Israel-Palestine live: Israel and Palestinians agree to truce, hostage deal

Middle East Eye contributor Mohammed al-Hajjar is currently in the west of Gaza City, at the heart of heavy fighting. He describes the current situation in the past few moments: 

Clashes renewed in the western section of Gaza City on Tuesday after a brief lull, in the Sheikh Radwan and Nasser neighbourhoods (located around 1km east of al-Shifa hospital).

Very close heavy artillery can be heard by residents trapped in their homes. There's also sounds of explosion from gunshots periodically.

Shelling can be heard targeting apartments in high rise residential buildings. Shrapnel flies everywhere, with some of it entering into people's homes.

Streets are empty and there's no movement. We can only hope no one is wounded because no ambulance vehicles are able to evacuate people.

There's no communication with civil defence workers or anyone else. 

The US and UK have imposed sanctions aimed at Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), targeting leaders and financiers of the groups.

"The United States will continue to work with our partners, including the UK, to deny Hamas the ability to raise and use funds to carry out its atrocities," Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement on Tuesday.

"Hamas’s actions have caused immense suffering and shown that terrorism does not occur in isolation. Together with our partners we are decisively moving to degrade Hamas’s financial infrastructure, cut them off from outside funding, and block the new funding channels they seek to finance their heinous acts."

Mahmoud Khaled Zahhar, a senior official Hamas, was among those sanctioned by Washington, as well as PIJ's representative to Iran, its Damascus-based deputy secretary general, and the leader of its military wing. 

Lebanon-based money exchange company Nabil Chouman & Co was also targeted, along with its owner and founder.

The US Treasury accused the company of having transferred tens of millions of dollars to Hamas.

The move freezes any US assets of those sanctioned, and generally bars any Americans from dealing with them.

The UK government confirmed it had added six new designations to its counter-terrorism sanctions list on Tuesday, including four individuals linked to Hamas. 

Less than four percent of Jewish Israelis trust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the most reliable source of information on the war, according to a new survey. 

The study was carried out by Bar Ilan University, polling 505 Jewish Israelis at the end of the first month of the conflict. 

Among right-wing voters, trust in Netanyahu was also low compared to other sources of information, at just 6.63 percent. 

That was in contrast to Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari, who was chosen as the most reliable source of information by 73.7 percent of respondents. 

The respondents were largely dissatisfied with Israeli news outlets, with 73 percent turning to Telegram since the start of the war. 

Hospitals and medical facilities have been caught in the crossfire during Israel's war in Gaza - both literally and in the clashing narratives over the conflict.

Palestinian officials have said a staggering 22 hospitals and 49 medical centres have completely stopped working because of air strikes and Israel's decision to suspend all fuel and electricity supplies to the strip since 9 October.

With Gaza's biggest hospital, al-Shifa, surrounded by Israeli tanks, leaving the fate of thousands of people trapped inside unknown, questions have arisen about the unprecedented focus on hospitals in the current war.

Middle East Eye reporter Nader Durgham has spoken to experts on the legality of Israel's attacks on medical facilities. 

Read more: How and why did Gaza hospitals become primary targets?

Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Tuesday he backs a proposal by Knesset members Ram Ben Barak and Danny Danon for the “voluntary migration” of Palestinians.

In an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, Barak and Danan had called for “countries of the world” to accept an influx of refugees from Gaza. 

The finance minister and de facto governor of the occupied West Bank hailed the proposition as the “only solution” for the 2.3 million population of the besieged strip, who have become “a symbol of the ambition of exterminating the state of Israel”.

“The majority of Gaza's population is the fourth and fifth generation of the '48 refugees,” Smotrich wrote in a Facebook post, referring to the Nakba in 1948, when Zionist militias forcibly expelled more than 700,000 Palestinians from historic Palestine and prohibited them and their descendants from ever returning.

“Who instead of being rehabilitated … like hundreds of millions of refugees around the world, were held hostages in Gaza in poverty.”

Read more: Far-right minister calls for 'voluntary migration' of Palestinians

Turkey's foreign minister has said that Israel's targeting of hospitals and schools in Gaza amounted to an "open violation of international law", a Turkish diplomatic source told Reuters.

Hakan Fidan made the comments during a phone call to his Australian counterpart on Tuesday.

Fidan also stressed the urgency of achieving a full ceasefire as soon as possible and the need for unhindered access of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, the source added.

Thousands of people in Chile have shown support for Palestine by waving flags during a music festival in Santiago. 

Chile is estimated to be home to around 500,000 Palestinians.

Over 100 bodies at al-Shifa hospital will be buried within the compound without Israeli approval because the accumulation has caused an acute sanitary crisis, sources at the hospital have told Reuters. 

"We are planning to bury them today in a mass grave inside the Al Shifa medical complex. It is going to be very dangerous as we don't have any cover or protection from the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross), but we have no other options, the corpses of the martyrs began to decompose," said Palestinian health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra. "The men are digging right now as we speak."

The hospital is completely under siege with no one able to go in or out. Intense fighting is taking place just metres away from the facility.

Without cover from the ICRC, Palestinian medics fear they may be shot by Israeli snipers if they attempt to bury bodies.

Ahmad Mukhallati, a senior surgeon at the hospital, said the bodies were generating an unbearable stench and posing a risk of infection.

"Unfortunately there is no approval from the Israelis to even bury the bodies within the hospital area," he said.

"Today ... civilians started digging within the hospital to try and bury the bodies on their own responsibility without any arrangements by the Israeli side.

"Burying 120 bodies needs a lot of equipment, it can't be by hand efforts and by single person efforts. It will take hours and hours to be able to bury all these bodies."

Mukhallati told Middle East Eye on Monday that al-Shifa could no longer help its patients after running out of electricity, water, food and fuel.

Heavy rainfall has descended on the besieged Gaza Strip, causing flooding in some areas and miserable conditions for displaced Palestinians. 

In southern Gaza, where many displaced Palestinians are now living in temporary accomodation, the rain has seeped through their tents, soaking belongings and causing makeshift beds to become damp. 

People are also struggling to stay warm in the cold conditions, with little to no source of heating due to the cutting of electricity and scarce levels of fuel. 

There are also fears that those trapped under the rubble from Israeli bombardment may face the risk of drowning. 

The Palestinian health ministry has said that there were no objections to having babies evacuated from al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, but there was no mechanism for an evacuation to take place.

"We have no objection to have the babies moved to any hospital, in Egypt, the West Bank or even to the [Israeli] occupation hospitals. What we care most is about the wellbeing and the lives of those babies," spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said on Tuesday. 

The comments came after Israel said it was coordinating the transfer of incubators into the besieged enclave. 

Incubators for premature babies have been switched off in al-Shifa - the largest hospital in Gaza - after the facility ran out of electricity.

On Monday, a senior doctor at the hospital told MEE that five premature babies had died and others were at risk of imminent death. 

"Unfortunately, this situation means that we are waiting for them to die one by one," said Ahmad Mukhallati, the head of the plastic surgery department at al-Shifa, adding that five premature babies had already died in recent days. 

"[The babies] have to be fully isolated from the surrounding areas so they don't get any infection as their immunity is not mature yet," he said.

But because of the blackout, the infants have been moved to normal beds - conditions in which they cannot survive.

The death toll of Palestinians killed by an Israeli raid on the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm has risen to seven, according to medics. 

Israeli forces used snipers, bulldozers and drones in an operation that lasted over 12 hours. 

At least 32 Palestinians have been killed in Tulkarm since 7 October, and 195 across the whole of the occupied West Bank.

Israeli forces detained 28 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem on Tuesday morning, according to Wafa news agency. 

The arrests came on the same day that six Palestinians were killed during an Israeli raid on the West Bank city of Tulkarm.

Three of them were killed by a drone strike, while others were shot dead in Tulkarm refugee camp. 

Twelve others were wounded during the raid according to the Palestinian ministry of health, including four in critical condition. 

A Palestinian man has been shot dead by Israeli forces near the village of Beit Einun, in the occupied West Bank governorate of Hebron. 

Mohammad Abd al-Majid al-Halayqa, 20, was shot late on Monday night after he allegedly attempted to stab an Israeli soldier, according to the Israeli military. 

Medics were prevented from reaching Halayqa, leaving him to bleed out, Wafa news agency reported. 

It added that his body was being held by Israeli authorities. 

Human Rights Watch has called for Israel’s “repeated, apparently unlawful attacks on medical facilities, personnel, and transport” to be investigated as war crimes.

In a statement on Tuesday, the organisation rejected Israel’s claim that hospitals are legitimate military targets because they house Hamas fighters, adding that even if true Israel has failed to demonstrate that the attacks are proportionate or follow international laws of war.

“No evidence put forward would justify depriving hospitals and ambulances of their protected status under international humanitarian law,” HRW said.

“The Israeli government should immediately end unlawful attacks on hospitals, ambulances, and other civilian objects, as well as its total blockade of the Gaza Strip, which amounts to the war crime of collective punishment,” HRW added.