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The UK’s foreign secretary David Cameron has landed in Israel, the BBC reports. He is expected to meet Benjamin Netanyahu.

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This follows a call between the Israeli prime minister and the UK prime minister Rishi Sunak yesterday, after which Sunak posted to social media to say:

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Earlier today I spoke to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and reiterated our support for Israel’s security following Iran’s reckless attack at the weekend. Further significant escalation will only deepen instability in the region. This is a moment for calm heads to prevail.

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Both national security adviser Jake Sullivan and US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen spoke yesterday about the prospect of new US sanctions on Iran.

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In a statement Sullivan said:

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In the coming days, the US will impose new sanctions targeting Iran, including its missile and drone program as well as new sanctions against entities supporting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iran’s defence ministry. We anticipate that our allies and partners will soon be following with their own sanctions.

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[The administration] continue to work through the Department of Defense and US Central Command to further strengthen and expand the successful integration of air and missile defence and early warning systems across the Middle East to further erode the effectiveness of Iran’s missile and UAV capabilities.

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On Tuesday Yellen said the US would use sanctions “to continue disrupting the Iranian regime’s malign and destabilizing activity.”

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Welcome to our continuing live coverage of the Middle East crisis. Here’s a snapshot of the latest news to bring you up to speed.

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The US and the EU are planning to impose new sanctions on Iran over its attack on Israel, with the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, saying they will target Tehran’s missile and drone program, Revolutionary Guard and defence ministry.

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Sullivan said the sanctions would be implemented in the coming days, and added that Washington expected its allies to follow suit. The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said after an emergency meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers that it would prepare to expand its sanctions.

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At the UN, secretary general António Guterres called for “urgent de-escalation” of Middle East hostilities during a phone call with Iran’s foreign minister, a UN spokesperson said on Tuesday.

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In other key developments:

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• Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to trap the west into a total war across the Middle East that would have incalculable consequences for the region and the world, Iran’s top diplomat in the UK has claimed, in his first interview since Tehran’s attack on Israel. Seyed Mehdi Hosseini Matin also warned that if Israel made “another mistake” by launching an attack on Iran, there would be a response from Iran that was stronger, more severe and administered without a warning like that issued before the weekend attack.

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• Israeli tanks pushed back into parts of the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday which they had left weeks ago, while warplanes conducted airstrikes on Rafah, the Palestinians’ last refuge in the territory’s south, killing and wounding several people, medics and residents said. In northern Gaza, residents reported an internet outage in the areas of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia. Tanks advanced into Beit Hanoun and surrounded some schools where displaced families had taken refuge, said the residents and Hamas media outlets.

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• An Israeli airstrike killed 11 Palestinians, including children, in the al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza later on Tuesday, Palestinian health officials and Hamas media said. The Israeli military did not immediately comment. In al-Nusseirat refugee camp, residents said Israeli planes had bombed and destroyed four multi-storey residential buildings.

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• Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon killed three people including a Hezbollah field commander on Tuesday, Lebanese security sources said – an uptick in violence after at least a week of relative calm in more than half a year of hostilities. The Israeli military said Ismail Baz, killed in a strike on a car near the southern town of Ain Ebel, was the commander of Hezbollah’s coastal sector and was involved in planning rocket and anti-tank missile attacks on Israel. Hezbollah issued a statement mourning Baz’s death but did not elaborate on his role in the organisation.

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• At least 33,843 Palestinians have been killed and 76,575 wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began on 7 October, according to the latest figures by the territory’s health ministry on Tuesday. The Hamas-led ministry said there had been 46 Palestinians killed and 110 injured over the past 24 hours.

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• More than 10,000 women have been killed in Gaza since 7 October, UN Women said in a new report. Among those were an estimated 6,000 mothers, leaving 19,000 children orphaned, the UN agency said.

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• The UN human rights office said Israel was still imposing “unlawful” restrictions on humanitarian relief for Gaza, despite assertions from Israel and others that barriers have eased. The amount of aid now entering Gaza is disputed amid reports famine has already taken hold in some areas, with Israel and Washington saying aid flows have risen in recent days but UN agencies say it is still far below bare minimum levels.

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• The UN and the UK have voiced grave concern over escalating violence in the West Bank, demanding that Israeli security forces “immediately” stop supporting settler attacks on Palestinians in the occupied territory. The comments came hours after two Palestinian men were killed by Israeli settlers in a northern village south of Nablus. Palestinians said the incident followed a clash when settlers entered Palestinian-owned land and assaulted residents, while settlers said it began with an assault on a Jewish person.

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• Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly avoiding a call from the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, after the pair were scheduled to speak on Monday, according to a report. Sunak, addressing the House of Commons on Monday, said he would “shortly be speaking to prime minister Netanyahu” to “discuss how we can prevent further escalation” in the face of Iran’s attack.

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• A UN security council committee considering an application by the Palestinian Authority (PA) to become a full UN member “was unable to make a unanimous recommendation” on whether it met the criteria, according to the committee report. The PA is still expected to push the 15-member security council to vote, as early as this week, on a draft resolution recommending it become a full UN member, diplomats said. Such membership would effectively recognise a Palestinian state. But the application needs to be approved by the security council, where the US can block it, and then by at least two-thirds of the general assembly.

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• Vladimir Putin urged all sides in the Middle East to refrain from action that would trigger a new confrontation which he warned would be fraught with catastrophic consequences for the region, the Kremlin said. Putin spoke to Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, by phone about what the Kremlin called “retaliatory measures taken by Tehran”.

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• More than a dozen humanitarian groups have signed a letter warning that the escalating tensions in the Middle East are “threatening the lives of millions of civilians”. The groups including Save the Children, the International Rescue Committee and Norwegian Refugee Council urged de-escalation.

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Key events

Al Jazeera reports that at least 20 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on homes in Rafah, Maghazi and Gaza City since yesterday afternoon. These pictures show Palestinians searching through the rubble overnight after a strike in Rafah. Israel’s military has repeatedly ordered Palestinians to move south in the Gaza Strip to Rafah, which is now severely overcrowded and where many people are being forced to live in makeshift tent camps.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani on Wednesday called on Israel to halt its military operations in Gaza.

In an interview with daily La Stampa, Reuters reports Tajani said “a ceasefire is necessary. Israel must stop the military operations that have massively affected the Palestinian population.”

The Hamas-led health authority in the Gaza Strip has put the death toll from the Israeli military operation at over 33,000 people.

In its latest military update on its operation in Gaza, the IDF has claimed to have killed “a number of terrorists”.

It claims Israeli aircraft “struck over 40 terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip, including underground launching posts, booby-trapped structures, military structures where armed terrorists operated, observation posts, underground terrorist infrastructure and additional terrorist infrastructure.”

The claims have not been independently verified.

UK foreign secretary David Cameron lands in Israel

The UK’s foreign secretary David Cameron has landed in Israel, the BBC reports. He is expected to meet Benjamin Netanyahu.

This follows a call between the Israeli prime minister and the UK prime minister Rishi Sunak yesterday, after which Sunak posted to social media to say:

Earlier today I spoke to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and reiterated our support for Israel’s security following Iran’s reckless attack at the weekend. Further significant escalation will only deepen instability in the region. This is a moment for calm heads to prevail.

US expected to impose new sanctions on Iran after attack on Israel

Both national security adviser Jake Sullivan and US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen spoke yesterday about the prospect of new US sanctions on Iran.

In a statement Sullivan said:

In the coming days, the US will impose new sanctions targeting Iran, including its missile and drone program as well as new sanctions against entities supporting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iran’s defence ministry. We anticipate that our allies and partners will soon be following with their own sanctions.

[The administration] continue to work through the Department of Defense and US Central Command to further strengthen and expand the successful integration of air and missile defence and early warning systems across the Middle East to further erode the effectiveness of Iran’s missile and UAV capabilities.

On Tuesday Yellen said the US would use sanctions “to continue disrupting the Iranian regime’s malign and destabilizing activity.”

Opening summary

Welcome to our continuing live coverage of the Middle East crisis. Here’s a snapshot of the latest news to bring you up to speed.

The US and the EU are planning to impose new sanctions on Iran over its attack on Israel, with the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, saying they will target Tehran’s missile and drone program, Revolutionary Guard and defence ministry.

Sullivan said the sanctions would be implemented in the coming days, and added that Washington expected its allies to follow suit. The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said after an emergency meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers that it would prepare to expand its sanctions.

At the UN, secretary general António Guterres called for “urgent de-escalation” of Middle East hostilities during a phone call with Iran’s foreign minister, a UN spokesperson said on Tuesday.

In other key developments:

• Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to trap the west into a total war across the Middle East that would have incalculable consequences for the region and the world, Iran’s top diplomat in the UK has claimed, in his first interview since Tehran’s attack on Israel. Seyed Mehdi Hosseini Matin also warned that if Israel made “another mistake” by launching an attack on Iran, there would be a response from Iran that was stronger, more severe and administered without a warning like that issued before the weekend attack.

• Israeli tanks pushed back into parts of the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday which they had left weeks ago, while warplanes conducted airstrikes on Rafah, the Palestinians’ last refuge in the territory’s south, killing and wounding several people, medics and residents said. In northern Gaza, residents reported an internet outage in the areas of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia. Tanks advanced into Beit Hanoun and surrounded some schools where displaced families had taken refuge, said the residents and Hamas media outlets.

• An Israeli airstrike killed 11 Palestinians, including children, in the al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza later on Tuesday, Palestinian health officials and Hamas media said. The Israeli military did not immediately comment. In al-Nusseirat refugee camp, residents said Israeli planes had bombed and destroyed four multi-storey residential buildings.

• Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon killed three people including a Hezbollah field commander on Tuesday, Lebanese security sources said – an uptick in violence after at least a week of relative calm in more than half a year of hostilities. The Israeli military said Ismail Baz, killed in a strike on a car near the southern town of Ain Ebel, was the commander of Hezbollah’s coastal sector and was involved in planning rocket and anti-tank missile attacks on Israel. Hezbollah issued a statement mourning Baz’s death but did not elaborate on his role in the organisation.

• At least 33,843 Palestinians have been killed and 76,575 wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began on 7 October, according to the latest figures by the territory’s health ministry on Tuesday. The Hamas-led ministry said there had been 46 Palestinians killed and 110 injured over the past 24 hours.

• More than 10,000 women have been killed in Gaza since 7 October, UN Women said in a new report. Among those were an estimated 6,000 mothers, leaving 19,000 children orphaned, the UN agency said.

• The UN human rights office said Israel was still imposing “unlawful” restrictions on humanitarian relief for Gaza, despite assertions from Israel and others that barriers have eased. The amount of aid now entering Gaza is disputed amid reports famine has already taken hold in some areas, with Israel and Washington saying aid flows have risen in recent days but UN agencies say it is still far below bare minimum levels.

• The UN and the UK have voiced grave concern over escalating violence in the West Bank, demanding that Israeli security forces “immediately” stop supporting settler attacks on Palestinians in the occupied territory. The comments came hours after two Palestinian men were killed by Israeli settlers in a northern village south of Nablus. Palestinians said the incident followed a clash when settlers entered Palestinian-owned land and assaulted residents, while settlers said it began with an assault on a Jewish person.

• Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly avoiding a call from the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, after the pair were scheduled to speak on Monday, according to a report. Sunak, addressing the House of Commons on Monday, said he would “shortly be speaking to prime minister Netanyahu” to “discuss how we can prevent further escalation” in the face of Iran’s attack.

• A UN security council committee considering an application by the Palestinian Authority (PA) to become a full UN member “was unable to make a unanimous recommendation” on whether it met the criteria, according to the committee report. The PA is still expected to push the 15-member security council to vote, as early as this week, on a draft resolution recommending it become a full UN member, diplomats said. Such membership would effectively recognise a Palestinian state. But the application needs to be approved by the security council, where the US can block it, and then by at least two-thirds of the general assembly.

• Vladimir Putin urged all sides in the Middle East to refrain from action that would trigger a new confrontation which he warned would be fraught with catastrophic consequences for the region, the Kremlin said. Putin spoke to Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, by phone about what the Kremlin called “retaliatory measures taken by Tehran”.

• More than a dozen humanitarian groups have signed a letter warning that the escalating tensions in the Middle East are “threatening the lives of millions of civilians”. The groups including Save the Children, the International Rescue Committee and Norwegian Refugee Council urged de-escalation.

The Guardian