Middle East crisis live: UN secretary general accuses Israel of mass destruction and killing civilians on an ‘unprecedented scale’ | Israel-Gaza war

Fighting has reportedly continued in the Jabalia refugee camp and other areas around Gaza City; Palestinians still in the area have described the dire conditions.

“We struggle to survive bombs, but frankly we try to survive hunger more. Finding food for the family, for the children, has become a more challenging adventure than surviving war,” Amer, 32, who lives in northern Gaza, told Reuters.

He messaged via eSIM card, Gazans’ only tool to connect with the outside world amid a ninth day of disruptions to communications.

Here are some of the latest images coming out of the newswires:

UN secretary general condemns Israel for ‘heartbreaking’ and ‘unprecedented’ killings in Gaza

Israel’s cabinet has approved a plan for frozen Palestinian tax funds to be held by a third-party country, and reserved the right to decide when the money will be transferred to the Palestinian Authority (PA), Reuters reports.

Under interim peace accords, Israel’s finance ministry collects tax on behalf of the Palestinians and makes monthly transfers to the PA, which has limited self rule in the occupied West Bank, but there has been disagreement over the arrangement.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the cabinet decision was supported by Norway and the US, which will be a guarantor that the framework holds.

France’s foreign minister, Stéphane Séjourné, has wrote on X that “Palestinians have the right to sovereignty and statehood”.

The UK’s defence secretary, Grant Shapps, has told BBC News he believes there is no other solution to Israel’s war in Gaza other than an eventual two-state solution (see the comments he gave to Sky News on this here).

Shapps told BBC One’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg:

Palestinians deserve a sovereign state, Israel deserves to have the full ability to defend itself, its own security.

Unless you pursue a two-state solution, I really don’t see that there is another solution.

Now, you’ll get a lot of different views within the Israeli government, of course, it is a rainbow coalition.

So we very much distinguish between the views of individuals and our overall support for Israel as a country.

Grant Shapps has been asked about the collision between two Royal Navy warships in a Middle East harbour (footage posted on social media appeared to show HMS Chiddingfold reversing into HMS Bangor off the coast of Bahrain).

He told Sky News’ Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips: “Just as in aviation or many other walks of life sometimes accidents and incidents happen, there’s a full investigation under way.”

Asked if it was incompetence, Shapps added:

We don’t say it’s incompetence when we see an aircraft come down, a very rare occasion just as this would be a rare occasion. It’s right to leave the investigators some time to work out exactly what’s gone wrong.

Something clearly did and we need to see what it is.

Grant Shapps said the UK’s defence spending is below the target of 2.5% of gross domestic product (GDP).

“We’re not at 2.5% yet,” the UK’s defence secretary told Sky’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips. “We’re comfortably above 2%,” he said, adding: “But we are pledged to, when conditions allow, get to 2.5%.”

Shapps said in December he wanted to see the UK’s defence budget rise by as much as 50% to 3% of economic output.

Grant Shapps said the size of the British army will not fall below 73,000 under the Conservatives, disputing projections that it could eventually sink to 50,000.

The UK’s defence secretary told Sky’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips that the size of the overall armed forces is about 188,000.

Netanyahu’s opposition to two-state solution ‘disappointing’, says UK’s defence secretary