Blinken says ‘real hope’ for new hostage deal – as it happened

Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

• The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the US will respond “decisively” to aggression and hold those responsible for the drone attack on a US military base in Jordan that killed three US troops and wounded dozens more to account. The three US service personnel who were killed in the drone strike have been named by the Pentagon as Sgt William Jerome Rivers, 46, Specialist Kennedy Sanders, 24, and Specialist Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23. The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, vowed that the US will take “all necessary actions” to defend its troops, while the Pentagon said it did not believe that Iran is seeking a war with the US, and that Washington doesn’t want a war either.

• The enemy drone that was used in the attack on a US base in Jordan may have been confused with an American drone returning to the US installation, according to a report. In describing the drone attack, the two US officials, who were not authorised to comment and insisted on anonymity, said preliminary accounts suggest the enemy drone that struck the installation known as Tower 22 may have been mistaken for an American drone that was in the air at the same time. An Iranian-made drone was used in the deadly attack on Sunday, according to one US official.

• The framework for a deal that could lead to a ceasefire and the release of hostages held in Gaza is being put to the Hamas leadership, Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said on Monday. Speaking after talks in Paris between officials from the US, Qatar, Egypt and Israel, he said: “We are in a better place than we were a few weeks ago.” The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, also voiced hope. The US believes talks are “moving in a good direction” but there is no imminent deal, the White House said.

• Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine reiterated that Israel must halt its offensive and withdraw from Gaza before any prisoner exchange takes place. Israel remains opposed to a permanent ceasefire and wants to retain a right to recommence hostilities against Hamas – something the Hamas leadership wants ruled out. A senior Hamas official, Taher al-Nunu, said the Palestinian militant group wanted a “complete and comprehensive ceasefire” in Gaza.

• The UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has warned it would not be able to continue operations in Gaza and across the region beyond the end of February if funding did not resume. Israel has claimed several UNRWA staff took part in the 7 October attacks or in the aftermath, including a school counsellor who allegedly kidnapped an Israeli woman. A string of western countries including the US and the UK have suspended funding to the agency, which provides aid to more than 5.6 million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East. The charity ActionAid described the withdrawal of funding for UNRWA as a “death sentence” for the population of Gaza.

• At least 26,637 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza and a further 65,387 injured, according to the latest figures by Gaza’s health ministry on Monday. Two hundred and fifteen Palestinians were killed in the last 24 hours, the ministry reported.

• The surgical ward at al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza has completely halted operations due to oxygen supplies running out, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said on Monday. Heavy fighting has continued around hospitals in Khan Younis over the past few days, the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA said in its latest update on the conflict, noting that only 14 of 36 hospitals in Gaza are now partially functional. Khan Younis’ Nasser hospital, until recently the largest still accepting patients in southern Gaza, is now only “minimally functioning”, OCHA said.

• Israel has struck an Iran-linked site south of the Syrian capital, Damascus, killing several people on Monday. Iranian and Syrian official media said the attacks came from the Golan Heights and were attributed to Israel. They have not been regarded as a direct response to the attack on the Tower 22 base on Jordan’s border with Iraq and Syria. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes hit a farm housing members of Lebanon’s Iran-backed militant Hezbollah group and other Iran-backed factions. It said seven people were killed, including four Syrians, one of whom was the bodyguard of a member of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards.

• Israeli troops will “very soon go into action” near the country’s northern border with Lebanon, the country’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has said. The Israeli minister, addressing troops near the Gaza border on Monday, also warned that the war against Hamas “will take months”, and claimed that quarter of Hamas fighters have been killed and at least another quarter have been wounded.

• Five Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in four different incidents in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in the past 24 hours, the Palestinian health ministry said on Monday. Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that 378 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank since 7 October.

• Israeli politicians and ministers have attended a conference calling for Israeli resettlement of the Gaza Strip and “voluntary migration” of the Palestinian population elsewhere. The prominent role of government figures in the far-right conference on Sunday appears to violate the international court of justice ruling last week that Israel must “take all measures within its power” to avoid acts of genocide in its war in Gaza, including the “prevention and punishment of genocidal rhetoric”. The White House described the comments as “irresponsible, reckless and incendiary”.

• The US and the UK announced sanctions against individuals who they said targeted Iranian dissidents and activists for assassination at the direction of the Iranian regime. The UK Foreign Office announced sanctions against seven individuals and one organisation who it said were involved in threats to kill journalists on British soil, and others it said were part of international criminal gangs linked to Iran.

• US government employees are planning a “day of fasting for Gaza” this week to draw attention to the humanitarian crisis in the territory and to denounce Joe Biden’s policy toward Israel.

More than 1,000 musical artists from the Eurovision host country, Sweden, have signed an open letter calling for Israel to be excluded from this year’s edition of the song contest over its “brutal warfare in Gaza”.

Published in Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, the open letter says that by allowing Israel to participate, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) “is exhibiting a remarkable double standard that undermines the organisation’s credibility”.

The letter, published late on Monday, reads:

The fact that countries that place themselves above humanitarian law are welcomed to participate in international cultural events trivialises violations of international law and makes the suffering of the victims invisible.

Signatories include internationally successful artists such as the singers Robyn and Fever Ray, the folk duo First Aid Kit, and former Swedish Eurovision contestants such as Eric Saade and Malena Ernman, the mezzo-soprano opera singer who is also the mother of the climate activist Greta Thunberg.

The letter comes after a similar petition signed by about 1,400 artists from Finland and Iceland who also called for Israel to be excluded from the song contest, which will be held in Malmö from 7 to 11 May.

New Zealand will not commit to its $1m NZD (£482,210) annual payment to the UNRWA, following accusations over its staff’s involvement in Hamas’s 7 October attacks, until it is satisfied with the outcome of the UN’s investigation.

Speaking to media on Tuesday morning, the prime minister, Christopher Luxon, said New Zealand would pause its contribution – due in June – until its foreign minister, Winston Peters, is happy to give it the green light.

I mean the allegations are incredibly serious, it’s important they are properly understood and investigated, we won’t be making any further contributions until the foreign minister says it’s good to do so.

Luxon said New Zealand remains committed to supporting the humanitarian response in Gaza, and will continue to call for safe and unimpeded humanitarian access.

What I’d just remind everybody is that our funding is about a million dollars a year, we’ve already offered $10m in humanitarian assistance and we’ve split that money between the International Red Cross and also the World Food Programme.

Helen Clark – a former New Zealand prime minister and former UN Development Programme administrator – has urged western countries to reinstate the funding to avoid “a harsh collective punishment of the Gazan people”.

A US official has said that a Iranian-made drone was used in the deadly attack on Sunday against on a US military base in Jordan, according to a report.

The official told CBS that the drone used in the attack wasa “type of Shahed drone”, a one-way attack drone that Iran has been providing to Russia.

Iran has denied it was behind the drone strike, but Islamic Resistance in Iraq have claimed responsibility as part of efforts, galvanised by the Israel-Hamas war, to try to drive US troops out of Iraq and Syria.

Antony Blinken was asked about the Biden administration’s response to the international court of justice (ICJ) ruling last week ordering Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent its forces from carrying out genocide against Palestinians.

The US continues to “believe clearly that allegations of genocide are without merit”, the secretary of state told reporters.

He said Washington has consistently made clear to Israel about the imperative of taking every possible step to protect civilian life in Gaza, to get humanitarian assistance to those who need it, and to address the “dehumanising” rhetoric from some individuals. Blinken added:

The court in this decision agreed with that. The court’s ruling is also very consistent with our view that Israel has the right to take action to ensure that the terrorist attacks of October 7 never happen again, in accordance with international law.

The US will continue to monitor the UN court’s proceedings as it moved forward with the case, he added.

Antony Blinken described the proposal on the table for a new hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas as “strong and compelling”.

The US secretary of state noted “the less said the better” in terms of negotiations on a new hostage deal, but that the work that is being done is “important and hopeful”.

He said Hamas “will have to make its own decisions”, and that it is his “strong assessment” that Israel would “very much like to see this process of hostages coming out”. He added:

I can say that very important, productive work has been done, and there is some real hope going forward.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken noted that the situation in the Middle East is “incredibly volatile”, adding:

I would argue that we’ve not seen a situation as dangerous as the one we’re facing now across the region at least 1973, and arguably even before that.

The US will defend its personnel and interests, and has taken significant action to deter groups and degrade their capabilities in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, he said.

President Biden has been “very clear that we want to prevent broader escalation” in the region but has also warned that the US will respond “strongly” to anyone who will try to use the crisis to create further instability or attack American personnel, he said.

Blinken said:

As the president said yesterday, we will respond. That response could be multi-levelled, come in stages, and be sustained over time.

The secretary of state emphasised that the US “does not seek conflict” with Iran but will respond “very vigorously” to the drone attack in Jordan.