Israel-Palestine live: Netanyahu rejects Hamas ceasefire proposal, vows ‘total victory’

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to hold a press conference this evening in Jerusalem at 7:30 pm local time. 

He is set to make an announcement on the captive deal with Hamas. 

The press conference marks his first in Jerusalem since the start of the war on 7 October. 
 

Dozens of pro-Palestine protesters in London gathered outside the Barclays bank headquarters on Wednesday. 

The protesters demanded that the bank “end its complicity in Israel’s attack on Palestinians,” and stop its “financial ties with arms companies that sell weapons from Israel”.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign has called for people to close their accounts with the bank on 9 February as part of the boycott movement. 
 

A new round of captive talks will begin in the Egyptian capital on Thursday, Haaretz reported, citing Egyptian sources. 
 

The Israeli army on Wednesday struck a building it claimed was being used by Hezbollah in the village of Marwahin, in southern Lebanon. 

The army added that fighter jets overnight also struck another site in Bani Haiyyan.

Earlier on Wednesday, a projectile was also fired at the Shtula area. 
 

The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, is meeting with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, according to the prime minister’s office. 

The two are discussing the possibility of coming to a truce agreement in order to end the war on Gaza. 
 

Israeli protesters and activists have camped out near the Kerem Shalom crossing, in order to prevent emergency aid from reaching the Gaza Strip. 

Images shared online showed dozens of tents at the location, preventing trucks filled with life-saving aid from entering the besieged enclave. 
 

The Israeli Public Defender's Office published a report on Tuesday stating that some Israeli prisons have been declared to be in a state of emergency due to severe overcrowding. 

According to the report, since the start of the war on 7 October at least 3,400 people have been imprisoned. 

The overcrowding has resulted in the violation of the basic rights of people in prison, including many being forced to sleep on the floor.

During a visit by members of the Public Defender’s Office, squalid conditions were noted, including "intolerable overcrowding", with less than three square metres of space per person; poor sanitary conditions; pest issues; inadequate ventilation, and a lack of basic necessities for the incarcerated. 

The report said that the overcrowding has caused people stress and anxiety, which can at times cause unnecessary friction in cells. 

A statement from the Public Defender’s Office said that it had witnessed an “unprecedented prison crisis, in which detainees and prisoners were crowded into inhumane living spaces”.

It added that almost half of the incarcerated in Israel are held in harsh conditions that do not meet the High Court’s "first step" of living space, which states that they are to be held in an area of no less than three square metres.

Read more: Palestinians packed in intolerably overcrowded cells in Israeli prisons, says report

A US official told NBC News the counter-proposal for a ceasefire presented by Hamas could be worked with and that it was accurate to call it “generally positive”.

The unnamed source, who is a senior administration official, said a deal is unlikely to materialise in the coming days but could happen in "the next couple of weeks". 

''We’ll see what the Israelis have to say. There are still some difficult issues to be worked out but there is some room to work with,” the official said.

One of the main issues is the timeframe of the Israeli military campaign, with Hamas demanding a permanent and comprehensive end to the war and Israel offering only short pauses in fighting. 

Another issue is the number of Palestinian prisoners to be exchanged with Israeli captives.

Israel's disproportionate response to the alleged involvement of less than a dozen out of 12,000 employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa) in Hamas's 7 October attack reveals the real motives behind its plan to defund the vital agency. 

The enthusiasm with which the Israeli public, the media, and the decision-makers discuss the dismantling of Unrwa is reminiscent of the atmosphere that surrounded Israel's assault on al-Shifa hospital, the destruction and seizure of which was considered by many to be an "image of victory".

Early in its war on Gaza, Israel sought to delegitimise hospitals and accused them of serving as "command and control centres" for Hamas and using them as human shields. Without evidence, Israel cast hospitals as legitimate targets and destroyed them across Gaza.

The unfounded attacks on Unrwa follow this same playbook, and its unfolding collapse serves the same purpose: to debilitate another major lifeline for the population's survival.

By destroying hospitals, relief organisations, rescue workers, and humanitarian agencies, Israel believes it can achieve its genocidal goal of wiping out Palestinians as a people.

Read more:  Defunding Unrwa is another step towards eliminating the Palestinians - By Ghada Majadli

Israeli forces have killed at least 123 Palestinians over the past 24 hours in 16 "massacres", according to the Palestinian health ministry. 

This brings the Palestinian death toll in four months to more than 27,708, with over 67,000 wounded and 7,000 missing, who are believed to be dead and buried under rubble. 

Over 70 percent of the victims are children and women, according to health officials.

Israel is debating whether to reject or try to soften via negotiations some of the requests made by Hamas in its counter-proposal for a ceasefire, Israeli media has reported. 

Citing a senior official who spoke to Channel 13, the Times of Israel said some of the demands by the Palestinian group are seen as "unacceptable for the nation under any circumstances". 

The report did not detail which demands were viewed as such.

Using two fans he picked up from a scrap market and rigged to some wires, teenager Hussam Al-Attar has created his own source of electricity to light up the tent where he and his family are living after being displaced by Israel's assault on Gaza.

In recognition of his ingenuity, people in the surrounding tent camp have given him a nickname: Gaza's Newton.

"They started calling me Gaza's Newton due to the similarity between me and Newton," said Al-Attar, who looks and sounds younger than his 15 years.

"Newton was sitting under an apple tree when an apple fell on his head and he discovered gravity. And we here are living in darkness and tragedy, and rockets are falling on us, therefore I thought of creating light, and did so."

English scientist Isaac Newton made immense advances in physics, mathematics and astronomy in the late 17th and early 18th century.

More than half of Gaza's 2.3 million people are now crammed into Rafah, on the southern edge of the strip by the fence separating it from Egypt.

The Al-Attar family have attached their tent to the flank of a one-storey house, allowing Hussam to climb onto the roof and set up his two fans, one above the other, to act as tiny wind turbines capable of charging batteries.

He then connected the fans to wires travelling down through the house, and used switches, light bulbs and a thin piece of plywood extending out into the tent to create a bespoke lighting system for his family.

He said his first two attempts failed and it took him a while to develop the system, until he got it to work on the third attempt.

"I started developing it further, bit by bit, until I was able to extend the wires through the room to the tent that we are living in, so that the tent will have light," he said.

"I was very happy that I was able to make this, because I eased the suffering of my family, my mother, my sick father, and my brother's young children, and everyone here who is suffering from the conditions that we live in during this war."

Reporting by Reuters 

Dozens of Israelis set up tents outside a commercial crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip to block the entry of much-needed humanitarian aid to the war-torn Palestinian enclave. 

The Karem Abu Salem (Karem Shalom) crossing has been used by Israeli troops to inspect aid trucks before they enter Gaza. 

Despite severe restrictions imposed by the Israeli army on which food and medical items can enter, many Israelis still oppose allowing any humanitarian relief to reach the 2.3 million civilian population of Gaza. They say aid should be in exchange for the release of captives. 

The Israeli army declared the crossing a closed military zone late last month to prevent protesters from blocking the entry of aid trucks. 

However, hundreds of people managed to reach the area on Tuesday and blocked 132 trucks from crossing into Gaza. They have set up camp there to block any further convoys.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, says a "staggering 84 percent" of its health facilities in the Gaza Strip have been affected in Israel's ongoing war.

Only four out of 22 facilities are still operational, due to "continued bombardment and access restrictions".

An estimated 11,000 patients and wounded people are in urgent need of leaving the Gaza Strip to receive life-saving treatment abroad, the Palestinian health ministry said in a brief statement. 

Of nearly 70,000 people wounded in Israeli air strikes in four months of bombardment, only a few dozen people have been allowed to leave the besieged strip via the Rafah crossing with Egypt.