Gaza live: Several dead including Hezbollah commander after Israeli strike on southern Beirut

The Israeli military and the Shin Bet, Israel's internal intelligence agency, said that a commander in Hamas' elite Nukhba force was among the eight people killed in an air strike near Gaza City's al-Ahli hospital.

The army says Ahmed Fawzi Nasser Muhammad Wadiyya led Hamas' invasion of Netiv Ha’asara on 7 October.

The military says the seven others who were killed were members of Hamas' Daraj Tuffal Battalion in the Gaza City Brigade.

UK Secretary of State for Defence John Healey said his country's suspension of 30 of its 350 arms export licences to Israel will not affect the latter's ability to defend itself.

"It will not have a material impact on Israel’s security," he told the Times Radio on Tuesday.

Israeli settlers have stormed occupied East Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque complex with police protection, Palestine's Wafa news agency reports.

The agency says police forces are spread out around the complex.

Israeli settlers have stepped up their raids into the holy site in recent months, with the support of far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

Ben Gvir entered the mosque in July and proclaimed that Jews could pray there, in breach of a long-standing status quo regarding the area.

The move was widely condemned by the international community.

In its latest humanitarian situation update, the UN’s humanitarian affairs office (Ocha) said that 184 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip between Thursday and Monday, with 369 injured.

One of the incidents saw the killing of three children and two women, one of whom was pregnant, in a Nuseirat attack that killed nine people.

Seven members of the same family were killed in Gaza City's Sabra neighbourhood when Israeli forces hit a house in the area.

Good morning Middle East Eye readers,

Here are the latest updates:

• An Israeli attack on Palestinians queuing for bread in Jabalia, northern Gaza, has killed eight people, Al Jazeera reports
• An Israeli sniper shot and killed a Palestinian child in Tulkarm, occupied West Bank, and injured his father as Israeli forces continue their operations in the area
• As of Tuesday morning, 160,000 children in Gaza have been vaccinated against polio. The intended goal is to vaccinate 600,000 children
• Israel's envoy to the UN said the Security Council will hold an official discussion on Israeli captives held by Hamas on Wednesday
• A source familiar with Gaza ceasefire negotiations told CNN that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "torpedoed everything" in his Monday speech
• Dozens of Israeli protesters were arrested after police clashed with them during their rallies to demand a Gaza ceasefire and captive exchange deal

Our live coverage from Gaza will shortly be closing until tomorrow morning.

Here are some of the day's key developments:

• US President Joe Biden told reporters on Monday that he did not think Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not doing enough to secure a hostage deal with Hamas

• A Palestinian man killed by Israeli forces in Jenin was handed over received by paramedics with "torture marks" found on his body

• Hundreds of Israeli protesters calling for a deal to release captives in Gaza have marched towards Israel's defence headquarters in Tel Aviv

• Five people, including a child, have been killed in Israeli air strikes on Nuseirat and Jabalia refugee camps

• Britain will suspend 30 out of the 350 arms export licences it has with Israel, in light of concerns that such equipment might be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law

• Israeli troops handed the body of a 58-year-old Palestinian man, Ayman Rajeh Abed, to Palestinian health authorities on Monday

• Israeli troops will remain in the Philadelphi corridor on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Monday

• Rising cases of Hepatitis A in Gaza are raising concerns among experts about the risk of more severe epidemics in the enclave

Kamala Harris has been tight-lipped about how she would approach US foreign policy challenges in the Middle East. Her interview on CNN last week, intended to be a media debut, touched on the only crisis in the region that can’t be ignored.

“I’m unequivocal and unwavering in my commitment to Israel’s defence and its ability to defend itself,” Harris said when asked about Israel’s war in Gaza, before adding that “far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed”.

While Harris isn’t talking much about the Middle East, campaign insiders and Biden administration officials are already circling in the wings, whispering names that could fill out positions handling Middle East files in a Harris administration.

Ironically, despite Harris’s guarded position on the Middle East, one thread that unites many insiders who could make her potential administration is their previous work on the failed 2013-2014 Israeli-Palestine peace talks.

“For the Middle East, think John Kerry 2.0 and people who made their bones during the Israel-Palestine peace negotiations,” a former senior member of the Obama administration told Middle East Eye, referring to the US secretary of state from 2013-2017.

The views of Harris’s likely national security adviser, Phil Gordon, have already been well documented in profiles that reveal a sceptic of the US’s ability to change regimes in the Middle East.

READ MORE: What a Kamala Harris Middle East policy team could look like

Two oil tankers, the Saudi-flagged Amjad and Panama-flagged Blue Lagoon I, were attacked on Monday in the Red Sea off Yemen, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Late on Monday, the Houthis claimed responsibility for targeting the Blue Lagoon with multiple missiles and drones, but did not make any mention of the Saudi tanker.

The sources said the ships were sailing near each other when they were hit but were able to continue their journeys with no major damage assessed or any casualties.

The spokesperson for Hamas’ armed wing the Qassam Brigades, Abu Obeida, announced on Monday that the group has issued new instructions to guards on how to handle hostages if Israeli forces approach their locations in Gaza, but did not give further details.

On Sunday, the Israeli military reported the recovery of the bodies of six hostages from a tunnel in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, claiming that Hamas was responsible for their deaths. Obeida said Hamas holds Israel responsible for the deaths.

The new instructions, Obeida said, were given to guards of hostages after a rescue operation by Israel in June when Israeli forces freed four hostages in a deadly raid in which dozens of Palestinians, including women and children, were killed.

Israeli troops will remain in the Philadelphi corridor on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Monday.

Disagreement over who should control the buffer zone is one of the main sticking points in reaching a deal to end the fighting in Gaza and return hostages.

"The axis of evil needs the Philadelphi corridor, and for that reason we must control the Philadelphi corridor," Netanyahu told a news conference in Jerusalem.

Israeli troops handed the body of a 58-year-old Palestinian man, Ayman Rajeh Abed, to Palestinian health authorities on Monday.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said it had received the body of Abed from the village of Kafr Dan, just outside Jenin, after he was arrested around dawn on Monday. The director of Jenin’s Wissam Bakr hospital said the body bore signs of beatings and torture.

The Israeli military said Abed had been detained during counterterrorism operations and experienced a “cardiac event” on arrival at a detention facility. He was given initial treatment by medical staff from the military, before being evacuated to the hospital in Jenin.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Monday that he is “deeply disheartened” by the UK’s decision to suspend 30 out of the 350 arms export licences it has with Israel. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said that the move “sends a very problematic message” to Hamas and Iran.

Britain will immediately suspend 30 out of the 350 arms export licences it has with Israel, in light of concerns that such equipment might be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law, UK Foreign Minister David Lammy announced on Monday.

"It is with regret that I inform the House [of Commons, lower house of parliament] today the assessment I have received leaves me unable to conclude anything other than that for certain UK arms exports to Israel, there does exist a clear risk that they might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law," Lammy told parliament.

The suspensions on arms export licences were not a blanket ban, nor an arms embargo, he added.

Five people, including a child, have been killed in Israeli air strikes on Nuseirat and Jabalia refugee camps, Wafa news agency is reporting.

Citing local sources, the agency said that Israeli forces targeted a group of civilians northwest of Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, killing two people, including a child.

Israeli fighter jets also shelled a group of civilians near al-Fakhoura school in Jabalia camp in northern Gaza, killing one person and wounding others.

Furthermore, the agency reported that two bodies and several injured people arrived at the Sheikh Radwan clinic in northern Gaza City following an attack on a home in the Tuffah neighbourhood, east of Gaza City.

US President Joe Biden told reporters on Monday that he did not think Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not doing enough to secure a hostage deal with Hamas.

He added that the US was "very close" to presenting a final deal to both sides this week.

Reporting by Reuters