Middle East crisis live: Iran attack on Israel ‘could be this week’ says US | Israel-Gaza war

Hello and welcome to today’s blog.

An attack from Iran or its proxies on Israel could be “this week”, according to the White House, mirroring statements from the Israeli government which said a strike was increasingly likely.

“We have to be prepared for what could be a significant set of attacks,” White House national security adviser John Kirby said on Monday, adding “which is why we have increased our force posture and capabilities in the region even in just the last few days.”

The US on Sunday announced it had ordered the deployment of the USS Georgia, a nuclear-powered, guided-missile submarine, to the Middle East, amid mounting concern over the determination by Iran and its proxies to retaliate for the assassination of Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran.

It comes as the UK, France and Germany said there must be “no further delay” in agreeing to a ceasefire in Gaza and called on Iran and its allies to refrain from attacks against Israel that would further escalate tensions. In a joint statement released on Monday, they endorsed the latest push by the US, Qatar and Egypt to broker an agreement to end the 10-month-old war.

Here’s a summary of the day’s other main news.

• Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu exchanged words with his defence minister on Monday, underscoring the deep internal splits that continue to plague the government as the war in Gaza risks spilling out into a wider regional conflict.
  Following Israeli media reports quoting Yoav Gallant dismissing Netanyahu’s war aim of total victory against Hamas as “nonsense”, Netanyahu’s office put out a statement rebuking Gallant. “When Gallant adopts the anti-Israel narrative, he harms the chances of reaching a hostage deal,” the statement said.

• The armed wing of Hamas has said its militants shot and killed an Israeli hostage and wounded two others, both women, “in two separate incidents” in Gaza. Abu Obeida, spokesperson for the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement: “In two separate incidents, two [Hamas] soldiers assigned to guard enemy prisoners fired at a Zionist prisoner, killing him immediately, and also injured two female prisoners critically.” The statement, posted on Telegram, did not identify the hostages or say when or where the incidents occurred.

• Gaza officials told AFP on Monday that they had identified 75 bodies of Palestinians killed in a weekend strike by Israel on a school building where rescuers reported at least 93 dead. The Israeli military claimed that Saturday’s pre-dawn strike on the Al-Tabieen religious school compound in Gaza City killed at least 19 Palestinian militants who were allegedly using it as a base.

• Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, has said the bloc should consider sanctions in response to calls by Israel’s far-right national security minister to cut off aid to Gaza, calling them an “incitement to war crimes”. Writing on the X platform late on Sunday, EU foreign policy chief Borrell said the recent remarks by Itamar Ben-Gvir constitute “incitement to war crimes,” adding that “sanctions must be on our EU agenda.”

• 142 people have been killed and 150 others have been injured by Israeli strikes in Gaza in the past 48 hours, the Palestinian health ministry has said, as the overall death toll from the war nears 40,000. On Monday, the health ministry said 39,897 Palestinians have been killed and 92,152 have been injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October.