Middle East crisis live: Biden insists Netanyahu is not opposed to two-state solution | Israel-Gaza war

Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

• Joe Biden has said that the creation of an independent state for Palestinians was not impossible while Benjamin Netanyahu was still in office, following a call with the Israeli prime minister on Friday. The US president said he spoke with the Israeli prime minister about possible solutions for creation of an independent state for Palestinians, noting that not all countries have their own militaries. Biden said Netanyahu was not opposed to all two-state solutions, and there were a number of types possible.

• The US central command said its forces conducted strikes against three Houthi anti-ship missiles that were aimed into the Southern Red Sea and were prepared to launch. The US has been launching strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, and this week returned the Iran-backed Yemen-based group to a list of “terrorist” groups. The Houthis said earlier today that they do not intend to expand their attacks on shipping in and around the Red Sea, beyond their stated aims of blockading Israel and retaliating against the US and Britain for airstrikes.

• Gaza’s main internet provider, Paltel, has announced that communication services across the Palestinian territory are gradually returning after a nearly eight-day outage, the longest blackout since the war began. In a statement, Paltel said two of its technical team members lost their lives as a result of “direct shelling” during recent repair operations, bringing the total number of its employees killed to 14 since the start of the conflict.

• As Israeli forces have moved further into southern Gaza, airstrikes and close-combat fighting are approaching areas crowded with more than a million people seeking refuge from the destruction across the rest of the territory. The prospect of major operations taking place in territory with such a dense and vulnerable population is “deeply concerning”, say aid officials, who fear Gaza’s largest remaining hospital may have to be closed or evacuated.

• Health services in Gaza are “decimated”, with medical staff exhausted after three months of war forced to extract shrapnel without adequate pain relief, conduct amputations without anaesthetics and watch children die of cancers due to a lack of facilities and medicine.

• Pakistan’s political and military leaders have moved to de-escalate tensions with Iran, after trading deadly airstrikes on militant targets in each other’s territory this week. Pakistan’s foreign minister, Jalil Abbas Jilani, spoke to his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, by phone where they agreed “close coordination on counter-terrorism and other aspects of mutual concern should be strengthened”, according to a readout by Islamabad’s foreign ministry.

• Leading progressive and Jewish members of Congress have criticized the US’s “unconditional support” for Israel after Benjamin Netanyahu declared bluntly that he was opposed to a Palestinian state after the war in Gaza and directly rejected American policy.

• The White House has said it was “seriously concerned” about reports that a Palestinian-American teenager had been killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank. US-born 17-year-old Tawfiq Ajaq was killed by Israeli security forces in Al-Mazraa Al-Sharqiya, east of Ramallah, according to reports.

• A senior minister in the Israeli war cabinet has said that only a ceasefire deal can win the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, and that Israel is unlikely to achieve its aim of “total victory” over the militant Islamist group. Gadi Eisenkot, a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, launched a blistering attack on Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the campaign against Hamas and failure to take responsibility for the failures that led to the bloody attack into Israel in October.

• Palestinian detainees in Gaza described being “beaten, humiliated, subjected to ill-treatment, and to what may amount to torture” said the spokesperson for the UN high commissioner for human rights, Ravina Shamdasani. Shamdasani said what detainees told her was consistent with reports her office has been gathering of the detention of Palestinians on a broad scale.

• The European Union has added six individuals to an asset freeze and visa ban blacklist for financing the Palestinian militant group Hamas. The new EU sanctions framework targets “any individual or entity who supports, facilitates or enables violent actions by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad”, a statement said.

• EU foreign ministers will hold a series of meetings on Monday with counterparts from Israel, the Palestinian Authority and key Arab nations about the war in Gaza and prospects for a future peace settlement. The Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz and his Palestinian counterpart Riyad al-Maliki are not expected to meet each other.

• Swiss prosecutors have confirmed that Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, is the subject of “criminal complaints” filed during his visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos. A statement allegedly issued by the people behind the complaint said the plaintiffs were seeking a criminal prosecution in parallel to a case brought before the UN’s international court of justice (ICJ) by South Africa, which accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza.

• The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has accused the Israeli government of financing Hamas in en effort to weaken the Palestinian Authority. Benjamin Netanyahu has denied accusations by his opponents in Israel and some global media who have accused his government of spending years actively boosting Hamas, including by allowing Qatari financing of Gaza.

An estimated 16,000 women and children have been killed in Gaza since the war began, including about two mothers every hour, a UN agency has said.

In a report released on Friday on “The Gendered Impact of the Crisis in Gaza,” UN Women estimated that at least 3,000 women may have become widows and heads of households since 7 October. At least 10,000 children may have lost their father, it said.

Of the territory’s 2.3 million population, 1.9 million are displaced and “close to one million are women and girls” seeking shelter and safety in a territory where no place is safe, it said.

Sima Bahous, UN Women’s executive director, said in a statement:

We have seen evidenced once more that women and children are the first victims of conflict and that our duty to seek peace is a duty to them … That failure, and the generational trauma inflicted on the Palestinian people over these 100 days and counting, will haunt all of us for generations to come.

Jason Burke

The blistering attack by Gadi Eisenkot, a senior minister in the Israeli war cabinet, on Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the campaign against Hamas was the latest sign of deep disagreement among political and military leaders over the direction of Israel’s offensive.

Eisenkot, a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, said late on Thursday that only a ceasefire deal can win the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, and that Israel was unlikely to achieve its aim of “total victory” over the militant Islamist group.

Central to the disputes inside the war cabinet is the question of how to free the more than 130 hostages who remain in Gaza. Not all of them are believed to be alive and there is a growing sense in Israel that time is running out.

The arguments are mirrored in wider Israeli society. Lilach Shoval in Israel Hayom, a rightwing newspaper, wrote:

Fifteen weeks have elapsed since Hamas forced this war on Israel on that Black Saturday of October 7, and Israel remains far from achieving the goals it set for itself: toppling Hamas’s military and governing ability, and returning the captives, not necessarily in that order.

Others have described a “quagmire”. Mairav Zonszein, an Israel analyst with the International Crisis Group, said:

There is no lack of support for the war but it is increasingly clear that the release of the hostages is in conflict with other goals.

A poll published in Ma’ariv newspaper found that if elections were held now, Netanyahu’s Likud party would be reduced to 16 of the 120 seats in the national assembly, the Knesset.

Joe Biden has said that the creation of an independent state for Palestinians was not impossible while Benjamin Netanyahu was still in office.

The US president spoke with the Israeli prime minister for the first time in nearly a month on Friday about Israel’s ongoing strikes in Gaza and differences over a future Palestinian state. According to the White House, Biden had been trying to schedule the call “for quite a bit of time”.

Asked if a two-state solution was “impossible” while Netanyahu was in office, Biden said, “No, it’s not”, Reuters reported. The US president said Netanyahu was not opposed to all two-state solutions, and there were a number of types possible.

The two leaders discussed efforts to secure the remaining hostages held by Hamas, and Israel’s shift to more “targeted” operations in Gaza to allow more humanitarian assistance to come through, the White House’s John Kirby said after the call.

A readout of the call from the White House said:

The president also discussed his vision for a more durable peace and security for Israel fully integrated within the region and a two state-solution with Israel*s security guaranteed.

The US central command said its forces conducted strikes against three Houthi anti-ship missiles “that were aimed into the Southern Red Sea and were prepared to launch”.

In a statement posted to social media, the US central command said US forces had identified the missiles in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and “determined that they presented an imminent threat” to merchant vessels and US Navy ships in the region. The statement continues:

U.S. forces subsequently struck and destroyed the missiles in self-defense. This action will make international waters safe and secure for U.S. navy vessels and merchant vessels.

Leading progressive and Jewish members of Congress have criticized the US’s “unconditional support” for Israel after Benjamin Netanyahu declared bluntly that he was opposed to a Palestinian state after the war in Gaza and directly rejected American policy.

Pramila Jayapal, the US representative who heads the influential Congressional Progressive caucus, on Friday issued one of the sharper responses to Netanyahu, saying in a video that the Israeli prime minister’s stance “should cause us to reset our relationship of unconditional support to [his] government”.

“These are policies that are diametrically opposed to the US’s stated goals,” Jayapal said about Netanyahu’s calls for the permanent expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza.

Meanwhile, 15 Jewish members of the House released a statement Friday saying they “strongly disagree with the prime minister” of the predominantly Jewish nation.

“A two-state solution is the path forward,” said the statement, whose signatories included Jerry Nadler, Jamie Raskin, Adam Schiff and Elissa Slotkin. They were joined by 11 fellow House Democrats: Jake Auchincloss, Rebecca Balint, Suzanne Bonamici, Steve Cohen, Daniel Goldman, Seth Magaziner, Mike Levin, Dean Phillips, Jan Schakowsky, Kim Schrier and Bradley Sherman.

Gaza’s main internet provider, Paltel, has announced that communication services across the Palestinian territory are gradually returning after a nearly eight-day outage, the longest blackout since the war began.

Telecommunication services have completely dropped at least seven times since the war began on 7 October, the provider said.

In a statement posted to social media, Paltel said its teams have worked relentlessly to repair “numerous major damages and malfunctions” that it blamed on the “ongoing aggression” in Gaza.

It said two of its technical team members lost their lives as a result of “direct shelling” during recent repair operations, bringing the total number of its employees killed to 14 since the start of the conflict.

Patrick Wintour

UK Foreign Office legal advisers were unable to conclude that Israel was in compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL) in its bombardment of Gaza, court documents reveal.

After reviewing specific potential breaches of IHL cited in a report by Amnesty International, the Foreign Office initially concluded it had “serious concerns” about breaches.

The UK Department for Business and Trade is being challenged by the Global Legal Action Network in a judicial review over its decision not to revoke arms export licences to Israel.

The evidence presented by the business department in its defence, prepared by Sir James Eadie KC, shows a far more intensive investigation was under way inside the government about Israel’s compliance with international law than suggested by the foreign secretary, David Cameron. Giving evidence to the foreign affairs select committee a fortnight ago, he said no special internal review had been made.

The evidence shows there were four separate assessments, one of which prompted the receipt of assurances from the Israeli embassy.

Soon after Israel attacked Gaza, an internal stocktake of 28 existing licences and 28 pending applications began, leading to an initial assessment on 10 November, followed by further reviews completed on 27 November, 8 December and 29 December.

The 27 November Foreign Office internal assessment unit concluded “the volume of strikes, total death toll as proportion of those who are children raise serious concerns”.

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The US still opposes a ceasefire in Gaza, the White House said on Friday.

Kirby said that the US still opposes a ceasefire, believing that such a move would help Hamas militants.

“We do support humanitarian pauses, as I said, to try to get hostages out and more aid in, but we don’t support a ceasefire at this time,” Kirby said during a news briefing on Friday.

“I think it’s important to remember that there was ceasefire in place on 6 October,” Kirby added.