Live: At least 137 people killed by Israel recovered from rubble in Rafah

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a speech at the Atlantic Council that Washington has made "strategic gains" in the Middle East.

“The balance of power in the Middle East is shifting dramatically and not in the way Hamas and its backers hoped or planned,” he said, adding that Hamas has been "dismantled" and Hezbollah "ravaged".

Blinken also suggested that the Hamas-led attack on southern Israeli on 7 October aimed to derail Israel's normalisation deal with Saudi Arabia.

"The timing of Hamas' attack was no accident," Blinken said.

"Israel's growing integration in the region, the prospect of normalisation with Saudi Arabia, posed an existential threat to Hamas' power, its ambitions to dominate the Palestinian political landscape, its raison d'etre – which is the rejection of two states and the destruction of Israel."

A Gaza protester heckled US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his speech at the Atlantic Council think tank outlining the Biden administration's perceived achievements in the Middle East.

“You will forever be known as ‘secretary of genocide’; you have the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent people on your hands,” the protester shouted.

The Israeli military has said it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen earlier today, adding that shrapnel struck a house in Mevo Beitar near Jerusalem.

It added that shrapnel also fell in Tzur Hadassah, southwest of Jerusalem, and in the illegal Israeli settlement of Betar Illit in the occupied West Bank.

Israel's health ministry is preparing for the expected arrival of 33 hostages as part of the first phase of the ceasefire deal currently being negotiated between Israel and Hamas.

Dr Sharon Alroy-Preis, the head of the ministry's public health division, told Ynet News that the conditions of the latest released captives were likely to be "very different" from those freed in November 2023.

As part of the three-phase deal currently being negotiated, Israel will reportedly release 50 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for each female soldier and 30 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the remaining civilians still being held hostage.

Two Palestinians have been killed and a woman critically injured in an Israeli attack on a tent sheltering displaced people west of Nuseirat refugee camp, Wafa news agency is reporting.

Following a separate attack north of southern Gaza's Rafah, emergency teams recovered the body of a Palestinian near a mosque in Khirbat al-Adas.

Meanwhile, Israeli fighter jets bombarded the vicinity of the Farouq Mosque in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Karim Khan has called on judges to reject Israeli objections to arrest warrants issued to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant over war crimes committed in Gaza.

Khan submitted his formal response to an appeal by Israel over the Hague-based court's jurisdiction after judges issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.

In a December filing, Israel said it could investigate the allegations independently, and argued that the move was a violation of state sovereignty.

In his response to the filing, Khan said that the court does have jursidiction as the Rome Statute stipulates that the ICC can prosecute crimes that take place in the territory of the member states. While Israel is not a signatory of the statute, Palestine is.

A ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas is at its closest point, according to officials involved in negotiations in Doha. 

With expectations that an announcement is immininent, Majed al-Ansari, Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson, said that final details were being discussed on Tuesday.

“Negotiations are taking place on final details but we have ironed out the main obstacles,” he told a news conference. 

“Today we are closest to any time in the past to a deal. The situation is still fluid but we are all upbeat.”

Joe Biden, the outgoing US president, said an agreement would “free the hostages, halt the fighting, provide security to Israel and allow us to significantly surge humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians”. 

Read more: Israeli officials struggle to conceal frustrations as Gaza truce nears

Israeli authorities have issued stop-work orders on 16 residential and agricultural structures belonging to five Palestinian residents in the Ras Al-Ahmar area in the northern Jordan Valley, Wafa news agency is reporting citing a local official.

Mutaz Bsharat said that the orders cited unlicensed construction as a pretext.

The Gaza war will end, as all wars eventually do. But its repercussions and consequences will be unique, both in terms of their nature and depth.

Regardless of whether a ceasefire is imminent or how much longer the war drags on, the contours of its conclusion are already taking shape, with the image of its aftermath becoming clear.

The majority of Gaza has been destroyed to the point of being uninhabitable. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, and many more have been maimed.

The people of Gaza must endure life in the ruins of their homes, facing exposure, cold and starvation. Prolonging the war will certainly exacerbate their suffering, but it will not significantly alter the conflict’s overall trajectory.

Politically, the immediate outcomes will include Israel’s weakening of Hamas militarily, which could force the group to change its strategies. Hamas could ultimately lose control of Gaza, and it will take years to rebuild its organisational structure.

Read more: War on Gaza: What will happen after the bombs fall silent?: Opinion by Awni Almashni

Israeli forces have detained at least 35 people from across the occupied West Bank in the last 24 hours, prisoner advocacy groups have reported.

The operations were conducted across Nablus, Salfit, Jenin, Tulkarm and Hebron, the Detainees and Ex-Detainees Commission and the Palestinian Prisoners' Society said in a joint statement

According to the statement, detainees were assaulted, and their homes vandalized or destroyed.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Tuesday that a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas seems to be within reach.

"We understand how painful any agreement with the terrorist organisation Hamas is for Israel. Nevertheless, the lives of the hostages must now have top priority," said Scholz in a statement.

Reporting by Reuters

Israeli forces, aboard a gunboat, have shot and killed a Palestinian fisherman off the coast of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, according to Al Jazeera Arabic.

The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture reports that this latest killing brings the total number of fishermen killed by Israeli attacks to at least 200 since the start of the conflict.

Thousands of other fishermen have been forced to abandon their livelihoods due to Israel's ongoing assault, with Gaza’s waters becoming increasingly perilous for the local fishing community.

Medical sources reported to Al Jazeera Arabic that Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip have killed 32 Palestinians since dawn today, with 24 of the victims located in the central and southern regions of Gaza.

Two Palestinian sources involved in the Hamas-led truce negotiations told AFP that approximately 1,000 Palestinian prisoners are set to be released during the first phase of a ceasefire agreement, in exchange for 33 hostages.

“Israel will release about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, including several with long sentences,” one source confirmed.

Meanwhile, an Israeli government official, speaking anonymously, described those being freed as “several hundred terrorists,” a label often used by Israeli officials to describe Palestinian captives many of who are held for resisting the occupation.

Since the Israeli onslaught began on 7 October 2023, the death toll has risen to 46,645, with 110,012 people wounded, according to the ministry's latest figures.