Israel-Hamas war live: White House promises ‘continued flow’ of Gaza aid as Israel steps up airstrikes in north of strip | Israel-Hamas war

Harriet Sherwood

Children in Gaza are developing severe trauma symptoms alongside the risk of death and injury, according to a Palestinian psychiatrist.

On Sunday, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said 1,750 children had been killed in the 16 days of bombardment by Israeli forces since Hamas’s murderous onslaught on 7 October. That is an average of almost 110 children a day. Thousands more have been injured.

The psychological impact of the war on children was showing, said Fadel Abu Heen, a psychiatrist in Gaza. Children had “started to develop serious trauma symptoms such as convulsions, bed-wetting, fear, aggressive behaviour, nervousness, and not leaving their parents’ sides.”

The “lack of any safe place has created a general sense of fear and horror among the entire population and children are most impacted,” he said.

The White House has promised a “continued flow” of aid into Gaza, after a second convoy entered on Sunday and Israel continued to bombard the besieged enclave into the early hours of Monday.

US President Joe Biden and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed in a call that “there will now be continued flow of … critical assistance into Gaza,” the White House said, after a second convoy of 14 trucks entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing.

The UN has warned that the volume of aid entering Gaza was just 4% of the daily average before the hostilities and a fraction of what was needed with food, water, medicines and fuel stocks running out.

COGAT, the Israeli defence body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, said Sunday’s second batch of aid included water, food and medical supplies and that everything was inspected by Israel before it was brought into Gaza. Israel has not allowed any fuel to enter Gaza.

The delivery came as Israel continued to target Gaza with airstrikes, concentrating on the strip’s centre and north, Palestinian media reported, adding that areas near three hospitals were hit early on Monday.

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the conflict between Israel and Hamas with me, Helen Livingstone.

A second aid convoy of 14 trucks has entered Gaza via the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, UN aid chief Martin Griffiths has called it “a small glimmer of hope for the millions of people in dire need of humanitarian aid”. However, he added that civilians in Gaza “need more, much more”.

The White House has said that after talks between US President Joe Biden and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu there will now be a “continued flow” of aid into Gaza, although they did not specify how much.

The talks came as Israel said it was intensifying its attacks on Gaza. Military spokesperson Rear Adm Daniel Hagari said the country had increased airstrikes across the strip to hit targets that would reduce the risk to troops in the next stage of the war.

Fears of a widening war grew as Israeli warplanes also struck two airports in Syria and a mosque in the occupied West Bank allegedly used by militants while the military also returned fire into Lebanon after a drone and anti-aircraft missiles were fired into northern Israel.

In other key developments:

• The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said Israeli strikes have killed 4,741 Palestinians, with 15,898 hurt. Authorities in Gaza said 40% of those killed in the Gaza Strip were children. Israel has been launching the attacks since 7 October, when a Hamas attack inside Israel killed more than 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians.

• Palestinian media reported that Israel was also bombing the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Younis. The attacks came hours after the Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari called on Gaza’s residents to move south “for your own safety”.

• The UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) has said 29 of its workers have been killed in Gaza since 7 October.

• Doctors in the Gaza Strip say dwindling fuel supplies are putting dozens of premature babies hooked up to incubators at risk of imminent death. The UN health agency estimates there are 130 premature babies at “grave risk” while some hospitals say they are hours away from running out generator fuel.

• Israel’s military said the number of people held captive was confirmed to be 212. The release of two Americans on Friday raised hopes that others might be able to return home.

• Israel said it had returned fire into Lebanon after a drone and anti-aircraft missiles were fired into northern Israel. The country has said it plans to evacuate 14 additional communities in the area.

• Israeli fighter jets launched an airstrike on the southern outskirts of Aitaroun town, southern Lebanon, the Lebanese state media of NNA reported late Sunday.

• Israel also struck the West Bank, hitting a compound beneath a mosque early on Sunday that the Israeli military claimed was being used by Hamas.

• Benjamin Netanyahu warned Hezbollah on Sunday against opening a second war front with Israel. He said: “If Hezbollah decides to enter the war, it will long for the second Lebanon war. It will be making the mistake of its life. We will strike it with strength that it cannot even imagine and the significance to it and to the country of Lebanon will be devastating.”

• Speaking to soldiers near the blue line UN-drawn boundary that separates Israel and Lebanon, Netanyahu said: “I know that you lost friends, and it’s a very difficult thing, but we are in the fight of our life, a fight for our home. That’s not an exaggeration, it’s not an overstatement, that’s this war. It is kill or be killed, and they need to be killed.”

• US secretary of state Antony Blinken and defense secretary Lloyd Austin said the US expected the Israel-Hamas war to escalate through involvement by proxies of Iran. “We don’t want escalation,” Blinken said. “We don’t want to see our forces or our personnel come under fire. But if that happens, we’re ready for it.”

• Joe Biden held a call on Sunday with the leaders of Canada, France, Britain, Germany and Italy to discuss the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, the White House said.

• Benjamin Netanyahu said that French President Emmanuel Macron and Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte will visit Israel. The Israeli prime minister’s office said in a statement that the two leaders “will arrive on Monday and Tuesday” and meet with Netanyahu.

• Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, will visit Tehran on Monday.

• Palestinian Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian discussed the means of stopping the Israeli “brutal crimes” in the besieged Gaza enclave, the group said in a statement late Sunday.

• Turkey sent its presidential plane with a medical team and supplies to Egypt on Sunday, carrying humanitarian aid for Gaza.

• Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, said on Sunday he had “no idea” how many people died in a blast at an Anglican hospital in the Gaza Strip, and that assuming Israeli culpability could be tantamount to antisemitic libel.

• Thousands of people gathered in Berlin and London to oppose antisemitism and support Israel on Sunday. “It is unbearable that Jews are living in fear again today – in our country of all places,” German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the crowd at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, estimated at 20,000 by organisers and 10,000 by police.

• Thousands of people attended a rally in Paris in the first pro-Palestinian demonstration allowed by police since the 7 October Hamas attacks. About 15,000 people showed up at the Place de la Republique, according to police figures, to express their solidarity with Palestinians.