Middle East crisis live: diplomatic push to secure Gaza ceasefire as Hamas responds to plan | Israel

The UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said on Tuesday that a humanitarian convoy led by the organisation had been hit while carrying food to people in northern Gaza, saying it was the third such instance of Israeli forces firing on its trucks carrying aid.

Juliette Touma, UNRWA’s director of communications across all areas of operation, told Al Jazeera: “This was the third time a humanitarian convoy led by UNRWA has been hit”. She was referring to an incident on Monday.

UNRWA have also published before and after images on its X account, that show the level of destruction to its health centre in north Gaza. The organisation say 84% of health facilities in Gaza have been affected by attacks and only four out of 22 UNRWA health facilities are still operational.

Several major donors suspended funding to the UN body after Israeli allegations that a number of UNRWA staff were involved in the 7 October Hamas attacks in Israel. UNRWA responded by saying it had severed ties with the staff members accused and was launching an investigation.

Bethan McKernan

My colleague, the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent Bethan McKernan has written an analysis piece on a rumoured split in the Hamas leadership. You can read it here:

When the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, launched his devastating assault on Israel on 7 October, the militant group’s exiled leadership, like the rest of the world, was apparently caught unawares.

From plush penthouses in Beirut, Doha and Istanbul, they watched the carnage that killed 1,200 Israelis unfold, as well as Israel’s retaliatory campaign on the Gaza Strip. In the past four months Israel has killed an estimated 27,600 people, displaced 85% of the 2.3 million population and razed more than half of the besieged Palestinian territory’s infrastructure.

In the early days of the war, while Sinwar’s cadre was calling on Arab peoples across the Middle East to join the fight against Israel, the Doha-based chair of Hamas’s political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, appeared to focus on damage control. Talks mediated by Egypt, Qatar and the US resulted in a ceasefire and hostage and prisoner swaps at the end of November that lasted seven days before collapsing.

Hamas has proposed a three-stage ceasefire plan in response to Qatari and Egyptian mediators in which the group would exchange Israeli hostages it captured on 7 October for Palestinian prisoners, secure the reconstruction of Gaza, ensure the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces and an exchange of bodies and remains, according to a draft document seen by Reuters.

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.

US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators are preparing a diplomatic push to bridge differences between Israel and Hamas on a ceasefire plan for Gaza.

On Tuesday Hamas responded to a proposal for an extended pause in fighting and hostage releases.

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

• At least 31 of the 136 remaining Israeli hostages captured by Hamas are dead, according to an internal assessment conducted by the Israeli military seen. There are unconfirmed intelligence reports indicating that at least 20 other hostages may also be dead.

• The US military said Houthi militants had targeted shipping in the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden with six ballistic missiles. Centcom said a Marshall Island owned bulk carrier received minor damage, but there were no injuries reported.

• The UN agency for Palestinian refugees expects its preliminary report into Israeli claims that a dozen of its employees took part in the 7 October attack on Israel to be ready by early next month. Dorothee Klaus told reporters in Lebanon that the agency expects donors who suspended their funding after the claims emerged to review their decisions based on the probe. The US and UK were among those who pulled funding for the agency after Isreal’s claims.

• A UK ship travelling through the southern Red Sea has been attacked by a drone but no one has claimed responsibility as yet. The British military’s United Kingdom maritime trade operations says the attack happened west of Hodeida, Yemen, and caused “slight damage” to the ship’s windows on the bridge. A small vessel had been nearby the ship before the attack, it added.

• A 14-year-old Palestinian child was shot dead by Israeli security forces near occupied East Jerusalem after what they claimed was an attempted stabbing attack.

• Spain will send the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA an additional €3.5m (£3m / $3.8m) in aid, foreign minister José Manuel Albares told lawmakers on Monday. The agency has warned of a significant funding shortfall after several large donors suspended funding after Israel accused 12 UNRWA employees of participating in the 7 October Hamas attack inside southern Israel.

• Russia summoned Israel’s ambassador in Moscow over comments Simona Halperin made in an interview. She had criticised Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov for playing down the importance of the Holocaust and said Russia was being too friendly with Hamas.