Israel-Hamas war updates: Israeli gov’t meets to vote on Gaza truce deal

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For more context on the conflict, read our analysis of the US and Israel’s differing views on the future of Gaza, here.

Read more about how a break in the fighting could actually be a strategic advantage for Israel, here.

Or read more about the details of a possible captive deal, here.

We’ll soon be closing this live page. Here’s a recap of today’s main events:

• Cabinet members in Israel’s government are expected to vote imminently on a possible deal that would see captives held in Gaza released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and a temporary pause in fighting.
• The deal, if approved, would likely take at least a day to be implemented pending a 24-hour appeal period. It is expected to get the green light, despite opposition from Israel’s far-right ministers.
• Netanyahu has pledged that any deal would not mean the end of the war.
• Fighting has continued across Gaza, with the death toll in the enclave rising to 14,128, according to local officials. At least 10 people were killed in one strike on a residential building in Khan Younis.
• MSF has identified three doctors killed in what Gaza authorities said was an Israeli strike on al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia.
• Two more journalists were killed in an Israeli strike in Lebanon today, bringing the total number of journalists killed in the country since the war began to three. All told, 53 journalists have been killed since the fighting began, including 46 Palestinians and four Israelis.
• The leaders of BRICS nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – have called for an “immediate, durable, and sustained humanitarian truce” in Gaza.
• The US has said it has retaliated after an Iran-aligned group fired missiles at a base in Iraq housing US personnel. The US strike killed several fighters, the Pentagon said.
• Jordan has upped its military presence along the border with Israel, amid concerns of forced displacement of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank.

A video verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad unit showed Israeli military vehicles stopping an ambulance in the West Bank city.

The Israeli military has conducted nightly raids across the occupied West Bank since the war in Gaza began.

We’ll bring you more on what’s happening in Tulkarem when we can.

The US outlet Politico reported that, despite the information provided by the Biden administration, Israel continued to strike the humanitarian sites.

Washington sent GPS coordinates of medical facilities, including al-Shifa Hospital, and gave Israel information on the movement of aid groups, according to three people familiar with the messages.

“Israel’s continued bombardment of these humanitarian facilities raises more questions about whether Washington has the political sway many in the administration want with Israel,” the article said.

There has been a huge erosion of support for Israel’s war in Gaza in the US, Nura Sediqe of Michigan State University tells Al Jazeera, especially among younger voters aged 18 to 34.

Citing polls, she said that a majority of voters in this age group disapprove of both Israel’s response to the October 7 Hamas attacks and of the US sending more military aid to Israel.

Turning to the upcoming US elections, she spoke about the large Arab and Muslim population of Michigan, a swing state that could be critical to Biden’s re-election hopes.

“Biden won Michigan by a slim margin” in 2020, she said, meaning he’ll need every last vote next year. But among the state’s large Muslim population, a recent poll shows that “95 percent disapproved of his handling of the current situation in Gaza”.

As far as how the seemingly imminent Hamas captive release deal will affect Biden’s standing with the US public, Sediqe said that many are in support of a full ceasefire and that the pause in fighting contained in the current deal may not be enough to satisfy them.

The Israeli prime minister, speaking alongside his war cabinet, wanted to stress that even though this deal was likely going to happen, it does not mean an end to the fighting, nor an end to the war.

He said that after these days of pauses, as stipulated in the agreement, are over, the fighting will continue, and that the days that they are not striking will actually be a time for the Israeli army to recuperate themselves, so they can have more battle and attack plans going forward.

But the deal doesn’t come without some opposition. Ministers on the far-right are opposing the deal and saying that they will not vote for it. The country’s Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich have both said that this is “bad for Israel’s security”.

They wanted the deal to be on Israel’s terms and believe that there were perhaps too many concessions given in the form of the release of Palestinian prisoners.

Jordanian Prime Minister Bisher Khasawneh said the country would resort to “all the means in its power” to prevent Israel from implementing any transfer policy to expel Palestinians en masse from the occupied West Bank.

The Israel-Gaza war has piqued longstanding fears in Jordan of further forced displacement of Palestinians. Jordan is already home to a large population of Palestinian refugees.

“Any displacements or creating the conditions that would lead to it, Jordan will consider it a declaration of war and constitutes a material breach of the peace treaty,” Jordanian state media quoted Khasawneh as saying, referring to a 1994 pact between Jordan and Israel.

“This would lead to the liquidation of the Palestinian cause and to harming the national security of Jordan,” Khasawneh said.

Jordan in 1994 became the second Arab country after Egypt to sign a peace accord with Israel, but relations have plummeted amid the rise of what is widely considered Israel’s most right-wing government in its history.

Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, detailed the outsized burden women in Gaza have faced since the war began.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, she said about 70 percent of those killed in Gaza have been women and children, with at least two mothers killed every hour.

Meanwhile, about 50,000 women are pregnant in the enclave, “in these horrific circumstances that continue unabated”, she said.

“If the international community doesn’t step in and restore the international legal order, then I’m afraid what what happens in Gaza doesn’t stay in Gaza,” she added. “Because then we may see these kind of lawless wars and atrocities being committed in other parts of the world.”

“It also gives the message that civilian lives do not mean anything, and that women’s lives are expendable,” she said.

It was a little after 10pm when Ahmad was called by the Network Operation Centre at the Palestine Telecommunications Company (PalTel). It was the third week of Israel’s assault on Gaza and the main data centre in the Sheikh Radwan district of Gaza City had lost power, threatening to shut off all communications in the area.

To check on the centre, the PalTel electrician would have to make his way across the city during intense Israeli aerial bombardment, putting his life in danger. But he did not hesitate. He flagged down a passing ambulance, hoping it would provide him with a degree of safety from Israeli attacks.

“I told the driver that if I could not restore the generator, people like him wouldn’t be able to reach injured civilians. We are no better nor less important than medical staff – a phone call can save lives,” Ahmad said.

Once at the centre, Ahmad set to work. By 2am, he had repaired the generator, allowing the telecommunications network to keep operating. He decided to stay in the building until dawn, slipping out around the freshly fallen debris to go home during a lull in Israeli bombing.

Read more on the workers keeping Gaza’s telecommunications running here.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Khan Younis, says there are reports of “constant and ongoing artillery shelling” of the Indonesian hospital in Gaza’s north.

The reports also say that medical staff “have been targeted and killed” in the latest attacks.

“Major parts of the hospital facility were destroyed,” Mahmoud said, adding that staff members are unable to reach the bodies of slain Palestinians in the hospital’s courtyard.

“Within the past few days, we know the hospital resorted to digging a mass grave in the courtyard … just to bury the large number of those who were killed as a result of the ongoing bombardment and air strikes on the hospital,” he said.

The measure passed in a 7-2 vote – making Detroit one of the largest US cities to call for a ceasefire in Gaza amid growing demands for an end to the fighting.

The resolution urged “an immediate, durable, and sustained ceasefire to protect and save human lives”.

It added that ending the fighting would allow “indispensable” aid into Gaza as required by international humanitarian law.

The city council in Detroit – Michigan’s largest city – also called for “the unconditional release of all civilians who are being illegally held hostage, demanding their safety, well-being, and humane treatment”.

Majid al-Ansari, the Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson, told CNN that Doha had presented the truce proposal to Israel in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

The final proposal followed weeks of negotiations, al-Ansari said.

Lloyd Austin has held near-daily calls with Gallant since the war began, underscoring the “ironclad” relationship between the two countries.

In the latest call, Austin “emphasised US support for Israel and the importance of preventing regional escalation”, according to a statement from the Pentagon.

The officials also discussed the “criticality of increasing and sustaining humanitarian aid and protecting civilians in Gaza”, the statement said.

The World Health Organization said it stands in solidarity with health workers at the facility in Jabalia, northern Gaza.

Earlier, we reported that three doctors were killed when the Israeli military hit the hospital, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society and MSF.

“WHO has documented 178 health attacks in the Gaza Strip,” the agency said in a post on X, adding that 22 health care workers have been killed while on duty in the bombarded enclave.

“A ceasefire is urgently needed. Humanitarian access is urgently needed. Protection of health care is urgently needed.”