Israel’s Iron Dome risks being overwhelmed in all-out war with Hezbollah, says US

Militants in Lebanon can fire 3,000 missiles a day, US officials warn as fears grow that the conflict will escalate

Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile batteries risk being overwhelmed in the opening strikes of any significantly escalated conflict with Hezbollah.

The assessment delivered by US officials late last week, echoing recent analysis by experts in Israel and the United States, comes amid fears that a war with Hezbollah could be a far more dangerous undertaking than the devastating 2006 second Lebanon war, when Israeli bombing caused huge destruction in Lebanon.

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At least 22 Palestinians killed in shelling near Gaza office of Red Cross, agency says

Territory’s health ministry says Israeli attack targeted tents of displaced people; Israeli military says report ‘under review’

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says 22 people have been killed in a shelling attack that damaged its Gaza office, which is surrounded by hundreds of displaced Palestinians living in tents.

The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said there were 25 dead and 50 injured in the shelling, which it blamed on Israel. The ministry said Israeli shelling on Friday had “targeted the tents of the displaced in the al-Mawasi area”, which is around the ICRC base.

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‘All day you hear bombs’: on Israel’s northern border as war with Hezbollah looms

Doctors prepare underground hospital units, people flee their homes and in rural kibbutz tension hangs in the air

Beneath the 800-bed Galilee medical centre in the northern Israeli city of Nahariya, treatment is being conducted in an underground complex beneath the hospital.

About 7km from the border with Lebanon, a frontier visible from the hospital’s car park and already under threat from Hezbollah’s missiles and explosive drones, the doctors are aware that in the event of an escalating war their facility will be on the frontline.

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Israel-Gaza war: Netanyahu rebukes IDF after army spokesperson warns that Hamas cannot be eliminated – now closed

Prime minister’s office says the IDF is committed to the defeat of Hamas, after Daniel Hagari said Hamas is an ‘ideology’

French authorities have detained an Iranian citizen after he posted remarks about Israel-Gaza war posted on social media, a police source said on Thursday, in a case his lawyer has denounced as “political” amid tensions between Paris and Tehran.

Bashir Biazar has been described by London-based Iran International television channel as a former official for the Iranian state broadcaster IRIB. Iranian state media call him a “cultural figure”.

There is nothing, in terms of law, that justifies this measure. Bashir Biazar expressed himself on his Instagram account, as anyone could do freely in a state governed by the rule of law.

I think this procedure is political, and politics has no place in law.

The arrest of an Iranian citizen by the French police for having defended the oppressed Palestinian people (is) another scandal for France in the domain of human rights.

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Israeli talk of war with Hezbollah almost certainly fresh attempt at deterrence

Risk is that miscalculation leads to sudden conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which is far more powerful than Hamas

A warning from Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, that a decision on “all-out war” with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon is coming soon is almost certainly a fresh attempt at deterrence on his part – not least because both sides well understand how devastating full hostilities would be.

The reality is that Hezbollah, an ally of Iran, is a more powerful adversary than Hamas in Gaza. It is estimated to have between 30,000 and 50,000 fighters available and a similar number in reserve – plus between 120,000 and 200,000 unguided missiles and rockets, plus attack and reconnaissance drones.

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Israel-Gaza war: Hezbollah fires more projectiles at Israel despite warning – as it happened

Iran-backed militant group fired more than a dozen projectiles into northern Israel, says Israeli army, day after Israel warned of ‘total war’ with group

Agence France-Presse (AFP) report that there have been Israeli airstrikes and clashes between troops and Palestinian militants in Gaza on Wednesday.

Witnesses and the civil defence agency in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip reported Israeli bombardment in western Rafah, where medics said drone strikes and shelling killed at least seven people.

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Benjamin Netanyahu dissolves Israel’s war cabinet – as it happened

This live blog is closed

Hostilities continue in Rafah and southern Gaza despite the Israeli military’s announcement on Sunday of tactical pauses in operations to allow humanitarian aid to enter, Reuters reports Unrwa chief Philippe Lazzarini, told the media in Oslo on Monday.

In its latest operational update, Israel’s military has claimed it is still operating in the Rafah area of Gaza, where it says “IDF troops located numerous weapons and struck a number of structures rigged with explosives that posed a threat to the forces.”

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Benjamin Netanyahu dissolves Israeli war cabinet

Move is apparent rebuff to far right and attempt to tighten grip on decision-making over Hamas and Hezbollah

Benjamin Netanyahu has dissolved the Israeli war cabinet that had been overseeing the conflict in Gaza, rebuffing his far-right allies who had been seeking seats, and apparently moving to solidify his grasp on decision-making over the fighting with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah across the Lebanese border.

The prime minister announced the move to ministers, saying the war cabinet had been established as part of an agreement in which the moderate politician Benny Gantz and his National Unity party joined an emergency coalition last year.

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Netanyahu reportedly criticises military tactical pause in Gaza amid divisions with IDF

Israel’s prime minister is said to have called the decision ‘unacceptable’ after Itamar Ben-Gvir said whoever decided it was a ‘fool’

Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly criticised plans announced by the military to hold daily tactical pauses in fighting along one of the main roads into Gaza to facilitate the delivery of aid

On Sunday the military announced a daily pause that would begin in the Rafah area at 8am and remain in effect until 7pm along the main Salah al-Din road, to allow aid trucks to transit between the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel, adding that the pause would take place every day until further notice.

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UK ‘morally incoherent’ for sending arms to Israel and aid to Gaza, says Oxfam chief

Exclusive: Charity granted permission to intervene after ministers rejected calls to suspend weapon sales

Supplying arms to Israel while simultaneously providing humanitarian aid to Gaza is “intellectually and morally incoherent”, the head of Oxfam GB has said.

According to Gaza’s health ministry, more than 37,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in the Israeli military offensive on Gaza since the 7 October attacks by Hamas. Israel and Hamas have both been accused of breaking international law.

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Israel is fighting a war on two fronts. No end is in sight for either one | Peter Beaumont

Israel’s conflicts with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon are destined to grind on indefinitely

In 2019, Aviv Kochavi, then the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) chief of staff, delivered a bullish speech. The IDF, he proclaimed, is “all about victory”.

Assessing that the primary threats to Israel’s security were from nonstate actors such as Hamas and Hezbollah, Kochavi would the following year usher in a new operational doctrine titled “decisive victory”.

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Israel has fallen into Hamas trap in Gaza war, says Giorgia Meloni at G7

The Italian prime minister also stated the EU will not directly contribute to a $50bn loan to Ukraine agreed at the summit

Israel is falling into a trap laid by Hamas in its war in Gaza, Giorgia Meloni said at a press conference closing the G7 summit in Bari that affirmed her role as a leading figure in Europe. The Italian prime minister also stated that the EU will not directly contribute to a $50bn loan to Ukraine agreed by the G7 leaders.

And she underlined her status by declaring that she will start talks on Monday about the allocation of top jobs in the EU on the basis that Europe has to accept the verdict of the people reflected in the results of last week’s European parliament elections.

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ICC must be allowed to carry out work ‘without intimidation’, say 93 member states

Joint statement of support for international criminal court issued following revelations of Israeli interference

The international criminal court must be allowed to carry out its work “without intimidation”, a group of 93 states has said in a significant public intervention intended to reinforce support for the judicial body.

In a joint statement issued late on Friday, the large group of ICC member states vowed to defend the institution and “preserve its integrity from any political interference and pressure against the court, its officials and those cooperating with it”.

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Middle East: Hamas official says nobody knows how many of the remaining hostages are alive – as it happened

Speaking to CNN, Hamas spokesperson says any deal to release the hostages would need to include a permanent ceasefire

Fuel shortages are pushing hospitals in Gaza to the “brink of collapse”, with people facing dehydration, disease and starvation, the charity ActionAid has warned.

Dr Mohammad Salha, acting director of al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza, said a lot of services at the hospital were affected by the lack of fuel. In a voice note message, he told ActionAid:

The [World Health Organization] [was] providing fuel and medical supplies and medication.[But] from 22 April [until] now they are not providing because the Israeli [military] refused to [let] the fuel and medical supplies [enter]. So, [for] more than 50 days the hospital is without fuel and medical supplies and the fuel that they are bringing is only [enough] for two weeks.

[As a result] we are decreasing our intervention and we are not running the big generators. We are running the small generators only to recharge the batteries. And [on this] we are doing the surgeries related to life saving.”

Our laboratory is also affected. We can’t do many analyses, related to orthopedic analysis [and] we are dealing with many patients … 70% of people who [are] affected from the Israeli aggression need orthopedic surgery.”

Fuel is absolutely crucial to keep the infrastructure needed to sustain life operational in Gaza. It is shocking that hospitals are having to reduce their services due to shortages and that life-saving equipment could be forced out of action.

The trickle of aid currently entering Gaza is nowhere near enough to meet the enormous and ever-growing humanitarian need.

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‘No one has any idea’ how many Israeli hostages are alive, says Hamas official

Osama Hamdan’s comments signal group’s position on ceasefire proposal remains largely unchanged

A senior Hamas official has said the group does not know how many of the Israeli hostages it is holding in Gaza are still alive, as Israeli and Hamas sources set out positions that could undermine the possibility of an imminent ceasefire deal.

The Lebanon-based Hamas official Osama Hamdan said in an interview with CNN that “no one has any idea” how many of the remaining 120 hostages captured on 7 October last year were still alive, amid Israeli estimates that at least a third had died in captivity or were killed when seized.

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Hamas has proposed ‘unworkable’ changes to ceasefire plan, Blinken says – as it happened

This live blog is now closed, you can read more of our Israel-Gaza war coverage here

Israel’s military has issued a statement saying that it continues to operate in the central Gaza Strip and in the Rafah area. It claims it is carrying out “intelligence-based, targeted operations” and to have “eliminated a number of armed terrorist cells in close-quarters encounters.”

It says that “Over the past day, the Israeli air force struck and dismantled over 30 terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip, including military structures.”

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Israel and Hamas have both committed war crimes since 7 October, says UN body

Parallel reports describe serious crimes during Hamas attack and Israel’s subsequent offensive in Gaza

A UN investigation has accused Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity on and since 7 October, the date of Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel.

The allegations were contained in two parallel reports prepared by a commission of inquiry formed in 2021 by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate human rights violations in Israel and the Palestinian territories, chaired by the former UN human rights chief Navi Pillay.

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Israel-Gaza war: ‘talks ongoing’ but no formal response to ceasefire proposal from either side, says official – as it happened

Official briefed by mediators says that neither Hamas or Israel has yet given a formal response to US-backed plan. This live blog is closed

Israel’s military has said it has intercepted some of a barrage of about 50 projectiles fired towards the Golan Heights from the direction of Lebanon. In a statement the IDF said:

Following the sirens that sounded in northern Israel a short while ago, approximately 50 projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon into the area of the central Golan Heights. The IDF aerial defense array successfully intercepted a number of the projectiles. The rest of the launches fell in open areas. No injuries were reported.

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US ‘evaluating’ Hamas response to Gaza ceasefire proposal

Hamas was reportedly seeking some amendments to the proposal, as Antony Blinken puts pressure on both sides to accept the deal

The US has said it is “evaluating” Hamas’ formal response to its Gaza ceasefire proposal, as the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, attempts to channel global support for a UN security council resolution backing the proposal into pressure on the Palestinian militant group and Israel.

Late on Tuesday, a Hamas official said they had submitted a response to Egyptian and Qatari mediators, seeking some “amendments”, and that their priority was to bring a “complete stop” to the war. A separate Hamas spokesperson, Jihad Taha, said the response included “amendments that confirm the ceasefire, withdrawal, reconstruction and [prisoner] exchange”.

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UN security council endorses US-backed hostages-for-ceasefire Gaza deal

Only Russia abstains in vote on plan calling for hostage and prisoner swap in six-week ceasefire leading to wider deal

The UN security council has adopted a resolution calling for Hamas to agree to a three-phase hostage-for-ceasefire proposal outlined by Joe Biden, the first time the body has endorsed a comprehensive peace deal to end the Gaza war.

A Hamas statement said the group welcomed the resolution, though it was not immediately clear if that meant the leadership in Gaza accepted the ceasefire plan.

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