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

The Saudi-based Al-Haddad media outlet reported on Sunday that Hamas and other Palestinian groups will issue a statement on Sunday evening concerning their response to the proposed captive deal formulated in Paris.

Israel's War Cabinet is also set to meet on Sunday evening.

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

Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson, Nasser Kanaani, said in a statement that the attacks were "in clear contradiction with the repeated claims of Washington and London that they do not want the expansion of war and conflict in the region".

He added that the US and UK were "fuelling chaos, disorder, insecurity and instability" by supporting Israel's war on Gaza.
 

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.

According to Haaretz, the two were released and given house arrest after an investigation.

Nikodemus Schnabel is the abbot of the Benedictine Abbey and of the Priory at the Sea of Galilee. 

The German ambassador to Israel criticised the incident on X, calling it "appalling behaviour".

Incidents involving Jews spitting on or near Christian worshippers in Jerusalem were increasingly recorded last year, suggesting that the behaviour is becoming more widespread, the report from Haaretz added.

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".

Attorney Khaled Azbarka, who represents the imams, told Haaretz that "the police have turned into the executive arm of the [government's] extremists' agenda, and are leading the country into unprecedented chaos".

Azbarka said the mosque's volume has always been the same and that bringing the religious leaders' into questioning "is an expression of a dangerous religious war which Lod's police and mayor are behind".
 

The Palestinian Ministry of Health on Sunday announced that the death toll in Gaza has climbed to 27,365 since the start of the war on 7 October. 

An additional 66,630 have also been wounded in Israeli attacks in the same time frame. 

Some 127 Palestinians were killed and 178 wounded in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.
 

Good morning Middle East Eye readers. 

Here are some of the latest developments from overnight and this morning in Gaza. 

• Israeli forces continued to attack Khan Younis and northern Gaza
• The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that 92 people were killed in overnight Israeli attacks. The figure includes at least two children.
• Israeli snipers killed one person near the al-Shifa Hospital
• Many Palestinians were left wounded following an Israeli attack near the al-Ahli al-Arab Hospital 
• Israeli shelling targeted a pharmacy near Gaza City, wounding four
• Multiple people have also been wounded in an Israeli attack near the Palestine Stadium in the al-Remal neighbourhood of Gaza.
   

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.

Britain has engaged in a third wave of "proportionate and targeted" strikes alongside its US allies against Iran-linked Houthi militants in Yemen to further degrade their capabilities, the UK government said on Saturday.

"The Royal Air Force engaged in a third wave of proportionate and targeted strikes against Houthi military targets in Yemen. We acted alongside our US allies, with the support of many international partners, in self-defence and in accordance with international law," Defence Minister Grant Shapps said in a statement.

US officials told Reuters earlier in the day that the United States had launched a series of strikes against targets in Yemen.

Britain and the US have launched coordinated strikes in Yemen this year against Houthi forces, who have been attacking shipping in the Red Sea in what they describe as acts of solidarity with the Palestinians against Israel.

That has fuelled fears that the conflict could spread to other regions in the Middle East.

"This is not an escalation. We have already successfully targeted launchers and storage sites involved in Houthi attacks, and I am confident that our latest strikes have further degraded the Houthis’ capabilities," Shapps added.

The US and Britain carried out strikes on Saturday against 36 targets linked to the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, hitting buried weapons storage facilities, missile systems, launchers and other capabilities, according to a joint statement.

Yemen's capital Sanaa, which is controlled by Houthi rebels, was hit by a series of air strikes late on Saturday, the group's television channel announced, blaming Britain and the United States.

"US and British strikes targeted sectors in the south of the capital," Al-Massirah television said, as witnesses reported major explosions in the city.

A senior Hamas official said on Saturday that a final agreement had not yet been reached over a tentative truce deal to pause the nearly four-month war with Israel in Gaza.

Hamas leaders were reviewing a proposed framework thrashed out by top officials from Israel, Qatar, Egypt and the United States, but more time was needed to "announce our position", said Osama Hamdan, a top Hamas official in Lebanon.

He told a news conference that his movement "has repeatedly said" it was "open to discussing any initiative… putting an end to this barbaric aggression against our Palestinian people".

But while Hamdan confirmed the group had received the truce proposal drafted by mediators in Paris, he said an agreement had not yet been reached and that the plan was missing some details.

"We will announce our position" soon, "based on… our desire to put an end as quickly as possible to the aggression that our people suffer", he added.

The United States launched a series of strikes against Iran-linked targets in Yemen on Saturday, two US officials told Reuters, in what appeared to be a second day of retaliatory operations following a deadly attack on American troops last weekend.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not provide further details. The United States on Friday carried out strikes in Iraq and Syria against more than 85 targets linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and militias it backs, reportedly killing nearly 40 people.

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.

The remarks, in a briefing by chief military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari that mainly discussed efforts to beat back Hezbollah attacks launched in solidarity with Hamas, were a departure from Israel's usual reticence about Syria operations.

"We are taking action. Everywhere Hezbollah is, we shall be," Hagari said.

Israeli forces have attacked 34,000 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, including 120 border surveillance outposts, 40 caches of missiles and other weaponry and more than 40 command centres, Hagari said. He put the number of enemy dead at more than 200.

The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Monday afternoon on the US strikes in Iraq and Syria, which it launched in retaliation for the death of three American soldiers, diplomatic sources told AFP.

The meeting, requested by permanent member Russia, will take place at 16:00 (21:00 GMT) on Monday, diplomatic sources said, and would discuss the attacks launched by Washington against Iran-backed groups it has accused of attacking US troops in the region.

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.

Kalin and Haniyeh discussed efforts for a ceasefire in Gaza, the Israeli hostages held in the enclave and the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, according to TRT.