Hamas has accused Israel of committing a “complex war crime” with its bloody attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp which freed four captives, and claims three other captives, one of them a US citizen, were killed. Israel has denied the accusation.

    The death toll from Saturday’s raid rose to 274, including at least 64 children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. More than 700 Palestinians were injured, it added.

    Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz quit the unity government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of failure in the war on Gaza and calling for early elections.

    At least 37,084 people have been killed and 84,494 injured in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7. The death toll in Israel from Hamas’s attacks stands at 1,139 with dozens of people still held captive in Gaza.

    Blinken due in Egypt in eighth visit to Middle East since Gaza war began

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to arrive in Egypt in a few hours on his eighth visit to the Middle East since the war in Gaza began,

    Blinken is expected to push the US’s latest ceasefire plan – the one its diplomats are trying to move to a vote in the Security Council.

    In Cairo, he will hold talks behind closed doors with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a key US partner in peace efforts. He is also expected to discuss ways to open the Rafah crossing, which has been closed since it was seized by Israel a month ago.

    Blinken will then travel to Jerusalem for discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The US has said Israel has accepted the plan, but Hamas has not formally responded.

    Blinken will also visit Jordan and Qatar before returning on Wednesday.

    Concern at Security Council of US taking ‘complete control’ of conflict resolution process

    Shihab Rattansi

    Various versions of the US draft resolution have been circulating for days.

    This version does differ in some significant ways. First of all, it explicitly states that Israel has accepted the ceasefire deal – a previous version only said that a ceasefire deal was acceptable to Israel.

    It removes any mention of the creation of buffer zones being unacceptable. There are thoughts that Israel does plan to create a buffer zone in Gaza, and it explicitly states that any ceasefire will continue after six weeks and be renewed as long as negotiations continue.

    It welcomes the readiness of the US, Egypt and Qatar to work to ensure negotiations keep going until all the agreements are reached and phase two is able to begin,

    But it’s still not a categorical, permanent ceasefire. That’s what some members of the Security Council want. They’ve been calling in the past for an immediate, permanent, unconditional ceasefire. They don’t want this now to supersede those calls, nor are they particularly keen on the US taking complete control over any sort of conflict resolution process that will be enshrined in this resolution.

    WFP ‘pauses’ delivery of Gaza aid through US-built pier

    Cindy McCain, the director of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), says the distribution of aid through the US-built pier off Gaza has been “paused” because of concerns about safety amid the latest Israeli assaults on Gaza.

    McCain made her comments after she was asked about operations at the pier in an interview with the US broadcaster CBS.

    “Right now, we’re paused,” she said on the Face the Nation programme, adding that two of the WFP’s warehouses had also come under rocket fire and one person had been injured.

    “I’m concerned about the safety of our people. We’ve stepped back for the moment … to make sure we’re on safe terms and on safe ground before we’ll restart. But the rest of the country is operational. We’re doing everything we can in the north and the south.”

    McCain did not say when operations might resume at the pier, which was completed in mid-May but was then damaged in a storm, which meant operations were suspended for two weeks.