Middle East crisis live: Biden calls on Hamas to accept ceasefire deal as talks head into fourth day | Israel-Gaza war

An internal UN report describes widespread abuse of Palestinian detainees in Israeli detention centres, including beatings, dog attacks, the prolonged use of stress positions and sexual assault.

The report was compiled by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) and is largely based on interviews of Palestinian detainees released at the Kerem Shalom crossing point since December, when UNRWA staff were present to provide humanitarian support.

The report, which has been circulated within the UN and seen by the Guardian, says that just over 1,000 detainees have been released since December. But it estimates that more than 4,000 men, women and children have been rounded up in Gaza since the start of the current conflict, triggered by Hamas raids into southern Israel on 7 October which killed about 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians.

Israel denies the abuse allegations, which it described as Hamas-inspired propaganda. It has named 12 UNRWA staff it claims took part in the 7 October attack, and claims that 450 of the agency’s 13,000 workers in Gaza are members of Hamas or other militant groups.

You can read more from Julian Borger’s full piece here:

Negotiations aimed at brokering a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war appear to have stalled, days before an unofficial deadline of the beginning of Ramadan.

Two days of talks between Hamas and international mediators in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, have not yielded any significant breakthroughs, Palestinian officials said, after Israel declined to send a delegation to the latest round of negotiations.

“[Benjamin] Netanyahu doesn’t want to reach an agreement” and “the ball now is in the Americans’ court” to press the Israeli prime minister to come back to the table, Basem Naim, the head of Hamas’s political division in Gaza, told reporters in text messages.

Egypt’s Al-Qahera News, which is close to the country’s intelligence services, said the “negotiations are difficult but they are continuing”, citing an unnamed senior official.

You can read the full piece from Bethan McKernan (in Jerusalem) and Julian Borger (in Washington) here:

US President Joe Biden called on Hamas on Tuesday to accept a Gaza ceasefire deal by the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Envoys from Hamas and the US have been meeting Qatari and Egyptian mediators in Cairo for negotiations over a six-week truce.

Egypt’s Al-Qahera News, which is close to the country’s intelligence services, said the talks would continue for a fourth consecutive day on Wednesday, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Biden told reporters:

It’s in the hands of Hamas right now …

There’s got to be a ceasefire because Ramadan – if we get into circumstances where this continues to Ramadan, Israel and Jerusalem could be very, very dangerous.

He did not elaborate, but the US urged Israel last week to allow Muslims to worship at the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem during Ramadan.

It came as Republican presidential frontrunner and former US president Donald Trump expressed his support for Israel’s war in Gaza on Tuesday, in his most explicit comments yet on the fighting, AFP reports.

When asked during an interview on Fox News if he was “in Israel’s camp.” he responded “Yes”. The interviewer then asked if the former president was “on board” with the way Israel was executing its offensive in Gaza. “You’ve got to finish the problem,” Trump responded.

It has gone 9am in Gaza and Tel Aviv. This is our latest Guardian live blog on the Israel-Gaza war and the wider Middle East crisis.

US President Joe Biden has called on Hamas to accept a Gaza ceasefire deal by the start of Ramadan, as Egypt’s Al-Qahera News, which is close to the country’s intelligence services, says the talks would continue for a fourth consecutive day on Wednesday, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“It’s in the hands of Hamas right now,” the US president told reporters from Maryland. Ramadan is set to begin early next week.

It is as the Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump expressed his support for Israel’s war in Gaza, in his most explicit comments yet on the fighting. When asked during an interview on Fox News if he was “in Israel’s camp”, Trump responded “yes”. The interviewer then asked if the former president was “on board” with the way Israel was executing its offensive in Gaza. “You’ve got to finish the problem,” Trump responded.

More on that in a moment but first, here’s a summary of the latest developments:

• Negotiations aimed at brokering a ceasefire in Israel’s war in Gaza appear to have stalled, days before an unofficial deadline of the beginning of Ramadan. Hamas negotiators stayed in Cairo for a third day of ceasefire talks on Tuesday after two days yielded no breakthrough. Two days of talks between Hamas and international mediators broke up in the Egyptian capital without any significant breakthroughs, Palestinian officials said, after Israel declined to send a delegation to the latest round of negotiations. But leaders from Hamas were reportedly expected to hold more talks in Cairo with Egyptian and Qatari mediators over the prospects of reaching a ceasefire deal.

• US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that it was in the hands of Hamas whether to accept a deal for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages.

• An internal UN report described widespread abuse of Palestinian detainees in Israeli detention centres, including beatings, dog attacks, the prolonged use of stress positions and sexual assault. Compiled by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA), the report was largely based on interviews of Palestinian detainees released at the Kerem Shalom crossing point since December, when UNRWA staff were present to provide humanitarian support.

• Children are dying of starvation in northern Gaza, the World Health Organization (WHO) chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has 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. Adding to concerns about the widespread malnutrition in the enclave, Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative for Gaza and the West Bank, said on Tuesday that “the situation is particularly extreme in northern Gaza”. He said that 1 in 6 children under two years of age were acutely malnourished in northern Gaza. “With children starting … to die from starvation, that should be an alarm like no other,” Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN humanitarian agency, told reporters in Geneva, separately. At least 15 children have died from starvation and dehydration in a single hospital, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, reports Agence France-Presse.

• UN experts have condemned the violence they say was unleashed by Israeli forces last week on Palestinians gathered in Gaza City to collect flour as a “massacre”. In a statement, a group of UN special rapporteurs accused Israel of “intentionally starving the Palestinian people in Gaza since 8 October,” adding: “Now it is targeting civilians seeking humanitarian aid and humanitarian convoys.”

• Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has said the continuing tension with Hezbollah militants at the border with Lebanon was moving the situation nearer to a military escalation, Reuters reported. “We are committed to the diplomatic process, however Hezbollah’s aggression is bringing us closer to a critical point in the decision-making regarding our military activities in Lebanon,” he said in a statement after a meeting with US special envoy Amos Hochstein.

• 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 six-week cessation of hostilities, was watered down by officials at the national security council.

• At least 30,631 Palestinians have been killed and 72,043 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said. An estimated 97 Palestinian people were killed and 123 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.

• American forces shot down three drones and a missile fired toward a destroyer in the Red Sea on Tuesday, the US military said, after Yemen’s Houthis announced they had targeted two of Washington’s warships. “US Central Command (Centcom) forces shot down one anti-ship ballistic missile and three one-way attack unmanned aerial systems launched from Iranian-backed Houthi controlled areas of Yemen toward USS Carney (DDG 64) in the Red Sea,” the military command said in a statement. Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said earlier in the day that their forces had targeted two US destroyers in the Red Sea “with a number of naval missiles and drones.” reports Agence France-Presse.

• The sinking of a bulk carrier off the coast of Yemen after a Houthi missile attack poses grave environmental risks as thousands of tonnes of fertiliser threaten to spill into the Red Sea, officials and experts have warned.

• Pro-Palestinian and human rights advocates in Canada on have filed a lawsuit against the federal government to stop it from allowing companies to export military goods and technology to Israel, Reuters reports.

• Chile says it will exclude Israeli firms from Latin America’s biggest aerospace fair, to be held in Santiago in April. It did not give a reason, but the government of leftist President Gabriel Boric has been critical of what he has called Israel’s “disproportionate” response to the 7 October attack by Hamas, reports Agence France-Presse.