Israel-Palestine live: Netanyahu rejects Hamas ceasefire proposal, vows ‘total victory’

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to visit the Middle East next week.

The State Department announced that his trip from 4 to 8 February aims to negotiate the release of hostages held by Hamas and to establish a humanitarian ceasefire.

The trip will include stops in Israel, the West Bank, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Qatar, it said.

On Friday, the US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that a Security Council resolution proposed by Algeria might risk undermining "sensitive negotiations" intended to facilitate a ceasefire in Gaza.

On Wednesday, Algeria circulated a draft among the 15-member council that calls for an immediate humanitarian truce between Israel and Hamas.

"This draft resolution could put sensitive negotiations in jeopardy- derailing the exhaustive, ongoing diplomatic efforts to secure the release of hostages and secure an extended pause that Palestinian civilians and aid workers so desperately need,” Thomas-Greenfield told reporters.

Canada is considering implementing sanctions against "extremist" settlers in the West Bank, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Friday.

This statement comes a day after the United States’ move against four Israeli men, who are alleged to have participated in acts of violence in the occupied region.

"We are looking into how to make sure that those responsible for extremist violence or extreme settler violence in the West Bank are held to account for it," Trudeau told reporters in Waterloo, Ontario.

The US is imposing fresh sanctions on suppliers to Iran's drone and ballistic missile program, and on Iranian officials suspected of involvement in hacking US infrastructure.

In a statement on Friday, the Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller said: "The United States is taking action against these individuals to respond to these harmful activities and IGC-affiliated cyber actors' recent cyber operations targeting programmable logic controllers (PLCs), in which actors used default credentials to display an anti-Israel message on the PLCs' human-machine interface."

Also on Friday, the U.S. treasury department said it had imposed sanctions on four Iranian and Hong-Kong based suppliers to Iran's ballistic missile and drone programs.

Israeli forces raided the southern town of Qasra on Friday, firing at homes and terrorizing residents, Wafa news agency reported, citing a local activist.

No injuries or detentions were reported.

The Israeli military has said that its aerial defence system intercepted a missile targeting Israeli territory over the Red Sea.

“The “Arrow” aerial defence system successfully intercepted a surface-to-surface missile that approached Israeli territory in the area of the Red Sea a short while ago,” the Israeli military said in a social media post on Friday.

Israeli media reported that the missile appears to have been launched from Yemen.

Images of the interception were circulated on X by Israeli broadcaster Channel 13.

Satellite imagery shows that 30 percent of Gaza has been destroyed or damaged, according to the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT).

"In total, a staggering 69,147 structures, equivalent to approximately 30 percent of the Gaza Strip's total structures, are affected," UNOSAT said.

The UN centre said that Gaza City and Khan Younis have seen the most significant increases in damage, with 10,280 and 11,894 damaged structures respectively, since their previous analysis on 26 November.

According to UNOSAT, an estimated 93,800 housing units have been damaged in Gaza.

Protestors in Melbourne have blockaded the factory of Australian arms manufacturer HTA, which produces parts for F-35 military jets used by Israel in its current assault on Gaza.

An Israeli advert envisioning what "Gaza without Hamas" would look like, has drawn heavy criticism online.

The advert, which ran on Hulu, featured AI-generated images of "stunning beaches" and five-star hotels, depicting what Gaza "could have been like without Hamas".

"It's this very manipulative idea that Gaza would be a paradise if it weren't for Hamas," digital disinformation expert, Marc Owen-Jones, told Al-Jazeera.

Israeli forces open fired on the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) building in Khan Younis, killing three civilians and injuring three others, including an employee.

The organisation reported that Israeli snipers continue to fire at the building which is sheltering thousands of people. 

They added that Israeli gunfire was preventing their teams from transferring wounded to the nearby Al-Amal Hospital.

This comes after PRCS reported injuires after the collapse of Al-Amal's roof amid continuous Israeli bombardment.

The society also reported critical shortages of oxygen, fuel and food, with rainwater leakage and cold weather exacebrating a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation.

Patients with kidney diseases are most at risk and unable to be transferred to other hospitals.

25 Palestinians, including a woman, an injured person and several children, have been arrested following raids by Israeli occupation forces in towns across the West Bank, according to a joint statement by the Palestinian Detainees Affairs Authority and the Palestinian Prisoner's Society (PPS).

The organisations reported that the arrests took place in the town of Baqa al-Hatab, with more detentions conducted in other governates including Jenin, Hebron, Tubas, the Northern Jordan Valley, Tulkarm, and Jerusalem.

They added that Israeli forces continue to subject detainees to harassment, beatings and threats, as well as destroy and loot their homes.

According to the statement, arrests in the West Bank have surged since 7 October.

Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official based in Beirut, has said the group is seeks the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, including those serving life sentences.

In an interview with Lebanon's LBC TV on Friday he mentioned two by name, including Marwan Barghouti, a popular Palestinian uprising leader seen as a unifying figure.

Barghouti is currently serving five life sentences for allegedly plotting attacks on Israeli targets during the Second Intifada. 

In addition to Barghouti, Hamdan named Ahmad Saadat, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Saadat is serving a 30-year sentence for his alleged role in the 2001 assassination of Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Ze'evi.

Tends of thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, to show their support for Palestinians and protest against Western attacks on Yemen, as Israel’s war on Gaza continues.

The UN's humanitarian office has described the city of Rafah as "pressure cooker of despair" after more Palestinians fled Khan Younis due to incessant Israeli air strikes and advancing Israeli troops.

"I want to emphasise our deep concern about the escalation of hostilities in Khan Younis, which has resulted in an increase in the number of internally displaced people seeking refuge in Rafah in recent days," said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

"Thousands of Palestinians have continued to flee to the south, which is already hosting over half the population of some 2.3 million people. Rafah is a pressure cooker of despair, and we fear for what comes next."

Belgium has summoned its Israeli ambassador over its bombing of Enabel, a development agency run by the Belgian government. 

"I have just summoned the Israeli ambassador to express our strong condemnation of the destruction of #Enabel offices in #Gaza," Hadja Lahbib, Belgium's minister of foreign affairs, wrote on X on Friday.

"Attacks on civilian infrastructure breach the principles of international humanitarian law. All parties must adhere to it," she added.