Middle East crisis live: UN peacekeepers to remain in Lebanon after warning from Netanyahu to withdraw

Cameron planned sanctions on extremist members of Israeli government

Patrick Wintour

The former foreign secretary David Cameron revealed he had been planning to impose sanctions on two extremist members of the Israeli government over their support for violent settlers and calls to block aid entering Gaza.

In a BBC interview Cameron said he was concerned the measure had not been adopted by the Labour government and had only held back from taking the step in the spring because he received advice it would be too political a step to take during the general election.

His first remarks on the Middle East since leaving the Foreign Office are likely to put pressure on the foreign secretary, David Lammy, to explain if he dropped a worked-up plan and why.

The sanctions – an asset freeze and travel ban – were due to be imposed on Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, and the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Cameron told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Smotrich and Gvir had said things like encouraging people to stop aid convoys getting into Gaza and encouraging extreme settlers in the West Bank with the appalling things they have been carrying out.”

He said it was necessary to tell the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, “when ministers in your government who are extremists and behave in this way we are prepared to use our sanctions regime to say this is simply not good enough and simply has to stop”.

Tom Clonan

The Irish armed forces have participated in UN peacekeeping missions for over 60 years. Since 1958, Ireland has sent troops to global conflicts on almost every continent. We have had a peacekeeping battalion with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) in south Lebanon on a continuous basis since 1978. The relationship is so deep-rooted that in the Irish area of operations, close to the border with Israel, there are local Lebanese people who speak English with broad Irish accents.

In 1996, Tom Clonan witnessed the horror as the Israeli army fired on UN positions. Now, he argues history is repeating itself:

The Washington Post is reporting that Benjamin Netanyahu has told the Biden administration that Israel is willing to limit strikes on Iran to military targets, rather than oil or nuclear facilities. Citing unnamed officials, the Post writes that this suggests that Netanyahu is considering a more limited counterstrike in retaliation for Iran’s missile barrage launched on 1 October.

The retaliatory action would be calibrated to avoid the perception of “political interference in the U.S. elections,” the official familiar with the matter said, signaling Netanyahu’s understanding that the scope of the Israeli strike has the potential to reshape the presidential race.

An Israeli strike on Iranian oil facilities could send energy prices soaring, analysts say, while an attack on the country’s nuclear research program could erase any remaining red lines governing Israel’s conflict with Tehran, triggering further escalation and risking a more direct U.S. military role. Netanyahu’s stated plan to go after military sites instead, as Israel did after Iran’s attack in April, was met with relief in Washington.

Biden has said he would not support an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites and oil markets have been on edge over the prospect of an Israeli strike against Iranian oil fields. Gulf states have lobbied Washington to stop Israel from attacking Iran’s oil sites because they are concerned their own oil facilities could come under fire from Tehran’s proxies if the conflict escalates.

Oil dropped at the start of trading after the report was published. West Texas Intermediate futures retreated as much as 2.9% to $71.70 a barrel, after already losing 2.3% on Monday, Bloomberg reported.

In a statement responding to the Washington Post article, Netanyahu’s office said “we listen to the opinions of the United States, but we will make our final decisions based on our national interest”.

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.

The UN security council has expressed “strong concern” after several UN peacekeepers were wounded when they came under fire in southern Lebanon amid clashes between the Israeli military and Iran-backed Hezbollah militants. The council reiterated its support for the peacekeeping mission’s role in supporting regional security.

The council’s statement on Monday was its first reaction to the escalating attacks across the UN-drawn boundary between Israel and Lebanon, and the firing at frontline positions of the peacekeeping force known as Unifil.

“UN peacekeepers and UN premises must never be the target of an attack,” the 15-member council said in a statement adopted by consensus. It also urged all parties – without naming them – “to respect the safety and security of Unifil personnel and UN premises”.

Despite facing mounting criticism over the attacks, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected accusations that Israeli troops had deliberately harmed Unifil peacekeepers as “completely false” and repeated a call for them to withdraw from combat zones close to the border with Israel. He said Hezbollah used Unifil positions as cover for attacks that have killed Israelis, including on Sunday, when a drone attack on a military base killed four soldiers.

“Israel has every right to defend itself against Hezbollah and will continue to do so,” Netanyahu said, adding that the best way to ensure Unifil personnel’s safety was “to heed Israel’s request and to temporarily get out of harm’s way”. The UN’s peacekeeping chief, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, said peacekeepers would remain in all positions in Lebanon.

Israel is still expected to retaliate against Iran over its missile barrage launched on 1 October, but, according to the Washington Post, Netanyahu has told the Biden administration he is willing to strike military rather than oil or nuclear facilities there.

Citing sources, the Post writes that this suggests that Netanyahu is considering a more limited counterstrike than previously thought.

• Italy, Britain, France and Germany released a joint statement on Monday condemning Israel for repeatedly attacking UN peacekeepers. “These attacks must stop immediately,” they said, adding deliberate attacks were against international law. Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez said there would be “no withdrawal” of the UN peacekeeping force from southern Lebanon after Israeli attacks and calls to leave. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Unifil’s work “is very important. It’s completely unacceptable attacking United Nations troops.”

• More than 20 people have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a Christian town in northern Lebanon on Monday, far from Hezbollah’s power centres in Beirut and the south and east of the country. The bombing struck Aitou, a Maronite village near the northern city of Tripoli, hit a small apartment building, killing 21 people according to the Lebanese Red Cross. The village’s mayor told Reuters that the building had been rented to families displaced by the war.

• It was also a particularly bloody 24 hours in the Gaza Strip. Four people were killed in an Israeli bombing of a hospital courtyard in central Gaza, another strike on a nearby school used as a shelter killed at least 20 people, and a drone strike killed five children playing on the street in al-Shati camp in Gaza City, according to local health authorities. The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports of civilian casualties in the three incidents on Sunday and Monday.

• At least 42,289 Palestinians have been killed and 98,684 wounded in Israeli strikes since 7 October 2023, the Palestinian health ministry said on Monday.

• Netanyahu is examining a plan to seal off humanitarian aid to northern Gaza in an attempt to starve out Hamas, according to a report. The plan, proposed by a group of retired generals, would give Palestinians a week to leave the northern third of the Gaza Strip, including Gaza City, before declaring it a closed military zone. Those who remain would be considered combatants – meaning military regulations would allow troops to kill them – and denied food, water, medicine and fuel, according to a copy of the plan given to the Associated Press.

• The UN’s secretary-general, António Guterres, condemned the “large number of civilian casualties in the intensifying Israeli campaign in northern Gaza”, his spokesperson said on Monday. The UN chief “strongly urges all parties to the conflict to comply with international humanitarian law and emphasises that civilians must be respected and protected at all times,” spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said.

• Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians in the northern West Bank city of Jenin on Monday, the Palestinian health ministry said. According to Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, one of the men was 17 years old. Four others were injured by Israeli fire during the raid, it said.

• Ireland’s foreign minister, Micheál Martin, accused Israel of trying to prevent the world from seeing what its troops are doing in Lebanon and Gaza, and of working to undermine the UN. Asked what Israel’s aim might be in demanding that UN peacekeepers leave their bases in Lebanon after a series of attacks, Martin said: “essentially to drive the eyes and ears out of south Lebanon and to give itself free rein”.

• Officials from the US’s main humanitarian agency attend daily meetings on an Israeli military base that also hosts a notorious prison for Palestinian detainees where torture reportedly runs rampant, the Guardian has learned.