Israel-Hamas war updates: Hamas ‘open to any initiative’ on prisoner swap

This live page is now closed. For the latest live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war, follow along here.

You can read about Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin’s visit to Israel to reaffirm staunch US support for the country, here.

And for more context on the conflict, read our analysis of what Hamas recruitment in Lebanon means for Hezbollah, here.

We are going to bring our live coverage to an end soon. Here’s a summary of today’s main events:

• US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin announces the launch of a multinational operation, Prosperity Guardian, in response to attacks by Yemen’s Houthis in the Red Sea.
• Medical sources have told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces attacked the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City amid renewed attacks on health facilities in the enclave.
• Several casualties were reported after Israeli warplanes attacked two residential homes in the Nuseirat and Deir el-Balah refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip.
• Hamas says it remains open to any suggestions for a prisoner swap with Israel but no talks will be held until Israeli bombardment of Gaza stops.
• The Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, shares a video of three elderly Israeli captives pleading for their release. The Israeli military spokesman slams the video as “criminal”.

US news site Axios reports that Israeli officials told Lloyd Austin during meetings today in Tel Aviv that they want the armed Lebanese group pushed back by roughly 10km (6 miles), citing unnamed US and Israeli official sources.

The report says that Israeli PM Netanyahu and Defence Minister Gallant told Austin that Israel could not accept the displacement of its citizens in the north as Hezbollah continues its cross-border strikes on Israeli territory. They said they want to see progress on this issue in the “next few weeks”, Axios reports.

Austin responded saying that the US will push for a peaceful solution and urged the Israelis not to do anything to escalate already simmering tensions.

Ramy Abdu, the head of the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, says the group will be releasing a new study on Tuesday showing harrowing hunger levels in the Palestinian enclave.

In a post on X, Abdu said that 71 percent of the population in Gaza “faces severe hunger, with 98% experiencing inadequate food consumption”.

Sixty-four percent have resorted “to consuming fruits, wild or raw food, & expired items to alleviate hunger”, he added.

Agnes Callamard was commenting on news that the vote on a UN Security Council resolution has been moved to Tuesday.

“Every hour, every day that passes – civilians in Gaza are dying,” she wrote on X.

Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) advocacy group, denounced Israeli attacks on health facilities and other sites in Gaza.

“While the rest of the world is expressing horror at these daily war crimes by the far-right Israeli government, the Biden administration refuses to use our government’s immense political and financial influence over the Israeli government to stop this campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing,” Awad said in a statement.

“There must be a permanent ceasefire to stop the indiscriminate slaughter in Gaza and to allow the pursuit of a just, lasting peace.”

Christos Christos, the international president of Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF), says the raids on health facilities have become commonplace in an Israeli military strategy that disregards both “basic humanity and the rules of war”.

In a series of posts on X, Christos wrote about his visit to the occupied West Bank two weeks ago and called for an immediate and sustained ceasefire in Gaza.

“Nothing can be gained from the continued bombing of civilians,” he said.

Lebanon’s border with Israel is “dangerous” with ongoing exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israel, the head of the UN peacekeeping force there warns.

“The situation now, as everybody knows – it is tense. It is difficult, it is dangerous,” said Aroldo Lazaro, the head of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon.

“We are trying to continue with our liaison and coordination role … in order to avoid miscalculations, misinterpretations that could be another trigger for escalation,” Lazaro told journalists.

More than 130 people have been killed in hostilities on the Lebanese side. On the Israeli side, four civilians and seven soldiers have been killed.

“The mounting civilian death toll and humanitarian crisis are unacceptable and not in line with American interests; nor do they advance the cause of security for our ally Israel,” wrote the legislators.

Signatories to the letter included staunch supporters of Israel from the centrist wing of the Democratic Party, including Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, highlighting widespread discontent with Israel’s war effort among Democrats.

Over the past several days, unnamed US officials have told media outlets that the Biden administration is trying to get Israel to change its strategy in Gaza amid global outcry and domestic pressure on the US president ahead of the 2024 election.

But publicly, senior US officials continue to say that the administration will not tell Israel how to conduct its military offensive, stressing that US support for the country is ironclad.

The Biden administration has faced widespread protests and calls to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza – something Biden has refused to do.

When exactly the resolution will be brought up for a vote on Tuesday remains unclear amid continuing negotiations on the text, Al Jazeera Arabic’s Rami Ayari has reported from the UN.

The new resolution had called for an “urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities” in Gaza.

But as we reported earlier, the words “cessation of hostilities” emerged as a sticking point, with the US and Israel saying this would amount to a ceasefire – something both countries oppose.

The exact text of the UNSC resolution that will be voted on remains unclear.

As Israel continues its attacks on Gaza, the situation for its people is described as catastrophic.

Washington stands accused of turning a blind eye. So what can be done to stop this catastrophe?

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has announced the formation of the coalition while on a visit to Bahrain after speaking about it earlier in the day during a press conference with his Israeli counterpart.

The UK, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain will be participating in the operation, he said, which will include conducting joint patrols in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

It will be called Operation Prosperity Guardian.

Houthi attacks on what they say are Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea have been ongoing during Israel’s war on Gaza. Earlier, we reported on attacks on two commercial vessels – the Swan Atlantic and MSC Clara – claimed by the Yemeni group. The UK also reported an attempted attack on a ship northeast of Djibouti.

Multiple multinational shipping and oil companies have either rerouted cargo or suspended shipping through the Red Sea altogether, driving fears of the negative effect the attacks could have on the global economy.

King Abdullah II has told Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Charles Brown that the US has an important role in pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The two also discussed regional developments and international efforts to counter terrorism during Brown’s visit, according to Jordanian state media.

Medical sources told Al Jazeera that the hospital, also known as the Baptist Hospital, is now out of service.

They added that the Israeli military had forced displaced people sheltering in the hospital out and arrested two doctors.

Ghassan Abu-Sitta, a British-Palestinian surgeon who worked at the hospital in the first two months of the conflict and is now back in the UK, wrote in a social media post that al-Ahli had been attacked and that staff and wounded people had been rounded up.

Richard Sewell, the dean of St George’s College in occupied East Jerusalem, also said that the Israeli military had forced the hospital to close and that most of the hospital’s staff had been arrested.

“Just skeleton staff remains to tend to over one hundred seriously wounded patients. No running water and no electricity. Hardly even shocked now,” Sewell wrote.

St George’s College and the al-Ahli Hospital are run by the Anglican Church.

Faced with growing criticism over Gaza’s soaring death toll, Israeli Air Force officers defended their actions.

“All the bombs we use are high-precision bombs,” an officer told reporters during a military-organised visit to the Palmachim Airbase on the Mediterranean coast south of Tel Aviv.

The Israeli officer, whose name is barred from publication because of Israeli censorship rules, added: “We don’t need the Americans to understand we want to limit casualties.”

“We did not need to change our principles” in light of international concern, the officer said, adding that Israeli forces aimed at limiting civilian casualties “from the beginning”.

More than 19,400 people have been killed in Gaza, mostly children and women, since October 7. About 52,000 have been wounded in the relentless bombardment.