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

4 February 2024 23:30 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 health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza said at least 127 people had been killed and 178 injured in Israeli strikes in the previous 24 hours in the territory. A total of 27,365 Palestinians have been killed and 66,630 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October

Battles raged in Gaza's south on Sunday ahead of another visit to the region by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a bid to secure a new truce as the Israel-Hamas war approaches its fifth month.

He is expected to begin his trip on Monday in Saudi Arabia before travelling to Israel, Egypt and Qatar. The White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said humanitarian issues in Gaza would be a top priority for Blinken during the trip.

Earlier, Sullivan said in an interview with NBC that the US "intend to take additional strikes and additional action to continue to send a clear message that the US will respond when our forces are attacked and our people are killed".

He added: "We are prepared to deal with anything that any group or any country comes at us with," he said when asked about Iran's threats that US strikes will destabilise the region.

Iran criticised US and UK strikes on Yemen, saying that it "contradicts" their statements on avoiding a wider conflict in the Middle East.

The EU's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said on Sunday that defunding Unrwa would be "both disproportionate and dangerous", adding that "such a disproportionate response would be difficult to conceive elsewhere". Funding to the UN Palestinian refugee agency has been suspended by countries including the US and UK after Israel claimed some of Unrwa's staff took part in the 7 October attack by Hamas. 

Also on Sunday, Unrwa's chief, Philippe Lazzarini, said that Israel had to date offered no evidence for its claims. Lazzarini said that he is still taking the allegations seriously and that an investigation is ongoing

Canada is set to impose sanctions on Israeli settlers who incite violence in the West Bank and introduce new sanctions on Hamas leaders, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said on Sunday, after the United States took similar action last week.

The mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, said police presence was being ramped up at places of worship and major infrastructure points following an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal headlined "Welcome to Dearborn, America's Jihad Capital", that he called "bigoted" and "Islamophobic".

Other news included:

  • A Palestinian doctor says Israeli forces in Gaza detained him when they attacked a hospital and subjected him to abuse during 45 days of captivity, including sleep deprivation and constant shackling and blindfolding before releasing him last week.
  • Two Israelis, one a 17-year-old, were arrested on Saturday evening on suspicion of spitting and cursing at a Christian abbot in Jerusalem. Video footage shared online shows the two individuals spitting at Nikodemus Schnabel near Jerusalem's Old City.
  • Israeli forces arrested two Palestinian imams in the city of Lod, known as Lydd to Palestinians, on Sunday, according to Haaretz. The imams were arrested "on suspicion of emitting especially high volume from their mosque's public address system".