Middle East crisis live: US says it is ‘not looking for war with Iran’ after American troops killed in Jordan drone attack | Israel-Gaza war
US: ‘We are not looking for a war with Iran’
John Kirby, in an interview on NBC television in the US, has said that the White House is not seeking a war with Iran or regional escalation.
The national security council spokesperson said:
We are not looking for a war with Iran. We are not looking to escalate the conflict in the region. Obviously, these attacks keep coming. We’ll keep looking at the options. I can’t speak for the Supreme Leader or what he wants or he doesn’t want. I can tell you what we want. What we want is a stable, secure, prosperous Middle East, and we want these attacks to stop.
On the accusations made by Israel against 12 staff at the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), which has led to the US pulling funding for the agency, Kirby said
It’s important to remember that UNRWA does important work across the region, certainly in Gaza. They have helped save thousands of lives, and we shouldn’t impugn the good work of a whole agency because of the terrible, just terrible allegations lobbied against just a small number of their employees. So I think we have decision points that we’re going to have to make going forward here, but I don’t want to get ahead of the investigation and what it’s going to find.
Key events
The UK added eight designations under its Iran sanctions regime, Reuters reports a government notice showed on Monday.
26,637 Palestinians killed since 7 October, says Gaza health ministry
The overall death toll in Gaza since 7 October has reached 26,637 Palestinians, with a further 65,387 injured in Israeli strikes, according to the Gaza health ministry.
215 Palestinians were killed in the last 24 hours, the ministry reported.
Sally Weale
A Palestinian academic who had worked as a visiting fellow at the University of Manchester has been killed in Gaza, the university has confirmed.
Dr Wiesam Essa, of Al-Aqsa University in the Gaza Strip, worked in the geography department at Manchester between June 2019 and March 2021.
He died earlier this month when his apartment block was badly damaged by Israeli bombs, the university said. His wife and four children survived the attack and are staying with extended family in Gaza.
In early December, the Council for At-Risk Academics (CARA) and the Institute of International Education’s Scholar Rescue Fund (IIE-SRF) secured a new academic placement for Essa and were hoping to place him the UK, the university said, but it proved impossible to get him out of Gaza.
Prior to his placement in Manchester, Essa said:
The University of Manchester and the department of geography will be an oasis for me after years of wandering in both human and academic crises within the Gaza Strip.
A statement by the University of Manchester said:
Wiesam is fondly remembered by colleagues in geography – he was a regular and cheerful presence in the department, contributing enthusiastically to the mapping, culture and geographical information science research group.
Netanyahu appears to confirm Israeli intelligence dossier with UNRWA allegations
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, appeared to confirm on Monday that Israel had circulated an intelligence dossier alleging that some UNRWA staffers participated in the October 7 attack from Gaza, and described the the relief agency as “perforated with Hamas”.
Netanyahu told Britain’s TalkTV:
We discovered that there were 13 UNRWA workers who actually participated, either directly or indirectly, in the October 7 massacre.
In UNRWA schools they’ve been teaching the doctrines of extermination for Israel – the doctrines of terrorism, glorifying terrorism, lauding terrorism.
UK says it will not be providing further aid to UNRWA while claims about links to Hamas being investigated
Andrew Sparrow
The UK will not provide further aid to UNRWA while claims about links to Hamas are being investigated, the prime minister’s spokesperson has said.
Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson said this morning that the government did not think any UK aid funding had gone to Hamas.
Asked about claims that up to a dozen staff at the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which is part-funded by Britain, were involved in the Hamas massacre of Israelis on 7 October, the spokesperson said:
We have tight controls and agreements and due diligence on how the funding is used, as you would expect, but it’s right in light of these allegations that we conduct a further investigation with our allies and seek the reassurance that will be required in order to allow funding to continue.
The spokesperson said that the UK committed £16m to UNRWA after the Hamas attack, but that that money had now been disbursed. He said no further money would be allocated while the Hamas link was being investigated.
You can follow the detail over at our UK Politics blog.
Harriet Sherwood
A dossier drawn up by Israel claims that a school counsellor employed by the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza was involved in kidnapping an Israeli woman during atrocities committed by Hamas on 7 October, the Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood writes.
Another employee of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), a social worker, helped to bring the body of an Israeli soldier into Gaza and distributed ammunition, the dossier claims, the New York Times reported on Monday.
They were among 12 UNRWA staff alleged by Israel to have taken part in the 7 October attacks or in the aftermath. As a result of the claims, a string of western countries including the US and the UK have suspended funding to the agency, which provides aid to more than 5.6 million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East.
Austria and Romania said on Monday they were also suspending funds to UNRWA, and the EU said it was considering future payments to the agency “in light of the very serious allegations”.
The full story is here:
US: ‘We are not looking for a war with Iran’
John Kirby, in an interview on NBC television in the US, has said that the White House is not seeking a war with Iran or regional escalation.
The national security council spokesperson said:
We are not looking for a war with Iran. We are not looking to escalate the conflict in the region. Obviously, these attacks keep coming. We’ll keep looking at the options. I can’t speak for the Supreme Leader or what he wants or he doesn’t want. I can tell you what we want. What we want is a stable, secure, prosperous Middle East, and we want these attacks to stop.
On the accusations made by Israel against 12 staff at the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), which has led to the US pulling funding for the agency, Kirby said
It’s important to remember that UNRWA does important work across the region, certainly in Gaza. They have helped save thousands of lives, and we shouldn’t impugn the good work of a whole agency because of the terrible, just terrible allegations lobbied against just a small number of their employees. So I think we have decision points that we’re going to have to make going forward here, but I don’t want to get ahead of the investigation and what it’s going to find.
Protesters, including some relatives of those being held hostage in Gaza by Hamas, have gathered again at the Kerem Shalom border crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, with the intention of blocking humanitarian aid entering Palestinian territory.
Chris Michael
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday declined to join critics who accuse Israel of genocide in its actions in Gaza, but said American society should not “toss someone out of our public discourse” for doing so.
Following the international court of justice’s order to Israel to work to prevent genocidal acts against Palestinians in Gaza, the Democratic representative from New York argued on Meet the Press that “large amounts of Americans” think “genocide” is the right term for what is happening in Gaza.
“The fact that [the ICJ] said there’s a responsibility to prevent it, the fact that this word is even in play, the fact that this word is even in our discourse, I think demonstrates the mass inhumanity that Gazans are facing,” she said.
Read more here: AOC says no one should be ‘tossed out of public discourse’ for accusing Israel of genocide
Syrian media said an apparent Israeli airstrike on a Damascus suburb where Iran-backed fighters have a presence killed two people on Monday. An official from an Iranian-backed group said the strike also caused some material damage.
Associated Press reports Monday’s strike hit the area of Aqraba, according to the pro-government Dama Post.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said the strike hit a farm housing members of Lebanon’s Iran-backed militant Hezbollah group and other Iran-backed factions.
An official with one of the Iranian-backed groups, speaking to AP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to discuss military activities, said two Syrian citizens were killed in Monday’s strike. No Hezbollah members were hurt, the official said.
Hani Mahmoud, writing for Al Jazeera from Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip, has described the situation in Khan Younis as “heart-wrenching”, reporting “large-scale bombings in densely populated areas, more evacuation orders, and mass arrests” by Israeli forces.
He writes:
People have been under military siege for the past eight days, and the Israeli military is pushing deeper into the western and central parts of [Khan Younis]. This leaves no other path for people to flee the horror of the ongoing bombing except through security checkpoints set up on the western side of the city. Hundreds of thousands of people have had to go through these, risking being arrested by the Israeli military or taken to unidentified locations.
We reported earlier that Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, held talks in Islamabad with his Pakistan counterpart, Jalil Abbas Jilani.
Associated Press is carrying some quotes from their joint media appearance.
Amir-Abdollahian and Jilani said they would work through existing channels in their leadership, diplomatic and military levels to cooperate with each other.
Jilani said the two countries were able to bring the “situation back to normal in the shortest possible time” after the recent exchange of airstrikes because both sides had agreed to resume dialogue to resolve all issues.
“Terrorism poses a common challenge to our countries,” Jilani said and stressed that “respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity remains the immutable and foundational principle of this cooperation” between the neighbours.
Iran and Pakistan “strongly respect sovereignty and territorial integrity of each other,” Amir-Abdollahian said. “We will tell all terrorists that we will not … provide them with any opportunity to endanger our common security.”
Amir-Abdollahian said Pakistan and Iran will also set up free trade economic zones near the border regions to enhance their bilateral trade.
The Iranian foreign minister also met with Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister Anwaarul-Haq-Kakar.
EU considering future of payments to UNRWA ‘in light of very serious allegations’
Lisa O’Carroll is the Guardian’s Brussels correspondent
The EU has said it is considering the future of payments to UNRWA “in light of the very serious allegations” made last week alleging involvement of staff in the 7 October attacks.
“The Commission will review the matter in light of the outcome of the investigation announced by the UN and the actions it will take. The Commission welcomes the information provided by UNRWA as well as the launch of the investigation,” it said in a statement on Monday.
It added the decision did not impact humanitarian aid.
“Humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank will continue unabated through partner organisations,” it said.
No money is due to UNRWA under current programmes until February, a spokesperson for the Commission said on Monday.
“We have extremely serious allegations against staff working for UN. It is absolutely obvious that these investigations these allegations need to be investigated seriously, and without delay
“Secondly, UNWRA is a partner with which the Commission works intensively on the ground, both for humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and also more generally for development aid. And as such, it is absolutely normal, that we would request that these allegations are investigated and clarified since we are one of the major donors,” said the spokesperson.
Romania has become the latest country to announce that it is suspending payments to the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA. Israel has accused 12 of its staff of being involved in the 7 October Hamas attack inside southern Israel. UNRWA has said that without funding, it cannot continue to support the Palestinian population beyond February.
Reuters has a quick snap, citing Iranian state media, that two people have been killed in strikes near the site of the Sayyeda Zeinab shrine complex on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus.
More details soon …
Five Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in occupied West Bank – ministry
Five Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in four different incidents in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in the past 24 hours, the Palestinian health ministry said on Monday, Reuters reports.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that 378 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank since 7 October.
It names one of those killed today as Obaida Hassan Abdel Rahman Hamed, who was 18, and died after being shot in the chest during a confrontation in the town of Silwad, east of Ramallah.
Another 18-year-old, Muhannad Ismail Al-Fasfous, has also died after being shot by Israeli forces, in the town of Dura, south of Hebron. Rani Yasser Khalaf Al-Shaer, 16, was killed in the town of Tuqu, south-east of Bethlehem. Local witnesses told Wafa that Israeli forces prevented an ambulance from reaching him.
UNRWA says unable to assist Gaza beyond February if funding does not resume
The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) said on Monday that it would not be able to continue operations in Gaza and across the region beyond the end of February if funding were not resumed.
“If the funding is not resumed, UNRWA will not be able to continue its services and operations across the region, including in Gaza, beyond the end of February,” Reuters reports a spokesperson for the agency said.
A string of countries including the US, UK and Germany have paused their funding to the aid agency in the wake of allegations that 12 UNRWA staff were involved in the 7 October attacks by Hamas in southern Israel.
An estimated2 million people are dependant on UNWRA services. About 3,000 of the agency’s 13,000 staff continue to work in Gaza despite the continual Israeli bombardment.
There are unconfirmed reports that explosions have been heard near the site of the Sayyeda Zeinab shrine complex on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus.
A source in Iran’s regional alliance told Reuters that a strike had hit a location used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that the maternity wing of a hospital in Jenin in the Israeli-occupied West Bank was damaged this morning during a raid by Israel’s security forces.
It reports:
The occupation forces fired at the maternity ward at Jenin Governmental hospital, while nearby streets were destroyed, during the ongoing military operation in the city of Jenin and its camp, which has so far left a young man injured by a bullet in his leg. The eastern neighbourhood of the city of Jenin saw widespread raids and searches on homes, while their residents were detained, interrogated, and beaten.
