Middle East crisis live: Talks due over possible Lebanon ceasefire but Hamas rules out short-term Gaza truce | Middle East and north Africa

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said five civilians were killed Thursday in Israeli strikes on Syria’s Qusayr region near the border with Lebanon, where Israel said it hit Hezbollah weapons depots.

The Britain-based war monitor said the strikes targeted Qusayr, a town where Hezbollah operate. One strike targeted “a weapons depot and a fuel storage facility for Hezbollah in the industrial city of Qusayr”, killing five civilians, the Observatory said.

The other strikes targeted warehouses and bridges according to the war monitor. The Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said “weapons depots and headquarters used by” Hezbollah were hit in the Qusayr region. Adraee said the strikes sought to thwart attempts to “transfer weapons from Iran via Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon”.

“The agreements, the papers, the proposals, the numbers [UN Security Council Resolution] 1509, 1701 — all these have their place, but they are not the main thing,” he says, hours after meeting and making a similar point to top White House Middle East aides.

“The main thing is our ability and our determination to enforce security, to thwart attacks against us and to act against the arming of our enemies as much as is necessary despite all the pressures and constraints — that is the main thing.”

Turning to address Iran, the prime minister says: “The brash words of the leaders of the regime in Iran cannot cover up the fact that Israel has greater freedom of action in Iran today than ever before. We can reach anywhere in Iran as needed.”

Netanyahu adds that the fight against the Iranian axis is guided by the “total victory concept,” but he stopped short of predicting when the war would end.

In regards to the remaining hostages kept in Gaza by Hamas, the prime minister says that over half have returned home and they are working on securing safety for the rest, but says these negotiations will be kept behind the scenes.

Acute food insecurity is expected to worsen in war-stricken Sudan and nearly two dozen other countries and territories in the next six months, largely as a result of conflict and violence, an analysis by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Programme has found.

The latest edition of the twice-yearly Hunger Hotspots report, published on Thursday, provides early warnings on food crises and situations around the world where food insecurity is likely to worsen, with a focus on the most severe and deteriorating situations of acute hunger.

An 18-month conflict has driven hunger in Sudan by disrupting food systems, causing displacement, and blocking access for humanitarian support. Weather extremes, such as floods, have also played a role in worsening food insecurity…

Lebanese official media reported Israeli strikes near Baalbek on Thursday, after Israel issued evacuation warnings for the main eastern city for the second day in a row.

“Enemy aircraft launched four strikes on the village of Douris and the surroundings of the city of Baalbek,” the National News Agency said.

On 1 July 2024, the European hospital in Gaza evacuated all patients and staff. On that day I should have been shoulder to shoulder with my colleagues. I should have been tending gravely injured patients. I should have been helping them to flee. On ventilators, hooked up to IV fluids, on gurneys, in and out of consciousness and clinging to life, they had done nothing to deserve their situation, and they deserved my help.

Instead, I watched from my home in Texas and read messages from the other medics, as an overcrowded hospital transformed into a ghost town. With anguish, I witnessed the tragedy unfold from afar.

A week earlier, I had been in Jordan with the rest of my team, preparing to cross into Gaza for our humanitarian mission. However, less than 48 hours before we attempted the Rafah border crossing, the Israeli military refused my entry “due to Palestinian roots”…

It has just gone 5pm in Gaza City, Tel Aviv and Beirut. Here is a summary of the latest developments:

• Senior Hamas official Taher al-Nunu told Agence France-Press (AFP) that the group rejected the idea of a short-term pause in the fighting mooted by US and Qatari mediators. Mediators had hoped that a short pause would create a window to bring in humanitarian aid to Gaza’s desperate civilian population and to negotiate a permanent ceasefire. “The idea of a temporary pause in the war, only to resume aggression later, is something we have already expressed our position on. Hamas supports a permanent end to the war, not a temporary one,” he said.

• Senior US officials were to meet their Israeli counterparts on Thursday to discuss a possible deal to end the conflict in Lebanon and secure Israel’s northern border from Hezbollah attacks. On Wednesday, Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati expressed optimism about a ceasefire in “the coming hours or days” and Hezbollah’s new leader Naim Qassem said the group would accept a truce under certain conditions.

• A rocket barrage fired by Hezbollah at Israel’s north has killed five people, including an Israeli farmer and four Thai labourers. The incident occurred near the frontline near the border community of Metula, whose citizens largely evacuated close to a year ago and which sits in a closed military zone.

• Six Lebanese health workers were killed and four injured in Israeli strikes across south Lebanon on Thursday, the health ministry said in a statement.

• The Israeli army’s evacuation call for several areas of south Lebanon on Thursday, included a Palestinian refugee camp. It warned it was poised to hit Hezbollah targets in those areas. Among the areas listed was Rashidieh camp, which houses thousands of Palestinian refugees.

• A Lebanese security source said one person was killed on Thursday by an Israeli strike on a road where a Hezbollah van carrying munitions was hit the previous day. The drone strike hit the Araya-Kahhale road which links the capital Beirut to Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa valley, the source told AFP, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. It targeted a Mercedes vehicle, killing the driver, the source said, without identifying the victim.

• Also on Thursday, an Israeli drone strike hit a motorbike near the coastal town of Naqura, the official National News Agency (NNA) reported. Another motorbike was hit in the eastern Bekaa valley, it added.

• The United Nations children’s agency said the Israel-Hezbollah war has seen one child die a day in Lebanon over the past month. “Since October 4 of this year, at least one child has been killed and 10 injured daily,” Unicef said, adding that “the ongoing war in Lebanon is upending children’s lives”.

• Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the war effort depends on the economy ahead of Israel’s 2025 state budget. He said: “We cannot have a strong army if we have no way to finance it. Therefore, security depends on the economy, but the economy also depends on security. If there is an ability to damage our cities, our industry, then obviously our economic capacity would be affected.”

• The UN secretary general, António Guterres has warned Israel could carry out the “ethnic cleansing” of Gaza if the international community does not make a determined stand to prevent it. Guterres made his appeal at a time of mounting civilian casualties from the Israeli bombardment of northern Gaza. A strike on Tuesday in Beit Lahiya district killed at least 93 people, in what the UN said was just one of at least seven “mass casualty incidents” across Gaza in the past week.

• A surge in hostilities in the Gaza Strip has raised concerns that the “worst case scenario” of famine will materialise, UN food agencies warned on Thursday. A report by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Programme estimated that 41% of the population, or 876,000 people, will face “emergency” levels of hunger from November until the end of April.

• The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three people were killed on Thursday in Israeli strikes on Syria’s Qusayr region near the border with Lebanon, where Israel said it hit Hezbollah weapons depots. One strike targeted “a weapons depot and a fuel storage facility for Hezbollah in the industrial city of Qusayr”, killing three and injuring five others, the Syrian Observatory said. The other strikes targeted warehouses near the Lebanese border and a bridge south of Qusayr, it added.

• Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee said “weapons depots and headquarters used by” Hezbollah were hit in the Qusayr region. Adraee said the strikes sought to thwart attempts to “transfer weapons from Iran via Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon”.

• Only two doctors are still serving at the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza after raids by Israeli forces and the detention of medical staff, aid groups say. Mahmoud Shalabi, deputy director of programmes for the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, said there were only two doctors and 70 nurses working in a hospital that would usually have 500 medical staff. Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said it had confirmed its employee, orthopaedic surgeon, Mohammed Obeid, was detained during a military operation on 26 October.

• US state department officials have identified nearly 500 potential incidents of civilian harm during Israel’s military operations in Gaza involving US-furnished weapons, but have not taken further action on any of them, according to three sources, including a US official familiar with the matter.

• Israeli police said on Thursday they had arrested an Israeli couple on suspicion of spying for Iran, barely a week after two groups allegedly working for Tehran were detained. “The thwarting of Iran’s efforts to recruit Israelis continues,” said a statement from the police and Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Bet.

• The Irish peace-keeping force’s base in Lebanon has been hit by a rocket, suspected to have been fired by Hezbollah. Nobody was injured, the chief of staff of the Irish Defence Force said on Thursday after a briefing with the foreign minister, Micheál Martin. Lt Gen Sean Clancy said it had struck an unoccupied part of Camp Shamrock, 7km from the Israeli border.

• Three Palestinians were killed in Israeli military operations in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem overnight, the health ministry and an official said on Thursday. The Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry reported “two martyrs in Nur Shams camp in Tulkarem due to the occupation’s shelling”. The ministry on Wednesday evening reported another death in the area, saying “a martyr shot by the occupation arrived at Thabet Thabet Tulkarem government hospital”. The Israeli military said its soldiers had “been operating as part of a counter-terrorism operation in the area of Nur Shams” along with police and the Shin Bet security agency. On Thursday, army said in a statement that it had “eliminated the terrorist Hussam Mallah”, whom it identified as an important member of Hamas in the area.

• At least 43,204 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip, and 101,641 injured, since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said on Thursday. The toll includes 41 deaths in the previous 24 hours. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.

• Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, under pressure from US treasury secretary Janet Yellen, will sign a waiver to extend cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian banks for another month after the cabinet agreed, his spokesperson said on Thursday.

• Israel’s military said on Thursday it shot down a drone smuggling weapons from Egyptian territory to Israel on Wednesday. Israeli officials have said during the war in Gaza that Hamas used tunnels running under the border into Egypt’s Sinai region to smuggle arms. However, Egypt says it destroyed tunnel networks leading to Gaza years ago and created a buffer zone and border fortifications that prevent smuggling.

• A Palestinian student who was stripped of her student visa after remarks she made about the Israel-Gaza war has won a human rights appeal against the UK Home Office’s decision. Dana Abu Qamar, 20, came to the attention of authorities after statements made at a university demonstration on Gaza’s historical resistance to Israel’s “oppressive regime” and a subsequent interview with Sky News.

Israeli emergency services said a rocket launched from Lebanon killed two people in an olive grove in northern Israel on Thursday, bringing the day’s toll to seven dead, reports Agence France-Presse.

Medics “treated and attempted resuscitation on a 30-year-old male and a 60-year-old female, who were then pronounced dead. A 71-year-old male with mild shrapnel injuries to his limbs was evacuated,” the Magen David Adom first responders said in a statement.