Middle East crisis live: Israel says it has completed mission to destroy Hamas infrastructure in northern Gaza | Israel-Gaza war

UNRWA’s Gaza deputy director Scott Anderson gave an update on the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza as a result of Israel’s deadly attacks which have killed nearly 23,000 Palestinians while leaving nearly 2 million survivors internally displaced.

Speaking to CNN, Anderson said:

“The levels of hunger are quite severe in Gaza. From Rafah to the north, it gets worse, the farther north you go. We’re making a concerted effort to try to import more food into Gaza and make sure it gets to people in need, including the 1.4 million people in the Rafah governorate.

And then secondly, the hospital network in Gaza has been severely damaged. It’s almost collapsed. Bed capacity is well over 300% for normal beds and well over 200% for ICU. And because of the security situation, organizations like Medecins Sans Frontier…have had to evacuate hospitals where they were providing support. So for us, it’s very much in life-saving mode and trying to make sure that we get things to people that they need.

He added:

“The largest concern I would have is, the pressure on people is extraordinary and I don’t know how much more they can bear before something explodes in the southern part of Gaza within the civilian population which would impact the UN and other international humanitarians’ ability to respond to the ongoing operation.”

Israel has named its former supreme court president Aharon Barak as its addition to the international court of justice panel scheduled to hear a genocide allegation filed against it this week, an Israeli official said.

Reuters reports:

Under the ICJ’s rules a state that does not have a judge of its nationality already on the bench can choose an ad hoc judge to sit in their case.

Barak, a champion of supreme court activism, was a focus of opposition for members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, whose judicial reform push last year bitterly polarised the public.

South Africa, which accuses Israel of genocide in the Gaza war, has also appointed an ad hoc judge, its former deputy chief justice Dikgang Moseneke, South African media said.

It’s not long after 5pm in Israel and Palestine. Here is a summary of where things are in the Middle East.

• Two journalists have been killed in an Israeli air strike in southern Gaza . Hamza Wael Al-Dahdouhof Al Jazeera and Mustafa Thuria, a video freelancer for AFP, died while travelling in a car, the health ministry and medics confirmed.

• Israeli airstrikes on the southern city of Khan Younis and the Rafah area near the Egyptian border have killed dozens of civilians, including babies and children. Families have been searching for survivors in the rubble.

• At least 113 Palestinians have been killed and 250 others injured over the past 24 hours in Israeli strikes on Gaza, the health ministry said in a statement. Sunday’s tally brings the death toll in Gaza to 22,835 people killed and 58,416 injured since 7 October.

• The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is continuing his tour of the region and is in Jordan. Jordan’s King Abdullah used their meeting to push Washington to support a ceasefire. In a statement issued by the palace, he warned of the “catastrophic repercussions” of the continuation of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Blinken also met the country’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, as part of a diplomatic push to prevent Israel’s war against Hamas igniting a wider war in the region.

• The Israeli military says it has completed its mission to destroy Hamas’s infrastructure in northern Gaza and has scaled back its military operations there as the offensive moves south. R Adm Daniel Hagari said scattered fighting in northern Gaza was to be expected, along with rockets sporadically being launched from there toward Israel.

• Israel’s cabinet will vote on a 2024 wartime budget on Thursday, its finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said, after ministers approved 9bn shekels (£1.9bn) in financial support for military reservists.

• Nine people are confirmed to have died in the occupied West Bank, as more details emerge about an Israeli drone strike in Jenin. Seven Palestinians were targeted in an airstrike by the Israeli army in Jenin refugee camp and an Israeli police officer was killed during an operation, the Israeli army said. An Israeli civilian was also shot dead in another incident north of Ramallah, the army said.

• Médecins Sans Frontières has evacuated its staff and families from Gaza’s middle area after evacuation orders issued by Israeli forces for neighbourhoods surrounding al-Aqsa hospital. “It is with heavy conscience that we have to evacuate while patients, hospital staff and many people seeking safety remain in the hospital premises,” Carolina Lopez, the emergency coordinator at the hospital, said.

The claim that Hamas’s military infrastructure has been destroyed in northern Gaza means Israeli troops will now focus more on the south, AP reports:

R Adm Daniel Hagari, the military spokesman, said scattered fighting in northern Gaza was to be expected, along with rockets sporadically being launched from there toward Israel. He said Hamas no longer operates in an organised manner in the area, but that militants “without a framework and without commanders” are still present. The military has said it has killed more than 8,000 Hamas fighters, without presenting evidence.

Hagari said Israeli forces would act differently in the south than they had in northern Gaza, where heavy bombardment and ground combat leveled entire neighborhoods.

He said the urban refugee camps currently being targeted by the military are packed with gunmen and that “an underground city of sprawling tunnels” was discovered underneath Khan Younis. He said the military was “applying the lessons we learned,” but did not elaborate. Echoing Israeli political leaders, he said the fighting “will continue throughout 2024”.

The Israeli military says it has completed its mission to destroy Hamas’s infrastructure in northern Gaza and has scaled back its military operations there as the offensive moves south, AP reports:

In recent weeks, Israel had already been scaling back its military assault in northern Gaza and pressing its offensive in the territory’s south, where most of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians are being squeezed into smaller areas in a humanitarian disaster while being pounded by Israeli airstrikes.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Sunday again insisted the war would not end until the objectives of eliminating Hamas, getting Israel’s hostages returned and ensuring that Gaza won’t be a threat to Israel are met.

“I say this to both our enemies and our friend,” he told his cabinet. “This is our responsibility and this is the obligation of all of us.”

If you’re just joining us, here is a quick summary of the latest in the Middle East today.

• Two journalists were killed in an Israeli air strike in southern Gaza on Sunday morning. Hamza Wael Al-Dahdouh, a journalist with Al Jazeera and Mustafa Thuria, a video stringer for AFP, were killed while travelling in a car, the health ministry and medics confirmed.

• Israeli air strikes on Sunday in the southern city of Khan Yunis and in the Rafah area near the Egyptian border, have killed dozens of civilians, including babies and children. Families have been searching for survivors in the rubble.

• At least 113 Palestinians have been killed and 250 others injured over the past 24 hours in Israeli strikes on Gaza, the health ministry said in a statement on Sunday. Sunday’s tally brings the death toll in Gaza to 22,835 Palestinians killed and 58,416 injured since 7 October, the statement added.

• The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken continues his tour of the region and is in Jordan today. Jordan’s King Abdullah used their meeting to push America to support an Israeli ceasefire. In a statement issued by the palace, he warned of the “catastrophic repercussions” of the continuation of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Blinken also met the country’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, as part of a diplomatic push to prevent Israel’s war against Hamas from spreading elsewhere in the region.

• Six people were killed early on Sunday during an Israeli airstrike in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said.

• Médecins Sans Frontières has evacuated its staff and families from Gaza’s middle area following evacuation orders issued by Israeli forces for neighbourhoods surrounding al-Aqsa hospital. “It is with heavy conscience that we have to evacuate while patients, hospital staff and many people seeking safety remain in the hospital premises,” Carolina Lopez, the emergency coordinator at al-Aqsa hospital, said.

• The US is working alongside its allies to see what can be done to protect civilians in Gaza amid Israel’s ongoing war in the strip, said Blinken on Saturday, Reuters reports. Blinken’s comments come as Israeli forces have killed more than 22,700 Palestinians across the strip since 7 October.