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Images show the Rubymar cargo ship sinking beneath the water as Houthis say end of fighting in Gaza will lead to a halt in Red Sea attacks
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.
UK-owned cargo ship, Rubymar, has begun to sink in the Red Sea after it was hit by a Houthi attack on 18 February.
A Hamas official has told Reuters that US president Joe Biden’s words about a halt to fighting in Gaza are premature, and do not match the situation on the ground. Biden had seemed confident that a truce would be agreed by Monday, but as well as the words from Hamas, a senior Israeli official has also said that he does not understand where Biden’s optimism is coming from. Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson said the country remains “upbeat and optimistic” about the prospects for a deal.
Unifil, the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, has said it is witnessing “a disturbing shift” in the exchanges of fire between Israel and anti-Israeli forces across the UN-drawn blue line that separates northern Israel and southern Lebanon. On Tuesday morning Israel said it had struck several targets inside Lebanon in response to a barrage of 35 rockets fired at one of its military installations in northern Israel.
The formation of a new Palestinian technocratic government would be aided by both Qatar and Egypt and involves consultations with all Palestinian political factions – including Hamas, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, Husam Zomlot, has said.
Three Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in clashes in the occupied West Bank early on Tuesday. At least 400 Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers and settlers in the occupied West Bank since the 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas.
Yemen’s Houthis said they could only reconsider their missile and drone attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea once Israel ends its “aggression” in the Gaza Strip. The US says it has targeted Iranian and Houthi commanders in a new round of sanctions, and the UK has also issued new sanctions against Iran and Yemen.
Israel is intentionally starving Palestinians and should be held accountable for war crimes – and genocide, according to the UN’s leading expert on the right to food. “There is no reason to intentionally block the passage of humanitarian aid or intentionally obliterate small-scale fishing vessels, greenhouses and orchards in Gaza – other than to deny people access to food,” Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, told the Guardian.
The UN humanitarian office has accused Israeli forces in Gaza of stalling a medical evacuation convoy in Khan Younis and forcing paramedics to strip for searches before detaining them. In comments made in Geneva, Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the United Nations humanitarian office (OCHA) appealed for the release of all detained health personnel.
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