Live Blog Update| Israel's genocide in Gaza
This is an entry from: Israel-Palestine live: Netanyahu rejects Hamas ceasefire proposal, vows ‘total victory’

Evening recap

3 February 2024 23:45 GMT

Middle East Eye's live coverage of the war on Gaza will shortly be closing for the evening.

Here is a summary of the day's main developments.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health on Saturday announced that the death toll in Gaza had reached 27,238 since the start of the war on 7 October. An additional 66,452 people have also been wounded in Israeli attacks in the same time frame. 

The US and UK launched a new series of strikes against Iran-linked Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday, in what appeared to be a second day of retaliatory operations following a deadly attack on American troops last weekend. The strikes were carried out against 36 targets linked to the Houthis, hitting buried weapons storage facilities, missile systems, launchers and other capabilities, according to a joint statement.

On Friday, US forces had attacked more than 85 targets in Iraq and Syria in a wide-ranging air assault on sites belonging to Iran-linked militias and Tehran’s Revolutionary Guard.

On Saturday, Iraq’s foreign ministry summoned the US charge d’affaires to Baghdad, with Iraq’s government spokesperson, Bassem al-Awadi, calling the air strikes a "blatant aggression".

The Syrian foreign ministry said that "what [the US has] committed has served to fuel conflict in the Middle East in a very dangerous way, while Hamas described it as a "dangerous escalation" and "an encroachment on the sovereignty of the two countries". Russia’s foreign ministry, meanwhile, said: “It is obvious that the air strikes are deliberately designed to further inflame the conflict."

Syria's culture ministry condemned the US strikes, saying they had damaged a historic site in Deir Ezzor province in the country's east.

The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Monday afternoon on the US strikes in Iraq and Syria.

The US House of Representatives plans to vote next week to advance $17.6bn in military aid to Israel, according to Mike Johnson, the chamber’s speaker.

Other key developments included:

  • The Israeli military said on Saturday that since the outbreak of the Gaza war on 7 October it had struck more than 50 targets in Syria linked to the Iranian-backed Lebanese movement Hezbollah.
  • Turkey's National Intelligence Agency chief Ibrahim Kalin met Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Qatar's capital, Doha, Turkish state broadcaster TRT said on Saturday.
  • The Qatari foreign ministry said that Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, on Saturday met with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to discuss the war on Gaza and funding cuts to the UN relief agency there, Unrwa.