Middle East crisis live: Israeli parliament to vote on blocking UN agency from distributing aid in Gaza

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Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Iran leads an 'axis of evil' at opening of parliament

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Iran leads an “axis of evil” and Israel is the only obstacle preventing this evil from spreading and threatening peace around the world.

“Iran is working for a stockpile of nuclear bombs and will be able to threaten the entire world whenever it wants. If Israel falls, the entire Middle East will fall into its hands, but we will not fall. We will win, and the whole world will be a better place,” said the prime minister.

Netanyahu says that Israel hit key Iranian sites hard during Saturday’s airstrikes during a speech at the opening of the Knesset winter legislative session.

“We severely damaged Iran’s defence systems and its ability to export missiles,” said Netanyahu. “These were not lathes we were attacking. These are industrial factories of death, and we struck them hard.”

Netanyahu said that the United States played no role in convincing Israel to tone down its response to Iran’s bombardment on 1 October. “We make decisions ourselves according to our interests and considerations,” said Netanyahu.

In regards to the war in Gaza and Lebanon, Netanyahu says that the “day after” the conflict, “Hamas will no longer rule Gaza and Hezbollah will not sit on our northern border. Total victory is an orderly and consistent work plan that we fulfil step by step”.

A protester yelling from the gallery during Netanyahu’s speech was removed by parliamentary security.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the latest talks in Doha regarding a ceasefire and hostage release deal are focused on a new outline.

“A new unified proposal that combines previous proposals and also takes into account the main issues and recent developments in the region,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.

“In the coming days, discussions will continue between the mediators and Hamas to examine the feasibility of talks and a continued attempt to advance a deal.”

No details or specifics about the new outline were provided.

Israel's parliament will vote on blocking UN agency from distributing aid in Gaza on Monday evening

Israel will vote on a pair of bills that would significantly restrict the United Nations agency responsible for distributing aid in Gaza by stripping it of legal immunities and limiting its ability to support Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The vote will take place on Monday evening when the Israeli parliament’s winter session begins.

Israel accuses the UN Relief and Works Agency, or Unrwa, of allowing Hamas militants to infiltrate its staff, an allegation the agency denies.

More than 1.9 million Palestinians are displaced from their homes, and Gaza faces widespread shortages of food, water and medicine.

The bills will not propose alternative agencies to provide essential provisions to people suffering in the region. Unrwa provides education, health care and other basic services to millions of Palestinian refugees across the region, including in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

“If it passes and if it’s implemented, it’s a disaster,” said Juliette Touma, communications director for the agency. “Unrwa is the largest humanitarian organization in Gaza … Who can do its job?”

Benjamin Netanyahu says he hopes to have peace with more Arab nations after fighting has stopped.

The Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he wants to make more peace deals once armed conflict with Iran and the Iranian proxies of Hamas and Hezbollah is complete.

“I aspire to continue the process I led a few years ago of the signing of the historic Abraham Accords, and achieve peace with additional Arab countries,” Netanyahu said to the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.

“These countries, and other countries, see clearly the blows we are landing on those who attack us, the Iranian axis of evil,” he said. “They aspire, like us, for a stable, secure and flourishing Middle East.”

Israel will spend around £400m on a new air defence system known as Iron Beam, the Israeli ministry of defence announced on Monday.

In a statement, military research chief Daniel Gold said: “The combination between laser interception and missile interception will further tighten the defence envelope against rockets, missiles, drones, cruise missiles and other threats.”

Rafael Advanced Defence Systems, an Israeli defence technology company, is the main developer of the Iron Beam system, and Elbit, another Israel-based defence contractor, supplies the laser cannon for it.

The cost of a Tamir missile, which is currently used by Israel’s Iron Dome to intercept missiles, costs £76,000 a time, whereas using a laser shield costs as much as the electricity used to power it.

However, the laser system is not as adept at coping with large-scale rocket barrages as the Iron Dome system and can be impeded by rain, clouds and sandstorms.

Summary of the day so far...

The Israeli military issued an evacuation order for large swathes of the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, including areas already ordered to evacuate and other new ones. The News Agency reported “a series of strikes” on the ancient coastal city, beginning with a raid on a residential apartment that was reported to have killed at least seven people.

The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said about 100,000 people are trapped in northern Gaza’s Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun areas without medical or food supplies. The emergency service said its operations had ground to a halt because of the three-week-long Israeli assault back into the northern part of the Strip.

At least 43,020 Palestinian people have been killed and 101,110 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the territory’s health ministry said in its latest update.

Iraq condemned Israel’s use of its airspace to attack neighbouring Iran in a protest letter sent to UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, and the UN security council.

The UN security council is expected to meet today to discuss Israel’s attack on Iran, which targeted military sites in several regions of the country early on Saturday and killed at least four soldiers.

Israel’s parliament – the Knesset – is expected to vote on Monday on a pair of bills that, if passed, will make it impossible for the UN relief and works agency for Palestinians, Unrwa, to operate in Gaza and the West Bank.

Hezbollah says its fighters 'ambushed' Israeli troops near Lebanon border village

Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group, said it has ambushed Israeli troops near a Lebanon border village.

Hezbollah said it “ambushed … the Israeli enemy’s vehicles and soldiers as they advanced towards” the outskirts of the border village of Kfar Kila ahead of deadly clashes. We will give you more details on this developing news as we get it.

Israel’s parliament is expected to vote on a pair of bills today that could effectively bar the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, from operating in Israel, and severely limit its activities in Gaza and the occupied West Bank (see post at 09.39 for more details).

ActionAid UK is urging the UK government – and calling for international action – to stop the proposed bills. In a statement, Hannah Bond, co-CEO at ActionAid UK, said:

World leaders must act now to defend Unrwa from the unprecedented threats by the Israeli government. Passing these bills would turbo-charge an already dire humanitarian disaster, with millions of Palestinian refugees cut off from essential services they rely on every day.

This isn’t just about one agency—dismantling Unrwa would unravel the international protections for Palestinian refugees and set a dangerous precedent for global humanitarian efforts.

The people of Gaza and beyond cannot wait. We call on the global community to act decisively, protect Unrwa, and uphold international law.

We have been reporting on the deadly Israeli airstrikes on the Lebanese city of Tyre in today’s blog. My colleague William Christou has written a profile on Tyre, the second most populated city in south Lebanon, from which tens of thousands of residents had already fled due to intensifying Israeli bombings over the last month.

Here is some of the story, which you can read in full here:

Over the last year, Tyre had been a refuge for thousands of people displaced by Israel-Hezbollah fighting along the border.

During the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, it played a similar role, hosting internally displaced people, humanitarians and journalists who relied on it as a safe zone.

Now, Tyre was no longer safe. The day after Israel issued its evacuation order, the city was almost entirely empty.

Burnt-out cars, flipped upside down by the force of a blast, lined the main thoroughfare of the city. Distant thuds announced Israeli airstrikes, and the occasional volley of a dozen outgoing Katyushas, the rockets popping and flaring up before accelerating and disappearing into the sky, was Hezbollah’s reply.

Where beachgoers would usually lounge were journalists and a row of cameras pointed at Lebanon’s snaking coastline, with plumes of smoke where Israeli bombs dropped visible under Tyre’s clear blue sky.

Israel’s president Isaac Herzog has called for the “urgent and immediate” return” of the hostages in Gaza, calling it a “binding order of the state toward its citizens”.

“We listen to the families and we do not forget Maimonides’ command that there is no greater mitzvah than the mitzvah of redeeming captives,” he said.

Five rockets were launched from Lebanon at the Haifa area in Israel a short while ago, according to the Israel Defence Force.

“Some of them were intercepted by the airforce, crashes in the area were detected,” it said on X.

EU foreign policy chief renews calls for 'immediate ceasefire' in Lebanon

Spanish politician Josep Borrell, who serves as the EU’s high representative of the union for foreign affairs, has called for an “immediate ceasefire” in Lebanon and condemned Israel’s “unacceptable attacks” on UN peacekeepers in the region.

Borrell told a forum in Barcelona that the bloc calls “for an immediate ceasefire across the blue lines”.

He added: “More than ever we need to reclaim the humanity lost in Gaza, while the world seems unable, or unwilling, to stop the man-made catastrophe unfolding before our eyes.”

The Palestinian Red Crescent has said three people have been killed in an Israeli drone attack on Gaza City.

100,000 residents 'trapped in northern Gaza' – Palestinian emergency service

The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service has said about 100,000 people are trapped in northern Gaza’s Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun areas without medical or food supplies.

The emergency service said its operations had ground to a halt because of the three-week-long Israeli assault back into the northern part of the Strip, which the IDF claims is being conducted to stop Hamas fighters from regrouping there.

Residents, however, say Israeli troops have besieged shelters and levelled civilian infrastructure, while killing many civilians in deadly airstrikes. Residents in the north, under sweeping evacuation orders, say they feel trapped as there is nowhere safe for them to flee to due to the relentless Israeli attacks there.

Meanwhile, north Gaza’s three hospitals, where officials refused orders by the Israeli army to evacuate, said they were hardly operating. At least two had been damaged by Israeli attacks during the assault and run out of medical, food and fuel stocks.

On Monday, the Gaza health ministry said there was only one of roughly 70 medical staff – a paediatrician – was left at Kamal Adwan hospital after Israel “detained and expelled” the others (see post at 10.25 for more details).

Death toll in Gaza reaches 43,020, says health ministry

At least 43,020 Palestinian people have been killed and 101,110 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Monday.

The ministry has said in the past that thousands of other dead people are most likely lost in the rubble of the territory.

Hezbollah said its fighters have targeted “an Israeli enemy troop gathering” near Wazzani village in southern Lebanon “with a rocket salvo”. The Lebanese militant group earlier claimed four attacks with rockets and artillery on Israeli troops at Fatima’s gate, a shuttered border crossing at the nearby Lebanese village of Kfar Kila.

Lebanon’s foreign ministry has complained to the UN security council over an Israeli airstrike last week that killed three journalists in Hasbaya, in the country’s south.

Wissam Qassem, a camera operator with TV station Al-Manar, and news channel Al Mayadeen’s Ghassan Najjar, a correspondent, and Mohammad Reda, a technician, were killed in the strike.

As my colleague William Christou explains in this story, the airstrikes hit a group of small chalets that 18 journalists from at least seven different media outlets – including Al Jazeera, Sky News Arabia and TRT – were staying in while covering Israel’s war on Lebanon.

Lebanon has now submitted “a complaint to the security council regarding the latest Israeli attacks that targeted journalists and media facilities in Hasbaya in south Lebanon, and the Ouzai area” in Beirut’s southern suburbs, according to a statement from the foreign ministry.

“The repeated Israeli targeting of media crews is a war crime” and Israel must be “held to account and punished”, the statement added.

Lebanon’s prime minister Najib Mikati said the attack was deliberate and both he and Information Minister Ziad Makary labelled it a war crime. The Israeli army said on Friday that the airstrike was “under review”, claiming it targeted Hezbollah militants. Israel has killed at least 12 journalists in Lebanon – six of whom were on duty – since 8 October 2023.

Death toll from Israeli attack on Tyre rises to 7, Lebanon's health ministry says

Lebanon’s health ministry has increased the death toll from the Israeli attack on the southern city of Tyre from five to seven, and revised the number of people injured from 10 to 17 (see earlier post at 07.51 for more details).

X suspends new Hebrew-language account for Iran's supreme leader

The social media platform X – owned by Elon Musk – has suspended a new account on behalf of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 85, that posted messages in Hebrew.

The account was suspended early on Monday with a brief note appended to it saying: “X suspends accounts which violate the X Rules.” It wasn’t immediately clear what the violation was.

Khamenei said in a speech on Sunday that Israel’s airstrikes on Iran early on Saturday “should not be exaggerated nor downplayed,” while stopping short of calling for retaliation.

The X account opened on Sunday with a message in Hebrew reading: “In the name of God, the most merciful,” a standard Islamic greeting.

A second message corresponded to a speech Khamenei gave on Sunday and was sent on his English account as: “Zionists are making a miscalculation with respect to Iran. They don’t know Iran. They still haven’t been able to correctly understand the power, initiative, and determination of the Iranian people.”

Khamenei – the ultimate authority in Iran - has reportedly previously had his Facebook and Instagram accounts removed by Meta over his support of Hamas after the militant group’s 7 October attack on southern Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage.