23:00 Israel has given Hamas a proposal through the mediators that includes up to two months of a pause in the fighting for the release of all remaining captives held in Gaza, Axios reported on Monday citing two Israeli officials.
The two officials said the Israeli war cabinet approved ten days ago the parameters of a new proposal for a captives deal, which are different from past aspects of deals rejected by Hamas and more forward-leaning than previous Israeli proposals.
According to Axios report, the deal would include the release of all remaining captives in two phases.
The first phase would see the release of women, men over the age of 60 years old and who are in critical medical condition.
The next phases would include the release of female soldiers, men under the age of 60 who are not soldiers, Israeli male soldiers and the bodies of captives.
Israel is waiting for a response from Hamas but stressed they are cautiously optimistic about the ability to make progress in the coming days, the Israeli officials said.
20:50 French Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu said he hoped medicines delivered to Gaza would reach "every captive", nearly a week after the aid shipment arrived in the Palestinian territory.
"We trust all parties to ensure that these medicines arrive safely... at the destination of every captive," Lecornu told AFP on a visit to Israel, which says 132 captives remain in Gaza.
18:10 The US Navy's top Mideast commander told The Associated Press that Iran is “very directly involved” in ship attacks that Yemen's Houthi rebels have carried out during Israel's war on Gaza.
"Clearly, the Houthi actions, probably in terms of their attacks on merchant shipping, are the most significant that we’ve seen in two generations,” he added. “The facts simply are that they’re attacking the international community; thus, the international response I think you’ve seen.”
The Navy commander acknowledged the threat from Iran's proxies and that its distribution of weapons extended from the Red Sea out to the far reaches of the Indian Ocean.
The US has blamed Iran for recent drone attacks on shipping, and a US-owned cargo vessel came under attack from the Houthis in the Gulf of Aden last week.
“What I’ll say is Iran is clearly funding, they’re resourcing, they are supplying and they’re providing training," Cooper said. "They’re obviously very directly involved. There’s no secret there.
Cooper described the ship attacks striking the Mideast as the worst since the so-called Tanker War of the 1980s. It culminated in a one-day naval battle between Washington and Tehran, and also saw America accidentally shoot down an Iranian passenger jet, killing 290 people.
While not directly saying his fleet's drones played a part in the seizure, Cooper hinted at it.
"They are specifically designed to conduct interdiction operations,” he said. He added: “There’s no squeaking anything by it.”
“What we need is a Houthi decision to stop attacking international merchant ships. Period,” Cooper said.
14:15 Israeli troops stormed the Al-Khair Hospital in Khan Younis and arrested medical staff, Palestinian health ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qidra told Reuters.
Meanwhile, Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Palestine Red Crescent, told Al Jazeera that the agency is extremely worried about the safety of its team at Al-Amal Hospital and other facilities in southern Gaza.
“We are extremely worried regarding the safety of our team at Al-Amal Hospital and the Palestine Red Crescent’s headquarters, along with our emergency medical centre in Khan Younis,” Farsakh said in a video posted on X.
“The total area is besieged by Israeli occupation forces. Everyone is trapped inside our facilities. No one can get out. No one is even able to come in,” she added.
13:30 A group of relatives of Israeli captives stormed a parliamentary committee session, demanding Knesset lawmakers do more to try to release their loved ones, Reuters reported.
The Times of Israel had earlier reported that anti-government protesters blocked the entrance to the Knesset.
Police dragged demonstrators by their hands and legs from the centre of the road to disperse the crowd who were chanting “Release them now, now!”
The protesters called the police “criminals” who have “destroyed the country” as they were forced back behind the barricades, the Israeli media outlet said.
This comes after relatives and supporters of captives held in Gaza rallied outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s house in occupied Jerusalem, pitching tents and demanding the Israeli government urgently strike a deal to secure their release.
12:15 The Palestinian health ministry said a total of 25,295 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October.
The toll includes 190 fatalities over the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, while some 63,000 people in Gaza have been wounded since the beginning of the war.
12:00 Jordan's foreign minister slammed the Israeli government's "radical racist agenda," saying that it was defying the world in its refusal to accept a two-state solution for Israel and Palestinians.
"The only way out of this misery is a two-state solution," Ayman Safadi told reporters at an EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels. "They are defying the whole international community and it is about time the world took a stand," he said.
“This war will not bring security to Israel; this war will not bring peace. Israel cannot have security as long as Palestinians are denied their rights,” he added.
11:45 US, Egypt, and Qatar are still pushing for a new captive-prisoner swap deal in Gaza, diplomats with knowledge of the talks told NBC News.
A diplomat said some of the mechanics of a potential future exchange have been agreed upon.
“A big portion of the details are agreed. The sticking point is that Israelis don’t want to agree to a permanent cease-fire,” said the diplomat.
“The deal would include a halt in the fighting of over a month with captives released in phases in exchange for Palestinian prisoners,” the diplomat added.
The mediators’ current proposal envisages releasing the captives in three phases over 30 days, officials said. The first phase would involve the remaining civilian captives, the second would include female Israeli soldiers and the bodies of captives who have died in Gaza, and the third would include male captives, including Israeli soldiers. Palestinian prisoners would be released in exchange for each group of Israeli captives.
11:30 The Palestinian foreign ministry urged the European Union and the US administration to take the initiative and recognize the State of Palestine to protect the two-state solution and support Palestinian efforts to gain full membership in the United Nations.
The ministry stressed in a statement that the European and American recognition of the State of Palestine would establish the launch of a peace process and actual negotiations that would force Israel to abide by the international will for peace and guarantee the end of the occupation and the achievement of security and stability in the region.
The ministry also condemned statements made by Netanyahu, in which he rejected an independent Palestinian state, and the repetition of his colonial ambitions, which the ministry decried as inimical to peace.
11:10 Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said the kingdom will not normalize relations with Israel or contribute to Gaza's reconstruction without a credible pathway to a Palestinian state.
“As long as we’re able to find a pathway to a solution, a resolution, a pathway that means we’re not going to be here again in a year or two, then we can talk about anything,” Bin Farhan said in an interview with CNN.
“But if we are just resetting to the status quo before Oct. 7, in a way that sets us up for another round of this, as we have seen in the past, we’re not interested in that conversation,” he added.
11:00 A two-state solution to allow for the peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians is the 'only solution' to the current conflict, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Monday before heading into an EU foreign ministers' meeting.
"All those who say they don't want to hear about such a solution have not brought any alternative," she added, while also calling for an urgent "humanitarian pause" to the war raging in the Gaza Strip.
10:30: Two US Navy SEALs who went missing during an operation to seize Iranian weapons bound for Yemen's Houthi rebels have been declared dead after a 10-day search failed to locate them, the US military said Sunday.
The Central Command (CENTCOM) had previously said that two SEALs who were reported as lost at sea were involved in the January 11 operation, in which the elite special operations personnel boarded a dhow off the coast of Somalia and seized missile components made in Iran.
That month, the Houthis began targeting ships in the Red Sea they say were linked to Israel in support of Palestinians in Gaza.
The United States and Britain carried out strikes on dozens of rebel targets earlier this month, and American forces have since hit a number of missiles that Washington says were ready to launch and posed a threat to both civilian and military vessels.
10:00: The Palestine Red Crescent (PRCS) said the agency’s ambulances are unable to reach the injured in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, as Israeli forces are besieging the PRCS’s ambulance center and targeting anyone who attempts to move in the area.
The PRCS said earlier Monday morning that Israeli tanks were nearing Al-Amal City Hospital in Khan Younis and that it had lost all contact with its team in the area due to the ground offensive.
At least 12 Palestinians, including 3 children and a woman, were killed in Khan Younis in Israeli airstrikes, Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.
09:00 The EU's foreign policy chief insisted on a two-state solution as he told Israel it couldn't build peace "only by military means" ahead of talks with Israeli and Palestinian top diplomats.
The bloc's 27 foreign ministers are set to hold separate meetings with their counterparts from Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and key Arab states in Brussels.
Borrell repeated the condemnation from the United Nations of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "unacceptable" rejection of calls for a Palestinian state after the war in Gaza.
"Which are the other solutions they have in mind? To make all the Palestinians leave? To kill off them?" Borrell said.
The EU's top diplomat said he had presented ministers from the bloc with a "comprehensive approach" towards trying to find a lasting peace.
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