Family celebrating Eid killed as building housing the Associated Press and other news agencies is bombed

Intense Israeli airstrikes on Gaza on Saturday killed eight young cousins who had gathered to celebrate Eid with their mothers, and destroyed the high-rise tower that housed the Associated Press, the leading news agency of its greatest ally.

Mohammed Haddidi’s wife and five sons were inside the house when it was bombed, and only five-month-old Omar was pulled from the rubble alive. Rescuers searched for survivors through piles of shattered concrete dotted with toys, a Monopoly boardgame and holiday food prepared for a meal that was never enjoyed.

Analysis: A series of combustible events coincided dangerously to trigger worst violence in years

The current crisis between Israelis and Palestinians, like so many before, has complex roots in the foundation of Israel in 1948 and after the six-day war in 1967 when Israel captured then Arab-controlled parts of Jerusalem, including the Old City and its holy sites.

Latest news as IDF says ground forces have joined the attacks on Gaza Strip but have not entered the enclave

• Full report: assault on Gaza escalates
• Israeli army says it has not entered the Gaza strip
• Israel’s army drafts Gaza ground operation plan as mob violence escalates
• ‘All I saw was fire’: rockets fracture the sense of safety in Tel Aviv
• Gaza weapons boast may come back to haunt Hamas

2.58am BST

We are pausing this live coverage for a while, but will bring you any key developments and breaking news when it happens.

2.41am BST

The Israeli Defense Forces have sent the Guardian their “clarification” stating that there are “currently no IDF ground troops” in Gaza. It is brief, and does not explain the earlier statement to the contrary given to journalists and published in Twitter:

The IDF statement "clarifying" what happened tonight in Gaza: pic.twitter.com/jrxphiwUm0

Clarification: there are currently no IDF ground troops inside the Gaza strip. IDF air and ground forces are carrying out strikes on targets in the Gaza strip.

Analysis: attacks will challenge Israeli establishment to deal with a threat made suddenly very real

In the rounds of fighting and violence between Hamas and Israel in Gaza in the last dozen years, one thing has always appeared baked into the proposition. For all their industriousness and attempts at innovation in developing weapons and ways of attacking, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been at best largely ineffectual when it comes to targeting Israel from inside the Gaza Strip.

From the early rocket systems to labour-intensive attack tunnels and incendiary balloons, the efforts were crude. Even when the rockets became more sophisticated by the time of the 2014 conflict, flying further and with bigger warheads, most of them were shot out of the sky.

A Qatari-brokered truce commits Israel to easing its 13-year-old blockade of the Palestinian territory

Gaza’s Islamist rulers Hamas have announced they have reached a Qatari-mediated deal with Israel to end more than three weeks of cross-border exchanges of fire.

After talks with Qatari envoy Mohammed al-Emadi, “an understanding was reached to rein in the latest escalation and end [Israeli] aggression against our people,” said the office of the Palestinian territory’s Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar.

Rami Aman and others held for ‘establishing normalisation activities ... via the internet’

Hamas security forces in the Gaza Strip have arrested local peace campaigners for treason after they held a Zoom virtual conference with Israeli activists.

Eyad al-Bozom, a spokesperson from the Hamas-run interior ministry, said the prominent Palestinian figure Rami Aman and others had been detained on charges of “establishing normalisation activities with the Israeli occupation via the internet”.