Israel-Palestine live: Biden urges Egypt, Qatar to press Hamas for hostage deal

Sky News reports that aid ships carrying 240 tonnes of aid for Gaza have now turned back and are returning to Cyrpus following the deadly Israeli attack on World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid workers this morning.

The WCK, one of the organisations in charge of deliveries aid to Gaza through those ships, has suspended its operations in the region following the strike.

Iranian state media said that the death toll from Monday's Israeli air strike on the country's consulate in Damascus, Syria, has risen to 13, including seven Iranian soldiers.

The Israeli strike on a World Central Kitchen (WCK) vehicle in Gaza killing seven mostly foreign aid workers has been widely denounced by governments and organisations.

Poland, which lost one of its citizens to the attack, condemned what it call a "disregard for international humanitarian law and the protection of civilians, including humanitarian workers".

The comment follows a statement from Australia's prime mi, which demanded immediate accountability as the strike also killed an Australian national.

As at least one of the victims was British, UK Foreign Minister David Cameron called on Israel to "immediately investigate and provide a full, transparent explanation of what happened".

Others such as Jordan, Egypt, Belgium, Iran, and the European Commission similarly condemned the attack and expressed their condolences.

WCK said it will pause its operations in the region following the attack. Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides, who is working with the WCK to provide aid to Gaza through a maritime route, said the international community needed to "double down" on efforts to get food into the enclave.

The Save the Children charity accused Israel of restricting the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza while Unicef spokesperson Tess Ingram said that security coordination with Israel in the Gaza Strip is not working.

“That is not functioning here in the Gaza Strip," she said. "We’ve been warning for a while that it’s not working – we’re not getting the security assurances that we need.

"It’s even worse that these people were killed just trying to deliver food to people on the precipice of famine. It’s an unspeakable loss.”

“When we entered Lebanon, there was no Hezbollah,” former Israeli leader Ehud Barak once said. “We were accepted by perfumed rice and flowers by the Shia in the south. It was our presence there that created Hezbollah.”

Indeed, Israel’s operational victory in Lebanon in August 1982 created a strategic threat: Hezbollah’s “Islamic Resistance”. The five-division-strong non-state force has shown levels of military prowess and combat effectiveness that far surpass anything the Palestinian Liberation Organisation ever approached. 

Hezbollah has fought two wars with Israel. The first, a 15-year, guerrilla-intensive conflict between 1985 and 2000, resulted in a Hezbollah victory, but with significant costs. It degraded Israel’s political will, rather than its military capabilities.  

The second war was even more surprising. Between July and August 2006, Hezbollah displayed a mastery of infantry warfare, anti-armour tactics, and cyber and information operations. It kept up rocket attacks throughout the war, despite being overwhelmingly outnumbered and outgunned.

The 2006 war ended in, at least, a draw with Israel - a military result not achieved by any Arab state force since 1948.

Today, Israel and Hezbollah seem to be heading towards a third round. But what are the military prospects if that happens?

Opinion by Omar Ashour.

READ MORE: Is Hezbollah ready for full-scale war with Israel?

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that Israel "will be punished at the hands of our brave men" for its deadly strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria.

"We will make the Zionists regret the crime of attacking the Iranian consulate in Damascus and others like it, with God’s help and strength," he said.

Gaza's health ministry said that 71 people were killed in Israeli attacks on the enclave in the past 24 hours, bringing the total death toll to 32,916 people since 7 October.

Additionally, 75,494 people have been injured since the start of the war, 102 of them in the past 24 hours.

Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said in a video statement that he spoke to World Central Kitchen (WCK) founder Jose Anders and expressed his "deepest condolences" and "sincere sorrow" to the organisation as well as "allied nations" who have been procuring aid to the Gaza Strip.

The statement comes after WCK  said that seven of its aid workers from the UK, Australia, Poland, Palestine and a dual American-Canadian national were killed by an Israeli strike on their vehicle.

“We have been reviewing the incident at the highest levels to understand the circumstances of what happened and how it happened,” he said.

Hagari said Israel will probe the "serious incident" to "reduce the risk of such an event from occurring again," though he did not directly take responsibility for the attack.

"We will get to the bottom of this and we will share our findings transparently."

Rabih Zakarna, 20, has succumbed to his wounds after being shot by Israeli forces in their raid on Qabatiya, south of Jenin last Saturday, Palestine's Wafa News Agency reported.

The same raid killed 13-year-old Motasem Nabil Abu Abed on Saturday.

According to several reports in Spanish media, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told journalist during a Middle East tour that his country will recognise Palestinian statehood by July.

Sanchez was cited by state news agency EFE and newspapers El Pais and La Vanguardia as making the remarks to the travelling press corps in Amman, Jordan on Monday.

EFE said Sanchez believes there will soon be a "critical mass" within the European Union to push several member states to adopt the same position.

The Spanish premier is currently on a trip across the Middle East, starting in Jordan before heading to Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi condemned the Israeli strike on his country's consulate in Damascus, Syria, saying the "cowardly crime will not go unanswered".

"The Zionists must know that they will not achieve their goals," he said.

Earlier today, Iran vowed to respond to the strike that killed two Iranian generals and five other officers. One of the generals was Mohammad Reza Zahedi, who reportedly led the country's elite Quds force in Lebanon and Syria until 2016.

Iran's Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, also said in a statement that "this crime will certainly not pass without the enemy receiving punishment and revenge".

Speaking to CNN, Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said their intelligence believes the building struck yesterday in Damascus was an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps building "disguised as a civilian building".

"I repeat, this is no consulate and this is no embassy," he said.

Good morning Middle East Eye readers,

Here are the latest update:

• Wafa News Agency reports that an Israeli air strike on Rafah killed four people, including two children
• The death toll from the Israeli strike on a World Central Kitchen vehicle has risen to seven as the organisation announced it is now pausing its operations in the region. Those killed were coming from Poland, Australia, the UK, Palestine, and a dual citizen of the US and Canada.
• Australian PM Anthony Albanese demanded "full accountability" for the killing of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom, while the US called on Israel to "swiftly" investigate the killing of aid workers
• Axios reports that the US told Iran it had "no involvement" in the suspected Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, which killed seven people including a top Iranian commander
• The Council on American-Islamic Relations said they saw a record rise in anti-Muslim incidents in the US in 2023 due to the Israeli war on Gaza

Good evening Middle East Eye readers,

The Palestinian health ministry said that the death toll from Israel's war on Gaza has risen to 32,845, with 63 killed over the past 24 hours.

An additional 94 people have been wounded, bringing the total to 75,392 since the start of the war.

In other developments:

• Palestinian media outlets have reported that an Israeli attack on a vehicle south of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza killed five aid workers affiliated with World Central Kitchen. 
• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hernia surgery was successful.
• Israeli air strikes targetting the Iranian consulate in Syria's capital on Monday killed at least five people, Iranian state media reported.
• The Palestinian Authority is seeking a vote by the UN Security Council within this month to grant it full membership status in the global organisation.
• Knesset passes a law to close Al Jazeera's office in Israel.

Palestinian media outlets have reported that an Israeli attack on a vehicle south of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza killed five aid workers affiliated with World Central Kitchen (WCK).

According to the reports, the organisation was coordinating with Israeli authorities preparing to receive its first aid shipment coming to Gaza via sea. Just today a ship arrived in the newly created pier by Israel and WCK was offloading it and working to distribute it.

Four of the five killed were British, Australian, Polish and Palestinian. The nationality of the fifth person is still unknown.

The Israeli military has not yet commented.

On Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had a conversation with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas where he emphasised that Washington is persistently working towards achieving a ceasefire in Gaza, according to a statement from the State Department.

"Secretary Blinken emphasised that a revitalised PA is essential to delivering results for the Palestinian people in both the West Bank and Gaza," he added.

Last week, Abbas approved a new government under the leadership of Mohammed Mustafa, his trusted economic advisor.