latest news on Gaza conflict

UK Foreign Minister James Cleverly said he is working with Israel and Arab allies to reach a pause in the fighting to allow more aid to reach civilians in Gaza.

“We’re working extensively with the Egyptians, with the Israelis and others to try and have a humanitarian pause, a temporary pause so that we can get that humanitarian aid to the people that need it,” Cleverly was quoted as telling Reuters from Abu Dhabi.

“It’s trickling through but we need a significant increase in the volume,” he said.

A handful of aid trucks have been allowed into Gaza via its Rafah border crossing with Egypt, but aid workers say what has come in so far is a “drop in the ocean” compared to the vast need of some 2.2 million people who have been cut off from water, food and electricity following Israel’s siege on the territory.

Israel says the siege is necessary to pressure Hamas to release hostages and stop firing rockets into Israel.

— Natasha Turak

The Israeli Defense Forces said it expanded its ground incursion into Gaza overnight, as the country enters a second phase of its war against Hamas.

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, the IDF said one of its aircraft struck a Hamas post while forces “eliminated multiple terrorists barricaded within civilian buildings and terrorist tunnels who attempted to attack the forces.”

CNBC has not independently verified the reports.

— Matt Clinch

Global growth will be impacted if the ongoing Israel-Hamas war spills into the broader Middle East region, the World Trade Organization’s director-general has warned.

“If it spreads beyond where it is now, to the rest of the Middle East, there will be an impact,” Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told CNBC’s Martin Soong.

That’s because the Middle East is “the source” of a lot of the world’s natural gas and oil, the WTO chief said.

Escalating conflict could further weigh on trade growth which is already “quite grim,” she added.

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– Sheila Chiang

Lebanon’s Hezbollah said on Sunday it shot down an Israeli drone over southern Lebanon with a surface-to-air missile, the first time it has announced such an incident, as clashes on the Lebanese border escalate.

The drone was hit near Khiam, about 5 km (3 miles) from the border with Israel, and was seen falling in Israeli territory, Hezbollah added. Two security sources in Lebanon said it was the first time Hezbollah had announced downing an Israeli drone.

The Israeli Defence Ministry did not provide comment. Israel’s military, which claimed more strikes on what it described as Hezbollah targets on Sunday, also did not comment.

Mohanad Hage Ali, of the Carnegie Middle East Center, said Hezbollah has “insinuated they have this capability but it is the first time they declare they have this kind of capability to shoot down a drone.”
— Reuters

Before and after satellite images from Maxar Technologies show destruction of neighborhoods in Northern Gaza from continued Israeli airstrikes.

Before: Atatra neighborhood

After: Atatra neighborhood

Before: Al Karameh neigborhood

After: Al Karameh neigborhood

Before: Izbat Beit Hanoun neighborhood

After: Izbat Beit Hanoun neighborhood

Before: Beit Hanoun neighborhood

After: Beit Hanoun neighborhood

The Israeli military struck targets in Lebanon and Syria on Sunday after projectiles were fired into Israel.

Clashes have been taking place across Israel’s tense border with Lebanon since the onset of the Hamas-Israel war, mostly contained to several border towns.

But on Sunday, rockets were fired from Syria as well, falling into open Israeli territory, the military said. It fired back at the site where the rockets were launched.

Israel’s military also provided video of multiple strikes inside Lebanon, showing explosions erupting among trees and missiles hitting a building on a hillside. The military said it shot down a drone and killed a militant who tried to approach the border fence.

On Sunday evening, Hamas said its forces in Lebanon had fired 16 missiles at the northern Israeli town of Nahariya. The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, also announced it had fired missiles at several sites across the border Sunday afternoon, including one that it said had hit an Israeli infantry unit near the town of Birket Risha and caused “confirmed injuries.”

— Associated Press