Middle East crisis live: Netanyahu presents first official post-Gaza war plan; MSF says ‘there is no health system left in Gaza’ | Israel

Reuters has this report on talks between Hamas and Egyptian officials, with the militant group making what looks like its most serious push for a ceasefire in weeks.

Hamas wrapped up ceasefire talks in Cairo and is now waiting to see what mediators bring back from weekend talks with Israel, an official from the militant group said on Friday, in what appears to be the most serious push for weeks to halt the fighting.

Mediators have ramped up efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza, in the hope of heading off an Israeli assault on the Gaza city of Rafah where more than a million displaced people are sheltering at the southern edge of the enclave.

Israel says it will attack the city if no truce agreement is reached soon. Washington has called on its close ally not to do so, warning of vast civilian casualties if an assault on the city goes ahead.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh met Egyptian mediators in Cairo to discuss a truce this past week on his first visit since December. Israel is now expected to participate in talks this weekend in Paris with US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators.

Two Egyptian security sources confirmed that Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel would head on Friday to Paris for the talks with the Israelis, after wrapping up talks with Hamas chief Haniyeh on Thursday. Israel has not publicly commented on the Paris talks.

The Hamas official, who asked not to be identified, said the militant group did not offer any new proposal at the talks with the Egyptians, but was waiting to see what the mediators brought back from their upcoming talks with the Israelis.

“We discussed our proposal with them [the Egyptians] and we are going to wait until they return from Paris,” the Hamas official said.

The last time similar talks were held in Paris, at the start of February, they produced an outline for the first extended ceasefire of the war, approved by Israel and the US. Hamas responded with a counterproposal, which Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu then rejected as “delusional”.

UN experts warned on Friday that any transfer of weapons or ammunition to Israel that would be used in Gaza is likely to violate international humanitarian law and must cease immediately.

“All States must ‘ensure respect’ for international humanitarian law by parties to an armed conflict, as required by 1949 Geneva conventions and customary international law,” the experts said. “States must accordingly refrain from transferring any weapon or ammunition – or parts for them – if it is expected, given the facts or past patterns of behaviour, that they would be used to violate international law.”

“Such transfers are prohibited even if the exporting State does not intend the arms to be used in violation of the law – or does not know with certainty that they would be used in such a way – as long as there is a clear risk,” they said.

The experts noted that countries signed up to the Arms Trade Treaty have additional responsibilites to deny arms exports if they “know” that the arms “would” be used to commit international crimes, or if there is an “overriding risk” that the arms transferred “could” be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law.

“The need for an arms embargo on Israel is heightened by the international court of justice’s ruling on 26 January 2024 that there is a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza and the continuing serious harm to civilians since then”, the experts said.

The Genocide Convention of 1948 requires countries signed up to employ all means reasonably available to them to prevent genocide in another state as far as possible. “This necessitates halting arms exports in the present circumstances”, the experts said. The experts welcomed the suspension of arms transfers to Israel by Belgium, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and the Japanese company Itochu Corporation.

“State officials involved in arms exports may be individually criminally liable for aiding and abetting any war crimes, crimes against humanity or acts of genocide,” the experts said.

“All States under the principle of universal jurisdiction, and the international criminal court, may be able to investigate and prosecute such crimes,” the experts added.

The experts also noted that arms transfers to Hamas and other armed groups are also prohibited by international law due to their grave violations of international humanitarian law on 7 October 2023.

Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner general of the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), warned on Thursday evening that humanitarian organisation had “reached a breaking point”. In a post on X, he wrote that it was “with profound regret” that he announced the situation and shared a letter to the president of the UN general assembly.

“In just over four months in Gaza, there have been more children, more journalists, more medical personnel, and more UN staff killed than anywhere in the world during a conflict,” he wrote.

Lazzarini added that UNRWA had “reached a breaking point, with Israel’s repeated calls to dismantle it and the freezing of funding by donors at a time of unprecedented humanitarian needs in Gaza”. He said the agency’s “ability to fulfil the mandate given through general assembly resolution 302 is now seriously threatened”.

Referring to Israeli accusations that 12 staff members of UNRWA were involved in the Hamas 7 October attack, Lazzarini said “to date, no evidence has been shared by Israel with UNRWA”.

In reaction to the allegations against UNRWA staff, 16 donor countries paused their contributions, totalling $450m (£355m), he wrote. Lazzarini concluded: “UNRWA, like any UN entity cannot operate without the support of host states.”

An Israeli delegation led by the head of the country’s overseas intelligence agency is heading to Paris to “unblock” talks for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, says AFP citing Israeli media reports.

The Mossad director David Barnea will be joined in the French capital by his counterpart at the domestic Shin Bet security agency, Ronen Bar, they added.

A week-long ceasefire at the end of November saw the release of more than 100 hostages taken by Hamas militants and 240 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

At the end of January, Barnea was in Paris with his US and Egyptian counterparts as well as the prime minister of Qatar to discuss a new pause in fighting.

A Hamas source confirmed the plan proposed a six-week pause in the conflict and the release of between 200 and 300 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 35 to 40 hostages still held by Hamas.

Since then, talks have also taken place in Egypt involving Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh. He left Cairo on Thursday evening, the Palestinian militants said. The talks focused in particular on an end to Israeli “aggression”, the return of displaced people and a prisoner exchange.

While Haniyeh was in Cairo, US Middle East envoy Brett McGurk was in Israel where he discussed an “extended pause” in the conflict “to get all of those hostages home”, the White House said.

According to AFP, on the eve of the Paris talks defence minister Yoav Gallant indicated that Israel would “extend the authority given to our hostage negotiators”. He did not elaborate.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has presented a “day after” plan for Gaza, his first official proposal for when the war in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory ends, reports Reuters.

According to the document, presented to members of Israel’s security cabinet on Thursday and seen by Reuters on Friday, Israel would maintain security control over all land west of Jordan, including the occupied West Bank and Gaza – territories where the Palestinians want to create an independent state.

In the long-term goals listed, Netanayhu rejects the “unilateral recognition” of a Palestinian state. He says a settlement with the Palestinians will only be achieved through direct negotiations between the two sides – but it did not name who the Palestinian party would be.

In Gaza, Netanyahu outlines demilitarisation and deradicalisation as goals to be achieved in the medium term. According to Reuters, he does not elaborate on when that intermediary stage would begin or how long it would last. But he conditions the rehabilitation of the Gaza Strip, much of which has been laid to waste by Israel’s offensive, on its complete demilitarisation.

Netanyahu proposes Israel have a presence on the Gaza-Egypt border in the south of the enclave and cooperates with Egypt and the US in that area to prevent smuggling attempts, including at the Rafah crossing.

To replace Hamas rule in Gaza while maintaining public order, Netanyahu suggests working with local representatives “who are not affiliated with terrorist countries or groups and are not financially supported by them”.

He calls for shutting down the UN Palestinian refugees agency (UNRWA) and replacing it with other international aid groups.

“The prime minister’s document of principles reflects broad public consensus over the goals of the war and for replacing Hamas rule in Gaza with a civilian alternative,” a statement by the prime minister’s office said. The document was distributed to security cabinet members to start a discussion on the issue.

The spokesperson for Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, told Reuters that Netanyahu’s proposal was doomed to fail, as were any Israeli plans to change the geographic and demographic realities in Gaza.

“If the world is genuinely interested in having security and stability in the region, it must end Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land and recognise an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital,” he said.

At least 29,514 Palestinians have been killed and 69,616 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.

Israel plans to approve the construction of more than 3,300 new homes in settlements in the occupied West Bank, a senior cabinet minister from the far-right wing of the government announced, reports AP.

Approval of new construction is bound to elicit condemnation from the US at a time when the relationship between the allies is fraught because of disagreements over the course of Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

According to AP, finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a statement late on Thursday that the new construction is meant as a response to a fatal Palestinian shooting attack near Jerusalem earlier in the day. He said prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant participated in the discussion leading to the decision.

The homes are to be built in the settlements of Maale Adumim, Efrat and Kedar, Smotrich said.

A US intelligence assessment of Israel’s claims that UN aid agency staff members participated in the Hamas attack on 7 October said some of the accusations were credible, though could not be independently verified, while also casting doubt on claims of wider links to militant groups.

The assault precipitated a full-scale invasion by Israel of Gaza that has killed upwards of 30,000 Palestinians. Earlier this year, Israel accused 12 employees of the United Nations Reliefs and Works Agency (UNRWA) of participating in the 7 October attacks alongside Hamas. It also said 10% of all UNRWA workers were affiliated with Hamas.

The bombshell accusation led several countries, including the US, to cut off funding for the agency, which was a crucial vehicle for getting aid to Gaza in what has widely been described as a humanitarian crisis.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the intelligence report, released last week, assessed with “low confidence” that a handful of staff had participated in the attack, indicating that it considered the accusations to be credible though it could not independently confirm their veracity.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) secretary general Chris Lockyear said “there is no health system to speak of left in Gaza” and that “the humanitarian response in Gaza today is an illusion” as he briefed the UN security council on Thursday.

Lockyear said it was “a convenient illusion that perpetuates a narrative that this war is being waged in line with international laws”. Speaking about the lack of a health system now in Gaza, Lockyear said:

There is no health system to speak of left in Gaza. Israel’s military has dismantled hospital after hospital. What remains is so little in the face of such carnage. It is preposterous.

The excuse given is that medical facilities have been used for military purposes, yet we have seen zero independently verified evidence of this.

In exceptional circumstances where a hospital loses its protected status, any attack must follow the principles of proportionality and precaution. Instead of adherence to international law, we see the systematic disabling of hospitals. This has left the entire medical system inoperable.”

He described how, since 7 October, the international medical humanitarian organisation had been forced to evacuate nine different health facilities. Nasser hospital was raided a week ago and medical staff were forced to leave, he said, despite “repeated assurances that they could stay and continue caring for patients”.

Lockyear said:

These indiscriminate attacks, as well as the types of weapons and munitions used in densely populated areas, have killed tens of thousands and maimed thousands more.

Our patients have catastrophic injuries, amputations, crushed limbs, and severe burns. They need sophisticated care. They need long and intensive rehabilitation. Medics cannot treat these injuries on a battlefield or in the ashes of destroyed hospitals.

There are not enough hospital beds, not enough medications, and not enough supplies. Surgeons have had no choice but to carry out amputations without anaesthesia, on children.

Our surgeons are running out of basic gauze to stop their patients from bleeding out. They use it once, squeeze out the blood, wash it, sterilize it, and reuse it for the next patient.”

“We are scared,” said Lockyear, who described MSF teams as “beyond exhausted”. He concluded his briefing by calling for a ceasefire from both parties: “We demand the protections promised under International Humanitarian Law. We demand a ceasefire from both parties.”

Claims of Israeli sexual assault of Palestinian women are credible, UN panel says

Julian Borger

UN experts say they have seen “credible allegations” that Palestinian women and girls have been subjected to sexual assaults, including rape, while in Israeli detention, and are calling for a full investigation.

The panel of experts said there was evidence of a least two cases of rape, alongside other cases of sexual humiliation and threats of rape. Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, said the true extent of sexual violence could be significantly higher.

“We might not know for a long time what the actual number of victims are,” said Alsalem, who was appointed special rapporteur by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in 2021.

She noted that reticence in reporting sexual assault was common because of the fear of reprisals against victims. She said that in a wave of detentions of Palestinian women and girls after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on 7 October, there was an increasingly permissive attitude towards sexual assault in Israeli detention centres.

Israel’s army said on Friday a Palestinian militant on his way to carry out a shooting attack was killed in a drone strike in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin a day earlier, reports news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Yasser Hanun from the Islamic Jihad group had previously been detained for his involvement in the “terrorist organisation’s military activities,” the army said in a statement. The resident of Jenin refugee camp “was eliminated while en route to carry out another shooting attack,” the statement said, without giving further details.

A witness said weapons in the car exploded after the strike on Thursday.

Hanun was involved in several shooting attacks targeting Israeli communities as well as shooting at soldiers and military posts in the West Bank, the army said.

Palestinian news agency Wafa said two people were killed and four others wounded in the strike. AFP footage showed a car severely burned from the hit, it’s roof torn as if by a can opener.

“Two successive missiles” struck the car, Usayd Shelbi, who witnessed the strike, told AFP. “The situation was dangerous. The weapons in the car were exploding,” he said.

The drone strike in Jenin came after three Palestinian gunmen opened fire at cars on a congested West Bank highway near a Jewish settlement on Thursday, killing an Israeli man and wounding eight others.

Hamas says its political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, has left Egypt after holding talks with Egyptian officials about a possible ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and an exchange of hostages held by the militants for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, news agency The Associated Press (AP) reports.

During Hamas’ 7 October attack on southern Israel, militants killed about 1,200 people and took 250 hostages. Roughly half of the hostages were released during a weeklong ceasefire in November. About 100 hostages remain in captivity, in addition to the bodies of 30 others who were killed on 7 October or died in captivity.

Israel’s subsequent offensive in Gaza has killed more than 29,000 Palestinians and driven about 80% of the territory’s 2.3 million people from their homes. Most heeded Israeli orders to flee south, and approximately 1.5 million are now packed into Rafah near the border with Egypt.

European diplomats have ramped up calls for a ceasefire as alarm grows over the worsening humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.

It has gone 9am in Gaza and Tel Aviv and this is our latest Guardian blog on the Middle East crisis.

International efforts to broker a ceasefire in Gaza appeared to gain new momentum as the White House said talks were “going well”.

On Thursday, White House Middle East envoy Brett McGurk held talks with Israeli leaders.

“The initial indications we’re getting from Brett are these discussions are going well,” said White House spokesperson John Kirby.

More on that in a moment, first here’s a summary of the day’s other main news.

• Israeli officials have said they want to use local administrators without links to either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority to run Gaza, and will set up small scale trials of the scheme as soon as “the right people step up to the plate”.

• UN experts say they have seen “credible allegations” that Palestinian women and girls have been subjected to sexual assaults, including rape, while in Israeli detention, and are calling for a full investigation.

• In a collective appeal, heads of UN humanitarian entities and global NGOs have implored world leaders to help prevent further deterioration of the crisis in Gaza. The principals of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), the coordinating body of global humanitarian organisations, released a statement on Wednesday in which it said “civilians in Gaza are in extreme peril while the world watches on”. It listed ten requirements “to avoid an even worse catastrophe”.

• A UN attempt to deliver 10 convoys of food aid to northern Gaza over seven days was suspended earlier this week after trucks were looted by crowds, a driver was beaten and gunfire reported amid chaotic scenes. “In most cases, when food does get taken directly from convoys, it’s because of utter desperation, with people even eating it on the spot,” said Jonathan Fowler, a spokesperson for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

• An Israeli man in his 20s was killed in Thursday’s shooting at a checkpoint on a West Bank highway where gunmen opened fire on cars in the morning rush-hour traffic jam. AP report that five others were injured, including a pregnant woman – some other news agencies have put the number of injured at eight. Security forces killed two of the gunmen and detained the third, police said.

• The foreign ministers of 26 European countries on Thursday called for a pause in fighting leading to a longer ceasefire. They urged Israel not to take military action in Rafah “that would worsen an already catastrophic humanitarian situation.”

• Japan had strong words for Israel in the opening of its oral submission at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which is hearing further argument today in the case “legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the cccupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.” Japan’s legal team said “No country must be allowed to be above the law” and argued that “Israel is acting and has been allowed to act in complete disregard of international law”.