Netanyahu meets Witkoff and Kushner in Israel amid fragile ceasefire
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has met with Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, and adviser Jared Kushner, in Israel.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu met earlier today with special envoy Steve Witkoff and (US) President (Donald) Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner on the developments and updates in the region,” Shosh Bedrosian, spokesperson for the prime minister’s office told journalists.
She confirmed that US vice-president JD Vance and his wife were due to visit Israel “for a few days and will be meeting with the prime minister”.
Israel launched waves of deadly airstrikes on Sunday and cut off all aid into Gaza “until further notice” after a reported attack by Hamas, in escalations that marked the most serious threat so far to the fragile ceasefire in the devastated territory.
It seems as though pressure from Israel’s most powerful ally – the US – has helped ensure the agreement has not compeltely been derailed and talks about the plan’s second phase, including the disarmament of Hamas, are set to continue.
Key events
Hamas says it will hand over body of Gaza hostage on Monday evening
Hamas’ armed wing said it would hand over the remains of a hostage at 1700 GMT recovered a day earlier in Gaza. More details soon …
Netanyahu meets Witkoff and Kushner in Israel amid fragile ceasefire
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has met with Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, and adviser Jared Kushner, in Israel.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu met earlier today with special envoy Steve Witkoff and (US) President (Donald) Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner on the developments and updates in the region,” Shosh Bedrosian, spokesperson for the prime minister’s office told journalists.
She confirmed that US vice-president JD Vance and his wife were due to visit Israel “for a few days and will be meeting with the prime minister”.
Israel launched waves of deadly airstrikes on Sunday and cut off all aid into Gaza “until further notice” after a reported attack by Hamas, in escalations that marked the most serious threat so far to the fragile ceasefire in the devastated territory.
It seems as though pressure from Israel’s most powerful ally – the US – has helped ensure the agreement has not compeltely been derailed and talks about the plan’s second phase, including the disarmament of Hamas, are set to continue.
Death toll from Israeli attacks on Gaza reaches 68,216, says health ministry
Gaza’s health ministry said in its latest update that the bodies of 57 people were brought to hospitals across the territory in the last 24 hours. It said 158 people had been injured.
The health ministry says that it means at least 68,216 Palestinian people have been killed and 170,361 others injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023.
Most of the people killed in these Israeli attacks have been civilians, many of whom were women and children.
The health ministry, whose figures the UN finds credible, added in its update to Telegram:
A number of victims are still under the rubble and in the streets, where ambulance and civil defence crews are unable to reach them at this time.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner were in Israel on Monday to shore up the tenuous ceasefire that is holding in Gaza.
It comes a day after the fragile deal faced its first major flareup with Israel threatening to halt aid transfers after it said Hamas militants had killed two soldiers.
The US embassy said the two envoys had landed in Tel Aviv. The Israeli military later said it resumed enforcing the ceasefire, and the official confirmed that aid deliveries would resume on Monday.
By early afternoon, it was not immediately clear if the flow of aid had restarted.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels held a funeral Monday for their military chief of staff who was killed in a recent Israeli strike, with more than 1,000 people gathered for the ceremony in the rebel-held capital of Sana’a.
The Iranian-backed rebel group acknowledged last week that one of their senior officers, Muhammad Abdul Karim al-Ghamari, was killed in an Israeli airstrike along with other top rebel leaders.
The Houthis did not say when the strike took place but this death further escalating tensions between the rebels and Israel.
Israeli defence minister Israel Katz warned that any Hamas militants in areas of Gaza still under Israeli control must leave immediately and that anyone remaining beyond the yellow line would be targeted without warning.
Both Tehran and Paris have the necessary will to resolve the “issue” of prisoners, Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday, a week after an Iranian court gave heavy prison sentences to two French citizens.
“We are following the issue seriously. We believe both sides have the necessary will to resolve this issue,” Baghaei said when asked at a weekly press conference about the possibility of a prisoner swap.
Cecile Kohler and her partner Jacques Paris are the only two French citizens being held in Iran and have been detained since 2022.
Iran has accused France of arbitrarily detaining Mahdieh Esfandiari, an Iranian student living in the French city of Lyon who was arrested this year over anti-Israel social media posts.
Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected on Monday an assertion by US president Donald Trump that the United States has destroyed Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
“The U.S. president proudly says they bombed and destroyed Iran’s nuclear industry. Very well, keep dreaming!” Khamenei said on X.
US VP Vance to arrive in Israel on Tuesday, Israeli Airports Authority says
US vice-president JD Vance is to visit Israel on Tuesday, the country’s airport authority said in a statement on Monday announcing preparations for his arrival at Tel Aviv’s airport.
Israel Airports Authority said traffic disruptions around the airport were expected between 10.30am and 1.30pm local time and that some flights would be moved to another terminal.
Egypt to host talks in Cairo with Hamas’ chief negotiator – statement
Egypt will host talks in Cairo on Monday with Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ exiled Gaza chief, over ways to follow up on implementing the ceasefire agreement, the group said in a statement.
A Palestinian official, close to the talks, has been quoted by Reuters as saying the group’s delegation would discuss ways to push forward the formation of a technocrat body to run Gaza without Hamas representation.
Israel has not agreed to the idea in the past and insisted Hamas be defeated and disarmed.
Hamas and other allied factions reject any foreign administration of Gaza, as envisaged in Trump’s 20-point plan, and it has so far resisted calls to lay down arms, which may complicate the implementation of the deal.
Unrwa has been the major distributor of aid in Gaza and has provided education, health and other basic services to millions of Palestinian refugees across the region.
But an Israeli ban on the agency in Gaza and the occupied West Bank took effect earlier this year after Israel accused it of being infiltrated by Hamas, the Palestinian militant group. Unrwa denies this claim.
Palestinian Unrwa personnel in Gaza have continued to provide services and assistance to the civilian population and staff have done the same in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Under the terms of the first phase of Trump’s ceasefire deal, aid was meant to surge into Gaza, but humanitarian agencies have warned that aid remains scarce across the territory, with many Israeli restrictions having remained in place, throttling the supply of desperately needed assistance.
Sam Rose, acting director of Unrwa affairs in Gaza (at the UN agency for Palestinian refugees), tells BBC News that “bureaucratic constraints” are still preventing the delivery of vital supplies.
He said the volume of aid is still “way below what is needed”. At least 600 trucks are needed every day – at a minimum – to start addressing Gaza’s dire humanitarian crisis, according to the UN.
Rose said it is not just the “basics” Palestinian people need to “survive” but other forms of aid/assistance are also needed, but are not always being allowed in by Israel, including educational supplies and temporary accommodation.
“It’s not just the type of items but also the organisations that are permitted to bring those supplies in,” he told BBC News. “International NGOs – including many British NGOs – are not currently permitted to bring those supplies in.”
Here are some of the latest images being sent to us over the newswires from Gaza:
Mourners cry as they attend the funeral of Palestinian people killed in Sunday’s Israeli airstrikes, at al-Awda hospital in the central Gaza. Photograph: Mahmoud Issa/Reuters
