Middle East crisis live: Guterres to meet UNRWA donors over funding crisis; IDF reportedly kills three in West Bank hospital

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The British government is being urged by aid charities to ensure humanitarian assistance can continue to be delivered via UNRWA in Gaza after a decision by the US, UK and other western nations to freeze funding for the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees/

The call by Bond, the UK network for over 350 NGOs and humanitarian agencies, comes as aid groups are also pressing the government behind the scenes to agree that new funding commitments will not stall in the weeks and months ahead.

Britain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Finland have joined the US, Australia and Canada in pausing funding after UNRWA, the UN’s Relief and Works Agency for Palestine, revealed an investigation had been launched into 12 members of staff who allegedly took part in the 7 October attack led by Hamas that killed 1,140 people.

Romilly Greenhill, CEO of Bond, said: “UNRWA is the main provider of humanitarian assistance to millions of displaced Palestinians already in desperate need and at risk of famine, as well as millions of people across the Middle East.”

“No other local or international organisation has the same level of reach or can provide the same level of support, which means withdrawing funding risks collectively punishing large swathes of people by removing lifesaving basics such as food, vaccinations, and freshwater.”

The Qatar-based Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh has said he will visit Cairo for discussions on a ceasefire proposal formulated in Paris.

The Jerusalem Post has reported that the plan envisages three phases, with the initial phase being the release of women, children and the elderly being held hostage in Gaza in return for a six-week ceasefire.

The second phase would involve the release of men and soldiers being held, and the third phase the release of the bodies of those who have been kidnapped and then killed while in captivity. The releases would be accompanied by ceasefires and the release of Palestinians being detained by Israel.

Reuters quotes Haniyeh saying Hamas has received the proposals, and that its priority is for ending the Israeli military offensive and for Israel’s troops to pull out of Gaza.

Israel’s government has repeatedly said it seeks to destroy Hamas and that the group will play no role in the governance of the territory when the war has ended.

About 136 Israelis are still believed held in captivity in Gaza as hostages, however it is believed that some of them have been killed since being abducted on 7 October.

Updated at 05.53 EST

Israel hands over bodies of dozens of Palestinians killed by its forces in Gaza to health ministry

Israel has handed over to Palestinian authorities the bodies of dozens of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in recent weeks, health officials in the Palestinian territory have said.

The bodies, which had been held in Israel, were handed over on Tuesday through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing and would be buried in mass graves in the city of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip, the officials said.

Reuters reports the health ministry in Gaza did not immediately say how many bodies had been handed over.

At least 26,637 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and a further 65,387 injured by Israeli military action since 7 October, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas.

The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in the casualty figures, and it has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the numbers.

Updated at 04.48 EST

CCTV footage shows Israeli security forces engaged in Jenin hospital raid that killed three Palestinians

Hamas has confirmed that one of the three people killed by Israeli forces during a raid on Ibn Sina hospital in Jenin in the Israeli-occupied West Bank was a member. Islamic Jihad claimed the other two.

Israel’s border police said the three Palestinians were killed in an operation by the force’s undercover unit. CCTV circulated online appeared to show around a dozen undercover troops pacing through a hospital corridor with rifles.

This screenshot taken from social media appears to show Israeli forces in disguise inside the hospital in occupied Jenin. Photograph: UGC/AFP via Getty

Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, reposted the clip on social media, congratulated the forces who carried out the raid, and added: “Let all our enemies know that our forces will operate everywhere and by all means to protect and protect our citizens and the state of Israel.”

In a statement, Israel’s military named the men killed as Mohammed Jalamneh, Mohammed Ghazawi and his brother Basel Ghazawi. It claimed:

Jalamneh planned to carry out a terror attack in the immediate future and used the hospital as a hiding place and therefore was neutralized. Israeli security forces will continue to act against any threat that would endanger the security of Israeli civilians.

For a long time, wanted suspects have been hiding in hospitals and using them as a base for planning terrorist activities and carrying out terror attacks, while they assume that the exploitation of hospitals will serve as protection against counter-terrorism activities of Israeli security forces. This is another example of the cynical use of civilian areas and hospitals as shelters and human shields by terrorist organisations.

Hamas said Israel’s “crimes will not go unanswered” and that its fighters “will not be intimidated by assassinations or weakened by the crimes of the cowardly enemy”.

Mai al-Kaila, the health minister of the Palestinian Authority, called on international bodies to prevent Israeli attacks on healthcare facilities in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, and to provide protection for ambulance crews.

Updated at 08.11 EST

The Times of Israel reports that the Knesset speaker, Amir Ohana, will visit the US next week, having been invited by Republican house speaker, Mike Johnson. On the trip he will be accompanied by nine-year-old Emily Hand, who was held captive by Hamas from 7 October until the end of November.

Updated at 04.34 EST

Patrick Wintour is the Guardian’s diplomatic editor

The UK’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, is to start his fourth trip to the Middle East since taking up the role, opening with talks in Oman that will include Muscat’s role in mediating a proposed peace settlement inside Yemen.

The Foreign Office said his focus would be on the continued Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea as well as the US and UK naval ships seeking to provide protection.

There are signs that violence is spreading within Yemen as forces backing the UN recognised government in Aden clash with Houthi fighters. The unrest and the imminent designation of the Houthis as a terrorist group by the US is likely to exacerbate efforts by aid groups to ensure humanitarian goods reach Yemen.

On his visit, the former UK prime minister will also test the mood on whether a breakthrough is imminent on an extended ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, leading to large-scale hostage releases and a significant increase in aid.

Despite a UN resolution and an international court of justice order requiring an immediate increase in aid, UN agencies do not report improved cooperation by Israel. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has repeatedly said, including after the international court of justice ruling, that only a minimal amount of aid is required to enter Gaza.

Cameron’s previous regional visit was to Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Turkey and Qatar. On his latest trip he will also reiterate with regional leaders the UK’s call for an immediate pause in the conflict in Gaza to allow significantly more aid in and hostages out, then progress towards a sustainable ceasefire.

Updated at 04.37 EST

A Guardian investigation has detailed the mass destruction of buildings and land in three neighbourhoods in Gaza.

Using satellite imagery and open-source evidence, the investigation found damage to more than 250 residential buildings, 17 schools and universities, 16 mosques, three hospitals, three cemeteries and 150 agricultural greenhouses.

Entire buildings have been levelled, fields flattened and places of worship wiped off the map.

The destruction has not only forced 1.9 million people to leave their homes but also made it impossible for many to return. This has led some experts to describe what is happening in Gaza as “domicide”, defined as the widespread, deliberate destruction of the home to make it uninhabitable, preventing the return of displaced people.

You can view the investigation here: How war destroyed Gaza’s neighbourhoods – visual investigation

In addition to the investigation itself, the Guardian has published an opinion piece by Ammar Azzouz, who writes: As a Syrian I feel the pain of Palestinians as their homes and lives are destroyed. This is domicide

Protesters have arrived at the Kerem Shalom border crossing between Israel and Gaza for the seventh consecutive day. The group, including family members of some of those being held hostage by Hamas, is seeking to block the delivery of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.

The Times of Israel reports a statement from the Tzav 9 organization who are behind the protests. It said:

There is no logic in having the trucks enter directly into the hands of Hamas terrorists. We are prepared for this trying time together with thousands of supporters who demand that the supplies to Hamas be halted. No aid should pass until the last of the hostages returns.

On 7 October an estimated 240 people were seized and abducted from southern Israel during the surprise Hamas attack. About 136 of them are believed to still be in captivity inside the Gaza Strip.

In its statement about the raid Israel’s military carried out inside a hospital in Jenin which reportedly killed three Palestinians, the IDF said it had responded to “the cynical use of civilian areas and hospitals as shelters and human shields by terrorist organisations” in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. [See 5.46 GMT]

A series of images released from the hospital show blood-stained scenes, and a chair and a bed with bullet holes. Images have also been released of the corpses of three men in the hospital morgue.

One of the images released from the hospital showing the aftermath of a reported Israeli raid inside it. Photograph: Alaa Badarneh/EPA

The Wafa news agency identified the three men killed as “siblings Mohammad and Basil Ayman Al-Ghazawi, and Mohammad Walid Jalamna”. It noted that Basil Ayman Al-Ghazawi had been in hospital since mid-October.

It reported:

Sources from inside the hospital explained that about ten members of undercover special forces, disguised in civilian clothes, dressed as doctors and nurses, broke into the hospital, headed to the third floor, and assassinated the three young men using silenced pistols.

The IDF statement also named Mohammed Jalamneh as a target, accusing him of having “contacts with Hamas headquarters abroad” and the al-Ghazawi brothers, who it claimed were involved with the Jenin Battalions and Islamic Jihad.

Associated Press reports that rockets fired by separatist insurgents killed a police officer and wounded a dozen other people overnight in south-western Pakistan. The attack has been claimed by the outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army, which said two of its fighters had been killed.

The group had threatened to launch attacks on security forces after Pakistan’s strikes on their camps in Iran on 18 January , which killed at least nine people. Those strikes were made in response to an Iranian strike in Pakistan that appeared to target a different Baloch militant group with similar separatist goals.

Yesterday Iran’s foreign minister met his counterpart in Islamabad as well as Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister in a show of rapprochement after the two countries had exchanged harsh words and broken off diplomatic ties in the immediate aftermath of the airstrikes.

Updated at 03.20 EST