s Palestinian population should be encouraged to emigrate. “To have security, we must control the territory,” Smotrich told Israel’s Army Radio in response to a question about the prospect of re-establishing settlements in Gaza. “In order to control the territory militarily for a long time, we need a civilian presence.”

• A former Palestinian Authority minister was killed on Sunday in an Israeli strike on his home in the Gaza Strip, the official Palestinian news agency and the Hamas-run health ministry said. Youssef Salama, 68, a former minister of religious affairs in the Palestinian Authority, was killed in a strike on al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, Wafa news agency and the ministry reported.

• In an interview on Israeli radio on Sunday, Eli Cohen, Israel’s outgoing foreign minister, acknowledged that “the government bears responsibility” for having failed to anticipate the 7 October Hamas attack, AFP reported.

• Israel is prepared to let ships deliver aid to the Gaza Strip immediately as part of a proposed sea corridor from Cyprus, Cohen said. Under the arrangement, cargo would undergo security inspection in the Cypriot port of Larnaca before being ferried to the Gaza coast, 230 miles away, rather than through neighbouring Egypt or Israel, Reuters reported.

• The Israeli government has approved the appointment of a new foreign minister to replace Cohen, who will become energy minister as part of a pre-arranged ministerial rotation, a government statement said. Cohen is due to continue to serve as a member of the security cabinet, while Israel Katz will be the new foreign minister.

• A total of 21,822 Palestinian people have been killed and 56,451 injured in Israeli strikes in Gaza since 7 October, the health ministry in Gaza said on Sunday. The figures include 150 Palestinians killed and 286 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry said.

• US Navy helicopters sank three of four small boats used by Iranian-backed Houthi militants to attack a merchant vessel in the southern Red Sea on Sunday, US central command said.

Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has called for the return of Jewish settlers to the Gaza Strip after the war and said Gaza’s Palestinian population should be encouraged to emigrate, according to AFP.

“To have security, we must control the territory,” Smotrich told Israel’s Army Radio in response to a question about the prospect of re-establishing settlements in Gaza.

“In order to control the territory militarily for a long time, we need a civilian presence.”

The Israeli government under Benjamin Netanyahu has not officially suggested plans to evict Gazans or to send Jewish settlers back to the territory since the war broke out on 7 October.

Israel unilaterally withdrew the last of its troops and settlers in 2005, ending a presence inside Gaza that began in 1967, but maintained near complete control over the territory’s borders.

All settlements on occupied Palestinian land are regarded as illegal under international law, regardless of whether they were approved by Israel.

A former Palestinian Authority minister was killed on Sunday in an Israeli strike on his home in the Gaza Strip, the official Palestinian news agency and Hamas-run health ministry said.

Youssef Salama, the 68-year-old former minister of religious affairs in the Palestinian Authority, was killed in a strike on the al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, Wafa news agency and the ministry reported.

Considered close to Fatah, the party of Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, Salama served as minister between February 2005 and March 2006.

He also served as a preacher at al-Aqsa mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem.

There was no immediate comment on his killing from the Israeli army.

In an interview on Israeli radio on Sunday, Eli Cohen, Israel’s outgoing foreign minister, acknowledged “the government bears responsibility” for having failed to anticipate the 7 October Hamas attack, AFP reports.

7 October is when the Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing 1,140 people and taking up to 250 hostage.

Cohen, who has played an instrumental role in the normalisation of relations between Israel and some Arab countries after decades of hostility, also said an independent commission of inquiry should be established at the end of the war.

• Israel is prepared to let ships deliver aid to the Gaza Strip “immediately” as part of a proposed sea corridor from Cyprus, the Israeli foreign minister said. Under the arrangement, cargo would undergo security inspection in the Cypriot port of Larnaca before being ferried to the Gaza coast, 230 miles away, rather than through neighbouring Egypt or Israel, Reuters reported.

• The Israeli government has approved the appointment of a new foreign minister to replace Eli Cohen, who will become energy minister as part of a pre-arranged ministerial rotation, a government statement said. Cohen is due to continue to serve as a member of the security cabinet while Yisrael Katz will serve as foreign affairs minister.

• A total of 21,822 Palestinian people have been killed and 56,451 injured in Israeli strikes in Gaza since 7 October, the health ministry in Gaza said on Sunday. The figures include 150 Palestinians killed and 286 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry said.

• US Navy helicopters sank three of four small boats used by Iranian-backed Houthi militants to attack a merchant vessel in the southern Red Sea on Sunday, US central command said.

Israel is prepared to let ships deliver aid to the Gaza Strip “immediately” as part of a proposed sea corridor from Cyprus, the Israeli foreign minister has said.

Under the arrangement, cargo would undergo security inspection in the Cypriot port of Larnaca before being ferried to the Gaza coast, 230 miles away, rather than through neighbouring Egypt or Israel, Reuters reports.

If the plan goes ahead, it would mark the first easing of an Israeli naval blockade imposed on Gaza in 2007.

“It can start immediately,” Israel’s outgoing foreign minister, Eli Cohen, told Tel Aviv radio station 103 FM when asked about the Mediterranean corridor.

He said Britain, France, Greece and the Netherlands were among countries with vessels able to land directly on the shores of Gaza, which lacks a deep-water port.

“They requested of us that the equipment come via [the Israeli port of] Ashdod. The answer is no. It won’t come via Ashdod. It won’t come via Israel. We want disengagement, with security control. That’s the goal of this process,” Cohen added.

Gaza residents have almost all fled their homes, clustering in tents and overcrowded parts of the south and central strip that Israeli military officials say are safer, though they are still regularly bombed.

There are reports of shortages of food, clean water and medical supplies, after weeks of tight Israeli blockade.

When supplies are allowed in, active fighting and logistics challenges in an area devastated by war mean they often do not reach many desperate inhabitants.

The Israeli government has approved the appointment of a new foreign minister to replace Eli Cohen, who will become energy minister as part of a pre-arranged ministerial rotation, a government statement said.

Cohen will continue to serve as a member of the security cabinet while Yisrael Katz will serve as foreign affairs minister, the statement said.

The appointments are subject to Israeli parliamentary approval.

A total of 21,822 Palestinian people have been killed and 56,451 injured in Israeli strikes in Gaza since 7 October, the health ministry in Gaza said on Sunday.

The figures include 150 Palestinians killed and 286 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry said.