Israel-Hamas war live: Hamas releases two more hostages from Gaza, Red Cross says

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Egypt’s Al Qahera TV network has aired video it says is freed Hamas hostages Nurit Yitzhak and Yochved Lifshitz being transferred from a Red Cross vehicle into Egyptian ambulances as the Rafah border crossing with Gaza.

Shortly after two hostages were released in Gaza, Joe Biden quickly left an event as he was needed in the White House’s Situation room.

At the end of an event to promote his economic policy, Biden abruptly left, telling the audience that he had to leave the event and go to the Situation room.

While not confirmed, the meeting in the Situation room is likely about the hostages’ release.

During the same event, Biden was asked about the possibility of a ceasefire in Gaza. In response, he said: “We should have those hostages released and then we can talk.”

From Bloomberg News’ Jennifer Jacobs:

Red Cross says it helped facilitate release of two more hostages from Hamas

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that they helped facilitate the release of two hostages held by Hamas, in a new post to X.

In the statement posted online, ICRC confirmed that they transported the two hostages out of Gaza Monday evening.

“Our role as a neutral intermediary makes this work possible & we are ready to facilitate any future release,” the ICRC post read.

“We hope that they will soon be back with their loved ones.”

At least 35 employees with the United Nations’ Agency for Palestine Refugees have been confirmed killed, the agency reported on Monday.

The agency confirmed that a total of 35 employees have been killed since 7 October, in a statement posted to X, previously known as Twitter.

The agency added that 40 installations have also been damage amid the outbreak of fighting.

Summary of the day so far

It’s just after 10pm in Gaza and Tel Aviv, and here are the developments we’ve been following today in the Israel-Hamas conflict:

Hamas says it has released two more hostages from those it’s holding in Gaza. The group named them as Nurit Yitzhak and Yochved Lifshitz, and said they were release on “humanitarian and poor health grounds”. There is no independent confirmation of their release yet, and their whereabouts are currently unknown. Hamas released American mother and daughter Judith and Natalia Raanan on Friday. Earlier today, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said it believed Hamas was still holding 222 hostages in Gaza.

Reports from Israel suggested that the release of about 50 hostages held by Hamas could be imminent. The Tel Aviv news channel I24 reported “sources within Gaza” as saying “the finalization of a potential deal” brokered by Qatari was under way for the release of about 50 abductees who hold dual citizenship. Officials of Red Cross are believed to on their way to receive the group, I24 said, and the release could be concluded “in the hours ahead” if there are no obstacles.

The White House said Iran is behind attacks by proxy on US troops in the Middle East after a barrage of drone and missile attacks over the weekend. At a media briefing on Monday, John Kirby, strategic communications coordinator for the National Security Council said the US was ramping up its military capabilities in the Middle East and warned Iran or other nations seeking to use the conflict as an excuse to attack US interests: “Don’t do it”.

Almost 20,000 people have been internally displaced in south Lebanon and elsewhere since early October, a United Nations agency said on Monday, reflecting escalating violence on the Lebanese-Israeli border. The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) said 19,646 people had been displaced inside Lebanon since it began tracking movements on 8 October, the day after the assault on Israel by Hamas militants, the AFP news agency reported.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has said at least 5,087 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since 7 October. It said the dead included 2,055 children. Additionally, it said 15,273 people had been wounded. The ministry put the death toll in the past 24 hours at 436, including 182 children. It said most of the fatalities had occurred in the southern Gaza Strip, to where Israel’s military has ordered Palestinians to evacuate. The claims have not been independently verified.

Israel’s military said on Monday that ground forces mounted limited raids into the Gaza Strip overnight to fight Palestinian gunmen, and that airstrikes were being focused on sites where Hamas was assembling to attack any wider Israeli invasion. The IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said: “During the night there were raids by tank and infantry forces. These raids are raids that kill squads of terrorists who are preparing for our next stage in the war. These are raids that go deep.”

Washington has advised Israel to delay its expected ground invasion of Gaza in order to buy time to negotiate the release of hostages held by Hamas and allow more aid in to Palestinian civilians, the New York Times reported, citing US officials.

A third convoy of aid trucks entered the Rafah crossing from Egypt on Monday bound for the besieged Gaza Strip, an aid worker and two security sources have told Reuters. On Saturday and Sunday 34 trucks passed through. The number of trucks in Monday’s convoy was similar to each of those days, the aid worker and security sources said. UN officials say about 100 trucks would be needed daily to meet essential needs in Gaza.

The EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, joined calls on Monday for a humanitarian pause in the conflict to let more aid supplies into Gaza.

The leaders of the US, UK, France, Canada, Germany and Italy have called on Israel to adhere to international law and protect civilians, while also reiterating Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorism. In a statement put out after a phone call, the leaders’ offices said: “The leaders reiterated their support for Israel and its right to defend itself against terrorism and called for adherence to international humanitarian law, including the protection of civilians.”

Benjamin Netanyahu thanked the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, for his country’s support as the latter visited Tel Aviv. Netanyahu said of the conflict: “It’s a battle against civilization. It’s civilization against barbarism. We’re on the side of civilization. We have to unite, all together, against Hamas, which is Isis.”

The Palestinian prime minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, has said the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip are exposed to “the Israeli murder and criminal machine”.

A Palestinian photojournalist, Roshdi Sarraj, has been killed in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, Radio France reported. The French broadcaster said Sarraj was killed on Sunday in Israeli strikes on Tel al-Hawa, in Gaza City. His wife and one-year-old daughter were injured.

Israel’s military has claimed to have fired at a “suspicious aerial target” attempting to enter Israel from the direction of Lebanon.

Turkey sent two cargo planes to Egypt on Monday carrying further medical equipment and supplies for Gaza, the health minister Fahrettin Koca said. He said two more aircraft would be sent with more supplies.

A 33-year-old Dutch woman has been killed in an explosion in Gaza, the Dutch foreign ministry has said. Named locally as Islam al-Ashqar, she was visiting relatives at the Nusairat refugee camp in central Gaza and was one of 22 Dutch nationals that the ministry was trying to help leave, the broadcaster NOS said.

The two hostages Hamas said on Monday it had released “on humanitarian grounds” were named by the group as Israeli women Nurit Yitzhak and Yochved Lifshitz [sic].

There has so far been no immediate independent confirmation of their release, and the women’s whereabouts are unknown. although some social media posts suggest they had reached the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt.

Hamas, in a statement from Abu Obaida, a spokesperson for its armed Al-Qassam Brigades, said “compelling humanitarian and poor health grounds” were behind its decision to release the pair. It also said it had tried to release them on Friday, but said without corroboration that Israel had “refused to receive them”.

The Guardian spoke earlier this month to Sharone Lifschitz, who lives in London but grew up on a kibbutz in Israel near the border with Gaza. She said her parents were there when Hamas fighters broke through on 7 October, and she feared they were taken across the border as hostages.

Hamas says it has released two hostages

Hamas has said it released two more hostages Monday, Reuters is reporting.

It comes as reports in Israel suggest a deal may be imminent to secure the release of about another 50 abductees with dual nationality. The group released Americans Natalie and Judith Raanan on Friday.

No more details were immediately available about Monday’s reported release, but Reuters said it was announced by the armed wing of Hamas and involved “mediation” by Qatar and Egypt.

Kirby was also asked at the White House briefing about a possible conflict between US priorities for the war against Hamas, which include pouring in humanitarian aid to Gaza and freeing hostages, and that of Israel, which has committed to destroying the group:

We agree. The priority has to be going after Hamas. There’s no daylight here.

We also think it’s important for humanitarian assistance to flow and for our hostages to get home with their families, and we’re working all three of those things.

White House warns Iran not to use Israel-Hamas conflict to attack US forces

The Biden administration is warning Iran and other nations seeking to use the Israel-Hamas conflict as a conduit for attacks on US forces and personnel in the Middle East: “Don’t do it”.

Speaking after what he said was a weekend “uptick in rocket and drone attacks by Iranian-backed proxy groups against military bases housing US personnel in Iraq and Syria,” John Kirby, strategic communications coordinator for the National Security Council, gave the blunt warning at a lunchtime briefing to reporters on Monday:

We know Iran continues to support Hamas and Hezbollah. And we know that Iran is closely monitoring and in some cases actively facilitating these attacks, and spurring on others who may want to exploit the conflict for their own good, or for that of Iran.

Kirby alluded to a build up of US military capability in the region, including the deployment of two aircraft carrier strike groups to the Middle East, and the repelling of drone and missile attacks:

Iran’s goal is to maintain some level of deniability, but we’re not going to allow them to do that. We also are not going to allow any threat to our interest in the region to go unchallenged. We demonstrated last week that we will use the military capabilities available to us to protect and defend those interests and those capabilities are getting bigger, better every day.

President Biden has said our message to any hostile actor seeking to escalate or widen this conflict is very simple: ‘Don’t do it’.

The White House says it cannot comment on reports from the Middle East about a Qatari-brokered “deal” with Hamas to release hostages with dual nationality that it’s holding in Gaza to the Red Cross.

John Kirby, strategic communications coordinator at the National Security Council, suggested to reporters that negotiations were at a delicate stage:

Where we are right now in the process makes it impossible for us to publicly detail the efforts that are going on. We are grateful for all the help we got getting those two Americans out, the mother and daughter, and we’re glad that that they’re OK.

There’s just a lot of effort going on, a lot of conversations and discussions with partners in the region. And I think it’s just best if we don’t detail that.

Hamas, meanwhile, appeared to confirm that conversations were taking place towards a hostage release deal, but that Israel must stop bombing Gaza first.

Speaking on Sky News, Khaled Meshaal, the Hamas group’s chief hostage negotiator, said:

Let them stop this aggression and you will find the mediators like Qatar and Egypt and some Arab countries and others will find a way to have them released and we’ll send them to their homes.

Hopes rising for 'imminent' deal for hostages' release

Reports from Israel suggest that the release of about 50 hostages held by Hamas could be imminent.

The Tel Aviv news channel I24 is reporting “sources within Gaza” as saying “the finalization of a potential deal” brokered by Qatari was under way for the release of about 50 abductees who hold dual citizenship.

Officials of Red Cross are believed to on their way to receive the group, I24 said, and the release could be concluded “in the hours ahead” if there are no obstacles.

It is believed a suspension of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza was part of the deal to allow Red Cross teams to reach the hostages safely.

Earlier today, the Israeli Defense Forces raised the number of hostages it said were being held by Hamas to 222. On Friday, Hamas released two US citizens, Natalie Raanan, 17, and her mother Judith, 59, on “humanitarian grounds”.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) will hold public hearings to allow parties to give their views on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, Reuters is reporting. It will eventually issue a non-binding legal opinion.

The ICJ, also known as the world court, was asked by the 193-member United Nations General Assembly in December to give its view on the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinians.

Hearings in The Hague will begin 19 February. The request for a so-called advisory opinion had been made before this month’s Hamas attack on Israel, so the ICJ’s opinion will focus solely on the Israeli occupation.

The resolution passed the General Assembly with 87 votes in favor. Israel, the US and 24 other members voted against, while 53 abstained.

UN: 20,000 displaced by violence in Lebanon

Almost 20,000 people have been internally displaced in south Lebanon and elsewhere since early October, a United Nations agency said on Monday, reflecting escalating violence on the Lebanese-Israeli border.

The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) said 19,646 people had been displaced inside Lebanon since it began tracking movements on 8 October, the day after the assault on Israel by Hamas militants, the AFP news agency reported.

Most were those fleeing the south of Lebanon, while some people have also moved from other areas. Israeli authorities have also been evacuating dozens of towns and communities from the north of Israel, IOM said.

Rocket exchanges between Lebanon’s Hezbollah group and Israel have become increasingly prevalent since the 7 October attacks.

The office of Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has joined with the Israel Defense Ministry and Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to issue a rare joint statement asserting “close and full cooperation” between them.

“There is total and mutual trust between the Prime Minister, the Defense Minister and the IDF Chief-of-Staff; the unity of the goal is clear,” the statement says, insisting the cooperation will lead to “a decisive victory over Hamas”.

Netanyahu’s relationship with the military has been testy of late. Former military leaders and politicians said at the weekend his “dysfunctional government” bore responsibility for the attacks on Israel by Hamas.

And media reports earlier this year painted a picture of hostility between Netanyahu and the country’s military leaders, including that he was “at odds” with defense minister and former IDF commander Yoav Gallant, now a leading voice in Israel’s unity government.

Read more:

The Israeli public has a “very high level of trust” in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), but much lower confidence in prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet, a survey by the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) has found.

According to the survey by the Jerusalem-based policy group, 79% of respondents said they were confident Israel would win the war with Hamas, and 78% said the condition of Israeli society was either somewhat or very united.

But Netanyahu’s level of trust among the same respondents was only 32%, with 68% saying they had a low level trust or did not know.

Yedidia Stern, JPPI’s president, said the results reflected a “crisis of confidence” for Netanyahu’s unity government:

The survey shows that the Israeli public believes in the capability of the state of Israel to win the war. But there is a crisis of confidence in, and much criticism of, the political leadership.

We must draw lessons from the situation and rebuild mutual trust between the public and the government.

The reported drone attack Monday on US troops in Syria took place at the Al-Tanf military air base, near the country’s borders with Iraq and Jordan, Reuters said, citing two US officials.

The officials confirmed there were no injuries.

On Sunday, Lloyd Austin, the US defense secretary, said he was worried about an escalation of attacks on US forces in the wider Middle East region as Israel prepared to launch a ground invasion of Gaza.

“What we’re seeing is the prospect of a significant escalation of attacks on our troops and our people throughout the region. We’re going to do what’s necessary to make sure that our troops are in the right position, they’re protected, and that we have the ability to respond,” he told ABC’s This Week.

US troops have come under drone attack in Syria, Reuters is reporting. Officials told the news agency there were no immediate reports of injuries.

We’ll have more details soon.

Here’s a little more of what Rishi Sunak told the House of Commons on Monday as he pledged an additional £20m for aid to Gaza:

We need a constant stream of aid pouring in, bringing the water, food, medicine and fuel that is so desperately needed.

We are providing an additional £20m humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza, more than doubling our previous support to the Palestinian people.