US secretary of state to meet regional leaders after Hamas says it is studying Israel’s latest counterproposal

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

Israel’s war on Gaza and broader Middle East tensions are expected to get top billing at a Saudi-hosted special meeting of the World Economic Forum that begins on Sunday.

At least 34,388 Palestinians have been killed and 77,437 others injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Saturday . An estimated 32 people have been killed and 69 others injured over the past 24 hours, the ministry said.

Israel’s foreign minister said on Saturday that a planned incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah could be suspended should a deal emerge to secure the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas . Israel Katz told local Channel 12 television: “If there will be a deal, we will suspend the operation.”

Hamas’s armed wing released video on Saturday of two men held hostage in Gaza who are seen alive and urging Israeli authorities to strike a deal for the release of all the remaining captives . Campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum identified the two as Keith Siegel and Omri Miran who were abducted by militants during the Hamas attack on southern Israel on 7 October. Siegel also has US citizenship.

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement said on Saturday it had targeted northern Israel with drones and guided missiles after cross-border Israeli strikes killed three people, including two of its members . A statement from the group said it “launched a complex attack using explosive drones and guided missiles on the headquarters of the Al Manara military command and a gathering of forces from the 51st Battalion of the Golani Brigade”.

France’s foreign minister will push proposals to prevent further escalation and a potential war between Israel and Hezbollah during a visit to Lebanon on Sunday . Earlier this year, Stéphane Séjourné delivered an initiative that proposed Hezbollah’s elite unit pull back 10 km (6 miles) from the Israeli border, while Israel would halt strikes in southern Lebanon.

Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinian men at a military post near the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, the army and Palestinian officials reported. The incident occurred when several militants arrived in a vehicle and fired at soldiers stationed at the Salem military post at the entrance to Jenin, the army said in a statement. The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces withheld their bodies after denying medics access to them, adding two other men had been hospitalised after being injured.

Some senior US officials have advised secretary of state Antony Blinken that they do not find “credible or reliable” Israel’s assurances that it is using US-supplied weapons in accordance with international humanitarian law, according to an internal state department memo reviewed by Reuters . Blinken must report to Congress by 8 May whether he finds credible Israel’s assurances that its use of US weapons does not violate US or international law.

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In the wake of a controversial viral video, Holocaust survivors joined pro-Palestine demonstration while fears of antisemitism grow

A woman is standing next to a group of Holocaust survivors and their descendants in Trafalgar Square, clutching her dog’s lead and livestreaming her challenge to the pro-Palestine marchers on her phone. “Why will none of you condemn Hamas?” she repeats several times, for the benefit of those watching online.

Most of the marchers ignore her, preferring instead to show their appreciation for the group of 11 survivors who oppose Israel’s actions in the war in Gaza. One man yells at her but is quickly ushered along by his friends. One young woman standing with the survivors kneels down to make friends with the dog.

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As hostilities ramp up, Israelis evacuated from the country’s north say Hezbollah must be pushed back to protect communities from its rockets

For the Israeli communities evacuated from the country’s far north in the aftermath of 7 October, there is no longer any doubt about whether full-scale war with Hezbollah in Lebanon is going to happen. For most people, the only question is when.

Nissan Zeevi, 40, has spent the past six months working as a first responder in Kfar Giladi, a kibbutz that grows apples and avocados. His wife and two young boys are living near the Sea of Galilee and are yet to come home; it’s just him, bulldog Joy, and his M16 rifle, keeping an eye on the Lebanese villages and Hezbollah outposts clearly visible from the garden, just a few kilometres away.

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Tech giant fired number of people who protested against $1.2bn Project Nimbus, which supports Israeli military and government

Google has been accused of throwing a “tantrum” after sacking more than 50 workers in response to a protest over the company’s military ties to the Israeli government – firings that have shone a light on a controversial project and long-simmering tensions between staff and management.

The workers were sacked following protests at Google offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, California, organized by No Tech for Apartheid – an alliance of Google and Amazon workers who have been protesting against a $1.2bn contract with the Israeli government called Project Nimbus that they claim will make it “easier for the Israeli government to surveil Palestinians and force them off their land”.

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Andromeda Star targeted with three missiles, UK Maritime Trade Operations security agency said

• See all our coverage of the Middle East crisis

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

A ship has been damaged when it was targeted twice with multiple missiles off Yemen’s coast on Friday, in the latest attack on international shipping in the Red Sea to be claimed by Houthi rebels.

Hamas said it was studying the latest Israeli counterproposal regarding a potential ceasefire in Gaza, a day after a delegation from mediator Egypt reportedly arrived in Israel in a bid to jump-start stalled negotiations. Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been unsuccessfully trying to seal a new truce deal in Gaza ever since a one-week halt to the fighting in November saw 80 Israeli hostages exchanged for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

An official briefed on the Egyptian delegation’s meeting with Israeli counterparts on Friday said Israel had no new proposals to make. However, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Israel was willing to consider a limited truce in which 33 hostages would be released by the Islamist movement Hamas, instead of the 40 previously under discussion.

Aid shipments to Gaza from Cyprus resumed late on Friday, a Cypriot source said, with a ship carrying food to the besieged Palestinian enclave after a pause following Israel’s killing of seven aid workers . The World Central Kitchen NGO paused aid to review its activity in the territory after the early April attack, halting the direct shipments into Gaza from Cyprus. A small cargo vessel left the port of Larnaca on Friday night with aid donated by the United Arab Emirates, a Cypriot source said.

China will host Palestinian unity talks between Islamist militant group Hamas and its rivals Fatah, the two groups and a Beijing-based diplomat said on Friday . Hamas controls Gaza while Fatah is the movement of Mahmoud Abbas, president of the western-backed Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli occupied West Bank. The two rival Palestinian factions have failed to heal their political disputes since Hamas fighters expelled Fatah from Gaza in a short war in 2007.

Iran’s foreign minister said the crew of a seized Portuguese-flagged ship linked to Israel have been granted consular access and are expected to be freed, Iranian media reported on Saturday. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seized the container vessel MSC Aries with a crew of 25 in the Strait of Hormuz on 13 April, days after Tehran vowed to retaliate for a suspected Israeli strike on its consulate in Damascus.

A pro-Hamas Lebanese militant group said on Friday that two of its senior commanders were killed in an Israeli strike in eastern Lebanon . Jamaa Islamiya said in a statement that Mosab Saeed Khalaf and Bilal Mohammed Khalaf “died while carrying out their jihadist tasks... in a Zionist strike in the Bekaa” valley.

A UN probe into Israeli allegations that 19 members of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) participated in the October 7 Hamas attacks has closed one case due to the absence of any evidence from Israel and suspended four others, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Friday. An independent review led by a former French foreign minister earlier this week said that Israel had yet to provide supporting evidence of its claims which led major donors including the US to suspend funding to the agency.

Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that any rulings issued by the International Criminal Court would not affect Israel’s actions but would “set a dangerous precedent”. “Under my leadership, Israel will never accept any attempt by the International Criminal Court in the Hague to undermine its basic right to defend itself,” Netanyahu said in a statement shared on Telegram.
“While decisions made by the court in the Hague will not affect Israel’s actions, they will set a dangerous precedent that threatens soldiers and public figures.”

Four workers from Yemen were killed in a drone attack on an Emirati-owned gas complex in Iraq’s northern autonomous region of Kurdistan on Friday, Reuters reported citing local officials . A security source confirmed the attack against the site which is owned by the United Arab Emirates firm Dana Gas. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

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War in Gaza, the election in India, clouds of dust in Athens and the London Marathon: the last seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

Warning: this gallery contains images that some readers may find distressing

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The US president continues to support Israel in its onslaught on Gaza. Morehouse College’s most famous alumnus was anti-war

Morehouse College is a special place. The only all-male historically Black college in the world, it has alumni ranging from Dr Martin Luther King Jr, the most celebrated anti-war civil rights leader in history, to Theodore “Ted” Colbert III, the CEO of Boeing’s defense, space and security division, a key player in supplying the weapons technologies for Israel’s months-long campaign of military vengeance on Palestinians.

While there is much diversity among the ranks of this brotherhood, Morehouse – also my alma mater – places a primacy on moral leadership and service, and Dr King has been a critical avatar in these efforts. There is a prominent statue of him on campus, his likeness is depicted as a silhouette on official college brochures, the chapel on campus is named in his honor. His papers are held nearby at the Robert W Woodruff Library. Considering King’s anti-militarism, and the college’s embrace of him as a beacon on campus, the decision to invite Joe Biden to give Morehouse’s commencement speech to this year’s graduating class is a moral disaster.

The US president’s staunch support of Israel in the face of its unrelenting assault on Palestinians in the Israel-Gaza war has sparked sustained protests throughout the country, most recently on multiple college campuses. And though some have tried to take King’s defense of Israel’s right to exist as evidence that he would affirm without qualification Israel’s present military campaign, his broader anti-militarism cannot be conveniently pushed aside, nor can his stated desire for a peaceful resolution in the region.

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Both sides are beset by those who think their words and deeds bring peace closer. They instil fear and make a better future harder to attain

Beware the friend who is only trying to help. Not, perhaps, as a rule for life but certainly when it comes to the Israel-Palestine conflict and the clashes that battle provokes around the world. So often those who think they’re doing their bit serve only to make an already impossible situation even worse.

The week began with an instructive example, when Gideon Falter, head of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, released a video clip of himself being steered away from one of London’s weekly Gaza demonstrations by a police officer on the grounds: “You are quite openly Jewish, this is a pro-Palestinian march.” Falter argued that he had flushed out proof that the Metropolitan police regard the marches as an unsafe environment for visibly Jewish people, even though the Met allows them to go ahead week after week.

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Following Columbia’s lead, students across the US are demanding ceasefire and divestment – and hundreds have been arrested

• Four students on why they’re protesting against war in Gaza: ‘Injustice should not be accepted’

At least 40 pro-Palestine protest camps have arisen across US campuses following Columbia University’s example earlier this month.

While many remain provocative though peaceful, demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and divestment by their institutions from companies with ties to Israel, hundreds of students and outside protesters have been arrested, and there have been some fierce clashes with police.

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