Middle East crisis live: Gaza ceasefire talks end with no breakthrough, says report | Israel-Gaza war

NBC News has been told by US officials that Kamala Harris’ speech on Sunday, in which the US vice-president called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and urged Hamas to accept a deal to release hostages in return for a 6-week cessation of hostilities, was watered down by officials at the national security council.

Harris bluntly called out Israel for not doing enough to ease a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza, in what appeared to be the sharpest rebuke yet by a senior leader in the US government over the conditions in the coastal enclave.

NBC News reports:

The original draft of Harris’ speech, when it was sent to the national security council for review, was harsher on Israel about the dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and the need for more aid than were the remarks she ultimately delivered, according to one of the current officials and the former official.

One of the U.S. officials said the initial draft specifically called out Israel more directly about the need to immediately allow additional aid trucks in. The official described Harris’ original language as strong but not controversial.

The move to soften Harris’ comments highlights how reluctant the White House still is to aggressively criticise Israel in public as President Joe Biden tries to maintain some influence over the Israeli government and secure a hostage deal.

The current officials said that the changes were tonal, rather than shifts in policy, and that Harris’ comments about a ceasefire – which were widely covered – reiterated Biden’s remarks two days earlier and the administration’s position on the war.

Asked about reports that the speech Sunday was watered down and made to be less aggressive, Kirsten Allen, Harris’ communications director, said, “That is inaccurate.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that malnutrition in northern Gaza is “particularly extreme”.

“The situation is particularly extreme in northern Gaza,” Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative for Gaza and the West Bank, said.

He said that 1 in 6 children under two years of age were acutely malnourished in northern Gaza.

“This was in January. So the situation is likely to be greater today,” Peeperkorn added.

Israel’s war in Gaza has displaced 85% of the population from their homes and left civilians facing acute shortages of food, water and medicine in cold and wet conditions.

Ceasefire talks between Hamas and mediators broke up on Tuesday in Cairo with no breakthrough, with just days left to halt fighting in time for the start of Ramadan.

Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim told Reuters the Palestinian militant group presented its proposal for a ceasefire agreement to the mediators during two days of talks, and was waiting for a response from the Israelis, who stayed away from this round.

“(Prime minister Benjamin) Netanyahu doesn’t want to reach an agreement and the ball now is in the Americans’ court” to press him for a deal, Naim was quoted as saying.

Israel has declined to comment publicly on the talks in Cairo.

But officials have said Israel has not sent a delegation to the talks as they are demanding that Hamas present a list of 40 elderly, sick and female hostages who would be the first to be released as part of a truce that would initially last six weeks.

Hamas is meanwhile demanding that large-scale humanitarian aid should be allowed into Gaza and that Palestinians displaced from their homes in the north of the coastal strip should be allowed to return.

At least 30,631 Palestinians have been killed and 72,043 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

An estimated 97 Palestinian people were killed and 123 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.

Most of the casualties have been women and children, the ministry has said, and thousands more bodies are likely to remain uncounted under rubble across Gaza.

Miranda Bryant

Norway’s UN ambassador has said her country will continue sending aid to UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) and urged other countries to follow their lead.

A month ago, Israel accused a dozen UN staff of involvement in the 7 October Hamas attack, evidence of which has yet to be provided to investigators, prompting 16 major donors to suspend contributions of $450m while two million Palestinians face famine. The UNRWA has said it is approaching “breaking point”.

Norwegian representative Merete Fjeld Brattested on Monday told an informal meeting of the plenary to hear a UNRWA briefing in New York:

Norway has decided to continue its funding. The needs of millions of people cannot be set aside because of the alleged participation of a small number of UNRWA-staff in the 7 October attacks.

Encouraging others to reconsider their position, she added: “Norway urges other donors to reflect on the wider consequences of suspending funding to UNRWA in this time of extreme humanitarian distress.”

Children are dying of starvation in northern Gaza, the World Health Organization (WHO) chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said.

In a post on X, he said the organisation’s visits over the weekend to the al-Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals, in northern Gaza, were the first since early October, and produced “grim findings”.

The WHO chief described severe levels of malnutrition, children dying of starvation and serious shortages of fuel, food and medical supplies at the health facilities.

“The situation at al-Awda hospital is particularly appalling, as one of the buildings is destroyed,” he wrote.

“Kamal Adwan hospital is the only paediatrics hospital in the north of Gaza, and is overwhelmed with patients.

“The lack of food resulted in the deaths of 10 children. The lack of electricity poses a serious threat to patient care, especially in critical areas like the intensive care unit and the neonatal unit.”

Hunger and severe malnutrition are widespread in the Gaza Strip, where more than 2 million Palestinians are facing severe shortages resulting from Israel destroying food supplies and severely restricting the flow of food, medicines and other humanitarian supplies.

Welcome to our latest live coverage of Israel’s war in Gaza and wider Middle East crisis.

Palestinians detained by Israeli forces are coming back “completely traumatised” and reporting abuses while in captivity, the head of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency has said.

Detainees reported being subjected to a “broad range of ill treatment” including threats of electrocution, being photographed naked, sleep deprivation and having dogs used to intimidate them, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told a media briefing.

Lazzarini’s comments came on the same day that Israel accused UNRWA of having employed more than 450 “terrorists”.

Here’s a summary of the day’s other main events:

• The UN’s special envoy on sexual violence in conflict has reported “clear and convincing information” that some women and children hostages held by Hamas have been subjected to rape and sexualised torture. The special envoy, Pramila Patten, also reported that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe sexual assaults, including rape and gang-rape, took place during the 7 October attacks by Hamas.

• Egyptian and Qatari officials are putting pressure on Hamas negotiators in Cairo to produce a list of hostages to be released as the first step in a phased ceasefire agreement with Israel, according to officials familiar with the talks. International mediators and Hamas delegates were in Cairo on Tuesday for talks to try to secure a pause in the war ahead of Ramadan early next week.

• Envoys from Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, and the US were expected to meet with Qatari and Egyptian mediators for a third day of negotiations over a six-week truce, the exchange of dozens of remaining hostages for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and the flow of aid to Gaza. Israeli delegates have so far stayed away from the negotiations, with Israeli media reporting that the country’s mediators boycotted the talks after Hamas failed to provide a list of living hostages.

• A 16-year-old boy has been shot and killed by Israeli security forces during an overnight raid in the al-Amari camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, according to reports. Palestinian news agency Wafa also reports that 55 Palestinians were detained overnight by Israeli security forces. The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society states that about 7,400 Palestinians have now been detained by Israel since 7 October.

• Israel has stepped up its allegations against the UN relief agency for Palestinians (UNRWA), saying that the organisation in Gaza had employed more than 450 “military operatives” from Hamas and other armed groups, and that Israel had shared this intelligence with the UN.

• The head of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, has told the UN general assembly that the agency is “facing a deliberate and concerted campaign to undermine its operations, and ultimately end them.” UNRWA officials told the Agence France Presse new agency that some its staff had alleged they had been forced to make confessions under “torture and ill-treatment” while being interrogated over the 7 October attack.

• The deaths of more than 100 people when Israeli forces opened fire near an aid convoy in Gaza was a tragedy that should have been foreseen and could have been prevented, the World Food Programme director for Gaza has said. Matthew Hollingworth also said an aid corridor into northern Gaza was needed urgently to prevent a “man-made” famine there after Palestinians were starved of food at terrifying speed and scale.

• Ships will have to obtain a permit from Yemen’s Houthi-controlled Maritime Affairs Authority before entering Yemeni waters, Houthi telecommunications minister Misfer Al-Numair said on Monday. Houthi militants have repeatedly launched drones and missiles against international commercial shipping in the Gulf of Aden since mid-November, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians against Israel’s war in Gaza.