Middle East crisis live: Blinken says “perhaps the last chance” to free Gaza hostages | Israel-Gaza war

Welcome to our live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war and the wider crisis in the Middle East. Here's an overview of the latest developments.

The US Secretary of State said it was “perhaps the last opportunity” to release the hostages held in Gaza after he arrived in Israel to push for a ceasefire agreement.

After landing in Tel Aviv, Antony Blinken was quoted as saying that this was a “decisive moment” for the ceasefire talks.

On his ninth trip to the Middle East since October, the top US diplomat will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli politicians. Blinken wanted to “emphasize to all parties that it is important to get the remaining pieces of this across the finish line,” a US official said.

This move comes against the backdrop of growing fears of a possible attack by Iran and Hezbollah on Israel and the threat of a full-scale regional war.

Netanyahu had previously blamed Hamas for the delays in reaching a ceasefire agreement.

Meanwhile, 19 people, including six children, were killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza on Sunday, Palestinian health authorities said. The children and their mother were killed in an Israeli air strike on a house in the central city of Deir Al-Balah, authorities said. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

In Israel, police are investigating an explosion that killed one person in Tel Aviv on Sunday, a spokesman said, reports suggesting the incident may have been a militant attack.

“The explosion killed one person, whose identity is still unknown, and left another person moderately injured.”

More news:

• An Israeli was killed in an attack on a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, a hospital said.three days after a deadly raid on a nearby Palestinian village. Doctors made several attempts to save his life, Beilinson Hospital said. The Israeli military said a “terrorist” “attacked a civilian, stole his weapon and fled” in the northern West Bank settlement of Kedumim. Local officials identified the victim as a resident of the settlement near the village of Jit, where Israeli settlers killed a 23-year-old Palestinian in an attack on Thursday, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

• Israeli Air Force fighter jets attacked Hezbollah military buildings in southern Lebanon in the areas of Aita al-Sha'ab, Beit Leaf and Khula on Sunday evening, the Israel Defense Forces said on X. An aerial video accompanied their post on Monday.

• Fighting between Hezbollah and Israel intensified over the weekendwith an Israeli attack on Saturday being one of the bloodiest for civilians since fighting began in October. Ten Syrian workers and their family members were killed in the attack on a Hezbollah weapons depot in Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, Israel said. In response, Hezbollah launched a 55-rocket attack on the town of Ayelet HaShahar in northern Israel. The Israel Defense Forces

• Three Unifil peacekeepers were slightly injured in an explosion on Sunday while on patrol in the Lebanese border town of Yarin. A source at Unifil (UN Interim Force in Lebanon) said the soldiers were believed to have been injured by a nearby Israeli airstrike, but the incident was still being investigated.

• Israel is conducting a “thorough investigation” into suspects accused of sexually abusing a Palestinian prisoner, the Foreign Ministry said. on Sunday, adding that it was committed to upholding international legal standards on the treatment of prisoners. The UN Special Rapporteur on torture on Friday condemned what she called a “particularly cruel” case of alleged sexual abuse of a Palestinian prisoner by Israeli soldiers and said the perpetrators must be brought to justice. According to Israeli media reports, the alleged abuser was a member of an elite Hamas unit at the Sde Teiman detention center in the Negev desert in southern Israel.

• A British Foreign Office official has resigned because Britain refused to ban arms exports to Israel over alleged violations of international law.Mark Smith, a counter-terrorism officer at the British Embassy in Dublin, said he resigned after making numerous internal complaints, including through an official whistleblower mechanism, but receiving nothing but pro forma responses.

• The US Central Command announced on Sunday that its forces had destroyed a Houthi unmanned aerial vehicle. in a Houthi-controlled area in Yemen.