Middle East crisis: Netanyahu rejects Hamas ceasefire proposal and vows to fight until ‘total victory’

Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

• Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has rejected Hamas demands for a ceasefire in Gaza and vowed to press ahead with Israel’s military offensive in Gaza until achieving “total victory”. Israel was within reach of achieving total victory “in a matter of months”, Netanyahu said at a news conference shortly after meeting US secretary of state, Antony Blinken. “The day after is the day after Hamas. All of Hamas.”

• Hamas laid out a detailed three-phase plan to unfold over four and a half months late on Tuesday via Qatari and Egyptian mediators, responding to a proposal drawn up by the US, Israel, Qatar and Egypt. The plan stipulates that all hostages would be released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, including senior militants, and an end to the war.

• The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has said “a lot of work” remained to be done to bridge the gap between Israel and Hamas on terms for a new ceasefire and hostage-release deal. Blinken met with Netanyahu and Israeli president Isaac Herzog on Wednesday, during which he reiterated US support for “the establishment of a Palestinian state as the best way to ensure lasting peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians alike and greater integration for the region”, according to a US State department readout.

• The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has said he is “especially alarmed” by reports that the Israeli military intends to focus next on the southern Gaza city of Rafah. His comments came amid concerns of an “imminent” Israel ground invasion of Rafah as Israeli gunboats reportedly fired on the main coastal road to the west of the city on Wednesday morning. “Such an action would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences,” Guterres warned.

• At least 27,708 Palestinians have been killed and 67,147 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, according to the latest figures by the Gaza health ministry on Wednesday. The figures includes 123 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes and 169 injured in the past 24 hours.

• Saudi Arabia has said there will be “no diplomatic relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognised”. A Saudi foreign ministry statement on Wednesday reiterated “its call to the permanent members of the UN security council that have not yet recognised the Palestinian state, to expedite the recognition of the Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital”.

• Israeli protesters have prevented trucks carrying humanitarian aid from entering Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing on Wednesday, according an Israeli defence body. The group behind the protests has demanded freedom for the Israeli hostages in Gaza before further aid is allowed into the besieged Palestinian territory.

• Israel’s military has said it discovered and destroyed a tunnel used by senior Hamas leaders and to hold hostages in southern Gaza’s main city of Khan Younis. Israeli special forces unearthed what they said was a “strategic underground tunnel” stretching more than one kilometre (just over half a mile) in a “targeted raid”. The city has been the focus of intense bombardment in recent weeks.

• Human Rights Watch has urged EU donors to restore funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) amid warnings that it could cease operations across the Middle East by the end of the month. The rights group said it was “unconscionable” to consider shutting down the UN agency amid a “desperate” humanitarian situation in Gaza.

• The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has called the 7 October attacks by Hamas on Israel the “biggest antisemitic massacre of our century” as he led a ceremony paying tribute to the French victims. The ceremony, the first major international memorial event outside Israel since the Hamas attacks four months ago, remembered the 42 French citizens killed in the attacks and the three others still missing, believed to be held hostage.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians crammed into the small southern Gaza border city of Rafah are being forced to contemplate being displaced once more as an Israeli offensive looms.

Those who fled to the border city, almost half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, face a terrifying choice: stay in overcrowded Rafah – once home to 280,000 people – and wait for the attack, or risk moving north through an area of continued fighting.

Large areas are occupied by tented encampments, which have encroached even on some of Rafah’s cemeteries. Aid officials have described the city as a “pressure cooker of despair”, warning that a full-scale Israeli offensive on an area so overcrowded could cause large-scale loss of civilian life, and could be a war crime.

While Rafah has been hit by Israeli strikes throughout the war, the bombing and Israeli troops have been edging ever closer to the city, whose southern boundary is delineated by the mainly closed border with Egypt.

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Fears of an imminent Israeli assault have been increased by strikes closer to Rafah, including by Israeli gunboats that shelled the western road into the city on Wednesday.

Describing the mood this week, Raed al-Nims, the media director of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Gaza, said: “Everyone is afraid of the expanding of the ground operation in Rafah.”

The growing sense of desperation has been underlined by the fact that some of the few who have tried to leave the city for areas such as Nuseirat, central Gaza, in recent days have lost contact with family members.

Most families who spoke to the Guardian this week indicated they would wait for an Israeli military evacuation order in the hope it would designate a safe exit route in the event of a full-scale assault.

Read the full story here: ‘Our last stop is Rafah’: trapped Palestinians await Israeli onslaught

A Hamas delegation, headed by senior Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya, will travel to Cairo on Thursday to pursue ceasefire talks with Egypt and Qatar, a Hamas official has said.

A senior Hamas official has responded to Benjamin Netanyahu’s news conference, saying the Israeli prime minister has showed that he intends to pursue conflict in the Middle East.

Netanyahu’s comments were “a form of political bravado, indicating his intention to pursue the conflict in the region”, Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters.

Hamas was “prepared to deal with all the options”, he added.

Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected Hamas demands for a ceasefire in Gaza and vowed to press ahead with Israel’s military offensive in Gaza until achieving “total victory”.

The Israeli prime minister, in a news conference shortly after meeting US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said Israel was within reach of achieving total victory “in a matter of months”.

Netanyahu pledged to destroy Hamas, and ruled out any arrangement that leaves the Palestinian militant group in full or partial control of Gaza.

Israel is the “only power” capable of guaranteeing security in the long term, he said, adding:

The day after is the day after Hamas. All of Hamas.

Hamas put forward its own far-reaching proposal for a permanent end to the fighting late on Tuesday via Qatari and Egyptian mediators, detailing a three-phase plan to unfold over four and a half months.

The plan, in response to a proposal drawn up by the US, Israel, Qatar and Egypt, stipulates that all hostages would be released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, including senior militants, and an end to the war.

Netanyahu says Israel must bring “absolute victory”, which means eliminating Hamas, a complete dismantling of all their battalions, and destroying the entire underground tunnel network.

He says he has “grappled with a number of prominent peace agreements”, and that he believes there will be a deal.

But we will not manage to reach those agreements and those peace treaties and normalisation without beating Hamas.

Netanyahu also calls for the replacement of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

He says Israel believes that up to 60% of humanitarian aid going into Gaza is being taken by Hamas, and that he has instructed officials to find a solution that would prevent that from happening.

Asked about demands put forward by Hamas to release Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli hostages, Netanyahu says Israel has not “committed to anything”.

We haven’t committed to … really enormous numbers that they’re talking about … of terrorists that we are to release. There are supposed to be some kind of process of negotiations with the mediators, but from what I’ve seen after the response of Hamas, I don’t know what is happening.

Netanyahu says he told the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, that Israel will ensure that the Gaza Strip will be demilitarised forever after Hamas is eliminated.

Not part of Hamas, not half of Hamas, but the entire Hamas.

Israel Defense Forces will act “wherever and at any time that is necessary” in Gaza, the Israeli prime minister says.

Benjamin Netanyahu begins his news conference by saying that Israel is on its way to a “decisive” victory, adding that it is “in our hands … in a matter of months”.

The Israeli prime minister says the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are working systematically and will achieve all the objectives of the war: to release all the hostages and eliminate Hamas. He says the IDF’s achievements have been “unprecedented”.

“We do not come back until we win,” he says, adding:

I would like to emphasise once again – there is no other solution other than complete and decisive victory.

Israel’s prime minster, Benjamin Netanyahu, is expected to hold a news conference in Jerusalem in the next few minutes.

It comes after Netanyahu held talks with the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, after Hamas put towards its proposal for a new ceasefire and hostage-release deal.

Israeli protesters have prevented trucks carrying humanitarian aid from entering Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, according to Cogat, an Israeli defence body in charge of Palestinian civilian affairs.

No trucks were able to enter through the crossing on Wednesday, Cogat said, although the Rafah crossing from Egypt into Gaza was working as normal.

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