Creation of Palestinian state is only way to peace, EU foreign policy chief says – as it happened | Israel-Gaza war

More now from the visit to Lebanon by Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, which comes amid wider diplomatic efforts to stop the conflict in Gaza spreading to elsewhere in the Middle East.

Speaking at a news conference held with the Lebanese prime minister, Najib Mikati, Borrell said he wanted to start a European-Arab initiative to revive a peace process, with the ultimate aim being a two-state solution.

“The only way is the creation of a Palestinian state,” he said, adding that the prospect of a state would offer a “horizon of hope” to the Palestinians.

He said he would also visit Saudi Arabia on Sunday to discuss steps to secure peace across the region.

This blog has now closed. You can read our full report on the US and EU's twin diplomatic push in the region here and all our coverage of the Israel-Gaza war here.

Here is where things stand:

• Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, met a political official of Hezbollah on Saturday in attempts to help avoid Lebanon’s entanglement in the ongoing Israel-Gaza war. According to Lebanese media, Borrell held talks with Mohammad Raad, the head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, Agence France-Presse reports.

• Médecins Sans Frontières has evacuated its staff and families from Gaza’s middle area following evacuation orders issued by Israeli forces for neighborhoods surrounding al-Aqsa hospital. “It is with heavy conscience that we have to evacuate while patients, hospital staff and many people seeking safety remain in the hospital premises,” Carolina Lopez, the emergency coordinator at al-Aqsa hospital, said.

• An Israeli airstrike on a house belonging to the Al-Nabris family in Khan Younis killed several Palestinians while wounding dozens on Saturday, Palestinian health officials said, according to Reuters. Videos on social media of what appeared to be the aftermath of the strike showed Palestinians rushing injured victims, including bloodied children, to the hospital.

• The US is working alongside its allies to see what can be done to protect civilians in Gaza amid Israel’s ongoing war in the strip, Reuters reports the US secretary of state Antony Blinken as saying on Saturday. Blinken’s comments come as Israeli forces have killed more than 22,700 Palestinians across the strip since 7 October.

• Iran and its associates “must immediately stop their destabilizing actions”, France’s foreign minister Catherine Colonna said in a tweet on Saturday. Following a call with her Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Colonna wrote: “I called Iranian Minister A Abdollahian and gave him a very clear message: the risk of regional conflagration has never been so significant; #Iran and its associates must immediately stop their destabilizing actions. No one would gain from escalation.”

• Almost 90% of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been “forcibly displaced and lack everything”, UNRWA said. According to UNRWA, 1.9 million Palestinians have been displaced across Gaza, with 1.88 million Palestinians sheltering in and in the vicinity of 155 UNRWA installations. Meanwhile, 131 UNRWA installations have been damaged as a result of Israel’s deadly strikes across Gaza.

• European foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned on Saturday that it is “absolutely necessary” that Lebanon not be dragged into a regional conflict as a result of Israel’s war in Gaza. Speaking at a press conference with Lebanon’s foreign minister, Borrell said: “It is imperative to avoid regional escalation in the Middle East. It is absolutely necessary to avoid Lebanon being dragged into a regional conflict,” Agence France-Presse reports.

Here are some images coming through the newswires from Gaza, where Israeli forces have killed more than 22,700 Palestinians since 7 October, while survivors grapple with severe shortages in food, water, medical supplies and fuel:

Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, met a political official of Hezbollah on Saturday in attempts to help avoid Lebanon’s entanglement in the ongoing Israel-Gaza war.

According to Lebanese media, Borrell held talks with Mohammad Raad, the head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, Agence France-Presse reports.

An EU source confirmed the meeting, telling AFP that the EU is “engaging in diplomatic dialogue with all relevant political representatives who have influence on the situation on the ground or have a stake in it”.

Borrell’s meeting with Raad came hours after Hezbollah fired a barrage of rockets at an Israeli military base on Saturday in response to the killing of Saleh al-Arouri, a senior Hamas official, earlier this week. Israel has not claimed responsibility.

Here are some images coming through the newswires from Tel Aviv this evening, where thousands of demonstrators, including families of hostages held by Hamas, rallied against the Israeli government over its handling of the hostage crisis and its ongoing war in Gaza:

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has landed in Jordan, according to the US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller.

“Jordan is a vital partner in helping to prevent the conflict in the region from spreading, and we are grateful for their leadership in facilitating aid to civilians in Gaza,” he added.

Blinken is currently on a weeklong diplomacy tour of the region, where he is scheduled to meet various leaders in attempts to prevent Israel’s war in Gaza from further escalating.

Médecins Sans Frontières has evacuated its staff and families from Gaza’s middle area following evacuation orders issued by Israeli forces for neighborhoods surrounding al-Aqsa hospital.

“It is with heavy conscience that we have to evacuate while patients, hospital staff and many people seeking safety remain in the hospital premises,” Carolina Lopez, the emergency coordinator, at al-Aqsa hospital said.

The humanitarian organization went on to report that a bullet heavily penetrated a wall in the hospital’s ICU unit on Friday.

“Over the last couple of days, drone attacks and snipers fire were just a few hundred metres from the hospital,” Lopez said, adding: “The situation became so dangerous that some staff living in the neighbouring areas were not able to leave their houses because of the constant threats of drones and snipers.”

Lopez went on to urge Israel to abide by international humanitarian law amid its war on Gaza, which has destroyed numerous health facilities, saying:

We reiterate that Israel has an obligation under international humanitarian law to protect patients and staff who are still working in the only functioning hospital in Gaza’s middle area.

An Israeli airstrike on a house belonging to the Al-Nabris family in Khan Younis killed several Palestinians while wounding dozens on Saturday, Palestinian health officials said, according to Reuters.

Videos on social media of what appeared to be the aftermath of the strike showed Palestinians rushing injured victims, including bloodied children, to the hospital.

Since 7 October, Israeli strikes have killed more than 22,700 Palestinians across Gaza while internally displacing nearly 2 million survivors.

Here are some images coming through the newswires of global pro-Palestine protests over the weekend in which thousands of demonstrators called for a ceasefire in Gaza, where Israeli forces have killed more than 22,700 Palestinians:

Israeli TV coverage omitting the suffering of Palestinians amid Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza is leaving the Israeli public dangerously disconnected from the rest of the world, according to critical journalists.

The Guardian’s Emma Graham-Harrison and Quique Kierszenbaum report:

The TikTok videos feature Israeli soldiers, standing under the concrete blast barriers of a military base, in front of a rolling green landscape or beside armoured vehicles. Most are in full military gear, in settings that make clear these are men at war, with one message to their country’s journalists: “If you don’t have something unifying to say, just shut your mouth.”

To someone who made a cursory scan of the country’s TV channels and newspapers after 7 October, the reservists’ anger might be confusing – the Israeli media have rarely presented their audiences with such a uniformly patriotic vision of reality as they have over the past three months.

A “united we will win” slogan sits on the screen for most TV news and talk shows. Politicians face heavy criticism, but interrogations of the military, its strategies, its generals and ordinary troops are muted. The suffering of Gazan civilians barely features, veteran journalists say, three months into an Israeli offensive that has killed more than 22,000 people, displaced nearly 2 million, and left nearly half the population on the brink of famine and stalked by disease.

“In general, the Israeli media is drafted to the main goal of winning the war, or what looks like trying to win the war. If you want to try to find some similarities, it’s along the lines of the American media after 9/11,” said Raviv Drucker, one of Israel’s leading investigative journalists.

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The US secretary of state Antony Blinken has also spoken with his Algerian counterpart, Ahmed Attaf, as part of his week-long diplomacy tour in the Middle East.

In a tweet on Saturday, a US state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, said the two discussed “multilateral cooperation on threats to international security and increasing humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza”.

The US is working alongside its allies to see what can be done to protect civilians in Gaza amid Israel’s ongoing war in the strip, Reuters reports the US secretary of state Antony Blinken as saying on Saturday.

Blinken’s comments come as Israeli forces have killed more than 22,700 Palestinians across the strip since 7 October.

He added that the US wants to make sure that countries in the region are using their ties and relationships to make sure that there is no further escalation in violence.

On Saturday, Blinken, who is on a weeklong diplomacy tour of the region, spoke with leaders of Greece and Turkey on regional security amid Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza.