Israel’s opposition leader urges Netanyahu to accept ceasefire proposal – as it happened

• Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Saturday there could be no permanent ceasefire in Gaza until Hamas was destroyed, casting doubt on a key part of a truce proposal that the US president, Joe Biden, said Israel itself had made. Biden said on Friday that Israel had proposed a deal involving an initial six-week truce with a partial Israeli military withdrawal and the release of some hostages while the two sides negotiated “a permanent end to hostilities”. However, Netanyahu’s statement said any notion that Israel would agree a permanent ceasefire before “the destruction of Hamas’ military and governing capabilities” was “a non-starter”.

• The families of some Israeli hostages held by Hamas called for all parties to immediately accept the ceasefire proposal. Israel’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, also said Netanyahu should accept the proposal.

• Egypt’s state-run Al-Qahera News said that officials from Egypt, the US and Israel would meet in Cairo over the weekend for talks about the Rafah crossing, which has been closed since Israel took over the Palestinian side in early May.

• Residents reported tank fire in the Tal al-Sultan neighbourhood in west Rafah, while witnesses in the east and centre of the southern city described intense artillery shelling. “From the early hours of the night until this morning, the aerial and artillery bombardment has not stopped for a single moment,” a resident from west Rafah told Agence France-Presse (AFP). “There are a number of occupation (Israeli) snipers in high-rise buildings overseeing all areas of Tal al-Sultan … making the situation very dangerous.”

• At least 36,379 Palestinian people have been killed and 82,407 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement. An estimated 95 Palestinians were killed and 350 injured in the past 24 hours alone, the ministry said.

• Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said it launched a series of attacks on Israeli military positions on Saturday after state media reported Israel had stepped up its own strikes the night before. On Saturday morning, Hezbollah said it had carried out “an air assault using explosive drones against … the Yiftah barracks, targeting the positions of enemy officers and soldiers”. It said the attack was in retaliation for a drone strike on a motorcycle in Majdal Selm earlier in the day. The Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Committee said two people were injured in the drone strike.

We are closing this blog now, but you can stay up to date on the Guardian’s Middle East coverage here.

Israeli armed forces have detained 20 Palestinians, including a woman and former detainees, according to the latest joint statement issued by the Detainees’ Affairs Authority and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society.

The detentions took place across various West Bank areas, including Jenin, Nablus, Qalqilya, Bethlehem, Hebron, and Jerusalem, the statement said.

Since 7 October, the total number of Palestinians arrested in the occupied West Bank has risen to over 8,975, Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, reported.

Belgium’s foreign minister, Hadja Lahbib, said her country “condemns the Israeli parliament’s attempts to classify Unrwa as a terrorist organisation and to remove the immunity of its staff”.

In late May, a bill aimed at designating the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) as a terrorist organisation passed a preliminary reading in Israel’s parliament, prior to three further readings.

Unrwa provides education, health and aid to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

Allegations by Israel of the involvement of Unrwa staff in the 7 October Hamas attack led major donors in January to cut their funding to the agency.

An independent review, conducted by the former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna, subsequently found that Israel had not provided evidence to back up claims that hundreds of employees of the UN agency for Palestinians were members of terrorist organisations.

Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said it launched a series of attacks on Israeli military positions on Saturday after state media reported Israel had stepped up its own strikes the night before.

On Saturday morning, Hezbollah said it had carried out “an air assault using explosive drones against … the Yiftah barracks, targeting the positions of enemy officers and soldiers”.

It said the attack was in retaliation for a drone strike on a motorcycle in Majdal Selm earlier in the day.

The Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Committee said two people were injured in the drone strike.

The Israeli military said in a statement that “two Hezbollah terrorists operating in the region of Majdal Selm were struck by an aircraft”.

Later on Saturday, the Lebanese Shiite movement said it had “shot down a Hermes 900 drone which was attacking our people and villages”. These claims have not yet been independently verified by the Guardian.

Since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas on 7 October, Iran-backed Hezbollah has exchanged almost daily fire with the Israeli army in support of its Palestinian ally.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has backed the Gaza ceasefire proposal laid out by the US president, Joe Biden.

“We support the US proposal for a durable peace. Just as we are working with our partners in the region on peace and security for all,” Macron wrote in a post on X.

The first phase of the proposal involves a six-week ceasefire when Israeli forces would withdraw from “all populated areas” of Gaza, some hostages – including the elderly and women – would be freed in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, Palestinian civilians could return to their homes in Gaza and 600 trucks a day would bring humanitarian aid into the devastated enclave.

In this phase, Hamas and Israel would negotiate a permanent ceasefire that Biden said would last “as long has Hamas lives up to its commitments.” If negotiations took more than six weeks, the temporary ceasefire would extend while they continued.

In the second phase, Biden said there would be an exchange for all remaining living hostages, including male soldiers, Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza and the permanent ceasefire would begin.

The third phase would include a major reconstruction plan for Gaza and the return of the “final remains” of hostages to their families.

Earlier, we reported that the World Food Programme (WFP) said daily life had become “apocalyptic” in parts of southern Gaza since Israel began its assault on Rafah in early May.

Since then, a selection of photographs have been sent to the Guardian’s photography database showing the impact of the food shortages in Gaza.

They are too graphic to post here, but I can describe them.

The first set show a deceased, completely emaciated 13-year-old boy on a hospital bed. In one shot focusing on his legs, it appears there is nothing under his skin except bones. His name was Abdullkadir Al-Sarhi and he died due to malnutrition, according to Getty Images.

The second set shows a seven month old baby – in a similar condition to the 13-year-old – in the arms of his father and also on a hospital bed. There is no sign of any muscle under his skin. Again, his death is recorded as due to malnutrition.

View image in fullscreen

A meeting between US, Egyptian and Israeli officials is scheduled to take place on Sunday in Cairo to discuss the reopening of Gaza’s Rafah crossing, a high-level source told Egypt’s state-linked Al Qahera TV.

Egypt is insisting that Israel withdraw its forces from the crossing, Al Qahera reported. Israel seized the crossing on the Gaza side in May during its offensive in the city of Rafah along the enclave’s southern edge.

The Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings were the main entry point for food, fuel and medical supplies during the first seven months of war, but in more than three weeks from 6 to 28 May, just 216 aid trucks entered Gaza, UN figures show.

• Israeli forces hit Rafah in southern Gaza with tanks and artillery on Saturday, residents reported, hours after the US president, Joe Biden, said Israel was offering a new roadmap towards a full ceasefire.

• Residents reported tank fire in the Tal al-Sultan neighbourhood in west Rafah, while witnesses in the east and centre of the southern city described intense artillery shelling. “From the early hours of the night until this morning, the aerial and artillery bombardment has not stopped for a single moment,” a resident from west Rafah told Agence France-Presse (AFP). “There are a number of occupation (Israeli) snipers in high-rise buildings overseeing all areas of Tal al-Sultan … making the situation very dangerous.”

• It came a day after Biden urged Hamas to accept a new peace deal he said Israel had put on the table, offering a permanent ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in return for the release of all hostages and the long-term reconstruction of the shattered coastal strip. Hamas said it responded “positively” to the proposal but Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had appeared to react coolly to the plan. “Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed: the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel,” the Israeli leader said in a statement on Saturday. “Under the proposal, Israel will continue to insist these conditions are met before a permanent ceasefire is put in place.” “The notion that Israel will agree to a permanent ceasefire before these conditions are fulfilled is a non-starter,” Netanyahu added.

• The families of some Israeli hostages held by Hamas called for all parties to immediately accept the ceasefire proposal. Israel’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid, also said Netanyahu should accept the proposal, which would begin with a six-week phase that would involve Israeli forces withdrawing from all populated areas of Gaza.

• At least 36,379 Palestinian people have been killed and 82,407 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Saturday. An estimated 95 Palestinians were killed and 350 injured in the past 24 hours alone, the ministry said.

Israel’s opposition leader has urged Benjamin Netanyahu to heed Joe Biden’s call for a Gaza truce under which Hamas would free hostages (see earlier post at 08.31 for more details).

“The Israeli government cannot ignore President Biden’s significant speech. There is a deal on the table and it needs to be done,” Yair Lapid wrote in a post on X.

“I remind Netanyahu that he has a safety net from us for the hostage deal if Ben-Gvir and Smotrich leave the government.”

The deal offers a permanent ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in return for the release of all hostages and the long-term reconstruction of the shattered coastal strip.

Although the terms of the new deal were set out by Biden, he repeatedly described it as an Israeli proposal. However, the US president made clear he was aware there would be considerable resistance to it from the Israeli right, including the hard-right members of the governing coalition.

The families of some Israeli hostages held by Hamas have called for all parties to immediately accept the ceasefire proposal outlined by Joe Biden, the US president, yesterday.

Biden outlined a three-phase deal proposed by Israel to Hamas, saying the militant group is “no longer capable” of carrying out another large-scale attack on Israel. He urged the Israelis and Hamas to come to an agreement to release about 100 remaining hostages, along with the bodies of about 30 more, for an extended ceasefire. Israel’s government says, however, that conditions for a ceasefire are still not met.

“We want to see people coming back from Gaza alive and soon,” Gili Roman told the Associated Press (AP). His sister, Yarden Roman-Gat, was taken hostage and freed during a weeklong ceasefire in November, but Yarden’s sister-in-law, Carmel, is still being held.

“This might be the last chance to save lives. Therefore, the current state must be changed and we expect all to adhere to Biden’s call for accepting the deal on the table, immediately. There is no other way towards a better situation for all. Our leadership must not disappoint us. But mostly, all eyes should be on Hamas,” he said.

Many hostage families say the Israeli government has delayed reaching a hostage deal, something they say has cost lives.

“We know that the government of Israel has done an awful lot to delay reaching a deal and that has cost the lives of many people who survived in captivity for weeks and weeks and months and months. Our hearts are broken by the amount of people we will receive that are no longer alive,” Sharone Lipschitz told AP. Her mother, Yocheved, was freed in the November ceasefire, but her father, Oded, is still in captivity.

Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier security conference, Indonesia’s president-elect, Prabowo Subianto, said his country is willing to send peacekeeping troops to enforce a ceasefire in Gaza if required, Al Jazeera reported.