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Opening summary: Netanyahu to meet security cabinet to decide on next steps
Benjamin Netanyahu will convene his security cabinet this week to decide on Israel’s next steps in Gaza following the collapse of indirect ceasefire talks with Hamas, with one senior Israeli source suggesting more force could be an option.
On Saturday, during a visit to the country, US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff had said he was working with the Israeli government on a plan that would effectively end the war in Gaza.
But Israeli officials have also floated ideas that include expanding the military offensive in Gaza and annexing parts of the shattered enclave.
Israel’s Channel 12 cited an official from his office as saying that Netanyahu was inclining towards expanding the offensive and seizing the entire Palestinian enclave.
Elsewhere, a UN expert who first warned that Israel was orchestrating a campaign of deliberate mass starvation in Gaza more than 500 days ago, has said that governments and corporations cannot claim to be surprised at the horror now unfolding.
“Israel has built the most efficient starvation machine you can imagine. So while it’s always shocking to see people being starved, no one should act surprised. All the information has been out in the open since early 2024,” Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, told the Guardian.
Key events
Shrai Popat
Shrai Popat is a politics blogger for Guardian US
More than a dozen Democratic members of Congress have signed on to a letter that urges the Trump administration to recognise Palestinian statehood, in a draft copy shared with the Guardian.
Congressman Ro Khanna of California is leading the letter addressed to the president and secretary of state Marco Rubio, and is joined by several House progressives, including Greg Casar of Texas, Pramila Jayapal of Washington, and Maxwell Frost of Florida.
“This tragic moment has highlighted for the world the long overdue need to recognize Palestinian self-determination,” the letter reads. “Just as the lives of Palestinians must be immediately protected, so too must their rights as a people and nation urgently be acknowledged and upheld.”
The letter comes as human rights experts sound the alarm over the unfolding famine in Gaza, and as some of Israel’s key western allies, including France and Canada, have recently pledged to recognise a Palestinian state at the UN general assembly.
You can read the full story here:
Israeli forces killed at least 74 Palestinian people across Gaza on Monday – report
At least 74 Palestinian people were killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza yesterday, including 36 people seeking aid supplies, according to Al Jazeera, which cited medical sources in its reporting. We have not been able to independently verify this information yet.
At least 1,400 people have been killed while seeking aid since 27 May 2025, most of whom were killed near US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) sites, while other Palestinian people were killed along the routes of aid convoys, the UN said on Friday.
GHF aid sites replaced the traditional UN distribution mechanism in May after Israel accused Hamas of looting UN aid, a charge Hamas denies. Aid officials say little humanitarian assistance went astray during the short-lived ceasefire that came into effect in January.
Critics have argued that the GHF is a tool for the Israeli and US governments to politicise humanitarian aid and to distribute it in ways that will depopulate sectors of Gaza in apparent violation of international law.
US state department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said that the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, discussed the “humanitarian situation in Gaza” and ceasefire negotiations in calls with the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, and French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot yesterday.
The Israeli government is reportedly exploring the idea of intensifying its military assault as ceasefire negotiations have stalled – which it blames on Hamas.
The US and Israel withdrew their negotiators from Doha, Qatar’s capital, 11 days ago and said they would explore “alternative options” to retrieve the hostages.
Israel has been widely accused of using food as a political weapon and of flagrantly breaking international law by collectively punishing the civilian population of Gaza by its aid blockade.
Aid organisations were bringing somewhere between 500 and 600 trucks a day into Gaza during the ceasefire earlier this year, but now Israeli restrictions mean only a trickle of aid is being allowed into the territory (only 36 aid trucks entered on Saturday, for example, according to Gaza’s government media office).
The Guardian’s chief Middle East correspondent, Emma Graham-Harrison, has broken down in great detail how Israel has deliberately caused a famine in Gaza. Here is an extract from her piece:
The mathematics of famine are simple in Gaza. Palestinians cannot leave, war has ended farming and Israel has banned fishing, so practically every calorie its population eats must be brought in from outside.
Israel knows how much food is needed. It has been calibrating hunger in Gaza for decades, initially calculating shipments to exert pressure while avoiding starvation.
“The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger,” a senior adviser to the then prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said in 2006…
Data compiled and published by Israel’s own government makes clear that it has been starving Gaza. Between March and June, Israel allowed just 56,000 tonnes of food to enter the territory, Cogat records show, less than a quarter of Gaza’s minimum needs for that period.
Even if every bag of UN flour had been collected and handed out, and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation had developed safe systems for equitable distribution, starvation was inevitable. Palestinians did not have enough to eat.
Israel will partially reopen private sector trade with Gaza to reduce its reliance on humanitarian aid, the defence ministry civil affairs agency for the Palestinian territories said on Tuesday.
“As part of formulating the mechanism, a limited number of local merchants were approved by the defence establishment, subject to several criteria and strict security screening,” Cogat said.
Israel imposed a total blockade on 2 March, partially lifted in May to allow a US-backed private agency to open food distribution centres but hundreds of Palestinians have since been killed around the sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
As Agence France-Presse reports, aid convoys and airdrops by Arab and European militaries resumed last month, as UN-mandated expert reports warned famine was unfolding in the war-torn territory.
The Cogat statement, posted on X, said private sector deliveries would be paid for by monitored bank transfers and be subject to inspections by the Israeli military before entering Gaza, “to prevent the involvement of the Hamas terrorist organisation”.
Permitted goods under the new mechanism will include food staples, fruit, vegetables, baby formula and hygiene products, Cogat said.
It is not clear how much trade will be involved. Palestinian and UN officials said Gaza needs about 600 aid trucks to enter per day to meet the humanitarian requirements – the number Israel used to allow into Gaza before the war.
New images of two skeletal hostages have horrified Israelis and added pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a ceasefire, even as his government considers another expansion of the war, which has already destroyed much of Gaza and pushed it toward famine.
In the video released by the Islamic Jihad militant group, Rom Braslavski says injuries in his foot prevent him from being able to stand. In another video, released by Hamas, Evyatar David says he is digging his own grave and speaks of days without food.
The footage has stirred condemnation. UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres was “very shocked” by the videos, Associated Press reports.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was “appalled by the harrowing videos” and called for access to the hostages.
Hamas said it is ready to respond “positively” to Red Cross requests to deliver food to hostages, if humanitarian corridors for aid deliveries are opened in a “regular and permanent manner” in Gaza. It denied starving the hostages, saying they suffer from the same hunger as ordinary Palestinians.
Ofir Braslavski said that in the video of his son, the captors appear to be well-fed. “This hunger is on purpose,” he said.
Israel has requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on the hostages, which will take place on Tuesday. Israel’s goreign minister, Gideon Saar, said he will travel to New York for the meeting.
Opening summary: Netanyahu to meet security cabinet to decide on next steps
Benjamin Netanyahu will convene his security cabinet this week to decide on Israel’s next steps in Gaza following the collapse of indirect ceasefire talks with Hamas, with one senior Israeli source suggesting more force could be an option.
On Saturday, during a visit to the country, US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff had said he was working with the Israeli government on a plan that would effectively end the war in Gaza.
But Israeli officials have also floated ideas that include expanding the military offensive in Gaza and annexing parts of the shattered enclave.
Israel’s Channel 12 cited an official from his office as saying that Netanyahu was inclining towards expanding the offensive and seizing the entire Palestinian enclave.
Elsewhere, a UN expert who first warned that Israel was orchestrating a campaign of deliberate mass starvation in Gaza more than 500 days ago, has said that governments and corporations cannot claim to be surprised at the horror now unfolding.
“Israel has built the most efficient starvation machine you can imagine. So while it’s always shocking to see people being starved, no one should act surprised. All the information has been out in the open since early 2024,” Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, told the Guardian.
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