Middle East crisis live: more than 100 reportedly killed overnight in Gaza; ceasefire talks in Paris | Israel

The latest figures from the Gaza health ministry, which is run by Hamas, said 92 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours.

According to the statement, at least 29,606 Palestinians have been killed and 69,737 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October.

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

MPs have spoken about the lengths they are going to to keep safe amid heightened tensions over the war in the Middle East.

Some Labour MPs who have been vocal on Israel and Palestine said they were fearful there could be a violent attack on a politician.

While the vast majority of people make their views on the conflict known peacefully, MPs and staff said the politically charged atmosphere had brought an increase in abuse and threats.

Tan Dhesi, the Labour MP for Slough, said he felt his life was at risk. He has been subject to death threats and faced protests at his office and constituency surgeries since October. He said Thames Valley police had located the individual behind one death threat and charged them.

“Everyone has a legitimate right to protest, but it’s the vitriol and the abuse and death threats which are completely unacceptable,” Dhesi said. “Some people are looking to blame somebody – their MP, councillor, anyone.”

New hopes of Gaza ceasefire as Israeli negotiators head to Paris

Jason Burke

An Israeli negotiating team arrived in Paris on Friday for talks about a potential ceasefire in Gaza in the latest sign of tentative progress towards an agreement that could end the five-month-old war.

The Israeli delegation, which includes the heads of its internal and external intelligence services, will meet the director of the CIA, Qatar’s prime minister and Egypt’s most senior intelligence official for talks over the weekend in what appears to be the most serious push for weeks to halt the fighting.

Pressure on Hamas and Israel to conclude a deal is mounting. There are widespread concerns among observers that an imminent Israeli offensive on the city of Rafah in southern Gaza will cause further extensive civilian casualties and that the start of Ramadan in less than three weeks could ignite widespread unrest in the occupied West Bank and exacerbate risks of a regional conflagration.

Israel says Hamas has four battalions of militants in or around Rafah and that its offensive will go ahead if no ceasefire deal is reached soon. Washington has called on its close ally not to launch an assault on a city packed with more than 1 million people displaced from elsewhere in Gaza.

More than 100 people were reported killed early on Saturday in overnight strikes across Gaza, as Israel’s spy chief was in Paris for talks seeking to “unblock” progress towards a truce and the return of hostages held by Palestinian militants.

News agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that the Paris negotiations come after a plan for a postwar Gaza unveiled by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, drew criticism from key ally the US and was rejected by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas on Friday.

The talks also come as fears for civilians in the territory are deepening, with the UN warning of the growing risk of famine and its main aid body for Palestinians, UNWRA, saying early on Saturday that Palestinians were “in extreme peril while the world watches on”.

AFP footage showed distraught Palestinians queueing for food in the territory’s devastated north on Friday and staging a protest decrying their living conditions.

“Look, we are fighting each other over rice,” said Ahmad Atef Safi in Jabalia.

Where are we supposed to go?

“We have no water, no flour and we are very tired because of hunger,” said fellow Jabalia resident Oum Wajdi Salha. “Our backs and eyes hurt because of fire and smoke.

We can’t stand on our feet because of hunger and lack of food.

In a statement on X on Friday night, the UN humanitarian agency OCHA said: “Without adequate food and water supplies, as well as health and nutrition services, the elevated risk of famine in Gaza is projected to increase.”

It has gone 10.30am in Gaza and Tel Aviv and this is our latest Guardian live blog covering the Israel-Gaza war and wider Middle East crisis.

More than 100 people were reported killed early on Saturday in overnight strikes across Gaza, as Israel’s spy chief was in Paris for talks seeking to “unblock” progress towards a truce and the return of hostages held by Palestinian militants.

The negotiations come after a plan for a post-war Gaza unveiled by the Israeli prime minister drew criticism from key ally the US and was rejected by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas on Friday.

More on that story shortly. In other news:

• US forces shot down three Houthi attack drones near commercial ships in the Red Sea on Friday and destroyed seven anti-ship cruise missiles positioned on land, the US military said. Attacks from Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis targeting shipping have persisted despite repeated US and UK strikes. A day earlier, US forces struck four Houthi drones and two anti-ship cruise missiles, the US military said.

• Under Benjamin Netanyahu’s “day after” plan for Gaza – his first official proposal for when the war in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory ends – 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, the Israeli prime minister rejected the “unilateral recognition” of a Palestinian state, while for the medium term he outlined demilitarisation and deradicalisation in Gaza as goals.

• Netanyahu also called for shutting down the UN Palestinian refugees agency (UNRWA) and replacing it with other international aid groups in his “day after” plan, which was presented to members of Israel’s security cabinet on Thursday and seen by Reuters on Friday.

• The spokesperson for Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, said Netanyahu’s “day after” 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.

• UN experts warned on Friday that any transfer of weapons or ammunition to Israel that would be used in Gaza was likely to violate international humanitarian law and must cease immediately. “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. They also noted that arms transfers to Hamas and other armed groups are also prohibited by international law.

• Hamas said on Friday that its political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, had 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.

• 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 Haniyeh on Thursday.

• 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. Yasser Hanun from the Islamic Jihad group had previously been detained for his involvement in the “terrorist organisation’s military activities”, 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.

• The Palestine Red Crescent Society said on Friday that one of its paramedics, Fayez As’ad Mohammad Muammar, had been killed after his family’s house was bombed in the eastern part of Rafah.

• 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. 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.

• The paramedics arm of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group says two of its members were killed in an Israeli strike on a southern border village early on Friday. The Islamic Health Society identified the two as Hussein Khalil and Mohammed Ismail, saying they were killed when the group’s office in the village of Blida was directly hit, a day after an Israeli airstrike on the southern Lebanese village of Kfar Rumman killed two members of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force.

• Hezbollah later said it retaliated the attack on Blida by launching two explosive drones at an Israeli army post in the northern town of Kiryat Shmona, claiming it scored direct hits.