Middle East crisis live: Rafah mayor warns areas of city still too dangerous for Palestinians to return | Israel

In the UK, the chair of the House of Commons international development committee has issued a statement today on Israel banning the UN’s aid agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa. As a reminder, Israel has ordered the UN agency to vacate its headquarters in East Jerusalem by Thursday, after the country’s parliament passed a law in October banning its operations in Israel and the Palestinian territories. Israel’s ban only directly covers Israeli territory, which Israel considers East Jerusalem to be. Unrwa also operates in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, but it was unclear how the law will affect Unrwa’s work there.

The international development committee, which scrutinises the aid policy of the British foreign ministry, has warned that the Unrwa ban could cause the already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and the occupied West Bank to “deteriorate rapidly, possibly irreparably” and would “almost certainly lead to further conflict and increased displacement”.

Unrwa is the major distributor of aid in Gaza and provides education, health and other basic services to millions of Palestinian refugees across the region.

Sarah Champion, who chairs the international development committee, said on Tuesday:

Let us be clear: this ban will be devastating for Palestinian refugees across the region. Food, water, education, even rubbish collection will all be affected.

In the strongest possible terms, I urge the UK government to do everything it can to get all parties round the table and ensure that Unrwa can fulfil its UN-mandated work. The success of the current ceasefire hangs in the balance if not.

The fragile Hamas-Israel ceasefire allows for an increase in aid to the territory, but the ban on the UN agency, seen by many as the core of the humanitarian support operation in the region, will likely have a devastating effect on many Palestinian’s lives. You can read more on the ban in this analysis piece by the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour.

Teams from the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) recovered ten decomposed bodies last night in areas along al-Rashid street, in central Gaza, spanning from al-Nweiri hill to al-Zahra city, the independent humanitarian organisation, which is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, wrote in a post on X.

Thousands of Palestinian people, displaced by forced evacuation orders and Israeli airstrikes during the war, were pictured in recent days on the al-Rashid road waiting for permission to return to the northern Gaza Strip. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians returned to northern areas – such as Jabalia and Beit Hanoun – on Monday after Israel opened military checkpoints that had divided the strip for more than a year.

Jenin has been a focus of Israeli raids into the occupied West Bank throughout Israel’s 15 month war on Gaza. The Palestinian health ministry says more than 800 people have been killed in Israeli raids since Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

The Jenin refugee camp is home to about 14,000 people, most of whom are descendants of the Palestinian people dispossessed of their land when Israel was created in 1948.

My colleagues Ruth Michaelson, Sufian Taha and Lorenzo Tondo have written about the continuing deadly Israeli assault on the West Bank city of Jenin, happening amid the ceasefire with Hamas. Here is an extract from their report:

Israeli officials have labelled the latest escalation in the West Bank, codenamed Iron Wall, which began just days after a ceasefire in Gaza came into effect, as part of a shift in the aims of the war that began in October 2023, after an attack by Palestinian militants on Israeli towns and kibbutzim around the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military said it was operating in Jenin to target Palestinian militants in the refugee camp, with the Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, Lt Col Nadav Shoshani, telling reporters in a briefing that the operation was intended to prevent militants “from regrouping” and attacking Israeli civilians.

65-year-old Saleh Ammar, who fled the Jouret al-Dhahab neighbourhood inside the Jenin refugee camp, accused forces affiliated to the Palestinian Authority (PA) of shooting at residents of the refugee camp before Israeli forces entered, to assist their assault. The PA launched its own assault on the camp in December, intended to target militias that oppose its rule.

“I am so upset by the Palestinian Authority invasion – they burned the houses, installed snipers on the rooftops and opened fire randomly,” he said. “This continued until Israeli forces entered the camp … we are living between two fires.”

Israeli forces have detained at least 25 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank, including former prisoners, according to a statement by the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees.

The detentions, reported by Palestinian news agency Wafa, took place across the areas of Tulkarm, Hebron, Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem and Jerusalem, as the Israeli military continues its military operations in the governorates of Jenin and Tulkarm.

As per the terms of the fragile ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel. which came into effect on 19 January, Israeli forces have withdrawn from Rafah’s city centre in the southern Gaza Strip. However, the city’s mayor has urged displaced Palestinians seeking to return to the devastated city to exercise caution as Israeli soldiers remain stationed along the Philadelphi Corridor – the 9-mile-long (14km) strip of land along the Gaza-Egypt border.

The Israeli military has warned civilians to stay clear of the area within 700 metres (765 yards) of the border, labelling it as a “red zone”.

Rafah’s mayor, Ahmed al-Soufi, has told Al Jazeera that the city remains “extremely dangerous” even outside of this designated zone, saying it will stay this way until the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces.

“Access to the southern half of the city near the border axis is unavailable,” he said. “Although the northwestern, northern, and eastern areas are relatively safer due to their distance from the axis, they are still vulnerable” to Israeli firepower.

He said displaced people should not rush back to the city, especially its central and southern areas, which he describes as “devastated” and lacking in basic “living conditions”.

Relentless Israeli bombardments during the war destroyed much of the southern city of Rafah, where more than a million displaced Palestinians and most international aid workers sheltered during the first half of the assault on Gaza. An Israeli assault on Rafah last year led to an emptying of the city as people sought shelter elsewhere in the strip. Many homes and shops were destroyed in subsequent Israeli attacks, with healthcare facilities, water and electricity systems badly damaged. The Israeli military said it was conducting targeted strikes against Hamas.

Now turning to news regarding Syria. Reuters is reporting that Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Mikhail Bogdanov, will meet the country’s new rulers this week in Damascus, citing two sources. If the trip goes ahead it would mark the first visit by Russian officials since Moscow’s ally Bashar al-Assad was toppled by the rapid rebel offensive lats month.

It is not clear what the agenda for the meeting is, but Bogdanov has previously said Russia hoped to maintain its two bases in Syria: a naval base in Tartous and the Hmeimim base near the port city of Latakia.

But this month, Syria’s new administration, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, the head of the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, cancelled a contract with Russian firm STG Stroytransgaz to manage and operate the Tartous port, according to three Syrian businessmen and media reports. The contract had been signed under Assad.

Here are some of the latest images being sent to us over the newswires after hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people returned to northern Gaza on Monday after Israel opened military checkpoints that had divided the strip for more than a year:

A civilian was killed and several others were injured yesterday evening after Israeli aircraft struck a bulldozer west of central Gaza’s al-Nuseirat refugee camp, Palestinian news agency Wafa is reporting.

The bulldozer was reportedly attempting to free a vehicle trapped in the area when it was hit. The driver was killed in the Israeli airstrike, according to Wafa.

The suggestion by the US president, Donald Trump, that Gaza’s Palestinian population could be “cleaned out” and moved to Egypt and Jordan has been widely condemned both by American allies in the west and countries in the Middle East.

My colleague Peter Beaumont has written an analysis piece on Trump’s incoherent ideas about Middle East politics, as reflected in his most recent remarks on Gaza, which were rejected by Jordan and Egypt and condemned by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.

Here is a snippet of his story:

Over the decades since the Six Day war in 1967, when Israeli forces first captured the Gaza Strip, which had been under Egyptian military rule, Israeli officials and commentators have periodically pushed the notion that Palestinians in Gaza could be resettled in Egypt.

Most recently that notion was floated in a leaked paper by Israel’s intelligence ministry – which prepares studies and policy papers rather than representing the intelligence agencies – a few weeks into the war in Gaza.

That “concept” paper recommended that Israel “evacuate the civilian population to Sinai” then create “a sterile zone of several kilometres … within Egypt” that would prevent return.

If the idea is a non-starter, it is because Egypt, which shares a border with Gaza and Israel and has a peace treaty with Israel, has long let it be known that it absolutely rejects any efforts by Israel to subcontract the problem of Gaza to Cairo, whether through forced transfer of the population or otherwise.

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the latest events in the Middle East.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is planning to meet US President Donald Trump in Washington as early as next week, according to reports, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people made their way back into northern Gaza on Monday.

Should Netanyahu’s trip come together in that timeframe, he could be the first foreign leader to meet with Trump at the White House since his inauguration last week. Citing two US officials familiar with the preliminary plans, the Associated Press reports that details could be arranged when Trump’s special Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, travels to Israel this week for talks with Netanyahu and other Israeli officials.

Axios, which first reported the planning for the trip, said that it is a gesture from Trump to Netanyahu for agreeing to the Gaza hostage-release and ceasefire deal. Israeli officials told Axios that Netanyahu’s arrival in Washington depends primarily on whether his health has recovered after recent prostate surgery.

Trump teased the upcoming visit in a conversation with reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday, but didn’t provide scheduling details. “I’m going to be speaking with Bibi Netanyahu in the not too distant future,” he said.

Netanyahu’s spokesperson Omer Dostri said the Israeli leader has yet to receive an official invitation to the White House.

Trump also reiterated his desire to move Palestinians from Gaza to so-called “safer” locations such as Egypt or Jordan, in comments that triggered longstanding Palestinian fears of being permanently driven from their homes.

These comments echoed the ones he made over the weekend when he proposed that large numbers of Palestinian people should leave Gaza in order to “just clean out” the whole strip. His suggestion was denounced by some as being a proposal for ethnic cleansing.

Asked about those comments, Trump told reporters on Monday evening that he would “like to get them living in an area where they can live without disruption and revolution and violence so much.”

“You know, when you look at the Gaza Strip, it’s been hell for so many years… there’s always been violence associated with it,” he said.

In other developments:

• US secretary of state Marco Rubio held a call with Jordan’s King Abdullah on Monday, two days after a suggestion by Donald Trump that Jordan and Egypt should take more Palestinians from Gaza. “The Secretary and King Abdullah discussed implementation of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, the release of hostages, and creating a pathway for security and stability in the region,” the state department said in a statement. Trump’s weekend remarks were not mentioned.

• Lebanese officials say firing by Israeli troops has killed two people and injured 17 in the second day of deadly protests in southern Lebanon. Residents displaced by the 14-month war between Israel and Hezbollah on Monday again attempted to return to villages where Israeli troops remain. On Sunday, 24 people were killed and more than 130 injured when Israeli troops fired at protesters.

• Israel said on Monday that it had arrested two Israelis suspected of spying for Iran, including one accused of handing the country classified information obtained during his military service.

• Tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem were set to lose education, healthcare and other services provided by UN agency Unrwa as an Israeli ban on the organisation takes effect on Thursday.

• Eight of the 33 hostages who were to be released under the first phase of the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas are dead, Israel has confirmed. It means 18 hostages are now due to be released in the coming weeks as seven people have already been freed by Hamas.

• A Hamas delegation has arrived in Cairo to discuss the implementation of the Gaza ceasefire deal, the group said in a statement.

• The EU’s foreign ministers have agreed to a “roadmap” to ease current sanctions on Syria, a move welcomed by the country’s government.