Middle East crisis live: Israel will launch Rafah offensive next month if hostages held by Hamas not freed, says Gantz | Israel-Gaza war

Proceedings have started for the day at the International Court of Justice in The Hague in the Netherlands.

Before the court today is “advisory proceedings on the legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.”

There is a live stream that you can watch here.

AP reports that the Palestinian legal team will tell the panel of international judges that Israel has violated the prohibition on territorial conquest by annexing large swaths of occupied land and the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, and has imposed a system of racial discrimination and apartheid.

51 countries and three international organizations will also have an opportunity to speak. The court will probably take months to issue its opinion. There are public hearings scheduled every working day between now and Monday. Here is the schedule (times are local time):

• Mon 19 February: 10am – 1.15pm

• Tue 20 February: 10am – 1.10pm and 3pm – 5.40pm

• Wed 21 February: 10am – 1.10pm and 3pm – 5.40pm

• Thu 22 February: 10am – 1.10pm and 3pm – 6.10pm

• Fri 23 February: 10am – 1.10pm and 3pm – 6.10pm

• Mon 26 February: 10am – 12.40am and 3pm – 4.30pm

Lisa O’Carroll

EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell said “everyone is afraid” Benjamin Netanyahu will give the go ahead to a military offensive in Rafah in southern Gaza in the coming days despite mounting international pressure to resist.

Arriving at the summit foreign ministers in Brussels he also lamented one member state, Hungary, for failing to sign a communique last Friday calling for the Israeli prime minister not to go ahead.

In the event the statement went out with 26 signatures.

Borrell said:

[We have] only the same bad news 1.7mn people are being pushed against the Eyptian border. The military operation has not happened, but everybody is afraid that this will happen in the next days. The only solution is to free the hostages and for a permanent ceasefire that could allow to look for a political solution.

Belgium’s foreign minister Hadja Lahbib says she will press her counterparts to support a ceasefire at today’s summit. She said:

As you know, the situation is increasingly alarming with 1.5mn refugees in the south of Rafah, Palestinians who lack everything, and the threat of a ground operation which has been repeated again by the Netanyahu cabinet.

We continue to call for a ceasefire, unhindered access to humanitarian aid and the release of hostages. This is Belgium’s position and it is the one that I will defend again today.

Micheál Martin: Israeli attack on Rafah would be ‘unconscionable’

Lisa O’Carroll

Ireland’s foreign minister Micheál Martin has said it would be “unconscionable” if Israel were to go ahead with a bombardment of Rafah where an estimated 1.5 million people have sought sanctuary from attacks in the north and central Gaza.

“The vast majority of the EU foreign affairs council want an end to this horrible war and to violence. We were very clear that hostages should be released and it is unconscionable that they have been held for so long.

“We are also of the view that to invade Rafah or to launch an attack on Rafah would bring about a catastrophic humanitarian situation on top of what is already a dire humanitarian situation, and would be unconscionable [with] the incredible suffering; the immense suffering that families are going through with over 1.5 million people crowded into a very small corner of Gaza.

“The world is shocked … at the level of inhumanity that’s now happening within Gaza,” he said.

Ireland and Spain last week wrote to European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen demanding a review of the EU-Israel association agreement in relation to its human rights obligations.

Martin said it would be “challenging” to get other member states support for the letter.

Lisa O’Carroll

Lisa O’Carroll is the Guardian’s Brussels correspondent

EU foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels today to discuss the Middle East, Ukraine and the Red Sea.

On arrival Luxembourg foreign minister Xavier Bettel urged Israel to stop bombardment of Gaza and not to attack Rafah, as threatened.

“I said already a few weeks ago, it’s difficult to explain self-defence so long a time after the attacks of 7 October,” he said.

“I tried to tell them that if they don’t want to lose the last support they have in the world, they should avoid doing things that they would regret. I understand they have pression from Israeli side, they are still hostages, still families who wants that the hostages should be free.

“On the other hand, thousands of people are going to be killed in Gaza, especially, especially now in Rafah,” he said.

Norway has agreed to assist in the transfer of frozen tax funds earmarked for the Palestinian Authority (PA) that were collected by Israel, the Norwegian government said on Sunday

Under interim peace accords reached in the 1990s, Israel’s finance ministry collects tax on behalf of the Palestinians and makes monthly transfers to the PA, but a dispute broke out over payments in the wake of the 7 October attacks by Hamas.

The temporary solution will allow payments to resume and prevent a financial collapse for the PA, enabling it to pay salaries and provide essential services such as schools and healthcare, Norway said.

Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Stoere:

This is critical to promoting stability in the region and for the Palestinian Authority to have legitimacy among its people

Under the solution agreed with Israel and Palestinian officials, Norway will serve as an intermediary for holding revenues that Israel has withheld since 7 October.

“The Palestinian Authority is then willing to accept the other funds,” Norway said. The portion of the revenue Norway will keep equals the portion that Israel estimates for Gaza, said a Norwegian foreign ministry spokesperson.

Asked whether the PA retained control of where it spends the money it received, or whether it had committed not to send any money to Gaza, the ministry spokesperson said the questions should be directed to the PA.

The international court of justice is to open a week of hearings Monday on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, with more than 50 states due to address the judges.

The case dates back to 2022 when the UN general assembly asked the court for an advisory, or non-binding, opinion on the occupation, Reuters reports.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki will speak first in the legal proceedings.

While Israel has ignored such opinions in the past, it could pile on political pressure over its ongoing war in Gaza, which has killed about 29,000 Palestinians, according to officials in the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, since the 7 October attacks by Hamas.

Among countries scheduled to participate in the hearings are the United States – Israel’s strongest supporter, China, Russia, South Africa and Egypt. Israel will not, although it has sent written observations.

Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem – areas of historic Palestine which the Palestinians want for a state – in the 1967 war. It withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but, along with neighbouring Egypt, still controls its borders.

It is the second time the UN general assembly has asked the ICJ, also known as the World Court, for an advisory opinion related to the occupied Palestinian territory.

Israel will launch its long-threatened offensive against Rafah next month if Hamas has not freed the remaining hostages held in Gaza by the start of Ramadan, Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz said.

“The world must know, and Hamas leaders must know – if by Ramadan our hostages are not home, the fighting will continue everywhere, including the Rafah area,” Gantz, a retired military chief of staff, told a conference of American Jewish leaders in Jerusalem Sunday, according to Agence France-Presse.

Gantz made similar comments on a timeline on Friday, according to the Times of Israel, but otherwise, the Israeli government has not previously specified a deadline for its planned assault on the city where most of the 1.7 million displaced Palestinians have sought refuge.

Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, is expected to begin on 10 March.

Gantz added that an offensive would be carried out in a coordinated manner and in conversation with Americans and Egyptians to facilitate an evacuation and “minimise the civilian casualties as much as possible”.

But where people can safely relocate on the besieged Gaza Strip remains unclear.

Fears for civilians have led foreign governments and aid organisations to repeatedly urge Israel to not go into Rafah, the last major city not invaded by ground troops during the four-month-old war.

Despite the mounting international pressure, including a direct appeal from US President Joe Biden, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists the war cannot be completed without pressing into Rafah.

It’s 8:21am in Gaza and Tel Aviv, welcome to our latest Guardian live blog on the Middle East crisis. I’m Reged Ahmad and I’ll be with you for the next while.

Israel will launch its long-threatened offensive against Rafah next month if Hamas has not freed the remaining hostages held in Gaza by the start of Ramadan, Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz said.

The Israeli government has not previously specified a deadline for its planned assault on the city where most of the 1.7 million displaced Palestinians have sought refuge.

“The world must know, and Hamas leaders must know – if by Ramadan our hostages are not home, the fighting will continue everywhere, including the Rafah area,” Gantz, a retired military chief of staff, told a conference of American Jewish leaders in Jerusalem Sunday, according to Agence France-Presse.

More on that in a moment but first, here’s a summary of the latest developments:

• The UN security council is expected to vote Tuesday on an Arab-backed resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, which the United States announced it will veto, Associates Press reports.

• Israel formalised its opposition to what it called the “unilateral recognition” of Palestinian statehood, and said any such agreement must be reached through direct negotiations. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, brought the “declaratory decision” to a vote in cabinet, which unanimously approved the measure, according to a statement.

• EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the situation in the Israel-occupied West Bank posed a major obstacle to finding a long-term solution for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

• The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in Gaza is no longer functioning due to the Israeli army’s “week-long siege followed by the ongoing raid”. The Gaza Strip’s second-largest hospital still sheltered many patients suffering from war wounds and Gaza’s worsening health crisis, but there was no power and not enough staff to treat them all, health officials said. “It’s gone completely out of service,” Gaza health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra told Reuters. “There are only four medical teams – 25 staff – currently caring for patients inside the facility,” he said.

• A total of 28,985 Palestinian people have been killed and 68,883 others injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said in a statement. At least 127 Palestinians have been killed and 205 others injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.

• The Israeli military said on Sunday that it killed dozens of Palestinian militants and seized a large amount of weapons in fighting throughout the Gaza Strip over the past day.

• Western powers have rejected suggestions that Hamas as an entity can be allowed a role in governing Gaza at the end of the war, saying only that they recognise that Palestinian militancy will still exist.

• In the UK, Keir Starmer, the Labour party leader, said the “fighting must stop now” in Gaza, warning Israel not to extend its military offensive to the southern city of Rafah.

• Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva accused Israel on Sunday of committing “genocide” against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. “What’s happening in the Gaza Strip isn’t a war, it’s a genocide,” Lula told reporters in Addis Ababa, where he was attending an African Union summit. “It’s not a war of soldiers against soldiers. It’s a war between a highly prepared army and women and children,” he added. The 78-year-old leader condemned Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel as a “terrorist” act but he has since grown vocally critical of Israel’s retaliatory military campaign.

• US forces in the Red Sea have successfully conducted “five self-defence strikes” to foil attacks by land and sea from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, the American military said Sunday. The five strikes included targeting “the first observed Huthi employment of a UUV (unmanned underwater vessel) since attacks began” in October, according to a statement from US central command (Centcom). Meanwhile maritime security firm Ambrey reported a new incident in the strategic Bab al-Mandeb straight, in which a cargo vessel came under attack on Sunday.