Middle East crisis live: Israeli authorities still preventing humanitarian missions from reaching areas of Gaza, says Unrwa chief

3.21pm BST

The Israeli military said air force helicopters and fighter jets had intercepted five drones in the Mediterranean Sea before they crossed into the country.

3.07pm BST

Israel’s airport authority briefly halted the takeoff and landing of flights at the country’s main airport – Ben Gurion – this afternoon.

“In coordination with the security system, landings and takeoffs at the airport were stopped,” the airport authority said in a statement earlier, without elaborating further. Services have now been resumed at the airport.

3.00pm BST

Israel’s police and intelligence agencies claimed to have broken up a network of Israeli citizens who have been providing military intelligence useful for missile targeting to Iran and were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The investigation claimed the network had been active for around two years, and according to reports in the Israeli the suspects are accused of photographing and collecting information on IDF bases and facilities, including the Kirya defence headquarters in Tel Aviv and the Nevatim and Ramat David airbases.

The Nevatim base was targeted in both Iranian missile attacks this year, and Ramat David has been targeted by Hezbollah. According to a statement released on Monday, the seven Israeli citizens were arrested for gathering sensitive information on Israeli Defense Force bases and energy infrastructure.

According to Haaretz, the suspects allegedly received hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash transfers from Russian tourists, as well as in crypto currencies. Three of the suspects were apprehended while photographing sensitive sites in southern Israel, and the police discovered dozens of documents in their possession.

“Investigations revealed that over a period exceeding two years, the suspects executed multiple security missions under the direction of two Iranian intelligence agents known as ‘Alkhan’ and ‘Orkhan’. The network members were aware that the intelligence they provided compromised national security and could aid enemy missile attacks.

“The network conducted extensive reconnaissance missions on IDF bases nationwide, focusing on air force and navy installations, ports, Iron Dome system locations, and energy infrastructure such as the Hadera power plant. These activities were financially compensated with payments totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars, often facilitated through cryptocurrencies.

“The operation involved photographing and documenting strategic sites, with the collected data being transferred to Iranian agents. Network members utilised advanced equipment procured specifically for these tasks under Iranian guidance.”

The arrested were also allegedly tasked with collecting intelligence on several Israeli citizens at the behest of Iranian agents. This included conducting surveillance on targeted individuals.

Some members were apprehended while attempting to gather intelligence on an Israeli citizen residing near their location, with security assessments indicating potential Iranian plans to harm this individual.

The latest arrests, which follow previous recent arrests of Israeli citizens for allegedly spying fpor Iran, suggests that the well-developed intelligence operations run by Israel targeting Iran, Gaza and Hezbollah have not been a one way street, with Iran and its proxies also running operations in Israel.

2.39pm BST

Israel’s security services have broken up a spy ring that was gathering information on behalf of Iranian intelligence in the latest attempt by Tehran to recruit Israelis for espionage, the Shin Bet and police said on Monday.

Seven Israelis from Israel’s north, including the port city of Haifa, were arrested after an investigation found they had gathered intelligence on Israeli military bases and energy and port infrastructure, a joint Shin Bet and police statement said.

Israeli police said the security breach was among the most serious ever seen by Israel, Reuters reported.

“The assessment is that the activity of the members of the ring has caused security damage to the security of the state,” a senior source with the Shin Bet security service said.

Iran’s foreign ministry was not immediately available for comment.

2.17pm BST

1.44pm BST

Israeli authorities still preventing humanitarian missions from reaching areas of Gaza

Israeli authorities are still preventing humanitarian missions from reaching areas of northern Gaza with critical supplies including medicine and food for people under siege, the head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency Unrwa said on Monday.

Hospitals have been hit and are without power while injured people are left without care, Philippe Lazzarini said on X.

“@Unrwa remaining shelters are so overcrowded, some displaced people are now forced to live in the toilets. According to reports, people attempting to flee are getting killed, their bodies left on the street. Missions to rescue people from under the rubble are also being denied,” he added.

There was no immediate comment from Israel on the Unrwa statement, Reuters reported.

Updated at 2.25pm BST

1.17pm BST

Fabian Hinz, a Middle East expert and missile analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies thinktank, described the leak as “quite damaging” because it reveals previously secret Israeli weapons and capabilities.

The air-launched Golden Horizon ballistic missiles have never been disclosed before and so key details, their range, payload and degree of manoeuvrability mid-flight are unknown, he said.

Because they would be launched from a long way away – possibly from over Iraqi airspace – “defending against them is quite difficult,” Hinz said, particularly for Iran whose air defence systems are not considered particularly robust.

Israel was not known to possess a covert long-range drone, which the documents say is used for long-range reconnaissance. Its existing Heron and Hermes drones are thought to be vulnerable to Iranian detection, Hinz said.

The US monitoring is described as sophisticated because a high degree of understanding is required to make sense of military movements as recorded by satellite imagery and other means. “Everybody knows spying happens. But when you have a country, the closest ally of Israel, shown publicly to be spying [on its ally], that’s embarrassing.”

12.50pm BST

Germany calls for Israel to 'clarify every incident' involving Unifil in Lebanon

Germany on Monday demanded Israel “clarify every incident” involving the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon (Unifil), including the reported destruction of a Unifil observation tower and fence.

UN peacekeepers on Sunday said an Israeli “army bulldozer deliberately demolished” a UN observation tower and fence in southern Lebanon.

Israel launched ground and air attacks on Lebanon in September, saying it wanted to crush Hezbollah, a powerful political party and armed group.

Berlin voiced “great concern” about the latest in a series of incidents reported by the Blue Helmet force, which have sparked international condemnation.

The German government expects “the Israeli side to clarify every incident” and to release “the results of the investigations into this specific incident”, said foreign ministry spokesperson Kathrin Deschauer. “The safety of an operation mandated by the UN security council and its personnel must not be endangered,” she added.

Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz has said the country and its military have “no intention” of harming the peacekeepers.

Unifil has accused Israel of attacking their members multiple times in recent weeks.

12.37pm BST

Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon hit branches of Hezbollah-linked bank

Israel carried out a series of airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, south Lebanon and the Bekaa valley early on Monday morning, striking buildings belonging to the Hezbollah-run banking institution Al-Qard Al-Hassan.

At least 10 airstrikes were carried out in the southern suburbs of Beirut, with an entire building collapsing and a jet of fire streaming into the air in the Chiyah neighbourhood of greater Beirut. A building close to Lebanon’s only commercial airport was also struck, video footage showing a smoke plume billowing while a nearby airplane sat on the runway.

“They struck empty buildings in residential neighbourhoods, and destroyed those surrounding neighbourhoods. These weren’t military centres or weapons caches,” Ma’an Khalil, the mayor of Ghobeiry municipality in the southern suburbs of Beirut, said.

Flames and smoke rise form an Israeli airstrike on Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, on Sunday.

Israel issued several warnings via X prior to the bombings, pinpointing buildings belonging to Al-Qard Al-Hassan in the southern suburbs of Beirut and across Lebanon, warning people to move at least 500 metres away from these buildings. Streets from the affected areas were soon choked with traffic as people fled in anticipation of Israeli bombing.

Al-Qard Al-Hassan has branches across Lebanon, with 15 in greater Beirut alone.

Related: Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon hit branches of Hezbollah-linked bank

12.25pm BST

French president Emmanuel Macron told Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he sees the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as a chance for a possible new phase of negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza, Macron’s office said on Monday.

Macron, whose government has had increasingly tense public exchanges with Israel over the past few weeks, also reiterated previous calls for ceasefires in Lebanon and Gaza and condemnations of Israeli army action towards UN forces in Lebanon .

Macron also expressed solidarity with Netanyahu after a drone was launched towards the prime minister’s home, the French president’s office said.

12.11pm BST

US envoy Amos Hochstein said on Monday that a UN security council resolution that ended the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah conflict would be the basis of a new ceasefire, but would require more than just commitments from the warring parties.

“The commitment that we have is to resolve this conflict based on (UN Resolution) 1701 that is what the solution is going to have to look like,” Hochstein told reporters, adding that “both sides simply committing to 1701, is just not enough” after years of weak implementation.

12.10pm BST

Arab League secretary general Ahmed Aboul Gheit said on Monday in Beirut that the league’s priority was to achieve an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon, and he called for Israel’s prompt withdrawal from any Lebanese territories it has occupied or entered.

Aboul Gheit was also asked if Hezbollah could be destroyed, to which he replied: “You cannot destroy an idea.”

Updated at 12.18pm BST

11.54am BST

After they burned down his family home in northern Gaza, Israeli troops separated Ramez al-Skafi from his family and detained him. They had a particular job in mind for him, he said.

For the next 11 days in early July, the 30-year-old Palestinian said he was sent into one house after another in his home district, Shuja’iya, watched by his Israeli military minders. According to the account he gave the Guardian, they turned him into a human shield against booby-traps and Hamas gunmen.

“I tried to resist their proposal, but they started beating me and the officer told me it was not my choice to make and that I have to do whatever they want,” Skafi said. “He told me that my work would be searching the houses and telling them information about the homeowners. After some extreme pressure, I was left no choice.

“The next day I was told to go out on patrol with the Israeli soldiers, and I was very scared because of the tanks in front of me and the planes in the sky above me,” he continued. “When [his minders] noticed my fear, they assured me: ‘They know you are with us.’”

Related: Palestinians describe being used as ‘human shields’ by Israeli troops in Gaza

11.44am BST

Blinken heads for Israel hoping to kickstart ceasefire negotiations

US secretary of state Antony Blinken will depart for the Middle East on Monday, the state department said, as Washington is pushing to kickstart ceasefire negotiations to end the Gaza war after the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

The top US diplomat’s latest trip to the region, his eleventh since the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel by the Palestinian militant group Hamas that triggered the Gaza war, comes even as Israel has intensified its military campaign in Gaza and in Lebanon against Iran-aligned militia Hezbollah.

Blinken will discuss with regional leaders the importance of ending the Gaza war, ways to chart a post-conflict plan for the Palestinian territory, as well as how to reach a diplomatic solution to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the state department said in a statement.

The top diplomat’s trip will start with Israel, the state department said, but did not provide the other exact destinations.

“Throughout the region, secretary Blinken will discuss the importance of bringing the war in Gaza to an end, securing the release of all hostages, and alleviating the suffering of the Palestinian people,” the state department said in a statement.

Updated at 11.54am BST

11.27am BST

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati said there was no alternative to UN Resolution 1701, but added that “new understandings” could be reached to implement it, a statement issued by his office cited him as saying on Monday.

A UN peacekeeping mission is mandated by Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted in 2006, to help the Lebanese army keep its southern border area with Israel free of weapons or armed personnel other than those of the Lebanese state.

11.02am BST

10.54am BST

Israeli forces blew up homes and besieged schools and shelters for displaced people on Monday as they deepened their operations in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, residents and medics said.

They also rounded up men and ordered women to leave the camp, they said.

Medics at the Indonesian hospital told Reuters that Israeli troops stormed a school and detained the men before setting the facility ablaze. The fire reached the hospital generators and caused a power outage, they added.

Health officials said they refused orders by the Israeli army, which began a new incursion into the north of the Palestinian territory over two weeks ago, to evacuate the three hospitals in the area or leave the patients unattended.

Troops remained outside the hospital but did not enter, they said. Medics at a second hospital, Kamal Adwan, reported heavy Israeli fire near the hospital at night.

“The army is burning the schools next to the hospital, and no one can enter or leave the hospital,” said one nurse at the Indonesian hospital, who asked not to be named.

Palestinian health officials said 18 people had been killed in Jabalia and eight elsewhere in Gaza in Israeli strikes.

10.33am BST

10.09am BST

The Israeli military has apologised over a strike that killed three Lebanese soldiers in southern Lebanon the previous day, AP reported.

It said it is not battling the Lebanese military, and claimed its soldiers believed they were targeting a vehicle belonging to the Hezbollah militant group.

Last week, Hezbollah said it is entering a new phase in its fight against invading Israeli troops, as the region reckoned with the killing of top Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in a battle with Israeli forces in Gaza.

9.33am BST

WHO to evacuate 1,000 Palestinian women and children for urgent medical care

Up to 1,000 women and children needing medical care will shortly be evacuated from Gaza to Europe, the head of the World Health Organization’s Europe branch said in comments published on Monday.

Israel, which is besieging the war-devastated Palestinian territory, “is committed to 1,000 more medical evacuations within the next months to the European Union,” Hans Kluge said in an interview with AFP.

He said the evacuations would be facilitated by the WHO – the United Nations health agency – and the European countries involved.

On Thursday, UN investigators said Israel was deliberately targeting health facilities in Gaza, and killing and torturing medical personnel there, accusing the country of “crimes against humanity”.

Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the occupied Palestinian territories, said in May that about 10,000 people needed evacuating from Gaza for urgent medical care.

The WHO Europe has already facilitated 600 medical evacuations from Gaza to seven European countries since the latest war began there in October 2023.

“This would never have happened if we did not keep the dialogue [open],” Kluge said.

“The same [is true] for Ukraine,” he added. “I keep the dialogue [open] with all partners.

Updated at 9.38am BST

9.06am BST

Iran says it has warned UN nuclear watchdog about Israeli threats against its nuclear sites

Iran has warned the UN nuclear watchdog about Israel’s threats against its nuclear sites, foreign ministry , spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday at a weekly news conference.

Israel has vowed to attack Iran in retaliation for a volley of Iranian missiles launched on 1 October, leading to widespread speculation that Iran’s nuclear sites could be among Israel’s targets.

“Threats to attack nuclear sites are against UN resolutions …. And are condemned … we have sent a letter about it to … the UN nuclear watchdog,” Baghaei said in the televised news conference.

Updated at 9.22am BST

8.36am BST

Ali Daher first heard the explosion and then he felt the pain. An Israeli aircraft loitering high above had shot two rockets at the building next door, collapsing the top two floors and showering him and his two sons with a deadly spray of concrete and jagged metal.

The target of the strike was the Dar al-Salaam hotel – Arabic for “house of peace” – in the southern Lebanese town of Wardaniyah, converted in the last weeks into a government displacement centre for 24 families forced to flee their homes under Israeli bombing. Originally a German-Lebanese centre set up to promote cultural understanding, bronze statuettes and pieces of Lebanese antiquities had been pushed to the side to make room for mattresses and boxes of aid.

The strike on 9 October killed five people and injured 12. It was the first time that Wardaniyah had been targeted by Israel, but was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes on buildings hosting displaced people in parts of Lebanon thought to be safe and that have otherwise not seen any fighting.

“We wanted to go somewhere safe, where there is no bombing, war or [militias], so we came here. Why did they strike here? We don’t know,” said Ali Daher, a 36-year-old mine clearance operator who was displaced from Tyre, south Lebanon, on 30 September. He held out his fractured wrist and pointed to his one-year-old son Kareem’s arm, which had been bandaged after a piece of debris tore it open.

The effects are also being felt in Lebanese society, where local officials have said the fear of strikes have inflamed tensions between members of the country’s many sects and the largely Shia Muslim displaced, who they are afraid to welcome. Unconfirmed rumours of Hezbollah fighters hiding among the displaced have proliferated, despite the vast majority of displaced them being civilians.

More than 1.2 million people have been displaced in Lebanon over the last year, most of them since 23 September, when Israel escalated its aerial campaign over wide swathes of the country. Many have sought shelter in Christian and Druze-majority areas that had previously been spared Israeli bombing.

Related: ‘Sowing terror’: fears Israeli strikes will stoke sectarian tensions in Lebanon

8.09am BST

US envoy Amos Hochstein will be in Beirut on Monday for talks with Lebanese officials on conditions for a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, two sources in Lebanon told Reuters, as Israel expanded its air campaign on the group’s assets overnight.

Israeli strikes late on Sunday hit several branches of a financial institution linked to Hezbollah in Beirut, Lebanon’s south and the Bekaa valley, but no casualties were immediately reported.

Israel has reportedly given the United States a document with its conditions for a diplomatic solution to end the war in Lebanon, Axios reported on Sunday, citing two US officials and two Israeli officials.

Israel has demanded its IDF forces be allowed to engage in “active enforcement” to make sure Hezbollah doesn’t rearm and rebuild its military infrastructure close to the border, Axios reported, citing an Israeli official.

Israel also demanded its air force have freedom of operation in Lebanese airspace, the report added.

A US official told Axios it was highly unlikely that Lebanon and the international community would agree to Israel’s conditions.

7.42am BST

THAAD anti-missile system 'in place' in Israel, US says

The US military has rushed its advanced anti-missile system to Israel and it is now “in place”, defence secretary Lloyd Austin said.

THAAD, or the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, is a critical part of the US military’s layered air defence systems and adds to Israel’s already formidable anti-missile defences.

“The THAAD system is in place,” Austin said, speaking to reporters before his arrival in Ukraine on Monday.

He declined to say whether it was operational, but added: “We have the ability to put it into operation very quickly and we’re on pace with our expectations.”

President Joe Biden said the THAAD’s deployment, along with about 100 US soldiers, was meant to help defend Israel, which is weighing an expected retaliation against Iran after Tehran fired more than 180 missiles at Israel on 1 October.

7.23am BST

Opening summary

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

Israel launched a wave of attacks on buildings belonging to al-Qard al-Hassan, a US-sanctioned financial organisation that has more than 30 branches across Lebanon including 15 in densely populated parts of central Beirut and its suburbs.

Lebanon’s national news agency reported 11 strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs late on Sunday. Other strikes hit the association in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa valley and in the country’s south, NNA added. One strike hit close to Beirut’s airport.

The Israeli military had earlier issued a warning that it would begin attacks on infrastructure belonging to the association and ordered people to evacuate those areas, causing panicked crowds and traffic jams to clog the streets of the Lebanese capital.

Meanwhile, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) warned that Israel may be causing the “destruction of the Palestinian population in Gaza’s northernmost governate through death and displacement” with its latest military campaign there.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has made life in north Gaza “impossible” for Palestinians, many of whom were already facing starvation, while also ordering their displacement and preventing supplies from entering, it said in a statement .

Israel has “continued to relentlessly bomb and attack the area” making it “extremely dangerous” for civilians to flee, the body wrote, adding that it had received reports of civilians being deliberately targeted. It added:

Many Palestinians in the north have also expressed fears that should they flee; they will never be allowed to return to their homes in north Gaza.

Israel has attacked two of the three main hospitals in the area – which were already damaged in previous attacks – and also bombed schools serving as shelters for displaced people, with many casualties appearing to be women and children, the OHCHR said.

The statement ended by reminding Israel of the provisional measures ordered by the international court of justice in January, which said Israel must ensure it did not commit acts of genocide in Gaza and reminded it that as an occupying power, it has a duty to ensure the provision of food, medicine and shelter to the population.

The IDF have nominally held complete control of northern Gaza since January, but launched a new assault on the area two weeks ago that they said was aimed at stopping Hamas militants from regrouping.

In other developments:

• Several Palestinians were reportedly killed and others injured late on Sunday when Israeli airstrikes hit two schools housing displaced people in Jabalia, the area in northern Gaza that Israel has placed under siege for more than two weeks . Other deadly Israeli attacks took place in Beit Lahia and Gaza City’s al-Tuffah neighbourhood, both in northern Gaza, and in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa.

• Israeli forces have “deliberately demolished an observation tower and perimeter fence of a UN position in Marwahin,” Unifil said on Sunday. The UN peacekeeping mission added: “Yet again, we remind the IDF and all actors of their obligations to ensure the safety and security of UN personnel and property and to respect the inviolability of UN premises at all times.”

• The commander of the Israeli armoured brigade that was leading the Israeli offensive on Jabalia has been killed in northern Gaza, the Israeli military (IDF) has said. Col. Ehsan Daxa, the commander of the 401st Armored Brigade, is the highest ranking Israeli officer to have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its war on the Palestinian territory last year, according to Israeli media.

• The US government is investigating an unauthorised release of classified documents that assess Israel’s plans to attack Iran. The US House speaker, Mike Johnson, confirmed the investigation in remarks to CNN’s State of the Union program on Sunday, saying “the leak is very concerning.”

• Médecins Sans Frontières has condemned Israel’s siege on the last remaining hospitals in Gaza, saying: “This is purely and simply a collective punishment imposed on Palestinians in Gaza, who must choose between being forcibly displaced from the North or killed. We fear that this will not stop.”

• Hezbollah said on Sunday that it launched rockets at Haifa in Israel after the latest Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon, Agence France-Presse reports. According to the group, its fighters launched a “rocket salvo” at the “city of Haifa,” adding that it was “in response to the aggressions on [Beirut’s] southern suburbs” from Sunday morning.