Middle East crisis: Palestinian foreign ministry accuses Israeli government of ‘blind revenge’ – as it happened

• Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, confirmed on Sunday he would launch an offensive into the southern city of Rafah despite growing international concern over the fate of Palestinian civilians sheltering there. Netanyahu was quoted by AFP as saying that “no amount of international pressure will stop us from realising all the goals of the war”. Netanyahu’s office has said the Israeli army was preparing “operational issues” and the evacuation of the civilian population from Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, where more than a million people displaced from elsewhere in the territory have sought shelter.

• Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, warned that an Israeli assault on Rafah would make regional peace “very difficult”, after talks with Jordanian King Abdullah. This is one of the main arguments he will bring to talks with Netanyahu later on Sunday during his trip to the region, he said. “Israel has every right to protect itself. At the same time, it cannot be that those in Gaza who fled to Rafah are directly threatened by whatever military actions and operations are undertaken there,” the German leader said.

• Benjamin Netanyahu responded to a call by Chuck Schumer, the US Senate leader and ally of Joe Biden, for Israel to hold new elections. On Thursday, Schumer said he believed Netanyahu “has lost his way by allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel”. The Israeli prime minister responded on Sunday, saying that a pause in fighting to allow for elections to take place would paralyse the country for months. He said: “If we stop the war now, before all of its goals are achieved, this means that Israel will have lost the war, and this we will not allow. Therefore, we cannot, and will not, succumb to this pressure.” Netanyahu told CNN that he believed the Schumer intervention was “totally inappropriate”.

• The Palestinian foreign ministry has said that Benjamin Netanyahu’s “continuous threats” to invade Rafah, where about half of Gaza’s 2.3 million population have sought refuge, “pose a blatant challenge to the international and American consensus on protecting civilians”. It said in a statement on X that “blind revenge dominates the Israeli government and threatens the security and stability of the region and the world”.

• Trucks of flour have reached northern Gaza for distribution to areas that have had no aid in four months, Palestinian media reported on Sunday. A convoy of 12 trucks arrived in the north of the enclave on Saturday – six in Gaza City and six in the Jabalia refugee camp – carrying supplies to also be distributed to the northernmost areas of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, according to reports.

• There have been no medical evacuations from northern Gaza for more than a month so severely injured people are trapped in damaged hospitals where they cannot get adequate treatment, Cadus, a leading medical charity, warned.

• An Israeli strike overnight killed 12 people in one house in Deir al-Balah in the centre of the tiny, crowded Gaza Strip, the health ministry said.

• At least 31,645 Palestinians have been killed and 73,676 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

• Israeli airstrikes hit several sites in southern Syria on Sunday morning, injuring a soldier, Syrian state media reported, according to the Associated Press. State news agency Sana, citing an unnamed military official, said air defences shot down some of the missiles, which came from the direction of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The strikes led to “material losses” and the injuring of a soldier, the statement said earlier.

A source familiar with the truce talks in Qatar has told Reuters the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency would join the delegation attending the negotiations with Qatari, Egyptian and US mediators.

Hamas presented a new ceasefire proposal last week including an exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners. Israel’s security cabinet is to meet to discuss it before the delegation leaves.

Netanyahu has already said the proposal was based on “unrealistic demands”, but a Palestinian official familiar with mediation efforts said chances for a deal looked better with Hamas having given more details on the proposed prisoner swap.

“The mediators felt positive about Hamas’ new proposal. Some in Israel felt the group made some improvement on its previous position and it is now in the hands of Netanyahu alone to say whether an agreement is imminent,” the official said.

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

View image in fullscreen

View image in fullscreen

View image in fullscreen

The Palestinian foreign ministry has said that Benjamin Netanyahu’s “continuous threats” to invade Rafah, where about half of Gaza’s 2.3 million population have sought refuge, “pose a blatant challenge to the international and American consensus on protecting civilians”.

It said in a statement on X that “blind revenge dominates the Israeli government and threatens the security and stability of the region and the world”.

The statement was posted after Netanyahu earlier dismissed international pressure by saying he would launch an offensive in Rafah (see earlier post at 11.21 for more details).

In a further quote from Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as part of an interview with US news channel CNN, he says the Schumer intervention was “totally inappropriate”:

I think what he said is totally inappropriate. It’s inappropriate to go to a sister democracy and try to replace the elected leadership there.

Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader and the highest-ranking Jewish official in the United States, last week called for Israel to hold new elections, in comments that upset its ruling party and allies on Capitol Hill.

He said he had a longstanding relationship with Netanyahu but believed he “has lost his way by allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel”.

Republican congressman Michael McCaul, who leads the House of Representatives foreign relations committee, criticised Schumer’s remarks, comparing them to an effort to topple Israel’s government.

“You don’t talk about toppling a government in a democracy,” McCaul told Fox News Sunday, calling Schumer’s remarks “very inappropriate” and “embarrassing”.

The US president, Joe Biden, said on Friday that Schumer’s comments echoed the concerns of many Americans, describing the remarks as a “good speech”.

White House spokesperson John Kirby said on Sunday that Biden believed it was up to Israel to make its own decisions about internal politics.

“We respect the sovereignty of the Israeli people,” Kirby told Fox News Sunday. “The president believes it’s up to the Israeli people and the Israeli government to determine if and when there’s going to be new elections.”

Netanyahu has responded to a call by Chuck Schumer, the US Senate leader and ally of Joe Biden, for Israel to hold new elections.

On Thursday, Schumer said he believed Netanyahu “has lost his way by allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel”.

The Israeli prime minister responded on Sunday, saying that a pause in fighting to allow for elections to take place would paralyse the country for months:

If we stop the war now, before all of its goals are achieved, this means that Israel will have lost the war, and this we will not allow. Therefore, we cannot, and will not, succumb to this pressure …

No international pressure will stop us from realising all of the goals of the war: Eliminating Hamas, freeing all of our hostages and ensuring that Gaza never again constitutes a threat to Israel.”

Polls show that any election now would result in a loss of power for Netanyahu.

Reuters has some quotes from Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking at a cabinet meeting on Sunday.

Netanyahu confirmed earlier that Israel would push into Rafah, the last relatively safe place in the tiny, crowded Gaza enclave after more than five months of war.

“We will operate in Rafah. This will take several weeks, and it will happen,” he said, without clarifying if he meant the assault would last for weeks or would begin in weeks.

Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has warned that an Israeli assault on Rafah would make regional peace “very difficult”, Reuters reports.

This is one of the main arguments he will bring to talks with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, later on Sunday during his trip to the region, he said.

“Right now, it is about ensuring we come to a long-lasting ceasefire,” Scholz said after talks with Jordanian King Abdullah at his private residence in the Jordanian Red Sea port of Aqaba.

“That would enable us to prevent such a ground offensive from taking place.”

Asked if he was prepared to exert pressure on Netanyahu to stop such an assault, Scholz said it was “very clear we must do everything so the situation does not get worse than it already is”.

“Israel has every right to protect itself. At the same time, it cannot be that those in Gaza who fled to Rafah are directly threatened by whatever military actions and operations are undertaken there.”

Israel – which on Friday approved a plan to attack Rafah – says the city is one of the last strongholds of Hamas, which it has pledged to eliminate, and that residents will be evacuated.

The US president, Joe Biden, and officials with the UN, however, have warned that an Israeli military ground offensive in Rafah, where over 1 million Palestinians are sheltering, would lead to a “bloodbath”.

In a post on X, Scholz also said on Sunday that he wants to see a much larger amount of aid being delivered via land routes, a topic he said he would raise when speaking with Netanyahu in Jerusalem later today.

• Trucks of flour have reached northern Gaza for distribution to areas that have had no aid in four months, Palestinian media reported on Sunday. A convoy of 12 trucks arrived in the north of the enclave on Saturday – six in Gaza City and six in the Jabalia refugee camp – carrying supplies to also be distributed to the northernmost areas of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, according to reports.

• There have been no medical evacuations from northern Gaza for more than a month so severely injured people are trapped in damaged hospitals where they cannot get adequate treatment, Cadus, a leading medical charity, warned.

• Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said Israel’s allies have a short memory regarding Hamas’ 7 October attack, and that Israel would push on with its Gaza offensive, including in the city of Rafah, despite growing international pressure not to. “To our friends in the international community I say: is your memory so short? So quickly you forgot about Oct. 7, the worst massacre committed against Jews since the Holocaust?” Netanyahu said at the start of his cabinet meeting. “So quickly you are ready to deny Israel the right to defend itself against the monsters of Hamas?” Netanyahu’s office has said the Israeli army was preparing “operational issues” and the evacuation of the civilian population from Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, where more than a million people displaced from elsewhere in the territory have sought shelter.

• An Israeli strike overnight killed 12 people in one house in Deir al-Balah in the centre of the tiny, crowded Gaza Strip, the health ministry said.

• At least 31,645 Palestinians have been killed and 73,676 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

• Israeli airstrikes hit several sites in southern Syria on Sunday morning, injuring a soldier, Syrian state media reported, according to the Associated Press. State news agency Sana, citing an unnamed military official, said air defences shot down some of the missiles, which came from the direction of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The strikes led to “material losses” and the injuring of a soldier, the statement said.

Trucks of flour have reached northern Gaza for distribution to areas that have had no aid in four months, Palestinian media reported on Sunday.

A convoy of 12 trucks arrived in the north of the enclave on Saturday – six in Gaza City and six in the Jabalia refugee camp – carrying supplies to also be distributed to the northernmost areas of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, according to reports.

The news come after aid agencies warned that pockets of Gaza already face famine, with hospitals in the north reporting children dying of malnutrition and dehydration.

Israel, which has been urged to facilitate greater access of humanitarian aid into Gaza, has previously blamed failures by aid agencies for delays and accuses Hamas of diverting aid. Hamas denies this and says Israel uses hunger as a weapon in its war.

View image in fullscreen

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said Israel’s allies have a short memory regarding Hamas’ 7 October attack, and that Israel would push on with its Gaza offensive, including in the city of Rafah, despite growing international pressure not to.

“To our friends in the international community I say: is your memory so short? So quickly you forgot about Oct. 7, the worst massacre committed against Jews since the Holocaust?” Netanyahu said at the start of his cabinet meeting.

“So quickly you are ready to deny Israel the right to defend itself against the monsters of Hamas?”

Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza, launched a surprise attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing more than 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostages back into the Palestinian territory.

Netanyahu’s office has said the Israeli army was preparing “operational issues” and the evacuation of the civilian population from Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, where more than a million people displaced from elsewhere in the territory have sought shelter.

Officials in Israel have repeatedly said destroying any remaining Hamas forces in Rafah is essential to achieving their war aims.

Any attack on Rafah is likely to cause more civilian casualties and worsen an already acute humanitarian crisis across Gaza.

Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said on Sunday after talks with Jordanian King Abdullah in Jordan that the large number of civilian casualties that would result from such an assault would make regional peace “very difficult”.