Middle East crisis live: Hamas says Israel is violating ceasefire by blocking Palestinians’ return to northern Gaza | Israel-Gaza war

• Tens of thousands of Palestinian people are anxiously waiting to return to their homes in northern Gaza. Israel said that Hamas’ failure to hand over a list detailing which of the hostages scheduled for release is alive and to hand over Israeli civilian hostage Arbel Yehoud meant it had violated the ceasefire agreement. This means checkpoints in the central Gaza Strip are not being opened to allow crossings into northern Gaza. Hamas has accused Israel of stalling and holding it responsible for the delay.

• Palestinian militant group Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad condemned US President Donald Trump’s comments that large numbers of Palestinians should leave Gaza – and relocate to neighbouring countries like Jordan and Egypt – to “just clean out” the whole strip. Islamic Jihad called Trump’s idea “deplorable” and said it encouraged “war crimes and crimes against humanity by forcing our people to leave their land”.

• Donald Trump instructed the US military to release a hold on the supply of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel imposed by former president Joe Biden.

• The UN said conditions are “not yet in place” for the safe return of Lebanese citizens to southern Lebanon. Israeli troops have remained in southern Lebanon beyond Sunday’s deadline for their withdrawal, claiming that the ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah had not yet been fully enforced.

• The Lebanese health ministry said the Israeli army opened fire on Sunday on residents of southern Lebanon trying to return to their villages, killing at least 11 people and injuring 83 others.

• The UN’s Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa) said it had been ordered by Israel to vacate premises and cease all of its operations in occupied East Jerusalem by Thursday.

At least ten people killed by Israeli fire, officials say, as Lebanese residents protest Israeli soldier’s presence

William Christou

William Christou is a Beirut-based journalist reporting from Lebanon for the Guardian

Residents of at least 9 Lebanese border villages returned to their hometowns on Sunday in protest of Israeli forces’ presence in south Lebanon after the 60-day period specified for their withdrawal in the Lebanon-Israel ceasefire agreement expired on Sunday morning.

Residents gathered in civilian convoys before heading to border villages, despite warnings by the Israeli military spokesperson that doing so would “expose them to danger”.

Israeli forces shot at people who gathered to protest their presence, killing at least ten – including a Lebanese soldier – and wounding 80 people, according to Lebanon’s ministry of health. Several people were also arrested by Israeli forces.

Lebanese protesters faced off with Israeli soldiers and tanks, waving banners and chanting slogans just a few meters away. In one confrontation, a woman stands in front of Israeli soldiers as they shoot at her feet and yells at them: “Go back to your country! Go back to your family!” Others, including women and children, hoisted Hezbollah flags in front of Israeli tanks and carried pictures of Hassan Nasrallah, the former secretary general of the Lebanese militia who was killed by Israel in late September.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Saturday that Israeli forces would stay in south Lebanon beyond the 60-day withdrawal period specified in the ceasefire signed two months earlier. Netanyahu accused Lebanon of having “not yet fully enforced” its obligations under the ceasefire by not fully deploying in south Lebanon – a measure meant to prevent Hezbollah returning south of the Litani river, some 18 miles from the border.

Lebanese president Joseph Aoun said on Sunday that “Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are non-negotiable” and that he was following up on the issue to ensure Lebanese citizens’ “rights and dignity”. Lebanese soldiers accompanied civilian protesters in border villages, walking alongside them in an attempt to protect them from Israeli fire. In villages on the eastern portion of the border, Lebanese soldiers attempted to block residents from returning for their safety.

Sunday’s protests were the first time that many civilians entered their villages along the Lebanese-Israeli border since Israel announced its operation in south Lebanon in late September. Satellite analysis showed that many villages along the border have been flattened by Israeli detonations – which it said was aimed at destroying Hezbollah infrastructure. Critics accused Israel of trying to create a buffer zone by making the area on Israel’s northern border uninhabitable.

Despite a ceasefire agreement, Israel has carried out more than 350 airstrikes across Lebanon, which it said was aimed at stopping Hezbollah activity. Hezbollah MP Ali Fayyad said this week that if Israel does not withdraw by 26 January, that “it will mean the collapse of the ceasefire deal”.

Conditions are “not yet in place” for the safe return of Lebanese citizens to southern Lebanon, according to a joint statement by the UN special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, and Unifil’s head of mission and force commander Lt. Gen. Aroldo Lázaro.

In a post on X, the joint statement read:

Much has changed in Lebanon since the Cessation of Hostilities Understanding came into force in the early hours of 27 November 2024.

Violence has dramatically decreased. In many areas of southern Lebanon, hundreds of thousands of people have been able to return to their towns and villages. The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) have shown resolve in deploying to positions from which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are withdrawing. Supported by Unifil, the LAF is helping restore services and facilitating access to communities most affected by conflict…

The fact is that the timeliness envisaged in the November Understanding have not been met. As seen tragically this morning, conditions are not yet in place for the safe return of citizens to their villages along the Blue Line. Displaced communities, already facing a long road to recovery and reconstruction, are therefore once again being called on to exercise caution. Also, violations of United Nations Security Council resolution 1701 (2006) continue to be recorded daily (Resolution 1701 ended the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. Under the terms of the agreement, Hezbollah and other armed militias must not be present past the Litani River, about 18 miles (30km) north of the border).

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil), which has about 10,000 troops, was established to patrol the country’s southern frontier after Israel invaded in 1978. At its core, the agency seeks to keep the peace in areas between Lebanon and Israel. To do so, it monitors any movements of Israeli or Lebanese forces across the “blue line”, a 75-mile (120km) UN-mapped line that has become a de facto border. You can read more about Unifil in this useful explainer.

Unrwa says it has been ordered by Israel to cease all of its operations in East Jerusalem by Thursday

Ruth Michaelson

Israel has ordered the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) to vacate its offices in East Jerusalem, a hub of the UN agency’s work across the region that has also been the target of attacks.

Unrwa branded the order to vacate its offices and cease operations “in contradiction to international law”. Buildings operated by the UN, they added, should be immune from searches, expropriation “or other forms of interference”.

“United Nations premises are inviolable and enjoy privileges and immunities under the United Nations charter,” they said, adding that the order violates obligations of UN member states including Israel.

The demand that Unrwa vacate their offices by 30 January comes amidst a looming Israeli ban on the UN agency due to go into effect the following day. The Israeli high court is also due to rule on an injunction about whether to delay the ban tomorrow.

Israel has accused Unrwa employees of taking part in Hamas’ 7 October attacks on Israeli towns and kibbutzim around Gaza, and has since moved to curb the UN agency’s role in aid delivery. An independent report commissioned by the UN to investigate Israel’s claims found that “Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence of this”.

Attacks on the UN agency, particularly centred on their premises in East Jerusalem, have still continued to mount. Last May, Unrwa said that a crowd of Israeli protestors set their office on fire, accompanied by “armed men chanting ‘burn down the United Nations’”.

The threat to Unrwa’s operations risks stymieing aid delivery into Gaza at a critical moment amidst a delicate ceasefire in Gaza, including a demand to increase aid to the besieged territory during a halt in fighting. Unrwa also provides schooling, healthcare and even rubbish collection to tens of thousands living in Palestinian refugee camps across the West Bank as well as much of East Jerusalem, with few clear plans about how these vital services might be replaced if abruptly shuttered.

“Claims from the Israeli authorities that Unrwa has no right to occupy the premises are without foundation,” said Unrwa in a statement. “They promote anti-Unrwa rhetoric, placing the agency’s facilities and personnel at risk. The government of Israel has stated publicly that the aim to vacate Unrwa premises in Sheikh Jarrah is to expand Israeli illegal settlements in occupied East Jerusalem.”

Israeli fire has killed one Lebanese soldier and injured another in the Mais al-Jabal village in southern Lebanon, according to a statement by the Lebanese army.

As we mentioned in a previous post, hundreds of Lebanese people tried to return to their homes in southern Lebanon earlier today – on the deadline for Israeli forces to withdraw from the area.

Israeli forces have left coastal areas of southern Lebanon, but are still present in areas further east.

The Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire deal states that Hezbollah pull back its forces north of the Litani River – about 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the border – and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.

But Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Friday that “the ceasefire agreement has not yet been fully enforced by the Lebanese state”, so the military’s withdrawal would continue beyond the Sunday deadline.

As the deadline passed, the Lebanese health ministry said at least three people were killed and dozens others were injured by the Israeli military.

Hamas has accused Israel of violating the fragile Gaza ceasefire agreement by preventing tens of thousands of Palestinian people from returning to their homes in the northern part of the strip.

“The occupation is stalling under the pretext of prisoner Arbel Yehoud, despite the movement informing mediators that she is alive and providing all the necessary guarantees for her release,” the Palestinian militant group said in a statement. “Hamas holds Israel responsible for the delay in implementing the agreement,” it added.

Hamas freed four female Israeli soldiers on Saturday, and Israel released about 200 Palestinian prisoners.

But Israel said another hostage, the female civilian Arbel Yehoud, was supposed to have been released ahead of the soldiers, and that it would not open the Netzarim corridor – that bisects the northern and southern halves of the strip – until she was freed. It also accused Hamas of failing to provide details on the conditions of hostages set to be freed in the coming weeks. Many Palestinians are waiting for instruction from the Israeli military on Salah al-Din street, south of the Netzarim Corridor, and on the al-Rashid road, west of the Nuseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza.

“Tens of thousands of displaced people are waiting near the Netzarim Corridor to return to the northern Gaza Strip,” Gaza’s civil defence agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency.

As a reminder, Donald Trump said yesterday that he had instructed the US military to release a hold on the supply of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel imposed by former president Joe Biden.

“We released them. We released them today. And they’ll have them. They paid for them and they’ve been waiting for them for a long time. They’ve been in storage,” Trump told reporters.

Biden put the hold on the delivery of those bombs due to concern over the devastating impact they could have on the civilian population, particularly in Gaza’s Rafah, during Israel’s war on the Palestinian territory, which has now killed over 47,200 people, according to the health ministry. One 2,000-pound bomb can rip through thick concrete and metal, creating a wide blast radius.

Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Saar has today thanked Trump for authorising the release of the shipment of 2,000-pound bombs.

In a post on X, he wrote:

Thank you, President Trump, for yet another display of leadership by releasing the crucial defence shipment to Israel.

Washington says it is helping Israel defend itself against Iran-backed militant groups like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. But Israel has been accused of genocide and war crimes in Gaza, charges Israel denies. The US has undoubtedly fuelled Israel’s military assault through providing it with arms and giving Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration diplomatic cover on the international stage.

Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, which fought alongside Hamas in the war against Israel, has reacted to Donald Trump’s idea of possibly relocating Palestinian people to Egypt and Jordan, both of which border the Palestinian territories (see post at 08.54 to read the US president’s comments). It said: “This proposal falls within the framework of encouraging war crimes and crimes against humanity by forcing our people to leave their land.”

A senior Hamas official, meanwhile, told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency: “As they have foiled every plan for displacement and alternative homelands over the decades, our people will also foil such projects,” Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas political bureau, said.

Israel’s war on Gaza displaced almost the entire 2.3 million people in Gaza, many of them multiple times (through a combination of forced evacuation orders and relentless airstrikes across the territory). Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has previously rejected the idea of a forced displacement of Palestinians into the Sinai peninsula, amid concern that those displaced may never be able to return.

Shortly after the Hamas-led 7 October attack on southern Israel, Jordan’s King Abdullah warned against trying to push Palestinian refugees into Egypt or Jordan, saying that the humanitarian situation must to be dealt with inside Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

As we mentioned in a previous post, Jordan is already home to millions of registered Palestinian refugees.

Israeli forces killed three people and injured at least 31 others trying to return to homes in south Lebanon where Israeli troops remained on the ground after a deadline for their withdrawal passed on Sunday, Lebanon’s health ministry has said.

A 60-day truce that went into effect at the end of November between Hezbollah and Israel halted a two-month-old Israeli ground assault and more than a year of cross-border aerial attacks that drove tens of thousands of people in both countries from their homes.

As my colleagues Bethan McKernan and Quique Kierszenbaum note in this story, the US/France-brokered ceasefire was supposed to become permanent when it expired on Sunday – but just a day before the deadline, neither side had fulfilled their obligations.

The deal stipulated that Israeli forces should withdraw from the south as the Iran-backed Hezbollah’s weapons and fighters were removed from the area and the Lebanese army deployed.

Israel has, however, said the terms have not been fully enforced by the Lebanese state, while Lebanon’s US-backed military on Saturday accused Israel of procrastinating in its withdrawal.

The Lebanese health ministry has said one person was killed in the Lebanese village of Houla, another in Aitaroun, and a third person in Blida as a result of Israeli attacks on citizens while they were trying to enter their still-occupied towns.

Dozens of Lebanese people have also reportedly been injured by Israeli forces who remain on the ground despite the terms of the agreement.

Israel has not said how long its forces would remain in the south, where the Israeli military says it has been seizing Hezbollah weapons and dismantling its infrastructure.

US President Donald Trump has indicated that he would like to see Jordan, Egypt and other Arab nations increase the number of Palestinian refugees they are accepting from the Gaza Strip.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One yesterday, Trump, an ally of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said: “You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing and say, ‘You know, it’s over.’”

Trump also told reporters that he had call earlier in the day with King Abdullah II of Jordan and would speak with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi on Sunday.

The newly inaugurated Republican president said he complimented Jordan for having successfully accepted Palestinian refugees and that he told the king: “I’d love for you to take on more, cause I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now, and it’s a mess. It’s a real mess.” For context,Jordan is already home to more than 2.39 million registered Palestinian refugees, according to the UN.

Trump added:

I don’t know, something has to happen, but it’s literally a demolition site right now. Almost everything’s demolished and people are dying there, so I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing in a different location where I think they could maybe live in peace for a change.

Trump said that the potential housing “could be temporary” or “could be long-term”. During Israel’s 15 month war on Gaza, more than two-thirds of buildings have been destroyed or damaged by one of the most intensive bombardments in modern times. It has sparked a refugee crisis as large parts of the territory are now uninhabitable.

Hello, and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the developments in the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel and the crisis in the Middle East more widely.

Under the terms of the ceasefire agreement, people displaced from their homes in Gaza should now be allowed to move freely around the Palestinian territory.

But thousands of displaced Palestinian people are reportedly being blocked from returning to their homes in northern Gaza as Israel accuses Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, from not honouring the terms of the ceasefire deal.

On Saturday, armed members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad handed over four Israeli soldiers to the Red Cross as part of the agreement. The freed soldiers are Karina Ariev, 20, Daniella Gilboa, 20, Naama Levy, 20, and Liri Albag, 19, who served with the Israel Defense Forces.

However, a dispute broke out when the German-Israeli citizen Arbel Yehoud, aged 28 at the time of her capture, was not included in the swap, even though Hamas was expected to free more non-military hostages.

Yehoud is one of the last female civilians held in Gaza. She is reportedly held by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Gaza’s second largest armed faction, rather than Hamas, which led the 7 October 2023 on southern Israel, complicating her potential handover and release.

Hamas insisted Yehoud is alive and will be freed next week. But Israel has responded by delaying the planned withdrawal of some of its troops from Gaza, which would have allowed Palestinians to return to the devastated northern areas of the strip, which include Beit Hanoon, Beit Lahiya and Jabalia.

Al Jazeera is reporting this morning that thousands of Palestinian people are waiting for a permit by the Israeli military to access northern Gaza, much of which lies in rubble after the renewed Israeli assault on it last autumn.

The Israeli military has warned people that they cannot move north past the Netzarim Corridor – which divides the territory – as planned. We will bring you the latest on this throughout the day.