Israel-Gaza war live: Blinken urges Israel and Hamas to take ceasefire deal as fresh strikes reported in Rafah | Israel-Gaza war

Benny Gantz said he made it clear to the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, in their phone call yesterday that he views returning hostages as a “priority on the war’s timeline”.

Gantz – part of the Israeli war cabinet, alongside prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant – said Israel will do “whatever is necessary” to achieve this goal.

Gantz, considered by some as a centrist, is a leading rival who joined Netanyahu’s emergency unity government after the 7 October Hamas attacks, in which about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed, with a further 250 taken hostage (about 100 were released in a week-long ceasefire in November).

Gantz has said he will resign if the prime minister does not commit to a “day after” plan for Gaza by 8 June.

Netanyahu is under increasing pressure from his military and intelligence chiefs, as well as the centrist members of his war cabinet, to accept a ceasefire and hostage release deal.

Emma Graham-Harrison

Aid shipments into southern Gaza are being squeezed out by commercial convoys, humanitarian organisations say, at a time when Israel’s military push into Rafah has choked off supply routes critical to feeding hundreds of thousands of people.

Deliveries of food, medicine and other aid into Gaza fell by two-thirds after Israel began its ground operation on 7 May, UN figures show. But overall the number of trucks entering Gaza rose in May compared with April, according to Israeli officials.

Part of the reason for the stark difference in accounts of what supplies reached the strip is a rise in commercial shipments.

In May, the Israeli military lifted a ban on the sale of food to Gaza from Israel and the occupied West Bank, Reuters reported last week. Traders got the green light to resume buying fresh fruit and vegetables, dairy and other goods.

Inside Gaza, residents say there is more food in markets, but prices are many times higher than prewar levels, and after months of fighting and displacement few people can afford to buy much.

A group of aid agencies warned this week that there was a “mirage of improved access”, when efforts to feed Palestinians were on the verge of collapse.

“While Kerem Shalom remains officially open, commercial trucks have been prioritised, and the movement of aid remains unpredictable, inconsistent and critically low,” a group of 20 aid agencies warned this week.

Israel’s foreign ministry has recommended that Israeli citizens not travel to the Maldives after its government banned the entry of visitors with Israeli passports.

The recommendation, the Israeli ministry said, includes Israelis with dual citizenship.

“For Israeli citizens already in the country, it is recommended to consider leaving, because if they find themselves in distress for any reason, it will be difficult for us to assist,” the ministry said in a statement.

President Mohamed Muizzu made the decision after a recommendation from the cabinet, a statement from his office said.

“The Cabinet decision includes amending necessary laws to prevent Israeli passport holders from entering the Maldives and establishing a Cabinet subcommittee to oversee these efforts,” the statement added.

Opposition parties and government allies in the Maldives have been putting pressure on Muizzu to ban Israelis, as a sign of protest against the Gaza war.

Muizzu also announced a national fundraising campaign called “Maldivians in Solidarity with Palestine”.

The Maldives, a tiny Islamic republic of more than 1,000 strategically located coral islets, had lifted a previous ban on Israeli tourists in the early 1990s and moved to restore relations in 2010.

However, normalisation attempts were scuttled after the toppling of then president Mohamed Nasheed in February 2012.

It’s just gone past 9:30am in Gaza and Tel Aviv. Welcome to our latest live coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza and the wider Middle East crisis. I’m Yohannes Lowe and I’ll be with you for the next while.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is urging Israel and Hamas to agree a ceasefire and hostage deal, as fresh strikes were reported in Rafah overnight and into Monday morning.

Blinken called Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz and the country’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, to discuss the deal, the state department said in a pair of statements Sunday night.

In the calls, Blinken “commended” Israel on the proposal and “emphasised that Hamas should take the deal without delay”.

Hamas has said it “views positively” what US president, Joe Biden, described as an Israeli proposal.

Meanwhile, fighting has continued with Israel’s military reporting airstrikes and ground combat on Sunday, reports Agence France-presse (AFP).

Gaza’s European hospital reported on Sunday evening that three people were injured in a strike on a neighbourhood in northern Rafah, while eyewitnesses reported multiple injuries and deaths in a strike early Monday on a home west of the city.

Witnesses said Israeli Apache helicopters struck central Rafah on Sunday, while the Palestinian Red Crescent said it was “very difficult” to access the city because of the Israeli bombardment.

Here is a summary of the latest other developments:

• White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Sunday that if Hamas agrees to the deal to end the Gaza war, the US expects Israel to also accept the plan. “This was an Israeli proposal. We have every expectation that if Hamas agrees to the proposal … then Israel would say yes,” Kirby said in an interview with ABC News’ This Week programme. “We’re waiting for an official response from Hamas,” he added.

• An aide to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed on Sunday that Israel had accepted a framework deal for winding down the war on Gaza now being advanced by US president Joe Biden, though he described it as flawed and in need of much more work. In an interview with The Sunday Times, Ophir Falk, chief foreign policy adviser to Netanyahu, said Biden’s proposal was “a deal we agreed to … it’s not a good deal but we dearly want the hostages released, all of them”.

• Two far-right Israeli ministers have threatened to quit prime minister Benjamin Netanyhau’s government if he goes ahead with a ceasefire and hostage-release deal outlined by Joe Biden. The US president said on Friday that Israel had offered a new roadmap towards a full ceasefire including the release of hostages held by Hamas militants in Gaza.

• The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, said on Sunday that all 36 of its shelters in Rafah “are now empty”, after at least a million people have fled the city. “The humanitarian space continues to shrink”, Unrwa said, adding that about 1.7 million people were now sheltering in southern Gaza’s main city of Khan Younis and in central areas.

• In the besieged territory’s north, Israeli helicopters fired at Gaza City’s Zeitun and Sabra areas, AFP reporters said. A hospital medic said three people were killed when an airstrike hit a family apartment in Gaza City’s Daraj district. And in central Gaza, shelling hit areas of Deir al-Balah and the Bureij and Nuseirat refugee camps, witnesses said.

• Ten civilians were killed after Israeli warplanes targeted two homes on the Nuseirat refugee camp and the adjacent Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, reported.

• The body of an Israeli who went missing during the 7 October Hamas attack, and was presumed to be among hostages taken to the Gaza Strip, has been located in the border village where he had lived, Israeli media said on Monday.
  Israel’s military confirmed the identification of Dolev Yehud’s remains, saying this required lengthy forensics. It said he was killed by Hamas during the attack in kibbutz Nir Oz, many of whose residents died.

• Israeli airstrikes around the Syrian city of Aleppo killed several people early on Monday, Syrian state media reported. The state-run SANA news agency gave no specific toll. It said the strikes were around the south-eastern edge of Aleppo. Israel did not immediately acknowledge the strikes and rarely does when it comes to Syria.

• Iran’s hard-line former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has registered as a possible candidate for the presidential election, seeking to regain the country’s top political position after a helicopter crash killed the nation’s president. The populist former leader’s registration puts pressure on supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Associated Press reported. In office, Ahmadinejad openly challenged the 85-year-old cleric, and his attempt to run in 2021 was barred by authorities.