EXPLAINER
Netanyahu rejects a deal with Hamas to end the war while separate diplomatic efforts continue amid Israeli bombing of Gaza.
Here’s how things stand on Monday, January 22, 2024:
Latest updates
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday “outright” rejected making a deal with Hamas to end the war, amid growing domestic political pressure.
- At least 10 Palestinians, including children, have been killed amid overnight Israeli air attacks, shelling and gunfire in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, Palestinian news agency Wafa reports.
- An estimated 1.7 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is internally displaced as of January 20, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
- Taxes collected by Israel and bound for Gaza will be held in Norway, instead of being sent to the Palestinian Authority, according to a statement released by Netanyahu’s office on Sunday.
Human impact and fighting
- Gaza’s death toll has crossed 25,000, the enclave’s Ministry of Health announced on Sunday.
- Israel has killed 94 university professors, hundreds of teachers and thousands of students during its war in Gaza, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said in a statement on Saturday.
- The United States military said on Sunday that two Navy Seals who went missing in a raid on an Iranian dhow supplying weapons to the Houthis have been declared dead. The announcement follows a 10-day search in which the personnel could not be located.
- Only seven of the 29 (24 percent) planned humanitarian missions to deliver lifesaving supplies to areas north of Wadi Gaza were accomplished in the first two weeks of January. Israeli authorities denied access to the remainder, reported the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) on Sunday.
- About 325 truckloads of food, medicine and other supplies entered Gaza through the Rafah and Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossings over the weekend, according to OCHA.
- In a post on X on Sunday, Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, accused Israel of killing a greater share of the population in Gaza than the proportion of people killed in the wars in Ukraine and Iraq.
Diplomacy
- The European Union’s 27 foreign ministers have convened a meeting on Israel’s war on Gaza in Brussels on Monday, where they will meet with the Palestinian and Israeli foreign ministers separately.
- Malaysia’s Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan will put forward a proposal for the state of Palestine to become a full member of the UN at meetings in New York this week.
- Palestine’s Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki held meetings with several of his counterparts at the 19th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement held in Kampala, Uganda on Sunday. He discussed Israel’s restrictions on humanitarian aid entering Gaza and diplomatic efforts needed to achieve a ceasefire.
- The White House’s Middle East coordinator, Brett McGurk, will be heading to Qatar and Egypt this week for talks regarding Israel’s war on Gaza and the release of the remaining captives from the besieged enclave, the Times of Israel reported, quoting a US official.
Israeli raids and arrests in the occupied West Bank
- On Sunday, Israeli authorities forced a Palestinian resident of the az-Za’ayyem neighbourhood, east of Jerusalem, to demolish his own home within 24 hours, according to Wafa. It was not immediately clear why the order was given, however, az-Za’ayyem is one of dozens of Palestinian Bedouin communities that have been at risk of forced displacement due to Israeli settlements.
- Israeli forces have arrested six people during overnight raids near Hebron, local media are reporting.
