Middle East crisis live: Israel intensifies strikes on southern Gaza | Israel

MPs and peers sign letter urging UK government to ban arms sales to Israel

Patrick Wintour

Parliamentary pressure is building on the UK government to ban arms sales to Israel, amid signs that Israel intends to ignore the UN security council resolution passed this week calling on all sides to commit to a ceasefire.

A letter signed by more than 130 parliamentarians to the foreign secretary, David Cameron, highlights action taken by other countries, most recently Canada, which last week announced it would halt all arms exports to Israel.

Ministers are already facing calls from the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, to publish the legal advice to ministers on whether there is a serious risk Israel is breaching international humanitarian law, something that would normally trigger a suspension of UK arms sales.

The letter, coordinated by the Labour MP Zarah Sultana, was signed by 107 MPs and 27 peers including the former Labour Middle East minister Peter Hain, the Scottish National party’s Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn, the former shadow minister Jess Phillips, the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and the Conservative peer Nosheena Mobarik.

You can read more of Patrick Wintour’s piece here:

Hamas has asked donor countries to stop their airdrops after 12 people drowned trying to recover parachuted food aid from the sea off Gaza’s Mediterranean coast, reports AFP.

In a statement on Tuesday evening, Hamas called for “an immediate end to airdrop operations” and “the immediate and rapid opening of land crossings”.

Hamas and the Swiss-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor also said another six people were killed in stampedes trying to get aid.

“People are dying just to get a can of tuna,” Gaza resident Mohamad al-Sabaawi told AFP, holding a can in his hand after a scramble over an aid package.

Hamas has also demanded that Israel allow more aid trucks to enter the territory, which the UN has warned is on the brink of a “manmade famine” after nearly six months of fighting.

The UN children’s fund, Unicef, said vastly more aid must be rushed into Gaza by road rather than by air or sea to avert an “imminent famine”.

Unicef spokesperson James Elder said the necessary help was “a matter of kilometres away” in aid-filled trucks waiting across Gaza’s southern border with Egypt.

The US national security council said in a statement it would continue trying to get aid in by road, but also said it would continue airdrops, reports AFP.

AFPTV footage showed crowds rushing towards aid packages on Tuesday being dropped by parachute from planes sent by Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Germany.

The southern Gaza Strip came under intense Israeli bombardment overnight, despite international pressure for an immediate ceasefire in the Palestinian territory where famine is looming.

A report by the news agency, Agence France-Presse (AFP), said that a fireball had lit up the night sky in the southern city of Rafah, the last remaining urban centre in Gaza not to have been attacked by Israeli ground forces. About 1.5 million people are crammed in the area, many having fled south towards the border with Egypt.

According to AFP, the sound of explosions was also heard and smoke was seen rising in Gaza City in the north, where Israeli troops have been attacking the city’s largest hospital for more than a week.

Israeli forces have also surrounded two hospitals in Khan Younis, where the health ministry said 12 people, including some children, were killed in an Israeli strike on a camp for the displaced.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said early on Wednesday that 66 people had been killed overnight, including three killed in Israeli airstrikes in and around Rafah.

According to AFP, the Palestinian Red Crescent warned that thousands were trapped in the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis and “their lives are in danger”.

The fighting went on unabated two days after the UN security council passed its first resolution calling for an “immediate ceasefire” and urging the release of the roughly 130 hostages Israel says remain in Gaza, including 34 captives who are presumed dead.

It has just gone 9am in Gaza and Tel Aviv. This is our latest Guardian live blog on the Israel-Gaza war and the wider Middle East crisis.

The southern Gaza Strip came under intense Israeli bombardment overnight, despite international pressure for an immediate ceasefire in the Palestinian territory where famine is looming.

A report by the news agency, Agence France-Presse (AFP), said that a fireball had lit up the night sky in the southern city of Rafah, the last remaining urban centre in Gaza not to have been attacked by Israeli ground forces.

According to AFP, the sound of explosions was also heard and smoke was seen rising in Gaza City in the north, where Israeli troops have been attacking the city’s largest hospital for more than a week.

Israeli forces have also surrounded two hospitals in Khan Younis, where the health ministry said 12 people, including some children, were killed in an Israeli strike on a camp for the displaced.

More on that in a moment but first, here is a summary of the latest developments:

• Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant said he told the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, that “only a decisive victory will bring to an end of this war”. Gallant, whose Washington talks went ahead despite Israel’s cancellation of separate US talks on the planned Rafah offensive, added that Israel would not cease operating in Gaza until the return of all the hostages.

• The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said early Wednesday that 66 people had been killed overnight, including three killed in Israeli airstrikes in and around Rafah.

• Israel has recalled its negotiating team from Qatar, ending immediate attempts to negotiate a ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said: “Israel will not cave to Hamas’s delusional demands”, after Hamas rejected the latest deal offer. Netanyahu’s office said the Hamas position was “clear proof it is not interested in continuing talks, and a sad testament to the damage caused by the UN security council resolution”.

• Late on Monday, Hamas had said Israel was not responding to its core demands of a “comprehensive ceasefire, an withdrawal from the [Gaza] strip, the return of displaced people and a real prisoner exchange”.

• Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz said Hamas had been emboldened to reject a deal by the UN security council vote, and had been sent the message: “You don’t have to hurry” because international pressure was being bought to bear on Israel.

• The Biden administration’s policy on Gaza has been widely criticised as being in disarray with the defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, describing the situation as a “humanitarian catastrophe” the day after the state department declared Israel to be in compliance with international humanitarian law. “Gaza is suffering a humanitarian catastrophe and the situation is getting even worse,” Austin told Gallant in remarks in front of the press on Tuesday, calling for a significant expansion in aid deliveries by land. On the same day, the state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, insisted the US had no reason to dispute Israeli assurances that it was complying with humanitarian law in Gaza.

• Twelve people drowned at a Gaza beach trying to recover airdropped crates of aid that fell in water after their parachutes malfunctioned, Palestinian health authorities have said. Video of Monday’s airdrop showed crowds running towards the beach, in Beit Lahiya in north Gaza, as crates with parachutes floated down, then people standing deep in water and bodies being pulled on to the sand.

• The UN humanitarian office urged Israel on Tuesday to revoke an apparent ban on food aid to north Gaza by agency Unrwa, saying people there were facing a “cruel death by famine”.

• At least seven people were killed in an Israeli strike in Southern Lebanon, two security sources told Reuters early on Wednesday. The strike on Nabatieh appeared to target a Hezbollah emergency and relief centre in Hebbariyeh village in southern Lebanon, the sources said. On Tuesday, Israeli airstrikes near two towns in north-east Lebanon killed three Hezbollah militants, the group posted on Telegram. Israel confirmed the strikes.

• Netanyahu has been heavily criticised inside Israel for his handling of crucial relations with the US after it declined to veto a ceasefire resolution at the UN security council. In the Hebrew-language newspaper Ma’ariv, Ben Caspit described the approach of the Israeli prime minister as “delusional”, “madness” and “terrifying”. The lead editorial in the left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz described Netanyahu as “Israel’s agent of destruction” who “has become a burden for Israel”.

• A released Israeli hostage recounted sexual assault at gunpoint during her captivity in Gaza, in the first such personal account. Amit Soussana, 40, was taken hostage on 7 October from kibbutz Kfar Aza, and told the New York Times she was attacked about two weeks later by the man guarding her after washing in the bathroom. The Times said her account was consistent with what she told two doctors and a social worker shortly after she was freed on 30 November. Soussana said she had decided to speak out now to raise awareness about the plight of the hostages still in Gaza. At least three released hostages have spoken publicly about incidents of sexual abuse against fellow captives.

• A planned cabinet discussion in Israel on a proposed bill to extend compulsory military service to ultra-Orthodox students has been postponed at the last minute.

• At least 32,414 Palestinians have now been killed in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, the Hamas-led Gaza health ministry said on Tuesday. On 7 October, Hamas killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify all casualty figures being issued during the conflict.

• Parliamentary pressure is building on the UK government to ban arms sales to Israel. A letter signed by more than 130 parliamentarians to the foreign secretary, David Cameron, highlights action taken by other countries, most recently Canada, which last week announced it would halt all arms exports to Israel.