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The US secretary of state was speaking in Qatar on the latest leg of his Middle East tour and has also warned that the Israel-Gaza war could ‘metastasise’
Hello and welcome to our Middle East crisis blog, covering the Israel-Gaza war and other events in the region. It’s currently 8:03am in Gaza and Tel Aviv. I’m Reged Ahmad and I’ll be with you for the next while.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is on his fourth tour of the Middle East since the 7 October attacks in Israel by Hamas. Speaking at a news conference after his meeting with Qatari prime minister sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, Blinken said “Palestinian civilians must be able to return home as soon as conditions allow,” and that “this is a conflict that could easily metastasise, causing even more insecurity and suffering”.
The Israeli military says it has completed its mission to destroy Hamas’s infrastructure in northern Gaza and has scaled back its military operations there as the offensive moves south, In recent weeks, Israel had already been scaling back its military assault in northern Gaza and pressing its offensive in the territory’s south, Associated Press reports.
The Qatari foreign ministry has released a statement following US secretary of state Antony Blinken’s meeting with Qatari prime minister sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani on Sunday. In the statement, the Qatari foreign ministry said that Blinken and al-Thani discussed ways to pressure for a ceasefire, lift restrictions imposed on humanitarian aid and discussed negotiations to release prisoners and the latest regional developments.
Some bakeries in Gaza have resumed functioning after over 50 days of closures due to shortages in fuel and electricity as a result of Israel’s deadly attacks across the strip. The World Food Programme announced the resumption of bakery functions in Gaza on Sunday, adding that it is providing wheat flour, salt, sugar and yeast so bakeries can start making bread again.
Beirut’s airport screens were hacked on Sunday with messages that showed anti-Hezbollah messages, Agence France-Presse reports Lebanon’s state news agency saying. According to Lebanese media reports, the messages urged Hezbollah to not “drag the country into war”. Another message said: “You’re going to blow up our airport by bringing in weapons. Let the airport be freed from the grip of the [Hezbollah] statelet,” AFP reports.
Nine people are confirmed to have died in the occupied West Bank, as more details emerge about an Israeli drone strike in Jenin. Seven Palestinians were targeted in an airstrike by the Israeli army in Jenin refugee camp and an Israeli police officer was killed during an operation, the Israeli army said. An Israeli civilian was also shot dead in another incident north of Ramallah, the army said.
A Hezbollah rocket barrage on Saturday night damaged a strategic airbase in northern Israel, the country’s military confirmed. The Israeli Defense Forces declined to comment on the extent of the damage at Mt Meron airbase, which is less than 10km (6.21 miles) from the border with Lebanon.
Two journalists have been killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza . Hamza Wael Al-Dahdouhof Al Jazeera and Mustafa Thuria, a video freelancer for AFP, died while travelling in a car, the health ministry and medics confirmed.
UNRWA’s Gaza deputy director Scott Anderson gave an update on the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza as a result of Israel’s deadly attacks which have killed nearly 23,000 Palestinians while leaving nearly 2 million survivors internally displaced. Speaking to CNN, Anderson said: “The levels of hunger are quite severe in Gaza. From Rafah to the north, it gets worse, the farther north you go.”
Crew from Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) and the International Rescue Committee have been forced to withdraw from Gaza’s al-Aqsa hospital due to Israeli bombardment. In a statement released on Sunday, MAP said: “As a result of increasing Israeli military activity around the Al Aqsa hospital, the only functioning hospital in Gaza’s Middle Area, Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) and the International Rescue Committee (IRC)’s Emergency Medical Team (EMT) has been forced to withdraw and cease activities.”
Israel has named its former supreme court president Aharon Barak as its addition to the international court of justice (ICJ) panel scheduled to hear a genocide allegation filed against it this week, an Israeli official said. Under the ICJ’s rules a state that does not have a judge of its nationality already on the bench can choose an ad hoc judge to sit in their case, Reuters reports.
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