Middle East crisis: Israel bombs overcrowded Rafah as UN warns of ‘humanitarian nightmare’ – as it happened | Middle East and north Africa

It is 5pm in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here’s a summary of the latest developments:

• Israeli forces intensified strikes on Rafah in southern Gaza, as the UN said such action would only “increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare”. More than half of Gaza’s population is sheltering in the southern border city of Rafah, with many of them in makeshift tents and lacking food and medicine. The UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (Ocha) added that fighting in Rafha would risk “further hampering a humanitarian operation already limited by insecurity, damaged infrastructure and access restrictions.”

• US President Joe Biden will host Jordan’s King Abdullah II in Washington on Monday for talks on resolving the Israel-Hamas conflict, the White House said.

• Israeli planes bombed areas in Rafah on Thursday morning, witnesses told Reuters, killing at least 11 people in strikes on two houses. Tanks also shelled some areas in eastern Rafah, intensifying the residents’ fears of an imminent ground assault.

• A Hamas delegation is expected in Cairo for more ceasefire talks, a day after the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the group’s demands made as part of their response to a proposed ceasefire deal. Senior Lebanon-based Hamas official Osama Hamdan confirmed the trip at a news conference in Beirut while an Egyptian official has also told Agence France-Presse that “a new round of negotiations” is set to start on Thursday in Cairo aimed at achieving “calm in the Gaza Strip”.

• More reports emerged from Khan Younis of people in the vicinity of Nasser hospital being targeted by Israeli snipers, said Al Jazeera journalist Hani Mahmoud in Rafah. He said: “Paramedics are unable to get out of the hospital to help the injured and remove the dead from the streets.” Al Jazeera also quoted Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesperson for Gaza’s health ministry, saying the situation at the hospital complex is a “humanitarian disaster” adding that there are “300 medical staff, 450 wounded, and 10,000 displaced people in the Nasser medical complex being killed and starved.”

• Al Jazeera journalist Hani Mahmoud also said there had been intense bombing across Rafah city, particularly the western part. “This seems to be an indication that the ground invasion is expanding,” he wrote. Mahmoud said residential homes had been targeted and a displaced family from the northern part of the Gaza Strip and another that had come from Khan Younis were killed in overnight airstrikes that destroyed an entire building. Mahmoud added that 14 people had been killed in the attacks and described seeing people being removed from the rubble in the early hours of Thursday.

• US secretary of state Antony Blinken left the Middle East on Thursday with public divisions between the US and Israel at perhaps their worst level since Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza began in October, reports the Associated Press. Blinken was returning to Washington after the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the war would continue until Israel is completely victorious and appeared to reject outright a response from Hamas to a proposed ceasefire plan.

• Before heading back to Washington, US secretary of state Antony Blinken on Thursday met in Tel Aviv with Benny Gantz and Gabi Eisenkot, two former military officials who joined Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet after the 7 October attack in Israel by Hamas fighters. Blinken discussed ways to secure the release of Gaza hostages with Gantz and Eisenkot.

• Blinken also discussed on Thursday the hostage talks in a meeting with Israel’s main opposition leader Yair Lapid.

• Repeated US strikes against Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq are pushing the government to end the mission of the US-led coalition in the country, the prime minister’s military spokesperson Yahya Rasool said on Thursday.

• Five Israeli hostages who were freed in November pleaded with prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to push for a deal, after he publicly rejected the terms of a ceasefire in Gaza proposed by Hamas.

• A journalist and his son have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a residential building in the central Gaza Strip, reports Al Jazeera. Nafez Abdel Jawad, who worked for Palestine TV, was killed in a bombing of a residential building in the al-Salam neighbourhood in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip last night. The news organisation said that his only son also died in the airstrike and other injuries had also been reported.

• The latest figures from the Gaza health ministry, which is run by Hamas, said 130 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes and 170 were injured in the past 24 hours. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.

• The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said a paramedic colleague, Mohammed Al-Omari, was killed, and two other paramedics were injured after Israeli occupation forces directly fired at them in Gaza City while they were transferring several wounded individuals from al-Ahli Baptist hospital in preparation for their transfer to hospitals in the south.

• More than 6,920 Palestinians have been arrested in the occupied West Bank since 7 October, say the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society. This includes those who were arrested from their homes, military checkpoints, and those who were forced to surrender themselves under pressure, the group said.

• A US drone strike on a car in Baghdad has killed three members of the powerful Kataib Hezbollah militia, including a high-ranking commander, officials said after a string of blasts were heard in the Iraqi capital. The strike late on Wednesday came on a main thoroughfare in the Mashtal neighbourhood in eastern Baghdad.

• Leading Palestinian human rights groups have accused the UN special adviser on the prevention of genocide of failing to fulfil her mandate after she issued only one statement on the war in Gaza – largely supportive of Israel – that has claimed 26,000 Palestinian lives.

• The Canadian government did not see any evidence backing up Israel’s claim that staff employed by UNRWA colluded with Hamas before suspending funding to the agency, CBC News reports. Canadian officials told CBC News that Canada’s own decision to defund was a reaction to UNRWA’s decision to dismiss the staffers, which created the impression that the agency saw Israel’s allegation as credible.

• Australia’s foreign minister, Penny Wong, has said she did not have all the evidence about serious allegations regarding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) before she decided to halt funding. Australia, the US and the UK were among more than 10 donors to suspend funding to the UN agency after the Israeli government alleged that as many as 12 UNRWA staff members were involved in the 7 October Hamas attacks.

• Israel’s ambassador to Australia has invited federal Greens MPs and senators to view footage of Hamas’s attacks from 7 October, after the party’s push for Australia to remove support for what it called Israel’s “slaughter” in Gaza.

• The US military said on Thursday that its forces conducted multiple strikes against Houthi missile systems as the Yemen based rebel group prepared to launch attacks that threatened US Navy and merchant ships. Centcom said it identified the missiles in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and determined they “presented an imminent threat to US Navy ships and merchant vessels in the region”.

• Norway has transferred $26m to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), foreign minister Espen Barth Eide said on Wednesday.

• The International Rescue Committee (IRC) issued a new call for an urgent and sustained ceasefire in Gaza. Bob Kitchen, vice-president of emergencies at the IRC said military operations in Rafah would result in there “no longer” being “a single ‘safe’ area for Palestinians to go to as their homes, markets, and health services have been annihilated”.

• On Wednesday the Houthis’ news agency reported that the US and the UK had hit targets in Yemen’s Hodeida province.

• A German navy frigate has departed for the Red Sea, where Berlin plans to have it take part in an EU mission to help defend cargo ships from attacks by Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. EU foreign ministers are expected to sign off on the Red Sea mission on 19 February. Officials have said that seven countries in the bloc are ready to provide ships or planes.

• British defence intelligence officials say the UK is closer to a large-scale conflict than at any recent point, as the Middle East crisis intensifies while Russia pursues an expansionist agenda and China develops advanced weapons.

• Turkish authorities have detained 147 people suspected of having ties to militant group Islamic State (IS) in operations across 33 provinces, interior minister Ali Yerlikaya said on Thursday.

• Germany’s chancellor Olaf Scholz is heading to Washington, and will meet the US president, Joe Biden on Friday. As well as discussing the war in Ukraine, he also aims to discuss plans for strengthening the western Nato defence alliance and the Israel-Hamas war, German government officials said.

• A senior member of the Swedish security police said on Thursday that Iran has planned attacks on the country. According to AFP, Daniel Stenling, counterespionage head at Sweden’s domestic security agency, told SR on Thursday that Iran “has been preparing and conducted activities aimed at carrying out a so-called physical attack against someone or something in Sweden.”

US President Joe Biden will host Jordan’s King Abdullah II in Washington on Monday for talks on resolving the Israel–Hamas conflict, the White House said.

According to AFP, the meeting comes as the US and regional powers try to broker a ceasefire in exchange for the release of hostages from Gaza, amid hopes of a longer-term solution.

The two leaders will “discuss the ongoing situation in Gaza and efforts to produce an enduring end to the crisis,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Thursday in a statement.

They also will talk about the “US effort to support the Palestinian people including through enhanced humanitarian assistance into Gaza and a vision for a durable peace to include a two-state solution with Israel’s security guaranteed.”

The Jordanian king will be accompanied by Queen Rania for the visit to the White House, which comes as the US and Jordan mark 75 years of diplomatic relations, Jean-Pierre said.

It will be the first time Biden and Abdullah have met since the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel.

Biden was meant to travel to Jordan for talks with the king when he visited Israel less than two weeks after the attack, but the meeting was canceled after an explosion at a Gaza hospital caused anger across the Arab world. Biden later backed Israel’s account that the strike was caused by a malfunctioning Palestinian rocket.

We don’t have all the facts on UNRWA allegations, says Australia’s foreign minister

Nino Bucci

Australia’s foreign minister, Penny Wong, has said she did not have all the evidence about serious allegations regarding a key United Nations agency delivering aid to Gaza before she decided to halt funding.

Australia, the US and the UK were among more than 10 donors to suspend funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) after the Israeli government alleged that as many as 12 staff members were involved in the 7 October attacks.

Wong told the ABC on Thursday night that she had spoken with commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini the previous day and was working to bring an end to the suspension, including by seeking more information regarding the allegations from the agency and from the Israeli government.

Emine Sinmaz

My colleague, Emine Sinmaz in Tel Aviv has written the following report on the families fearing that remaining hostages held by Hamas in Gaza will pay price for Netanyahu’s pursuit of “absolute victory”:

Moments after Benjamin Netanyahu publicly rejected the terms of a ceasefire in Gaza proposed by Hamas, five Israeli hostages who were freed in November pleaded with him to push for a deal.

“Everything is in your hands,” a tearful Adina Moshe, 72, said in a direct appeal to the Israeli prime minister at an emotional press conference in Tel Aviv. She said she feared the remaining hostages and their families would pay the price for Netanyahu’s pursuit of “absolute victory” over the militant group.

She said: “I’m very afraid and very concerned that if you continue with this line of destroying Hamas, there won’t be any hostages left to release.”

Moshe was comforted by Sharon Aloni Cunio, 34, Nili Margalit, 41, Aviva Siegel, 62, and Sahar Calderon, 16, who were abducted by Hamas on 7 October and released in November as part of a temporary ceasefire deal.

The number of Palestinians arrested by Israel in the occupied West Bank over the past four months is more than 6,920 detainees, reports Al Jazeera citing new figures from the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society.

This includes those who were arrested from their homes, military checkpoints, and those who were forced to surrender themselves under pressure, the group said.

It called the arrests a “comprehensive aggression against the Palestinian people and the ongoing genocide in Gaza”.

The US military said on Thursday that its forces conducted multiple strikes against Houthi missile systems as the Yemen based rebel group prepared to launch attacks that threatened US Navy and merchant ships, reports AFP.

Late Wednesday Sana’a time US Central Command forces (Centcom) “conducted self-defence strikes against two Houthi mobile anti-ship cruise missiles prepared to launch against ships in the Red Sea,” Centcom said in a statement posted on social media platform X.

Later that night CENTCOM forces “conducted a second strike against a Houthi mobile land attack cruise missile prepared to launch.”

Centcom said it identified the missiles in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and determined they “presented an imminent threat to US Navy ships and merchant vessels in the region”.

The strikes “will protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for US Navy and merchant vessels”, it said.

On Wednesday the Houthis’ news agency reported that the US and the UK had hit targets in Yemen’s Hodeida province.

The Iran-backed rebels, who control much of war-torn Yemen including the port of Hodeida, have been targeting shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.