Middle East crisis live: Blinken due in Saudi Arabia; Israel launches deadly strikes on former ‘safe’ Gaza city of Rafah | Middle East and north Africa
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Antony Blinken due in Saudi Arabia to push for Gaza ceasefire, aid
US secretary of state Antony Blinken is set to arrive in Saudi Arabia on his fifth visit to the region since October in the coming hours.
His visit comes after the US carried out retaliatory strikes against Iranian-linked targets in Iraq and Syria, and on Houthi rebel sites in Yemen, in the latest escalation of the conflict that is spreading across the Middle East.
The trip also comes as the Biden administration gradually shows some frustration with Israel, with sanctions imposed Thursday on extremist settlers, although the US has brushed aside international calls on Israel to end its military campaign.
A ceasefire proposal under discussion – drafted during talks a week ago in Paris involving the CIA chief and Israeli, Qatari and Egyptian officials – would pause fighting for an initial six weeks as Hamas frees hostages seized on 7 October in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, according to a Hamas source. AFP reports further:
Blinken on his trip will visit Israel as well as Egypt and Qatar, the key go-between with Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip and maintains an office in Doha.
Blinken, speaking Monday after meeting in Washington with Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said there was “real hope” for success of the “good, strong [ceasefire] proposal.”
Qatar has also voiced optimism, although Hamas has said that there is no agreement and there is also division in Israel with hawks opposing perceived concessions to Hamas.
Hundreds rallied Saturday night in Tel Aviv to demand swift action to free the hostages as well as early elections as they denounced the inability of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government to win their freedom.
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, acknowledged on Sunday the debate within Israel but said, in reference to the deal, that the “ball is in Hamas’s court at this time.”
Sullivan, speaking to “Face the Nation” on CBS, said Blinken would press Israel to allow more food, water, medicine and shelter in Gaza, which has been left in rubble by nearly four months of bombardment.
“This will be a top priority of his when he sees the Israeli government – that the needs of the Palestinian people are something that are going to be front and centre in the US approach,” said Sullivan.
Blinken is expected to begin his trip on Monday in Saudi Arabia, which before the 7 October attack had been mulling steps to establish relations with Israel, a potentially historic step for the country that is the guardian of Islam’s two holiest sites.
Key events
Emma Graham-Harrison and Quique Kierszenbaum report for the Guardian:
Shaadi Muqtasen’s family live in the centre of old Hebron, one of the most heavily contested, heavily militarised places in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. For Palestinian residents there, life all but stopped when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October.
Israeli security forces who control Muqtasen’s area, and have a guard post across the street, imposed an immediate lockdown, that in effect constituted house arrest, even for children.
“For the first month, we weren’t allowed to leave the house at all,” he said. “If we even started to open the small grille on the door [to look out], we could hear them cocking their guns.”
Rubbish piled up in their courtyard because they were not allowed to open the door to put it out for collection. He was allowed out once in a month, for an hour, to get food for his family. With so little time, he just bought bags of wheat, “like I was feeding animals”.
Restrictions then eased slightly, and residents were allowed to leave home three days a week. Now they can go out every day, but an unofficial overnight curfew that starts at 7pm is still in place. Schools remain closed, along with most local shops. One barber who attempted to reopen was beaten.
Palestinians living in the centre of Hebron are used to violence and a web of controls that dates back more than 20 years, including bans on walking down some streets that are open to Israelis. The current restrictions, however, are unprecedented, they say.
Read more of Emma Graham-Harrison and Quique Kierszenbaum’s report here: ‘Feels like revenge’ – Palestinians on life locked down in Hebron’s Old City
The Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that Israeli bombardment continues in Khan Younis, which is subject to “continuous bombardment”. It adds that “Al-Amal and Kamal Nasser hospitals in the centre of the city of Khan Yunis” remain besieged.
It also reports “Israeli artillery also continued to bomb large areas east of the city of Deir al-Balah.”
A Palestinian doctor says Israeli forces in Gaza detained him when they overran a hospital and subjected him to abuse during 45 days of captivity including sleep deprivation and constant shackling and blindfolding before releasing him last week, Reuters reports. The news agency writes:
Doctor Said Abdulrahman Maarouf was working at al-Ahli al-Arab hospital in Gaza City when it was surrounded by Israeli forces in December.
He described having his hands cuffed, his legs shackled and his eyes masked for the nearly seven-week duration of his imprisonment.
Doctor Said Abdulrahman Maarouf was working at al-Ahli al-Arab hospital in Gaza City when it was surrounded by Israeli forces in December.
He described having his hands cuffed, his legs shackled and his eyes masked for the nearly seven-week duration of his imprisonment.
He said he was told to sleep in places that were covered with pebbles without a mattress, pillow or cover and with loud music blaring.
The Israeli military said it treats detainees in accordance with international law and its protocols are to treat them with dignity. “Incidents in which the guidelines were not followed will be looked into,” it said in a statement.
It has previously denied targeting or abusing civilians and accuses Hamas of using hospitals for military operations, which Hamas denies.
“The torture was very severe in Israeli prison. I am a doctor. My weight was 87 kilograms. I lost, in 45 days, more than 25 kilograms. I lost my balance. I lost focus. I lost all feeling,” he said.
“However you describe the suffering and the insults in prison you can never know the reality unless you lived through it,” he added.
Maarouf said he has no idea where he was detained as he was blindfolded throughout his detention, and he was not sure if he was held inside or outside Gaza. He was dropped at the Kerem Shalom crossing and was picked up by the Red Cross.
Maarouf’s arrest was the last moment he had news of his family, and he still does not know if they survived the onslaught as Israeli forces advanced into Gaza City under an intense artillery barrage.
Maarouf held back tears as he described his last phone conversation with his daughter as the Israeli soldiers called on loudspeakers for all doctors and medical staff to leave the hospital building.
She had been in the family home in Gaza City, one of his five children who were all there with his wife and 15 to 20 other relatives.
“Dad the bombing has reached us. What do we do?” she said to him. He replied that if he told her to stay and they were killed, or if he told her to leave and they were killed it would be torture for him.
“If you want to leave then leave. If you want to stay then stay. I’m in the same trench with you and I’m going now to the Israeli soldiers without knowing my fate,” he remembered telling her.
“From that moment until today I have no information about my children or my wife,” he said, crying.
The Israeli bank Bank Luemi has told the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA that it is blocking its bank account due to “tangible suspicions it is transferring funds to terror groups in Gaza,” the Israeli newspaper Haaretz is reporting.
The move comes after Israel accused 12 of the agency’s employees of having taken part in Hamas’ 7 October attack on Israel, after which major donors including the US and UK suspended funding to the body.
Haaretz said the bank had also received information on unusual activity in UNRWA’s account and had sent them multiple alerts.
It was not possible to verify the report.
An update on the situation in Rafah, where the news agency AFP says 128 people – mostly women and children – were killed in Israeli strikes overnight to Monday citing figures from the Gaza health ministry.
The Hamas government media office said Israeli bombardments had continued across the centre and southern end of coastal territory, including near hospitals. AFP writes:
“The situation is indescribable,” said Said Hamouda, a Palestinian who fled his home for the southern city of Rafah, on the border with Egypt.
“Whether you have a million dollars or a hundred you are in the same situation,” Hamouda said.
Over the weekend, Israel pressed further south towards the teeming border city, warning its ground forces could advance on Rafah as part of its campaign to eradicate Hamas.
On Monday morning, sources told AFP they could hear artillery shelling in the areas of eastern Rafah and Khan Yunis, Gaza’s main city.
Israel says Khan Yunis is where militants prepared for the October 7 attack, and that high-ranking Hamas officials are hiding there.
Israeli forces have been raiding cities and towns across the occupied West Bank and have arrested 11 people, Al Jazeera is reporting citing local media.
The Qatar-based broadcaster said clashes had taken place between armed Palestinians and Israeli forces in the city of Tulkarem and reported fighting in al-Ain refugee camp in Nablus.
Five men had been arrested in Tulkarem, three in the city of Ramallah and three in the town of Halhul, north of Hebron, it said.
Israeli forces and settlers have killed 372 Palestinians, including 94 children, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 7 October, according to OCHA.
Tensions have been stoked in the West Bank since Hamas 7 October attack as Israel further tightens controls on the Palestinian population and increases military raids.
Last week Israeli forces disguised as doctors and nurses summarily executed three Palestinian militants in a West Bank hospital, including one who had been partially paralysed in a previous Israeli attack, according to the hospital.
Settlers have also been emboldened to carry out attacks on Palestinian and Bedouin villages, displacing more than a thousand people, according to OCHA.
Imposing sanctions on four Israeli settlers last week, US President Joe Biden said settler violence had reached “intolerable levels and constitutes a serious threat to the peace, security and stability of the West Bank and Gaza, Israel, and the broader Middle East region”.
Defunding UNRWA ‘disproportionate and dangerous’, Borrell says
Halting funds to UNRWA would be “disproportionate and dangerous”, the EU’s foreign policy chief has warned, after Israeli accusations that 12 members of the Palestinian refugee agency’s staff took part in Hamas’ 7 October attack on Israel.
Immediately after the allegations were made a dozen countries including the US and Britain suspended funding to the agency, which has sacked the staff accused while others are missing in the conflict and one has been reported dead.
In a blog post on Sunday Josep Borrell said “such a disproportionate response would be difficult to conceive elsewhere.” He added:
If some doctors in a European hospital were involved in criminal activities, there would be a thorough investigation and all appropriate actions would be taken.
However, no government would ever stop funding the health service, as this would primarily punish the people who receive these services. The wrongdoing of individuals should never lead to the collective punishment of an entire population.
While the allegations against the UNRWA staff were “serious” and should not go “unpunished” he argued that the agency was “central to the entire aid operation inside Gaza” and that no other UN agency “could manage operations without UNRWA’s infrastructure, logistics and personnel”.
He pointed out that while some EU member states had paused their funding “the issue has been accompanied by misunderstandings and disinformation” and that neither the EU Commission nor Germany or France had decided to end their contributions.
UNRWA was established in 1949 following the war surrounding the founding of Israel, when 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes.
It employs 30,000 Palestinians to serve the civic and humanitarian needs of 5.9 million descendants of those refugees – in the Gaza Strip, in the West Bank and in vast camps in neighbouring Arab countries.
Borrell added:
Should UNRWA cease or limit services, which may be the case as early as the end of February, it would significantly aggravate the ongoing dramatic humanitarian crisis. The lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, not only in Gaza, are at stake.
At least 20 killed in Israeli attacks on Rafah, OCHA says
At least 20 Palestinians were killed over the weekend in Israeli strikes on Rafah, the Gaza city previously designated a safe zone by the Israeli military and to where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had fled, according to the UN agency humanitarian agency OCHA.
In its latest report on the conflict and citing data from Gaza’s health ministry, OCHA said 234 Palestinians were killed over the weekend bringing the total death toll in Gaza since 7 October to 27,365.
Thousands more people are thought to be buried under rubble and almost 67,000 have been wounded. The majority of those killed are women and children.
The deadliest incidents over the weekend included at least 11 Palestinians killed in a strike on a residential building near An Najjar hospital, in eastern Rafah early Saturday, OCHA said.
Another five Palestinians including one child were killed in an attack on another residential building in eastern Rafah on Saturday afternoon and a further four Palestinians were killed in another attack on a residential building in eastern Rafah in the early hours of Saturday.
Thousands of Palestinians continue to flee to Rafah from Khan Younis, further north, where Israel is now concentrating its attacks. However last week defence minister Yoav Gallant said the military would now turn its focus to Rafah.
The Israeli attacks will leave an already traumatised population struggling to find food, water, shelter and medical treatment in an even more desperate situation.
Antony Blinken due in Saudi Arabia to push for Gaza ceasefire, aid
US secretary of state Antony Blinken is set to arrive in Saudi Arabia on his fifth visit to the region since October in the coming hours.
His visit comes after the US carried out retaliatory strikes against Iranian-linked targets in Iraq and Syria, and on Houthi rebel sites in Yemen, in the latest escalation of the conflict that is spreading across the Middle East.
The trip also comes as the Biden administration gradually shows some frustration with Israel, with sanctions imposed Thursday on extremist settlers, although the US has brushed aside international calls on Israel to end its military campaign.
A ceasefire proposal under discussion – drafted during talks a week ago in Paris involving the CIA chief and Israeli, Qatari and Egyptian officials – would pause fighting for an initial six weeks as Hamas frees hostages seized on 7 October in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, according to a Hamas source. AFP reports further:
Blinken on his trip will visit Israel as well as Egypt and Qatar, the key go-between with Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip and maintains an office in Doha.
Blinken, speaking Monday after meeting in Washington with Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said there was “real hope” for success of the “good, strong [ceasefire] proposal.”
Qatar has also voiced optimism, although Hamas has said that there is no agreement and there is also division in Israel with hawks opposing perceived concessions to Hamas.
Hundreds rallied Saturday night in Tel Aviv to demand swift action to free the hostages as well as early elections as they denounced the inability of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government to win their freedom.
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, acknowledged on Sunday the debate within Israel but said, in reference to the deal, that the “ball is in Hamas’s court at this time.”
Sullivan, speaking to “Face the Nation” on CBS, said Blinken would press Israel to allow more food, water, medicine and shelter in Gaza, which has been left in rubble by nearly four months of bombardment.
“This will be a top priority of his when he sees the Israeli government – that the needs of the Palestinian people are something that are going to be front and centre in the US approach,” said Sullivan.
Blinken is expected to begin his trip on Monday in Saudi Arabia, which before the 7 October attack had been mulling steps to establish relations with Israel, a potentially historic step for the country that is the guardian of Islam’s two holiest sites.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the Middle East crisis with me, Helen Livingstone.
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, is due to arrive in Saudi Arabia on his fifth visit to the region since October. He is also expected to travel to Egypt, Qatar, Israel and the West Bank this week, focusing on advancing talks on the return of hostages taken from Israel by Hamas in exchange for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza.
The White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said humanitarian issues in Gaza would also be a top priority for Blinken.
Israel has meanwhile struck residential buildings in Rafah over the weekend, killing at least 20 people and injuring dozens more, according to the UN agency OCHA. The city had formerly been designated a safe zone by the Israeli military, which ordered Palestinians to flee there. It is now sheltering more than half of the occupied territory’s 2.3 million people.
More on these stories soonest. In other key developments:
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The total death toll in Gaza since 7 October has risen to 27,365. A kindergarten in Rafah sheltering displaced families was among the places hit by Israel over the weekend.
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US national security advisor Jake Sullivan said there would be more steps in the American response to last weekend’s deadly drone attack on US soldiers in Jordan. Speaking to NBC’s Meet the Press, he said the retaliatory strikes launched on Iran-linked targets in Iraq and Syria on Friday were “the beginning, not the end, of our response”.
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Later, the US military said it had struck a Houthi land attack cruise missile early on Sunday and four anti-ship cruise missiles hours later “all of which were prepared to launch against ships in the Red Sea”. It was the third batch of US strikes against Iran-backed militias in the Middle East in as many days.
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The head of Iraq’s pro-Iran Hashed al-Shaabi alliance demanded the withdrawal of US-led coalition forces from the country after the deadly strikes, warning that the US was “playing with fire”. “They targeted administration offices, a (Hashed) hospital, they struck forces tasked with protecting the borders,” Faleh al-Fayyad said at a funeral ceremony for members of the group killed in the US strikes.
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Iran warned the US against any move against the Iranian-flagged ship Behshad, which is stationed in the Red Sea and suspected by the US of providing surveillance information to help direct Houthi onshore cruise-missile attacks on commercial shipping in the area. Any attack on the ship would be at the risk of those taking such steps, Tehran said.
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A Houthi military spokesman warned that US and British strikes on Yemen on Saturday would not go “unanswered”. “These attacks will not discourage Yemeni forces and the nation from maintaining their support for Palestinians in the face of the Zionist occupation and crimes,” Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said.
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Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Nasser Kanani, also warned that these attacks are “in clear contradiction with the repeated claims of Washington and London that they do not want the expansion of war and conflict in the region,” while Hamas said the strikes would bring “further turmoil” to the Middle East.
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Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, told the Wall Street Journal that the US president, Joe Biden, had not given Israel sufficient support to its war in Gaza. “Instead of giving us his full backing, Biden is busy with giving humanitarian aid and fuel [to Gaza], which goes to Hamas,” Ben-Gvir told the newspaper in an article published on Sunday. “If [former US president Donald] Trump was in power, the US conduct would be completely different.”
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France’s foreign minister, Stéphane Séjourné said he rejected the “forced displacement” of Palestinians into Egypt from the Gaza Strip, where Israeli bombardment has pushed hundreds of thousands against the border. Séjourné was on his first Middle East tour, and met his counterparts in Egypt and Jordan.
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Israel’s army said on Sunday its forces had raided a Hamas training facility in Gaza where militants prepared for the 7 October attack on Israel. The facility in the Palestinian territory’s main southern city of Khan Younis contained models of Israeli military bases, armoured vehicles, as well as entry points to kibbutzim, the army said in a statement.
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