Summary of the day …
A large number of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza, with estimates of the number killed ranging from 40 to 80. Associated Press, citing local medics, reported that 22 children were among those killed
The intense bombardment came as Donald Trump continued his Middle East visit and follows a brief pause in Israel’s ongoing offensive to allow the release by Hamas of the 21-year-old Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander
Trump met with Syria’s president Ahmed al-Sharaa, and urged his country to join the Abraham Accords and normalise relations with Israel, which has repeated carried out airstrikes on Syria since al-Sharaa came to power
Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused France’s president Emmanuel Macron of standing with Hamas. The comments came after Macron described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “shameful”
Israeli military issued evacuation orders for three ports in Yemen, claiming they were being used by the Houthi. The IDF also claimed to have intercepted a missile fired at Israel from Houthi territory
The health ministry in Gaza said 90% of residents of the territory were suffering water insecurity
Libya’s government has announced a ceasefire after the country, following years of relative calm, plunged into chaos for three days sparked by Monday’s killing of the head of one of Libya’s most powerful militias
Media in Lebanon reports that an Israeli drone targeted a car in the country’s southern Nabatieh region
The UK prime minister Keir Starmer has said he “fundamentally” believes that the “pathway to a two-state solution is the only way for settled and lasting peace in the Middle East”
Water insecurity issues impacting majority of residents in Gaza
Gaza’s health ministry has reported that 90% of residents of the strip are facing water insecurity, with more than 25% of water samples now being contaminated. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, earlier reported similar figures, saying that 75% of families in the Gaza Strip have faced difficulty accessing water in the last month.
Al Jazeera is now reporting that the death toll in Gaza from Israeli attacks since dawn on Wednesday has reached 80.
Earlier the Associated Press reported, citing local medics, that at least 22 children were among those killed in the Israeli bombardment. The Guardian has not independently verified the figures.
Al Jazeera is also carrying a quote from Hamas. The group accused Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government of “rushing to escalate the aggression and massacres against civilians”, but said the tactic would “bring Netanyahu no form of victory.”
Al Jazeera has been banned from operating inside Israel by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Here are some of the latest images from Jabalia in Gaza, which was targeted by Israeli airstrikes earlier today. Palestinians have been waiting to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen there.
Lorenzo Tondo is a foreign correspondent, and has this update on the situation in Libya
Libya’s government has announced a ceasefire after the country, following years of relative calm, plunged into chaos for three days sparked by Monday’s killing of the head of one of Libya’s most powerful militias.
His death triggered armed clashes in Tripoli, resulting in at least six casualties, although the death toll is expected to rise. The fighting has been described as the worst seen in the capital for years.
Clashes broke out late on Monday after the killing of Abdel Ghani al-Kikli, better known as Gheniwa, the commander of the Stability Support Apparatus (SSA), one of Tripoli’s most formidable armed groups. He had been accused of abusing asylum seekers and faced allegations of crimes against humanity.
Monday’s violence appeared to consolidate the power of Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah, prime minister of the divided country’s Government of National Unity (GNU) and an ally of Turkey. According to sources within the government, Dbeibah on Tuesday ordered the dismantling of what he described as “irregular armed groups.”
That announcement followed the sudden defeat of the SSA by factions aligned with Dbeibah. The seizure of SSA territory in Tripoli by the Dbeibah-allied 444 and 111 Brigades signalled a major concentration of power in the fragmented capital, leaving the Rada Special Deterrence Force as the last significant faction not closely tied to the prime minister.
The consequences of this latest development in the country remain unclear. What is certain, however, is that Libya is the focal point of the Mediterranean migration crisis, serving as a major transit hub for asylum seekers bound for Europe.
For years, human-rights organisations have documented how migrants trapped in Libya are at the mercy of militias and smugglers. Tens of thousands of people from sub-Saharan Africa are held indefinitely in overcrowded detention centres, where they are subjected to abuses and torture. Such abuses have not prevented countries such as Italy from forging agreements with Tripoli to stem the flow of migrants.
Germany’s president Frank-Walter Steinmeier is in Israel today on a visit marking the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. He has visited kibbutz Be’eri alongside Israel’s president Isaac Herzog. The kibbutz was a target of Hamas during the 7 October 2023 surprise attack inside southern Israel.
As part of the visit the two men jointly planted an olive tree.
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This image from an undisclosed location near Israel’s border with Gaza shows multiple Israeli military vehicles gathered.
Earlier an Israeli government spokesperson said that Israel was intending to increase the military pressure on Hamas “exponentially”.
Reuters is carrying a quote from Hadi Moqbel, who lost relatives in Israel’s attack on Jabalia in Gaza today. They told the news agency “They fired two rockets, they told us the house of Moqbel (had been hit). We came running, we saw body parts on the ground, children killed, the woman killed and a baby killed – his head was exploded like a flower. He was two months old.”
The Guardian has not independently verified the account, however new wires are carrying multiple images showing Palestinian children killed by the strikes today. The Associated Press reported earlier, citing local sources, that 22 children were among those killed.
A little context for Benjamin Netanyahu accusing Emmanuel Macron of standing with Hamas. Yesterday the French president was interviewed on the television channel TF1, and had this to say about the situation in Gaza:
It’s terrible … there’s no water, there are no medicines. They can no longer evacuate the injured. I saw all the aid that France and other countries sent, and it was blocked by the Israelis. And I say this – what the Netanyahu government is doing today is unacceptable
On 7 October, there was a terrorist attack of the worst scale against the Israeli people, launched by Hamas. We condemned it forcefully. We have recognised Israel’s right to defend itself, but as a democracy.
Macron added “What he’s doing is shameful.”
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Netanyahu says Macron 'standing with Hamas' after French president calls Israel's Gaza policy 'shameful'
The Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused French president Emmanuel Macron of standing with Hamas after Macron said Israel’s policy in Gaza was “shameful”.
Netanyahu said Israel was sticking to its war aims of securing the release of its hostages, defeating Hamas and ensuring Gaza poses no threat to Israel.
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Donald Trump has said new Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa will recognise Israel once his country is “straightened up”, the Associated Press reports. There has been no confirmation from Syria.
The UK prime minister Keir Starmer has said he “fundamentally” believes that the “pathway to a two-state solution is the only way for settled and lasting peace in the Middle East”.
During weekly questioning in parliament, Starmer was asked whether he would “act now and pick up the phone to President Trump for a joint plan to recognise Palestine and get food, water and medicine into Gaza?” The question was posed by the Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey, who also said: “Rather than ending this crisis, the [Benjamin] Netanyahu government is planning to seize all Gaza indefinitely.”
Starmer replied that “the situation in Gaza is simply intolerable and getting worse”.
He added: “We are working with other leaders urgently to bring about rapid and unimpeded flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza which is desperately needed, obviously alongside the release of hostages, and to get back to a ceasefire.
“And that work is going on through my team 24/7. I do believe that that is the initial action that needs to be taken but I still fundamentally believe that however remote it may seem at the moment, the pathway to a two-state solution is the only way for settled and lasting peace in the Middle East, and we will continue with our allies to pursue that path.”
Donald Trump has denied claims Israel has been sidelined during his trip to the Middle East. The US president said that good US relations with Gulf countries would be good for Israel.
“This is good for Israel,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “Having a relationship like I have with these countries ... I think it’s very good for Israel.”
The IDF has said it carried out a drone strike in southern Lebanon’s Qaaqaait al-Jisr earlier today (see post here). Israeli media are reporting that the strike killed the head of Hezbollah’s forces in the Qabrikha area.
The Guardian has not confirmed this information.
Dozens killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza, including many women and children
Reuters, citing local medics, is reporting more details of this morning’s attacks on Gaza by Israel. Al Jazeera reported that at least 60 people had been killed.
Medics said most of the dead, including women and children, were killed in a barrage of Israeli airstrikes that targeted houses in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza.
“Some victims are still on the road and under the rubble where rescue and civil emergency teams can’t reach (them),” the health ministry statement said.
Reuters reports Israel’s military had no immediate comment.
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Palestinian news agency Wafa is reporting 70 people have been killed and “dozens of injuries have arrived at hospitals since dawn today” as a result of Israeli airstrikes.
The Hamas-led health ministry in Gaza has issued updated casualty figures, putting the total death toll in Gaza from the Israeli assault at 52,928 since 7 October 2023. It claims that 2,799 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the resumption of fighting on 18 March. Israel launched the assault after the surprise attack by Hamas inside southern Israel during which over 1,000 people
Figures issued by the health ministry in Gaza have not distinguished between combatants and non-combatants, and have not been independently verified by journalists.
Media in Lebanon reports that an Israeli drone targeted a car in the country’s southern Nabatieh region.
William Christou in Beirut has this report on Donald Trump’s latest round of diplomacy in the Middle East, where the US president has urged Syria to join the Abraham Accords and normalise its relations with Syria.
My colleague Tom Ambrose has been following events on Trump’s Middle East trip in our US politics live blog today.
The exact death toll in Gaza this morning from Israeli strikes remains unclear, with different sources quoting different figures. Al Jazeera has put the number of dead as at least 65, Reuters is reporting at least 50 Palestinians killed, and Associated Press is reporting that at least 22 children are among those killed. These are some of the latest photos sent from Gaza over the newswires.
A White House spokesperson has said that in their meeting, US president Donald Trump urged Syria’s president Ahmed al-Sharaa to sign up to the Abraham Accords, which would normalise Syria’s relations with Israel.
In recent months Israel has repeatedly carried out airstrikes inside Syria, and staged an incursion into Syrian territory near the disputed Golan Heights, which Israel seized and occupied in 1967.
Associated Press, citing local hospitals, reports that at least 22 children were killed in Gaza overnight Tuesday and early Wednesday by Israeli airstrikes.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met online with US president Donald Trump, Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa, Reuters reports, citing Turkey’s state-owned Anadolu news agency.
Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme in the UK, the BBC News international editor Jeremy Bowen said that his assessment would be that Israel’s military campaign had left Hamas “broken as a coherent military organization”, but that Israel faced years of insurgency ahead.
He told listeners:
What has happened now is that instead of that coherent military organization, there is an insurgency going on against the Israelis. And insurgency history shows very clearly that will go on as long as there are mostly young men who are prepared to take, often, light weapons and move against the people they see as their invaders, oppressors and occupiers.
Bowen also reflected on criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu’s tactics within Israel, telling listeners that critics say a lengthy war “would quite suit him”.
Bowen said the criticism is that “he wants to prolong the war, not to make Israel safer, not to get the hostages back. In fact, hostage families are absolutely appalled that they’re talking about a new offensive there, but because when the war goes on, he keeps his hard, ultra nationalist right wing happy, and therefore he stays in power.
“He puts off the day of reckoning about his part in security failures leading to 7 October, and also then the emphasis will go back on to his corruption trial, which could end up with him serving a jail sentence, if he’s found guilty.”
Al Jazeera has updated the latest casualty figures from Gaza, citing local medical sources. It reports “At least 65 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since the early hours of this morning.”
Al Jazeera has been banned from operating inside Israel by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
In another portion of an interview on BBC radio in the UK, Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer sought to put some distance between Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy on Gaza and statements made by ministers in his coalition government.
It was put to Mencer that defense minister Israel Katz has previously said a food blockade on Gaza was the main lever to use against Hamas, while finance minister Bezalel Smotrich had said Gaza would be “entirely destroyed.”
Radio 4 Today programme presenter Nick Robinson asked Mencer “Can you say this morning, on behalf of the Israeli prime minister, for whom you speak, that the starvation of people in Gaza is not deliberate policy by Israel to win the war?”
Mencer said that if that was the case, why would Israel have sent aid into Gaza, then continued, saying:
I’m speaking on behalf of the prime minister. We are a broad government. There are many members of the government, but the prime minister, as the name suggests, it is led by Benjamin Netanyahu. He sets policy.
And I can share with you that Israel faces a moral paradox right now. It’s been created by Hamas. We have an opportunity to strike every military target, but when we do, we get condemned, you know, or we don’t strike them, and we reward the use of human shields.
Hamas are deliberately embedding its commanders underneath hospitals, knowing that any Israeli airstrike, however legal and precise, will generate headlines, as they have on your programme today, which they can weaponise. It’s a test textbook case of asymmetric warfare. The IDF is punished for acting, and Hamas is rewarding for hiding.
Updated
Israeli government spokesperson: military pressure on Hamas will increase 'exponentially'
An Israeli government spokesperson has said Israel will increase military pressure on Hamas “exponentially” in order to secure the release of hostages still held in Gaza.
David Mencer said that Israeli negotiators were working on Doha to try to agree the Witkoff framework for a deal with Hamas, but “unfortunately, the terror organization has refused to accept it.”
Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Mencer said:
Now look this Witkoff proposal is a phased deal. It means that Hamas must release hostages.
But the reason why we have put this military threat, and the reason why our hostage was released over the last couple of days was because we put this military threat on to Hamas now.
Hamas, who are a genocidal death cult … they don’t care about their own civilians. They only wish more Gazans were killed.
Hamas hate to lose ground. They hate to lose physical ground. When Hamas stopped releasing hostages, we created a plan to increase the pressure, and it will increase exponentially.
Now we have called up tens of thousands of our soldiers precisely to put pressure on Hamas to release our hostages. This war will end. I’ll tell you when it will end when Hamas are no longer in power.
During often terse exchanges with presenter Nick Robinson, Mencer also sought to cast doubt on any reporting coming out of Gaza. He claimed “many of these so called journalists in Gaza are Hamas operatives simply wearing press vests,” and asserted that “real journalists enter with the IDF.”
Mencer also claimed that plenty of aid had been sent to Gaza, saying Israel had sent enough food aid to fill Wembley Stadium in London to the brim 80 times over.
US president Donald Trump will meet Syria’s president Ahmed al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, after the sudden announcement the US would lift all sanctions on the Islamist-led government that has replaced the Bashar al-Assad regime.
Sharaa is a former al-Qaida commander who led troops that seized control of Syria from Assad in December. Sharaa renounced ties to al-Qaida in 2016.
Dozens reported killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza, including on hospital in Khan Younis
Al Jazeera reports that at least 60 people have been killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza on Wednesday morning. It cited local medical sources.
Strikes hit the European hospital complex near Khan Younis and left large craters gouged into the ground and cracks in the courtyard outside the European Hospital complex, images from the AFP news agency show. A damaged bus was lodged in a hole in the road.
“Everyone inside the hospital – patients and wounded alike – was running in fear, some on crutches, others screaming for their children, while others were being dragged on beds,” Amro Tabash, a local photojournalist, told AFP.
Israeli media reported that the target of the strikes on the European Hospital complex was Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar, brother of the group’s previous leader, Yahya Sinwar, who was killed in an Israeli operation in October 2024. Israel’s military claimed to have hit what it called a “Hamas command centre” beneath the hospital.
Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using hospitals and other civilian buildings as operational bases, which Hamas has denied.
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Welcome and opening summary …
Good morning from London, and welcome to the Guardian’s rolling coverage of the conflict in the Middle East. Here are the latest headlines …
Israel’s military has issued evacuation warnings to three seaports in Yemen including Ras Issa, Hodeidah and Salif, claiming they are being used by the Houthi. Earlier the IDF said it had intercepted a missile aimed at Israel from Yemen’s territory
Al Jazeera reports that at least 60 people have been killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza on Wednesday morning, according to medical sources in the area. Strikes hit the European hospital complex near Khan Younis
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports a 17-year-old has been shot and wounded by Israeli security forces in Abwein in the occupied West Bank
US president Donald Trump will meet Syria’s president Ahmed al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday before heading to Qatar
Israel issues evacuation orders for three ports in Yemen
The Israeli military issued warnings on Wednesday to evacuate three seaports in Yemen including Ras Issa, Hodeidah and Salif, Reuters reports.
The army claimed the ports were being used by the Iran-aligned Houthi group.
The Israeli military said on Wednesday that it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen towards its territory.
US president Donald Trump has previously said that the US and Yemen’s Houthis had come to a ceasefire agreement which would stop attacks on shipping in the region, however the Houthis said they will continue to fire missiles and drones towards Israel.
