Qatar cautiously optimistic as Israel and Hamas continue ceasefire talks

We are about to close this live page, so here is a look at the latest developments we saw today as the Israel-Gaza war continues into its seventh month:

• Qatar foreign ministry has told the BBC it's cautiously optimistic about a new proposal in the Gaza ceasefire talks - but there are conflicting reports in the regional media about the progress being made in Cairo
• Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday evening that a day had been set for an Israeli offensive in Rafah, where 600,000 children are sheltering
• International pressure has been growing on Israel not to go into Rafah without a plan in place to protect civilians in the city
• Meanwhile, on Monday, Palestinians began returning to Khan Younis after Israel announced a major withdrawal from the war-torn city

• Israel has stressed a "significant force" will remain in the north with the military move out of Khan Younis described as tactical

• The White House has described the withdrawal as a "rest and refit" for the Israeli army with US National Security spokesman John Kirby alluding to troops being "tired"
• Displaced residents have told the BBC about their return to the shattered southern city with one Gazan saying there was "hardly anything left"

Every day, Sham and her family wait anxiously for two words from relatives left in Gaza: "We're OK".

The 16-year-old, from Gaza, lives in London and says, since war broke out, 42 members of her family have been killed in the Strip.

As for her surviving relatives, Sham waits daily for news that they're still alive.

But "that's all we get", she tells BBC Asian Network.

"We can't ask them more questions because they don't have any internet to answer us."

Sham is trying to continue life as normal while studying for her GCSEs, but says the conflict is making that difficult.

"Before the war, I studied every day," she says. "After October I stopped, because of what's going on. I can't focus."

As talks resume between Israel and Hamas, with the aim of securing a ceasefire, Sham is hopeful for peace.

"I just want the war to stop," she says.

BBCCopyright: BBC

We have more voices now from some of the 600,000 children currently sheltering in Rafah.

The Israeli military previously told people from other parts of Gaza to evacuate to Rafah, declaring it a safe zone, but is now planning to enter the city, saying an offensive there is necessary to eliminate Hamas.

Ten-year-old Sara Amer, originally from Gaza City, told BBC Arabic she and the other children live each day “scared from every missile”.

“This war is the toughest war we have witnessed. We want the war to completely stop,” she said.

She shared her fears of the anticipated military offensive in the city she currently calls home.

“If they [Israeli forces] enter, we will go through tough days and won’t be able to go anywhere because all of the places are bombarded.

"There is not even a single area to set a tent.”

EPACopyright: EPA

The United Nations Security Council has referred the Palestinian Authority's application to become a full member of the UN to the committee on the admission of new members.

The Ambassador to the UN for Malta, which is presiding over the Security Council for April, proposed that the committee meet on Monday at 15:00 local time (20:00 GMT) to consider the application.

It is extremely unlikely that the Palestinian Authority's application will be successful, as it requires at least nine votes in favour and no vetoes from any of the Security Council's five permanent members, which are the United States, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom.

Benjamin Netanyahu says a date has been set for an Israeli offensive in Rafah, according to Reuters news agency.

The Israeli prime minister did not say when the invasion would take place.

"Today I received a detailed report on the talks in Cairo, we are constantly working to achieve our goals, first and foremost the release of all our hostages and achieving a complete victory over Hamas," Netanyahu said.

"This victory requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there. It will happen - there is a date," Netanyahu added.

The Israeli military previously told people from everywhere else in Gaza to evacuate to Rafah, which is on the border with Egypt, declaring it a safe zone.

Pressure has been growing on Israeli from the international community and the United States not to invade the city without a specific plan as to how to keep the civilians there safe. 600,000 children are currently sheltering in Rafah.

Let's return now to the ceasefire talks. A few moments ago we heard from the White House, which said that negotiators had presented a hostage release proposal to Hamas.

"At the end of the weekend, a proposal was submitted to Hamas. And now it's going to be up to Hamas to come through," White House security advisor John Kirby said on a call to reporters on Monday, according to news agencies.

Kirby added that the Hamas was currently reviewing the proposal, and that it included a ceasefire of around six weeks.

He said that William Burns, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), was in Egypt over the weekend to help in those negotiations.

Kirby also said that the there was no sign of a major ground operation in Rafah at the moment and that no new date had yet been set for talks with Israel on the matter.

Israel is facing a renewed call to allow international journalists into Gaza.

In an open letter, the Foreign Press Association (FPA) said it was "alarmed that six months into the Israel-Hamas war, Israel continues to bar international reporters from entering any part of the Gaza Strip independently".

Since the 7 October attacks, civilian access to Gaza has been blocked, and almost the only journalists able to enter the territory have been those embedded with the Israeli military.

Palestinian journalists and media workers have reported from inside Gaza since the start of the war, but dozens have been killed, injured or gone missing, and they have been hampered by the conditions in the Strip.

The FPA said the "blanket ban has limited the world's ability to witness the true cost of the war to all sides" and raised "questions about what Israel does not want international journalists to see”.

The association previously filed a petition to Israel's Supreme Court requesting immediate access for international media to Gaza, but in January the court rejected the petition, saying the restrictions were justified on security grounds.

"The decision whether to be on the ground in Gaza should be up to each individual international media outlet," the FPA said today.

"Six months is far too long."

Ahmed - not his real name - has told the BBC he was shocked by the scale of damage in Khan Younis upon his return.

Speaking to BBC Arabic, he said: "I do not know how to describe the extent of the massive destruction.

"Its landmarks have completely changed."

He described the scene in his hometown as one of "horror" and "disaster".

Ahmed told the BBC that he had been hoping to go back to his house and retrieve his belongings, but said the streets "have been completely erased".

"The places, which were known to us before the war, cannot be recognised now."

A man in Khan Younis has told the BBC that the southern Gaza city is in "a state of complete destruction".

As Israeli forces retreat, residents have been returning to find destroyed homes and shattered infrastructure.

Speaking to BBC Arabic about his family's return to the city, the man says his son was shocked to see the ruins everywhere, asking him: “Where is our house, father?”

He describes Khan Younis as "uninhabitable", adding: "The infrastructure has been completely destroyed, and even animals cannot find anything to eat."

"I used to weigh 80 kilos, and now I weigh 55 kilos. Show a little bit of mercy on us, people."

EPACopyright: EPA

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has said he believes Israel is “at an appropriate moment" to secure the release of hostages from Gaza.

"The relentless pressure on Hamas and the position of strength from which we come into this campaign, allow us flexibility and freedom of action,” he said during an address to a group of newly-drafted soldiers, according to the AFP news agency.

Talks towards a deal for a temporary ceasefire continue in Egypt via Egyptian and Qatari mediators.

"There will be difficult decisions and we will be ready to pay the price in order to get the hostages back, and then return to fighting,” Gallant said.

We’ve been hearing throughout the day from some of the 600,000 children currently sheltering in the southern city of Rafah.

The Israeli military previously told people from other parts of Gaza to evacuate to Rafah, declaring it a safe zone, but it now appears to be considering entering the city, saying an offensive is necessary to eliminate Hamas.

Mahmoud Ibrahim Radwan, 12, told BBC Arabic that he left some of his family in northern Gaza in order to travel south, but that he now wants to go back.

“They tell us to evacuate… and after we [leave], they bombard leaving no house standing,” he said.

“When the bombardment is near us, we keep moving from one tent to another. When we go back to our tent, we find it ruined.

“They say Rafah is safe [but] if they enter Rafah, we will die here. We want a ceasefire. We want the firing to stop and go back to our family in the north.

“Even if we don’t have money we will stay in a tent in front of our homes and sleep.”

Returning Palestinians have described the scene in Khan Younis as if the city had been hit by an earthquake. Many have found their homes reduced to rubble.

Gaza's second city was the focus of Israeli troops for months. It said it believed that the Hamas leadership was hiding out there. Israel says it did all it could to protect civilians. But the casualties were high and hundreds of thousands were displaced.

One Palestinian told the BBC, though, that he would rather live in a tent above the rubble of his home than be displaced or forced into exile.

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

A security analyst has said the withdrawal of Israeli military from Khan Younis could make any ground offensive in Rafah less "contentious".

Justin Crump, chief executive of the defence and intelligence company Sibylline, told the BBC's World at One programme the withdrawal could alleviate the "pressure cooker of humanitarian problems" in Rafah.

"[The Israelis] moving away from Khan Younis and other places allows, if you like, some of the population pressure to disperse from Rafah - and will actually make Israeli operations there both less contentious and arguably easier in the coming weeks."

Israel has long warned of a planned ground offensive in the southern city of Rafah, where more than a million displaced Palestinians are sheltering, in order to rout out Hamas units it says are based there.

Crump said he believed Israel had not "given up on Rafah" and its planned offensive, with forces likely to be recuperating and mulling their next stage of operations.

Qatar Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed Mohammed al-Ansari has just told the BBC that a new proposal in the ceasefire talks may bridge the long-standing gap between the two opposing sides.

He tells me Qatar is encouraged by the recent proposal, adding: “if you ask me if I’m more optimistic today than I was a couple of days ago, I would say, yes.”

The Qatari spokesman says in a BBC News interview that Israel and Hamas were looking closely at the latest offer.

Al-Ansari, who is also an advisor to Qatar’s prime minister, says a myriad of proposals were now on the negotiating table, including a new American proposal.

He says pressure from the US would always be instrumental in the success of any talks. He did not go into details about the talks, but says he is hopeful they would soon reach agreement on the first phase of a three-phase ceasefire plan- with the first phase mainly focusing on humanitarian issues.

"We are by no means at the last stretch of the talks,” Al-Ansari cautions.

He adds that Qatar was encouraged by the increased entry of aid into Gaza, but it is still nowhere near what is needed.

We're now getting some images of the striking scenes from Khan Younis today.

Here, a selection of photos show the scale of the damage across the city as former residents return to find homes and amenities flattened.

AFPCopyright: AFP

AFPCopyright: AFP

AFPCopyright: AFP

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

A joint naval mission from European Union member states has thwarted 11 attacks on civilian ships in the Red Sea since the end of February.

"In less than two months since the operation was launched, the operation has escorted 68 vessels and has repelled 11 attacks," Josep Borrell, the EU's head of foreign policy, has said on Monday.

Naval vessels participating in the mission are providing armed escorts to commercial ships navigating the Red Sea amid attacks by Yemen's Houthi militants.

"Our ships have shot down nine unmanned aerial vehicles, one unmanned surface vessel, and four anti-ship ballistic missiles," says operation commander Rear Admiral Vasileios Gryparis.

It comes as the cost of shipping a container from China to Europe doubled - with commercial ships travelling between Europe and Asia forced to take a longer route to avoid Houthi attacks, Borrell says.

As a reminder, the Houthis - an Iranian-backed rebel group - responded to the war in the Gaza Strip by firing drones and missiles towards Israel, who they consider an enemy.

• Read more: Who are the Houthis and why are they attacking Red Sea ships?

Downing Street has said that "the government is completely united" in its position on the Israel-Hamas war.

The prime minister's official spokesperson denied there were splits in opinion between the prime minister, his deputy prime minister and the foreign secretary following statements and interviews over the weekend.

The spokesperson told reporters in a regular media briefing that "the government is completely united on this matter. The prime minister set out his position clearly in the statement that he put out on Sunday."

He added "we continue to support Israel's right to self-defence and the UK was obviously shocked by the attacks made by Hamas. As a result we completely stand by Israel's right to their security."

On the issue of UK arms sales to Israel, the spokesperson said, "we will always look to see these decisions are explained" but added that would only happen "while respecting the convention we don't publish legal advice on these issues".

He said UK supplies accounted for only 0.02% of Israel's overall arms imports and added "we have one of the most robust arms export regimes in the world".