Monday briefing: How Hezbollah is fuelling fears of a new front in the Israel-Hamas war

In today’s newsletter: The Lebanese militant group has engaged in skirmishes with Israel following the invasion of Gaza – could it grow into full-blown war?

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Good morning. It’s been another remorseless weekend for the people of Gaza. On Saturday night, an Israeli air strike at the Al-Maghazi refugee camp killed at least 45 people, the Hamas-run health ministry claimed, while the head of the Al-Aqsa hospital put the toll at 52; Israel says it is investigating the incident. And late on Sunday, a series of huge explosions lit up the sky over the territory – strikes which Israeli media reports suggested were a precursor to an advance on Gaza City within the next 48 hours.

About 120 miles north, exchanges across Israel’s border with Lebanon continued at a much lower intensity – but with a momentum of their own. Lebanese state media said that three children and their grandmother were killed in an Israeli air strike, an incident that prompted retaliatory rocket strikes on the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona. Those ongoing border skirmishes have fuelled fears of a new front involving a far more powerful regional actor than Hamas: Hezbollah.

King’s speech | Rishi Sunak will this week announce legislation for a new annual system for awarding oil and gas licences as part of a highly political king’s speech which the Conservatives hope will open up clear dividing lines with Labour. The government, which has already watered down the UK’s climate targets, said the plans would protect jobs and bolster energy security.

Poverty | Poverty levels in the UK are “simply not acceptable” and the government is violating international law, the United Nations’ poverty envoy has said ahead of a visit to the country this week. Olivier De Schutter told the Guardian that “things have got worse” since his predecessor Philip Alston angered the government with criticism on his own visit in 2019.

Ukraine | Volodymyr Zelenskiy has denied a claim from the Ukrainian military’s commander-in-chief that the war with Russia has reached a stalemate. Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi said the war had entered an attritional phase and suggested Russia was slowly gaining the upper hand.

Conservatives | Oliver Dowden, the deputy prime minister, has denied that rape allegations against a Conservative MP were “covered up” during his time running the party’s headquarters. It follows reports in the Mail on Sunday that allegations against an MP were not dealt with properly by the party, allowing the politician to continue offending.

Israel-Hamas war | The parents-in-law of Scotland’s first minister, Humza Yousaf, have arrived safely in Scotland after fleeing the conflict in Gaza. Yousaf shared a family photo of his wife, Nadia, and her parents, Elizabeth and Maged El-Nakla, who were among 92 British nationals permitted to pass through the Rafah border crossing into Egypt on Friday morning.

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Israeli troops encircling Gaza City expected to enter in force within 48 hours

Gaza split into two parts, says Israel, as US sends missile-carrying submarine to Middle East

The Israeli military says it has completely encircled Gaza City after more than a week of heavy fighting, in effect severing the territory into two, as Israeli ground troops appeared poised to enter the dense urban sprawl from the south.

What seemed to be the beginning of the second stage of the Israeli ground operation was accompanied by a barrage of 16 rockets fired from southern Lebanon towards the Israeli city of Haifa on Monday afternoon.

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Greens stage Senate walkout over Labor’s Israel-Hamas war response

Mehreen Faruqi leads boycott of question time to protest against claimed Albanese government inaction over conflict in Gaza

The Greens have stormed out of Senate question time to protest what they say is Albanese government inaction over the conflict in Gaza.

The Greens deputy leader, Mehreen Faruqi, led the boycott declaring that Labor’s “weasel words are not going to stop war crimes” by Israel and shouting “free, free Palestine” with her fist raised.

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Burnley council leader quits over Starmer’s failure to call for Gaza ceasefire

Afrasiab Anwar, one of 11 councillors to resign, was among those who earlier asked party leader to step down

The leader of Burnley borough council has resigned along with 10 other councillors in protest at Keir Starmer’s refusal to call for a ceasefire in the Gaza war.

Afrasiab Anwar, who has been a member of the party for a decade, was among those who called for the Labour leader to step down last week.

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UK government accused of separating children from parents in Gaza

British nationals say dependants trying to leave conflict zone via Rafah crossing have been left off Foreign Office lists

The government has been accused of separating British children in Gaza from their mothers after it was revealed that citizens without passports had been left off its safe passage list.

The names of British citizens allowed to leave Gaza for Egypt via the Rafah crossing have been added to a list but, some have said their dependants have not been included by the Foreign Office.

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Israel-Hamas war: Kamala Harris to discuss aid to Gaza – as it happened

This blog is now closed, please follow our live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war here.

AP is reporting that Benjamin Netanyahu has suspended heritage minister Amihai Eliyahu from cabinet meetings until further notice, after Eliyahu said dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza would be an option for Israel.

Netanyahu earlier said the remark was “divorced from reality”, and defence minister Yoav Gallant also criticized Eliyahu, saying: “It’s a good thing that people like this are not in charge of Israel’s security.”

Minister Amihai Eliyahu’s statements are not based in reality. Israel and the IDF are operating in accordance with the highest standards of international law to avoid harming innocents. We will continue to do so until our victory.

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Israel launches major strikes on Gaza as violence flares up on Lebanon boundary

Huge explosions reported in Gaza Strip, and communities in northern Israel come under mortar and rocket fire from Hezbollah

Gaza was rocked by a series of huge explosions on Sunday evening and communications with the coastal strip were cut, as violence also escalated on Israel’s northern boundary with Lebanon.

The strikes on Gaza came as the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) indicated that Israeli troops were planning to enter Gaza City in force perhaps within the next 48 hours, according to reports in Israeli media.

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Most agree Gaza needs help – but there’s fierce disagreement on how to deliver it

While there is broad consensus on the need for a break in hostilities, people are divided on its extent, its duration, and how to label it

Most of the world agrees that the intensity of Israel’s attack on Gaza, while aimed at Hamas, is causing unbearable suffering to its civilians, pummelled from the air and running out of food, water and medical supplies.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, the top diplomat for Israel’s staunchest ally, delivered a personal message in Tel Aviv last week that more must be done to “protect Palestinian civilians” trapped after Israel laid siege to the territory.

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Bernie Sanders calls for end to Israeli strikes and killing of thousands

In his strongest words in the 30-day war, Vermont senator demands end to killing of ‘innocent men, women and children’

Bernie Sanders has stepped up his calls for a humanitarian pause in Gaza, demanding an immediate stop to Israeli bombing and an end to the killing of thousands of “innocent men, women and children” in the enclave.

In some of his strongest words in the 30-day war, the independent US senator from Vermont decried the 7 October Hamas attack inside Israel. He labelled Hamas as an “awful terrorist organization” that had “slaughtered 1,400 people in cold blood”, reiterating his belief that Israel had the right to defend itself.

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Parents-in-law of Humza Yousaf back in Scotland after fleeing Gaza

The El-Naklas left Gaza on Friday but other British citizens are struggling to get out

The parents-in-law of Scotland’s first minister, Humza Yousaf, have arrived safely in Scotland after fleeing the conflict in Gaza, while dozens of other British citizens struggle to leave.

Yousaf shared a family photo of his wife, Nadia, and her parents, Elizabeth and Maged El-Nakla, surrounded by their relatives.

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Palestinian Authority would face many challenges in a post-Hamas Gaza

Unpopular and incompetent, the West Bank’s leaders have little to offer in a ‘day after’ scenario, despite Antony Blinken’s hopes

After the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, won by the Hamas-backed Change and Reform party, the Palestinian Authority’s rule in Gaza was coming to an ignominious and chaotic end. Heavily armed families, some separated by their political affiliations with Hamas and Fatah, others by long-simmering rivalries, were involved in armed clashes.

In cities such as Khan Younis, barricades blocked districts that turned into impromptu strongholds. Corrupt, weak and incompetent, the PA in Gaza had allowed – even encouraged – the arming of the rival clans. Within months, the PA would be driven out by Hamas after a period of intra-Palestinian violence.

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What happens to Gaza the day after the war ends?

A reformed Palestinian Authority or a multinational force have been mooted as solutions for security in the territory, but both proposals have met resistance

When Antony Blinken arrived in the Middle East on his most recent visit, one of the US secretary of state’s aims was to lift some of the fog over what happens to Gaza in the war’s aftermath, but he is meeting resistance both from Israel and Arab states.

Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said on Saturday at a press conference alongside Blinken: “What happens next? How can we even entertain what will happen in Gaza when we do not know what kind of Gaza will be left after this war is done? Are we going to be talking about a wasteland? Are we going to be talking about a whole population reduced to refugees? Simply, we do not know – we do not have all the variables to even start thinking about that.”

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Middle East war could spark global recession, say Wall Street experts

Fear adds to Russia-Ukraine conflict risk and increases ‘probability of European and of US recession’

A global recession could be triggered by the conflict in the Middle East as the humanitarian crisis compounds the challenges facing an already precarious world economy, two of Wall Street’s biggest names warned this weekend.

Larry Fink, chief executive of the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, said a combination of the Hamas atrocities of 7 October, Israel’s resultant attack on Gaza and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year had pushed the world “almost to a whole new future”.

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Thousands demonstrate in Trafalgar Square for Gaza ceasefire

Protesters converge on square after sit-ins at Oxford Circus and Charing Cross station and chants outside BBC

Thousands of protesters have gathered in Trafalgar Square demanding a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.

Chants – including the contentious “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” as well as “Ceasefire now!” – rang out, as some protesters climbed on top of bus stops and let off green and red flares.

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‘No ceasefire, no votes’: tens of thousands attend pro-Palestinian rally in Washington DC

Protesters call on Biden to demand ceasefire in Israel-Gaza conflict and end military aid to Israel

Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters marched through downtown Washington DC on Saturday in what organizers hoped was the largest US demonstration of its kind since Israel began its bombardment of Gaza after Hamas attacked the country last month.

The crowd waved Palestinian flags, carried posters and chanted slogans during the National March on Washington: Free Palestine, which took place alongside similar events across the US and elsewhere in the world.

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Protesters block London’s Oxford Street in pro-Palestine demonstration

Free Palestine Coalition’s sit-in stops traffic in central shopping district as protests continue across UK over Israel-Hamas war

More than 350 protesters shut down part of Oxford Street on Saturday as they staged a sit-in protest during the shopping district’s busiest hours.

The demonstration, organised by the Free Palestine Coalition, a collective of grassroots groups standing in solidarity with Palestine, occupied a busy junction and stopped traffic for more than an hour by sitting down in the road.

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As their soldiers fight hand to hand in Gaza, Israelis wonder about the endgame

Casualties in Gaza are growing, and so is Israel’s concern about the war’s direction

In the dark and the cloying heat of a Gaza night, the troops of the 13th Battalion of Israel’s Golani Brigade were attempting to advance in northern Gaza amid the flashes of air and artillery strikes across the Gaza Strip.

The ambush, when it happened, caught them by surprise – 30 fighters from an elite Hamas unit emerging from hidden tunnel entrances.

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Israel-Hamas war live: UN secretary general says ‘nowhere is safe’ in Gaza as Palestinian death toll tops 9,000

António Guterres calls humanitarian situation in Gaza ‘horrific’ as thousands of people remain without food, water and medicine

Agence France-Presse has reported on the aftermath of what Hamas authorities said was Israeli tank shelling that killed 20 people at the Osama bin Zaid boys’ school north of Gaza City.

The report said:

Ambulance teams rushed into the debris-littered building to aid the injured and remove the dead.

Stunned onlookers wept and wandered the scene with hands clasped above the head in horror and disbelief.

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Antony Blinken meets Arab leaders in fresh effort to stop Gaza conflict escalating

US secretary of state meets officials from Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar and UN as further civilian casualties reported in Gaza

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, met senior Jordanian and other Arab officials in Amman on Saturday in the latest effort by Washington to avert a regional escalation of the war between Israel and Hamas, ease the acute humanitarian crisis in Gaza and build support for planning a post-conflict future for the territory.

The trip was Blinken’s second to the Middle East since the conflict began almost a month ago but came against the backdrop of further civilian casualties in Gaza and an apparent snub from the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

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Lack of clean drinking water for 95% of people in Gaza threatens health crisis

Polluted water supplies and salty groundwater are making people ill, with UN warning of threat of child deaths from dehydration

Palestinians who fled to southern Gaza, after warnings from Israel to leave their homes, are standing in line for hours to get contaminated water they believe is making them ill.

Long queues of people waiting to fill jerry cans are now ubiquitous across the territory as water becomes increasingly scarce, a result of restrictions on water and power imposed by Israel.

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