Israel-Hamas war live: Jordan airdrops medical supplies to Gaza hospital; Blinken in Turkey in push to contain conflict

The UK government has been accused of separating British children in Gaza from their mothers after it was revealed that citizens without passports had been left off its safe passage list.

The names of British citizens allowed to leave Gaza for Egypt via the Rafah crossing have been added to a list but, some have said their dependants have not been included by the Foreign Office.

The policy contrasts with the decisions made during the evacuation of Ukraine, when any family member of a British citizen would be provided with a visa, a group representing them said.

“We have been in touch with organisations and lawyers who work to support people who have a right to come to the UK through different visa schemes. They have been quite clear that British Palestinians are being treated very differently to people fleeing the Ukraine conflict,” said Louise Harkin of Support Families in Gaza.

“Gaza is currently the least safe place on the planet. Almost 10,000 people are confirmed dead, almost half of whom are children, yet the government now wants to separate British children from their mothers and families.

“We call upon the government to allow British citizens to bring their families with them.”

US secretary of state Antony Blinken is in Turkey, on the next leg of his diplomatic blitz of the region, on which he is trying to contain the conflict between Israel and Hamas and push or humanitarian pauses to allow aid in to Gaza.

Agence France-Presse has written a good backgrounder with plenty of context on recent relations between the US, Israel and Turkey.

Blinken’s first visit [to Turkey] since Israel went to war with Hamas in reprisal for the militants’ October 7 attack comes with fury at both Israel and the West boiling over on the streets of Turkey and inside the palace of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse hundreds of protesters who marched on an air base housing US forces in Turkey’s southeast hours before Blinken‘s arrival Sunday.

Erdogan himself plans to travel across Turkey’s remote northeast Monday in a seeming snub of Washington’s top diplomat.

Blinken’s talks with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan were set to be packed with problems even before Israel launched a relentless bombing and expanding ground campaign aimed at eradicating Hamas.

The war threatens to have broad repercussions on Washington’s relations with Turkey – a Nato member with a muscular foreign policy and stakes in conflicts across the Middle East.

Washington is anxious to see Turkey’s parliament finally ratify Sweden’s stalled drive to join the US-led Nato defence organisation.

The United States has also been tightening sanctions against Turkish individuals and companies that are deemed to be helping Russia evade sanctions and import goods for use in its war on Ukraine.

And Ankara is upset that Congress is holding up the approval of a deal backed by US President Joe Biden to modernise Turkey’s air force with dozens of US F-16 fighter jets.

Turkey further has longstanding reservations about US support for Kurdish forces in Syria that spearheaded the fight against Islamic State group jihadists – but which Ankara views an offshoot of banned PKK militants.

Ankara has stepped up air strikes against armed Kurdish groups in Syria and Iraq in reprisal for an October attack on the Turkish capital claimed by the PKK in which two assailants died.

Blinken‘s visit follows a whirlwind tour of the Middle East that included an unannounced visit to the West Bank for talks with Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas on Sunday.

The US diplomat has been facing a chorus of Arab calls to support an immediate ceasefire.

Israel says it could accept a humanitarian pause to allow in additional shipments of aid once Hamas frees the hostages.

Blinken has supported the Israeli position while trying to assure regional players that Washington is focused on relieving humanitarian suffering.

Erdogan said on Sunday it was “Turkey’s duty” as a supporter of an independent Palestinian state to immediately stop the violence.

He said Ankara was “working behind the scenes” with regional allies to secure an uninterrupted stream of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

But he has cut off contacts with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and called back Ankara’s ambassador to Israel in protest.

Erdogan has also accused the west of double standards and losing its moral authority.

“Those who shed crocodile tears for the civilians killed in the Ukraine-Russia war are now quietly watching the killing of thousands of innocent children,” Erdogan said last month.

Jordan has airdropped a medical aid package to a hospital in Gaza, King Abdullah II has said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

Jordan neighbours the West Bank and is home to many Palestinian refugees. The king’s wife, Queen Rania, was born to Palestinian parents and has been outspoken in her criticism of Israel in the conflict.

The US news website Axios reported that the airdrop was done in conjunction with the Israeli military.

Given Israel’s blockade and intense bombardment of the strip it is hard to imagine it could have been done otherwise.

Jordan’s military said in a statement that the medical supplies were dropped via parachutes from a Jordanian Air Force plane, according to Axios.

Aid has been trickling into the territory via the Rafah border crossing with Egypt but the UN has said it is woefully inadequate for what is needed. Israel has cut off water, fuel and medical supplies to Gaza even as thousands of civilians are killed and injured in its attacks.

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas with me, Helen Livingstone.

Jordan says it has airdropped medical supplies to a Gaza hospital overnight as Israel cut off communications in the territory on Sunday and stepped up its bombardments once again. The Israeli military said it had cut the strip in two late Sunday and Israeli media reported that the army was expected to enter Gaza City within the next 48 hours.

Meanwhile US secretary of state Antony Blinken is in Turkey on Monday, as he continues his lightning round of diplomacy in the Middle East in a bid to contain the conflict and push for humanitarian pauses in the fighting to allow aid into Gaza.

He is due to meet Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, in Ankara a day after hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters tried to storm an air base that houses US troops in southern Turkey.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself plans to travel across Turkey’s remote northeast Monday in an apparent snub of Washington’s top diplomat.

In other developments:

• Gaza was rocked by a series of huge explosions on Sunday evening and communications with the coastal strip were cut, as violence also escalated on Israel’s northern boundary with Lebanon. The strikes on Gaza came as the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) indicated that its troops were planning to enter Gaza in force perhaps within the next 48 hours, according to reports in Israeli media.

• Israel stopped firing in northern Gaza for several hours two days in a row to create safe passage for civilians to move to the south, a military spokesperson told CNN on Sunday, amid pressure for a humanitarian pause. “Yesterday and today, for many hours with prior notice and warning, we facilitated, we stopped firing in certain areas of northern Gaza, which is the main combat area, and we called on Palestinians to move south,” Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus said.

• US secretary of state Antony Blinken made a surprise visit to Iraq on Sunday following his earlier trip to the West Bank and a brief stop in Cyprus. Iraq’s prime minister, Mohamed Shia al-Sudani, met the US secretary of state, the premier’s office said, according to Agence France-Presse. It comes as American forces in the region face a surge of attacks by Iranian-allied militias in Iraq and elsewhere. US forces shot down another one-way attack drone on Sunday that was targeting American and coalition troops near their base in neighbouring Syria, a US official said. In the West Bank, neither Blinken nor Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas spoke as they greeted each other in front of cameras and their meeting ended without any public comment.

• Blinken met the president of Cyprus, Nikos Christodoulides, on Sunday to discuss a maritime aid corridor from the island to Gaza. Their conversation included “a dedicated, one-way maritime corridor of sustained flow of humanitarian aid from Cyprus to civilians in Gaza”, Cyprus government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis said.

• A senior Israeli cabinet minister on Sunday called on Benjamin Netanyahu to retract a comment he was reported to have made about the need to check if a pre-war protest among army reservists pushed Hamas to carry out its attack last month. Israel’s Channel 12 and other news outlets reported that Netanyahu said there may be a need to examine whether months of protests against his government, including by reservists who said they would no longer report for regular duty, added to Hamas’ motivation to carry out the 7 October rampage through southern Israel that triggered the current war. Benny Gantz, who joined Netanyahu’s war cabinet from the opposition as part of an emergency government, said Netanyahu must retract his comment. “Avoiding responsibility and slinging mud at the time of war is a blow to the country,” Gantz wrote on social media platform X.

• The leaders of the UN’s major humanitarian agencies as well as international charities have called for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in Gaza, calling the situation “horrific” and “unacceptable” in a rare joint statement. While condemning the Hamas attack of 7 October, the agency head said: “The horrific killings of even more civilians in Gaza is an outrage, as is cutting off 2.2 million Palestinians from food, water, medicine, electricity and fuel.”

• In a new interview with CNN, Jordan’s Queen Rania criticised Israel’s evacuation orders to Palestinians living across the Gaza Strip. She said: “The evacuation orders are sent online or on television, knowing that there’s no electricity in Gaza since the beginning of this war … [They], I do not believe, are for the benefit of the Gaza civilians. They are not the target audience, the rest of the world is. It is Israel’s attempt to try to minimise their actions.”

• A total of 48 installations belonging to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees have been damaged across Gaza since 7 October. In an update released on Sunday, UNRWA added that nearly 1.5 million people have been displaced across Gaza since the war broke out nearly a month ago.

• Hezbollah said it fired multiple grad rockets at the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona on Sunday, in retaliation for an Israeli strike in south Lebanon that it said had killed a woman and three children, Reuters reported. In a statement, the Lebanese militant faction said its attack came in response to Israel’s “heinous and brutal crime”. Three children and their grandmother were killed in the Israeli strike, a Hezbollah lawmaker from the area said, calling the attack “a dangerous development” that would have repercussions. “The enemy will pay the price for its crimes against civilians,” lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah told Reuters, adding that the children were aged between eight and 15.

• The average Palestinian in Gaza is living on only two pieces of bread every day, according to a UN official. Associated Press reports: “The average Palestinian in Gaza is living on two pieces of Arabic bread made from flour the United Nations had stockpiled in the region, yet the main refrain now being heard in the street is ‘Water, water’, the Gaza director for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said Friday.”

• Palestinian telecoms firm Paltel said that Israel has once again cut internet and phone lines across Gaza on Sunday night. Paltel said in a statement: “We regret to announce the complete shutdown of communications and internet services in Gaza after the Israeli side disconnected the servers.” Shortly after the blackout, Israel launched an intense bombardment on Gaza and other nearby zones in the north of the strip. The blackout was confirmed by connectivity monitor NetBlocks.

• The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has issued an appeal for urgent expanded access to Gaza as food supplies run “dangerously low”. In a statement on Sunday, WFP head Cindy McCain said: “Right now, parents in Gaza do not know whether they can feed their children today and whether they will even survive to see tomorrow.”