Middle East crisis live: killing of Hamas leader ‘doesn’t help’ Gaza ceasefire talks, Biden says | Israel-Gaza war

Israeli airstrikes that killed international aid workers in Gaza in April were the result of serious operational failures but were not intentional, according to a Australian government review of the incident released on Friday, Reuters reports.

Three Israeli airstrikes hit the convoy of aid vehicles travelling through Gaza on 1 April, killing seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) staff. The dead included Palestinians and citizens of Australia, Britain and Poland.
The killings drew widespread condemnation from Israel’s allies and accusations that Israel had deliberately targeted the air workers, a claim it rejected.

An Australian review into the deaths said the Israel Defense Force (IDF) decided to launch missiles at the convoy after mistakenly believing it was being hijacked by Hamas fighters, who were in fact locally contracted security guards.

“Based on the information available to me, it is my assessment that the IDF strike on the WCK aid workers was not knowingly or deliberately directed against the WCK,” according to Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin, who travelled to Israel to investigate the deaths.
Israel’s investigation into the deaths had been “timely, appropriate and, with some exceptions, sufficient,” he said.

“In this incident, it appears that the IDF controls failed, leading to errors in decision making and a misidentification, likely compounded by a level of confirmation bias.”

The IDF has previously called the incident a grave mistake.
In a statement accompanying the report, foreign minister Penny Wong said Australia would push for full accountability from those responsible, including criminal charges if appropriate.

“The Military Advocate General of Israel is still to decide on further action,” she said in a statement.

“Our expectation remains that there be transparency about the Military Advocate General’s process and decision.”

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the Middle East crisis.

The assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran “doesn’t help” efforts to negotiate a ceasefire in Israel’s war in Gaza, US President Joe Biden has said, a day after the Hamas leader was killed.

Speaking to reporters as he welcomed back US citizens freed in a prisoner swap with Russia late Thursday, Biden said he had had a “very direct” conversation with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier in the day, repeating “very direct” for emphasis.

He added: “We have the basis for a ceasefire. He should move on it and they should move on it now.”

An earlier White House statement had said Biden had told Netanyahu that Washington was committed to defending Israel’s security “against all threats from Iran” and that Biden had “reaffirmed his commitment to Israel’s security against all threats from Iran, including its proxy terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis”.

“The president discussed efforts to support Israel’s defense against threats, including against ballistic missiles and drones, to include new defensive US military deployments,” the statement said.

The two leaders were joined on the call by US vice-president and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, who has struck a sharper tone with Israel on the Gaza war, without deviating from the Biden administration’s policies.

In other developments:

• The leader of Hezbollah said that the Lebanese group’s conflict with Israel had entered “a new phase” after the back-to-back assassinations of a senior commander and Hamas’s political chief. In a televised address broadcast to about 1,000 mourners at the Beirut funeral of Hezbollah’s second-in-command, Fuad Shukur, Hassan Nasrallah vowed that the powerful Shia militia would seek revenge. “The enemy, and those who are behind the enemy, must await our inevitable response … You do not know what red lines you crossed,” he said, in reference to Israel and its most important ally, the US.

• Qatar is to hold on Friday funeral ceremonies for Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, a day after a funeral service in Tehran. Haniyeh, the Palestinian armed group’s political chief, had resided in Doha along with other members of the Hamas political office. He will be buried at a cemetery in Lusail, north of the Qatari capital, after funeral prayers at the Imam Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab mosque, the emirate’s largest.

• The head of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza last month, the Israeli military said on Thursday, a day after the group’s political leader was assassinated in Tehran. At least 90 people were killed and about 300 wounded in the strike. “The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) announces that on 13 July 2024, IDF fighter jets struck in the area of Khan Younis, and after an intelligence assessment, it can be confirmed that Mohammed Deif was eliminated in the strike,” the military said. Hamas did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Reuters reported.

• Israel is prepared for any eventuality following warnings from Iran and its allies of retaliation for the killing of senior leaders from Hezbollah and Hamas, and will respond strongly to any attack, a government spokesperson said on Thursday. “Israel will exact a very high price for aggression against us from whatever quarter,” he told a briefing with journalists, echoing a similar warning from prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday evening.

• Lufthansa Group has cancelled all its passenger and cargo flights to and from Tel Aviv with immediate effect until 8 August, a spokesperson for the German airline said on Thursday. “The reason for this is the current development in the region,” the spokesperson added.

• More than 39,480 Palestinians have been killed and 91,128 have been injured in the Israeli military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Thursday. Thousands more are believed to be buried under the rubble and tens of thousands have been wounded.

• China hopes Palestinian factions can create an independent state as soon as possible, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Thursday while addressing a query on the killing of the Hamas chief in Iran. “China earnestly looks forward to all Palestinian factions, on the basis of internal reconciliation, create an independent Palestinian state as soon as possible,” Lin Jian said during a regular press briefing.

• Top Iranian officials met the representatives of Iran’s regional allies from Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen on Thursday to discuss potential retaliation against Israel after the killing of the Hamas leader in Tehran, five sources told Reuters. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini has blamed Israel and said Iran had a “duty” of revenge because Haniyeh had been targeted while a guest in the country.

• Turkey has blocked cooperation between Nato and Israel since October because of the war in Gaza and said the alliance should not engage with Israel as a partner until there is an end to the conflict, sources familiar with the process said. Israel carries the status of Nato partner and has fostered close relations with the military alliance and some of its members, notably its biggest ally the United States, Reuters reported.

• Al Jazeera “strongly” rejected Israel’s “baseless” claim that the network’s correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul, who was killed along with his cameraman and a child in an Israeli strike this week, was a Hamas operative. The Qatar-based network said the accusation, which was not backed up with any evidence, was an attempt to justify the “deliberate killing”. Israel has been accused of deliberately targeting journalists in its war on Gaza, which it denies, and it has killed more than 100.