Middle East crisis: consensus among US and Arab allies on need for immediate, sustained Gaza ceasefire, says Blinken – as it happened

Maya Yang

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Summary

Here is a wrap-up of the day’s key events:

• The French ambassador to the UN security council addressed reporters on Thursday regarding Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza, saying, “The first bridge to cross … is to have this Ramadan ceasefire now.” His comments come after the US, which has vetoed numerous ceasefire resolution in the UN security council, drafted a new resolution calling for an “immediate ceasefire” and hostage deal in Gaza.
• US secretary of state Antony Blinken said that negotiating teams are working “every single day” on a deal to get a ceasefire in Gaza in conjunction with a deal to release the remaining hostages taken from Israel into Gaza by Hamas. He added that there are still “real challenges” to a deal and he can’t put a timeline on it, Reuters reports.
• Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives, said on Thursday that he plans to invite Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak before the US Congress. The comments come a week after Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, called for elections in Israel which could oust Netanyahu, claiming the prime minister has “has lost his way”.
• Cyprus is planning to get “as many boats as possible” to Gaza along a maritime corridor, Cyprus’s foreign minister, Constantinos Kombos, said, Agence France-Presse reports. In a meeting on Thursday, Cyprus hosted representatives from 36 countries, UN agencies and humanitarian groups in the port of Larnaca, where the first aid vessel set sail to Gaza earlier this month.
• World Health Organization chief Tedros Ghebreyesus said that the “future of an entire generation is in serious peril” in Gaza. Adding that children are dying from the effects of malnutrition and disease, and from a lack of adequate water and sanitation, the WHO director-general said: “Recent efforts to deliver food by air and sea are welcome, but only the expansion of land crossings will enable large scale deliveries to prevent famine.”

• Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, has said that she will visit the Middle East on Sunday. It will be her seventh visit since the 7 October attack inside southern Israel by Hamas.
• A second ship, the Jennifer, capable of transporting up to 600 tons, will ply the newly inaugurated sea corridor connecting Cyprus with Gaza as soon as weather conditions allow. “It will go either at the end of this week or the beginning of next due to weather conditions,” Cyprus’s foreign ministry spokesperson Theodoros Gotsis told the Guardian of the second aid mission.
• Satellite images analysed by the UN’s Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) showed that 35% of the Gaza Strip’s buildings have been destroyed or damaged by Israel since October. Khan Younis City had been hit “particularly hard”, it said, with 6,663 newly destroyed structures.