Israel-Hamas war live: Israel expands Gaza assault; Shani Louk, kidnapped from festival by Hamas, confirmed dead | Israel-Hamas war

South Africa on Monday called for the UN to deploy a rapid protection force to protect civilians in the Gaza Strip from further bombardment as Israel steps up its attacks.

“Entire generations of families have been wiped out in Gaza over the last three weeks,” the foreign ministry said in a statement. “The numbers of non-combatants killed, especially the numbers of children killed, requires that the world show that it is serious about global accountability,” it continued.

Reuters notes that in calling for a protection force, South Africa has gone further in its support for the Palestinians than most nations, some of which have called for a ceasefire, some of which have called for a “humanitarian pause” in hostilities.

The South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, is among those who have previously offered to help mediate in the conflict. South Africa also said earlier this month that its foreign minister had held a call with the leader of Hamas about getting aid into Gaza, while underlining that it did not support the group.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry has issued updated casualty figures, claiming that since Israel began its retaliatory strikes on 7 October it has killed 8,306 Palestinians, including 3,457 children.

Israel began airstrikes on the Gaza Strip after the Hamas attack inside Israel on 7 October which killed more than 1,400 Israelis, chiefly civilians, including at a music festival and in kibbutz communities near the border with Gaza. Hamas seized more than 220 hostages during the attack.

The Hamas claims have not been independently verified.

Shani Louk, a German-Israeli who was captured from a music festival in southern Israel on 7 October by Hamas, has been confirmed dead by Israel’s foreign ministry.

In a message posted to social media, it wrote:

We are devastated to share that the body of 23 year old German-Israeli Shani Luk was found and identified. Shani who was kidnapped from a music festival and tortured and paraded around Gaza by Hamas terrorists, experienced unfathomable horrors. Our thoughts and prayer are with Shani’s friends and family during this unimaginable nightmare. May her memory be a blessing.

In Germany, the Süddeutsche Zeitung had earlier today quoted her mother, Ricarda Louk, as saying that her daughter’s body had not yet been found but a splinter of a skull bone had been found and a DNA sample taken that had led to the identification. Louk said she now assumed that her daughter had been dead since 7 October.

Initially, the paper reports, Louk’s family assumed the young woman was seriously injured but alive and a hostage of Hamas. Her family has been actively campaigning for the release of all hostages.

Louk had attended the Supernova festival, and on the day of the attack her mother told the media “This morning my daughter, Shani Nicole Louk, a German citizen, was kidnapped with a group of tourists in southern Israel by Palestinian Hamas. We were sent a video in which I could clearly see our daughter unconscious in the car with the Palestinians and them driving around the Gaza Strip.”

The Kremlin appears to be positioning itself to say that the mob that stormed a Dagestan airport in search of Jewish passengers from Israel on Sunday did so due to “outside influence”.

Reuters reports that in his daily call with reporters, the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said “ill-wishers” had used widely seen images of suffering in Gaza to stir up people in the predominantly Muslim region in the north Caucasus.

Local health authorities said 20 people had been injured in the incident in Makhachkala, including two who were critical. The RIA news agency said nine police officers had received injuries. Sixty people were later detained, according to media reports.

Tass reports that following the events in Makhachkala, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, will hold a meeting to “discuss western attempts to split Russian society”.

It quotes Peskov as saying: “Putin plans to hold a large representative meeting today at approximately 7pm Moscow time and discuss the west’s attempts to use events in the Middle East to split Russian society. A detailed conversation will take place.”

Peskov said the head of the intelligence services and the defence minister would attend.

Patrick Wintour

The Guardian’s diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour reports:

UK foreign secretary James Cleverly is back in the Middle East holding talks with his counterpart in the United Arab Emirates to push for humanitarian pauses and allow vital aid to teach Gaza. He said there needed to be a significant increase in the flow of aid, adding he expected Israeli army to behave with professionalism and restraint.

He is also to continue to urge the UAE’s foreign minister, Abdulah bin Zayed Al Nayham, to use his influence to prevent a regional escalation, something he also urged Iran to do. There is growing concern that the fighting on the Israel Lebanon border is escalating,

The UAE has been sending cargoes of aid into Israel and Egypt, and all sides are waiting to see if Israel is going to allow an increased flow of aid through the Rafah crossing in Egypt. The US president, Joe Biden, spoke with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Sunday to urge him to speed the flow of trucks into Gaza.

On Sunday, the international criminal court prosecutor Karim Khan, after visiting the Rafah crossing, warned preventing access to humanitarian aid may constitute a crime.

The UAE, a member of the security council, is leading the diplomatic calls for an emergency debate at the UN on Monday to discuss the gathering humanitarian crisis. Attempts to pass a UN security council resolution is under way, but it is thought a consensus resolution that will not attract a veto either by the US or Russia cannot be crafted in the next 24 hours. The so-called elected 10 on the 15 strong security council have been working on a resolution for some days.

The UK opposition shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, is also in the region meeting foreign ministers in Jordan, Qatar and Egypt. The Labour briefing said Lammy “will restate Labour’s support for humanitarian pauses and immediate unimpeded access for food, water, electricity, medicine and electricity in Gaza”.

Lorenzo Tondo

The Guardian’s southern Italy correspondent Lorenzo Tondo reports:

Italy’s best-selling Italian cartoonist Zerocalcare said he was pulling out of a comics and games festival because Israel’s embassy to Italy is among the event’s sponsors, sparking a row in the country.

“Unfortunately, the Israeli embassy’s sponsorship is a problem for me,” said the 39-year-old cartoonist. “When 2 million people are stuck in Gaza, coming to celebrate there is impossible for me.

“I am sorry for my publishing house, for the readers and for myself too”. The decision sparked a row with many people attacking his decision, and accusing the cartoonist of supporting Hamas. “I was in Syria to support the Kurds when they were fighting against Isis,” he replied.

“I visited Gaza several years ago, I know people who still live there, and people who have gone there to build projects of solidarity, sports, hip hop, and writing. When these people ask me how it is possible that a cultural event of such importance does not question the opportunity to collaborate with the representation of a government that is perpetrating war crimes in defiance of international law, I honestly cannot provide an explanation. I can’t even tell them how sorry I am for not being there and how much this tears me apart.”

The Lucca Film Festival, is an annual event and one the most popular comic books’ festivals in Europe, offering screenings, exhibitions, conferences, and performances, ranging from mainstream to art-house cinema.

Zerocalcare’s real name is Michele Rech and his graphic novels are a form of gonzo journalism – inspired by his own adventures as a protester on the frontlines of police violence in Italy, and in Syria, where he was embedded with Kurdish forces.

His Netflix cartoon series last year topped the streaming charts in Italy, ahead of South Korea’s hit show Squid Game and his comic books are Italy’s best-selling books.

• The Israeli air force says it has struck 600 targets in the last day, as the IDF expands its assault on Gaza. Among the targets was somewhere “in the area” of Al-Azhar university, from where it said an anti-tank missile was about to be launched

• Israeli forces also struck targets in Syria and Lebanon, in response to launches from those areas into Israel, the country’s defence force has said. In separate tweets, the IDF said an aircraft had attacked Hezbollah targets in Lebanese territory, including “infrastructures for directing terrorism and military infrastructures of the organisation”, and that a fighter jet had attacked launchers in Syrian territory.

• There have been further reports of another raid by Israeli forces on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, with at least two Palestinians believed to have been killed

• Another 33 aid trucks were allowed to pass into Gaza from Egypt on Sunday, according to a spokesperson at the Rafah crossing. It is the largest number of aid trucks to cross in a day since the conflict began, but humanitarian workers have told the Associated Press that the assistance still falls desperately short of what’s needed

• International criminal court prosecutor Karim Khan said the ICC had “active investigations ongoing” into alleged war crimes in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. The prosecutor added: “There should not be any impediment to humanitarian relief supplies going to … civilians.”

• Local health authorities said about 20 people were injured, including two critically, after crowds stormed an airport in Dagestan, in search of Jewish passengers from Israel. Authorities said 60 people had been arrested.

• Jordan has asked the US to deploy Patriot air defence systems to bolster its border defence amid increased regional tensions, Reuters reports a Jordanian army spokesperson saying on Sunday. “We asked the American side to help bolster our defence system with Patriot air defence missile systems,” Brig Gen Mustafa Hiyari, Jordan’s army spokesperson, told state television.

• Israel has summoned the Russian ambassador to lodge a protest at Moscow’s hosting last week of a delegation from Hamas following its 7 October attacks against Israel. Inviting Hamas “sends a message legitimising terrorism against Israelis”, Israel’s foreign ministry said in a statement, quoting its senior staff as telling ambassador Anatoly Viktorov, Reuters reports.

• Joe Biden spoke by phone with Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday morning, the White House said. “The president reiterated that Israel has every right and responsibility to defend its citizens from terrorism and underscored the need to do so in a manner consistent with international humanitarian law that prioritizes the protection of civilians,” the White House said in a press statement.

• Joe Biden also spoke with the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, the White House said. “President Biden and President Sisi affirmed their commitment to work together to set the conditions for a durable and sustainable peace in the Middle East to include the establishment of a Palestinian state,” it said.

• Thousands of Gaza residents broke into UN warehouses on Sunday, grabbing flour and other essential items in a sign they had reached “breaking point”, said the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), Reuters reports. “This is a worrying sign that civil order is starting to break down after three weeks of war and a tight siege on Gaza,” UNRWA said in a statement.

• “We are going to move a standalone Israeli funding bill,” the US’s new House speaker, Mike Johnson, said in an interview on Fox News. In a response to a question on separating Israeli aid from Ukrainian aid, Johnson said: “Our Republican colleagues in the Senate have a similar measure. We believe that that is a pressing and urgent need.”

• Médecins Sans Frontières has sent 26 tons of medical supplies on a World Health Organization plane to Egypt. “The medical supplies can cover the needs for 800 surgical interventions and are destined for healthcare facilities in Gaza in collaboration with the local health authorities,” MSF said.

• The number of children killed in Gaza in last three weeks surpassed annual number of children killed in war zones since 2019, Save the Children said on Sunday. “With a further 1,000 children reported missing in Gaza assumed buried under the rubble, the death toll is likely much higher,” it added.

• Faculty from New York City’s Columbia University and Barnard College have signed an open letter in support of their students expressing solidarity with Palestine, noting that such expressions of solidarity and the historical contextualisation of the ongoing war is not antisemitic. “One could regard the events of October 7th as just one salvo in an ongoing war between an occupying state and the people it occupies, or as an occupied people exercising a right to resist violent and illegal occupation,” the letter said.