Middle East crisis live: Iran denies involvement in Jordan drone strike that killed US soldiers after Biden vows revenge | Israel-Gaza war

Far-right Israeli ministers and ministers belonging to Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party have attended a conference on the resettlement of Gaza, at which the national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, said Israelis needed “to find a legal way to voluntarily emigrate [Palestinians]”, Haaretz newspaper has reported.

The conference held in Jerusalem on Sunday was attended by thousands of people including the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, as well as other members of the Knesset and coalition government, rabbis, settlement activists and families of soldiers fighting in Gaza.

In his speech, Ben Gvir said:

If we don’t want another October 7, we need to go back home and control [Gaza]. We need to find a legal way to voluntarily emigrate [Palestinians] and impose death sentences on terrorists … I turn to you, prime minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu: this is time for brave decisions.

Members of the Likud party, who have talked openly about the “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians since the war began, returned to the theme at the conference, according to Haaretz.

The communications minister, Shlomo Karhi, said that in war, “‘voluntary’ is at times a state you impose [on someone] until they give their consent”.

The tourism minister, Haim Katz, meanwhile, said: “Today, after 18 years [from disengagement from Gaza], we have the opportunity to rebuild and expand the land of Israel. This is our final opportunity.”

A bit more from the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA’s latest update on the Gaza-Israel conflict, in which it says aid deliveries to northern and central Gaza are increasingly being denied by Israel. It said:

In the second half of January, humanitarian partners continue to observe a declining trend in their attempts to access the northern and central areas of Gaza.

The reasons include excessive delays for humanitarian aid convoys before or at Israeli checkpoints and heightened military activity in central Gaza.

It said 51 aid delivery missions were planned between 1 and 25 January but only eight were allowed and 29 denied, while others were only “partially facilitated” or postponed. It said that most of the approved missions related to the delivery of food aid but that support for hospitals was “largely denied”.

It added that in an “emerging pattern” another eight planned missions were initially approved but then “impeded” as routes designated by the Israeli military turned out to be impassable or the missions had excessive delays applied to them before departure or at checkpoints.

It also said humanitarian deliveries to central Gaza had increasingly been postponed since mid-January due to increased military activity. It added:

None of the 22 requests by the United Nations to the Israeli military to open checkpoints early to access areas north of Wadi Gaza [in January] were facilitated. Given the heavy congestion around UN warehouses and the high levels of needs, early movement is essential for security, programmatic and protection reasons.

It also noted “widespread attacks on health care facilities and workers”.

Heavy fighting has continued around hospitals in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis over the past two days, the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA has said in its latest update on the conflict, noting that only 14 of 36 hospitals in Gaza are now partially functional.

Khan Younis’ Nasser hospital, until recently the largest still accepting patients in southern Gaza, is now only “minimally functioning,”, OCHA said, “providing available services to patients in its care, but no longer able to receive patients or supplies, as it is surrounded by the Israeli military and experiencing intense fighting.”

It said hostilities were also intense around al-Amal hospital, also in Khan Younis, with the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) on Saturday reporting that Israeli forces were continuing to bombard its vicinity as well as the PRCS branch headquarters in Khan Younis. OCHA wrote:

The PRCS stated that dozens had been killed and injured inside, and in the vicinity of the two facilities amid ongoing fighting over the previous four weeks.

OCHA also said that on Sunday morning “shells were reportedly fired towards the vicinity of the European Hospital in Khan Younis, with casualties reported, amid intense fighting in the area.”

In a tweet on Sunday, the PRCS said its teams had buried the bodies of three people in the courtyard of al-Amal hospital “due to the difficulty of transporting them to an official cemetery due to the ongoing blockade imposed on the hospital.”

It said two had been killed on Sunday in front of the PRCS’s building, and the third was killed on Saturday at the entrance to the reception and emergency department of al-Amal.

Daniel Hurst

The former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark has urged Australia and other western countries to reinstate funding to a key UN agency to avoid “a very, very harsh, collective punishment of the Gazan people”.

Over the weekend, more than 10 donor countries – including Australia, the US and the UK – suspended funding to UNRWA after Israel provided the agency with information alleging that as many as 12 of its staff were involved in Hamas’s 7 October attack on southern Israel.

Clark said that given the allegations related to 12 people out of a UNRWA workforce of 13,000, the decision to suspend aid funding was “completely disproportionate”.

She said the UNRWA chief had “immediately dismissed the nine people of the 12 that he could find – one is dead and two others are untraced”.

Clark said the suspension could have a “catastrophic” impact because UNRWA was the biggest deliverer of services, including emergency relief, in Gaza.

“If UNRWA is crippled financially it has devastating impacts for the families living in Gaza,” she said.

Tehran has denied any involvement in a drone strike that killed three US troops at a base in Jordan, near the border with Syria, after US President Joe Biden blamed Iran-backed militia and vowed revenge.

In a statement published by the state news agency Irna, Tehran’s UN mission said: “Iran had no connection and had nothing to do with the attack on the US base,” adding: “There is a conflict between US forces and resistance groups in the region, which reciprocate retaliatory attacks.”

Saturday’s unmanned aerial drone attack on the military outpost Tower 22 was the first deadly strike against US forces since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in October and sent shock waves throughout the Middle East.

Responsibility for the strike was claimed by the Iranian-backed umbrella group Islamic Resistance, which have long been trying to drive the US troops out of Iraq and Syria, and have used the war in Gaza as the backdrop to intensify these efforts and broaden the battleground.

US forces have faced a near-daily barrage of drone and missile strikes in Iraq and Syria since the 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas. But this incident draws the US much closer to a direct conflict with Iran, an outcome both sides insist they wish to avoid, but may now be unable to prevent as the incidents proliferate and escalate in impact.

Here’s the Guardian’s full report on the drone attack:

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the crisis in the Middle East with me, Helen Livingstone.

Iran has denied any involvement in a drone strike that killed three US soldiers and injured dozens of others at a base in Jordan near the Syrian border.

In a statement published by the state news agency Irna, Tehran’s UN mission said: “Iran had no connection and had nothing to do with the attack on the US base.”

The mission added that “There is a conflict between US forces and resistance groups in the region, which reciprocate retaliatory attacks.”

The statement came after US President Joe Biden blamed Iran-backed groups for the attack, the first fatal strike on US forces in the region since the Israel-Gaza war broke out in October.

More on that soonest. In other key developments:

• The US will respond to the attack on its troops, Biden said. During a campaign event at South Carolina on Sunday following the strike, Biden said: “We shall respond.” In his earlier statement he also said: “Have no doubt – we will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner of our choosing.”

• Responsibility for Saturday’s attack on Tower 22, a military outpost on the Jordanian Syrian Iraqi borders was claimed by the Iranian-backed umbrella group Islamic Resistance. The groups have long been trying to drive the US troops out of Iraq and Syria, but have used the war in Gaza as the backdrop to intensify these efforts and broaden the battleground.

• A senior official with Hamas, Sami Abu Zuhri, said the attacks on US forces were tied directly to Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. Speaking to Reuters, Abu Zuhri said: “The killing of three American soldiers is a message to the US administration that unless the killing of innocents in Gaza stops, it must confront the entire nation.”

• At least 165 Palestinians were killed and 290 injured over the past 24 hours, Gaza’s health ministry said on Sunday. That brings the total number of Palestinians killed in the Israeli onslaught on Gaza to 26,422 since 7 October, not including the thousands thought to be buried under the rubble of collapsed buildings. The huge death toll comes despite last week’s ICJ interim ruling that Israel must do everything possible to avoid killing Palestinian civilians.

• Palestinian medics and residents said Israel continued to bomb areas around the two main hospitals in Khan Younis, hindering efforts by rescue teams to respond to desperate calls from people caught in the Israeli bombardment. “There is a complete failure of the healthcare system at Nasser and Al-Amal hospitals,” said health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra.

• The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, has appealed to the 10 donor countries that have withdrawn funding from the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees to reconsider, saying the agency and Palestinians in desperate need should not be penalised due to the alleged acts of a dozen staff. Guterres said nine UNRWA staff had already been dismissed for alleged involvement in Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October and any UN employee involved in acts of terror would be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution. Aid agencies have repeatedly warned in recent weeks that ordinary Gazans are at risk of famine after Israel stopped most food aid from entering the territory and cut off water supplies.

• Talks on Sunday initiated by Qatar, the US and Egypt and aimed at brokering a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas were “constructive” but “significant gaps” remain, a statement from the Israeli prime minister’s office has said. US officials have reportedly proposed an initial 30-day temporary ceasefire to allow for the remaining female, elderly and wounded Israeli hostages to be freed. This would be followed by a second 30-day pause where Israeli soldiers and male hostages would be released, in tandem with an increase in the trickle of aid permitted into Gaza.

• Far-right Israeli ministers and ministers belonging to Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party have attended a conference on the resettlement of Gaza, at which the national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir said Israelis needed “to find a legal way to voluntarily emigrate [Palestinians],” Haaretz newspaper has reported. Communications minister Shlomo Karhi told the conference that in war, “‘voluntary’ is at times a state you impose [on someone] until they give their consent.’”