Middle East crisis live: Iran says response to killing of Hamas chief will be “definitive and calculated”; no agreement reached in ceasefire talks | Israel-Gaza war

The Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchispoke with his Italian counterpart Antonio Tajani. He reportedly told Tajani that Iran's reaction to the killing of the Hamas leader in Tehran would be “decisive and calculated.”

Iran blames Israel for the assassination of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniya on July 31, which Iranian state media called an “unforgivable violation of Iran’s security and sovereignty.”

The Israeli government officially declined to comment on Haniya's death, but it was widely accepted both at home and abroad that the attack was an Israeli operation.

“Iran does not seek further tensions. But it is not afraid of them either,” Araqchi told his Italian counterpart by phone. He said Iran's response would be “decisive, calculated and precise,” the statement said.

Israel had vowed to kill all Hamas leaders after the October 7 attacks, and Israeli intelligence services have carried out several covert killings in Iran in the past, mostly of scientists working on the country's nuclear program.

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Ceasefire talks in Cairo ended without an agreement, several sources told the media. However, negotiations are set to continue at a lower level and the US said it would continue to work “feverishly” towards an agreement.

The news came just hours after Israel and the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah exchanged the heaviest exchange of fire since the war began. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that the Israeli airstrikes were “not the end of the story.”

Months of on-and-off talks have so far failed to produce an agreement on ending Israel's devastating military operation in Gaza or releasing the last hostages captured by Hamas in its October 7 attack on Israel that sparked the war.

One of the main sticking points in the ongoing talks mediated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar is an Israeli presence in the so-called Philadelphia Corridor, a narrow 14.5-kilometer-long strip of land along the southern border of the Gaza Strip with Egypt.

The mediators presented a number of alternatives to the presence of Israeli forces in the Philadelphia Corridor and the Netzarim Corridor, which runs through the middle of the Gaza Strip, but none of these alternatives were accepted by the parties, Egyptian sources told Reuters.

At a press conference in Halifax, Canada, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Washington was still working “feverishly” in Cairo with Egyptian and Qatari mediators as well as the Israelis on a ceasefire and hostage agreement.

Further developments:

• Meanwhile, in central Gaza, the medical aid organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said an Israeli order to evacuate the area around Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah had caused chaos and the situation was “unacceptable.”“MSF is considering suspending wound care for the time being while it tries to maintain life-saving treatment. Of the approximately 650 patients, only 100 are still in hospital, according to the Ministry of Health, including 7 in intensive care,” X said.

• Around 60 media and human rights organizations on Monday called on the European Union to suspend the cooperation agreement with Israel and impose sanctions, accusing Israel of “massacring journalists” in Gaza.“In response to the unprecedented number of journalists killed and other repeated violations of press freedom by the Israeli authorities since the beginning of the war with Hamas, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and 59 other organizations call on the European Union to suspend its Association Agreement with Israel and impose targeted sanctions against those responsible,” the groups said in a joint statement.

• Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said his country will respond to the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.“Iran's response to the Israeli terrorist attack in Tehran is clear and will be appropriate and well-calculated,” Araghchi wrote in a post on X. “We do not fear escalation, but we do not seek it either – unlike Israel.”

• US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered two aircraft carrier battle groups to remain in the Middle East, Reuters reports, citing the Pentagon.

• Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah delivered a public address after Sunday's exchange of fire, saying the group's response to Israel's killing of a senior commander in Beirut had been delayed for several reasons, including the massive mobilization of Israeli and American military forces. He added: “We will assess the impact of today's operation. If the results are not sufficient, we will respond another time.”

• Jordan warned that increased escalation between Israel and Hezbollah could lead to a “regional war,” echoing earlier comments by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Foreign Ministry spokesman Sufain Qudah said Israel's relentless “aggression” in the Gaza Strip and the failure of a ceasefire put the region at risk of an escalation of the conflict, Jordanian state media reported.

• The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) has announced that it will launch a polio vaccination campaign for more than 600,000 children under the age of ten in the coming days, together with the World Health Organization, Unicef ​​​​and other partners. The UN is calling on Israel and Hamas to initiate a humanitarian ceasefire to allow humanitarian workers to carry out the vaccination campaign.

• Europe's highest-ranking diplomat will call for sanctions against two far-right Israeli ministers as the EU struggles to salvage its credibility in Middle East policy. At a meeting of the 27 EU foreign ministers on Thursday, Josep Borrell will call for sanctions against Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, whose inflammatory statements and behavior have drawn international criticism.

• At least 40,405 Palestinians have been killed and 93,468 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza Strip's Health Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

• Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels on Sunday praised Hezbollah's attacks on Israel and again threatened to launch their own attack in response to Israeli strikes on a Yemeni port. “We congratulate Hezbollah and its Secretary General on the great and courageous attack the resistance carried out this morning against the Israeli enemy,” the Houthis said in a statement.