Middle East crisis: Kurdish PM says Iran is attacking civilians; EU sanctions Hamas leader and adds him to terrorist list – as it happened | Middle East and north Africa

Hello and thank you for reading the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.

Here is a quick roundup of some of the key developments from today:

• At least 24,285 Palestinians have been killed and 61,154 have been wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the health ministry in the territory said in a statement on Tuesday. In the past 24 hours, 158 Palestinians were killed and 320 wounded, the ministry added.

• Iran destroyed two bases of Baluchi militant group Jaish al-Adl in Pakistan by launching missiles on Tuesday, Iranian state media reported. According to Reuters, the group has previously mounted attacks on Iranian security forces in the border area with Pakistan.

• Arab countries are not keen to get involved in the rebuilding of Gaza if the Palestinian enclave will be “levelled” again in a few years, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Tuesday, adding that the Palestinian statehood question needed to be addressed.

• Aid agencies have begun suspending vital operations in Yemen after the recent US and UK strikes on Houthi targets, amid warnings that further military intervention risks deepening one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

• The EU has sanctioned the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and added him to the group’s terrorist list. As a result, Sinouar is subject to the freezing of his funds and other financial assets in EU member states. The sanctions also prohibit EU operators from making funds or economic resources available to him.

• US Central Command said in a statement on Tuesday that it had seized Iranian advanced conventional weapons bound for Yemen’s Houthis on 11 January. It was the first seizure of “lethal Iranian-supplied advanced conventional weapons” to the Houthis since Houthi attacks against merchant ships began in November, the statement added.

• The Iraqi Kurdish prime minister, Masrour Barzani, has accused Iran of killing innocent civilians in its strikes on the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

• A number of European states, “concerned” Arab countries and the United States are working on a concept for a unified Palestinian government that could attract reconstruction funds, Norway’s foreign minister said in an interview in Davos. Specific countries were not named.

• Turkey said it had destroyed 23 targets in overnight airstrikes on Kurdish militants in northern Iraq and Syria, a further escalation of conflict south of its border.

• Requiring Israel to agree to a time-bound, mandatory path to a two-state solution is key to future stability in Israel and the Palestinian territories, Qatar’s prime minister said on Tuesday during the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos.

• France has accused Iran of violating Iraq’s sovereignty after Iran’s Revolutionary Guards claimed to have struck a purported Israeli “spy headquarters” in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, Reuters reported.

• Iraq condemned on Tuesday Iran’scondemned Iran’s “aggression” on Erbil that led to civilian casualties in residential areas, according to a statement by the country’s foreign ministry, after Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they attacked Israel’s “spy headquarters” in Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

• The Israeli military said on Tuesday its troops killed dozens of Palestinian militants around the town of Beit Lahia in northern Gaza and also uncovered about 100 rocket launchers. “During IDF activity in the area of Beit Lahia, the troops located approximately 100 rocket set-installations and 60 ready-to-use rockets. The troops killed dozens of terrorists during the activity,” it said.

• Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have also claimed an attack in Syria. The group said it had fired a number of ballistic missiles at “terrorist operations” in the country – including Islamic State targets – and destroyed them. A US defence official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the US tracked the missiles, which hit in northern Iraq and northern Syria, and initial indications were that the strikes were “reckless and imprecise”.

• A few days ago, in a wood-panelled courtroom in The Hague, men and women in robes and wigs argued over whether what is happening in Gaza is the deliberate destruction of a people. In Today in Focus, Michael Safi asks, is it genocide? The accuser was South Africa, a state that emerged just decades ago from a suffocating regime of apartheid. The accused was Israel, a nation established in the wake of the most notorious genocide in history.

• Aid officials in Gaza believe that pockets of famine already exist in the territory, with parents sacrificing remaining food for their children, an apple costing $8 and fuel for cooking almost impossible to find, the Guardian’s Jason Burke reported. UN agencies have said that Gaza urgently needs more humanitarian assistance as Palestinian authorities reported that the death toll in the territory during the Israeli offensive there had risen to more than 24,000.

• Egyptian authorities reportedly thwarted a drug smuggling attempt on the Egyptian-Israeli border on Monday. Two security sources told the Reuters news agency that there was an exchange of gunfire close to a crossing where aid deliveries for Gaza were being inspected. During the incident, six drug smugglers were arrested, the sources said.

• A US state department spokesperson has said that an Iranian attack near Iraq’s northern city of Erbil on Monday “undermine Iraq’s stability.” “We oppose Iran’s reckless missile strikes,” Matthew Miller said, adding that the US supported “the Government of Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government’s efforts to meet the aspirations of the Iraqi people.”

Come back tomorrow for more of our live coverage.

Iran destroyed two bases of Baluchi militant group Jaish al-Adl in Pakistan by launching missiles on Tuesday, Iranian state media reported.

According to Reuters, the group has previously mounted attacks on Iranian security forces in the border area with Pakistan.

US oil corporation Chevron has made no “fundamental changes” to its shipping routes as the Iran-allied Houthi militia threatens to expand its attacks in the Red Sea to include US ships, CEO Mike Wirth told Bloomberg TV on Tuesday.

The company is working with naval authorities in the US and Middle East to move its cargoes through the region, Wirth said during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The Houthi militia threats come in response to American and British strikes on its sites in Yemen, Reuters reports.

Yemen’s Houthi movement targeted on Tuesday the Zografia ship that was heading to Israel with naval missiles which resulted in a “direct hit”, the group’s military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said in a statement.

According to Reuters, the Malta-flagged, Greek-owned bulk carrier sustained material damage but no injuries after it was hit in the Red Sea near the Yemeni port of Saleef, a security firm and two Greek shipping ministry sources said.

The chief executive of Norway’s $1.5tn sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, told Reuters on Tuesday the fund’s return on investments would probably be “slow” in 2024 due to high interest rates, persistent inflation and geopolitical risk.

Arab countries are not keen to get involved in the rebuilding of Gaza if the Palestinian enclave will be “levelled” again in a few years, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Tuesday, adding that the Palestinian statehood question needed to be addressed.

In an interview in Davos, Blinken told CNBC:

You have to resolve the Palestinian question.

Arab countries are saying this: They’re saying, look, we’re not going to get into the business, for example, of rebuilding Gaza only to have it levelled again in a year or five years and then be asked to rebuild it again.

The EU imposed sanctions on Tuesday on Yahya Sinwar, the political leader of Hamas in Gaza, over the Palestinian militant group’s attack on Israel last October.

The decision by the European Council, which considers Hamas a terrorist organisation, makes Sinwar subject to an asset freeze in the 27-nation bloc and bars EU citizens from conducting financial transactions with him, Reuters reports.

In a statement, the EU executive said:

The Council decided today to add one individual to the EU terrorist list.

This decision comes as part of the EU’s response to the threat posed by Hamas and its brutal and indiscriminate terrorist attacks in Israel on 7 October 2023.

Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz welcomed what he said was a “just and moral decision” by the EU.

On X, Katz said:

This decision is also a result of our diplomatic efforts to strangle the resources of the Hamas, to delegitimise them and prohibit all support to them.

We will continue to eradicate the root of evil, in Gaza and wherever it raises its head.

Taher Al-Nono, media adviser to Qatar-based Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, accused the EU of bias and called for an end to what he said was its “double-standard policy”.

“These are ridiculous and silly sanctions, because everyone knows that Yahya Al-Sinwar has no assents or money, neither in Palestine nor outside it,” he told Reuters.

“Such a decision has no value against Hamas, but the idea of imposing sanctions on the leaders of resistance and Hamas, which is resisting the (Israeli) occupation, as granted by international law, shows bias to the occupation.”

The EU member states have given initial backing to create a naval mission to protect ships from attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the Red Sea, European diplomats said on Tuesday.

The diplomats said the aim was to establish the mission by 19 February at the latest, with it becoming operational quickly afterwards, and that it would work in coordination with other like-minded partners in the region as part of efforts to stop disruptions to the key trading route, according to Reuters.

Israelis released from captivity in Gaza reconvened in their border village on Tuesday to hold a solemn first-birthday ceremony for the infant of a family still held hostage.

Kfir Bibas was eight months old when Hamas stormed their kibbutz Nir Oz on 7 October, and became the youngest of about 240 people taken back to the Gaza Strip as captives, Reuters reports.

Hamas has said that Kfir, his four-year-old brother Ariel and their mother, Shiri, were killed in the Israeli offensive that ensued, while their father, Yarden, survived.

But in the absence of Israeli corroboration, relatives and friends back home have refused to let hope die for the whole family’s safe recovery.

Kfir would turn one on Thursday, at which point he would have spent a third of his life as a hostage.

Aid agencies have begun suspending vital operations in Yemen after the recent US and UK strikes on Houthi targets, amid warnings that further military intervention risks deepening one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

A coalition of 23 aid organisations operating within the Gulf state issued a joint statement on Tuesday, warning that military escalation will further compromise their ability to deliver critical services while worsening living conditions for millions of people in Yemen.

Tuesday’s statement, released shortly after reports that another cargo ship had been struck by a missile off the coast of Yemen, read: “Following the US/UK strikes, some humanitarian organisations have been forced to suspend operations over safety and security concerns, while others assess their ability to operate.”

Their intervention came days after airstrikes on targets inside Yemen by the US and UK after attacks by the Iran-backed Houthi militia group on ships passing through the Red Sea. The Houthis said those attacks were an effort to put pressure on Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza and that an Israeli ceasefire would immediately lead to the free flow of ships.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said on Tuesday that the kingdom could recognise Israel if the Palestinian issue was resolved, Reuters reports.

Asked at a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos whether Saudi Arabia could take this step as part of a wider agreement after a resolution of the Palestinian conflict, Prince Faisal bin Farhan said “certainly”.

The EU has sanctioned the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and added him to the group’s terrorist list.

As a result, Sinouar is subject to the freezing of his funds and other financial assets in EU member states. The sanctions also prohibit EU operators from making funds or economic resources available to him.

In a statement, the Council of the EU said: “The council decided today to add one individual to the EU terrorist list. This decision comes as part of EU’s response to the threat posed by Hamas and its brutal and indiscriminate terrorist attacks in Israel on 7 October 2023.

“These sanctions are effective as of today.

“The individual designated today is Yahya Sinwar, the political leader of Hamas. Following his listing, Yahya Sinwar is subject to the freezing of his funds and other financial assets in EU member states. It is also prohibited for EU operators to make funds and economic resources available to him.”

• The Israeli military said on Tuesday its troops killed dozens of Palestinian militants around the town of Beit Lahia in northern Gaza and also uncovered about 100 rocket launchers. “During IDF activity in the area of Beit Lahia, the troops located approximately 100 rocket set-installations and 60 ready-to-use rockets. The troops killed dozens of terrorists during the activity,” it said.

• The Iraqi Kurdish prime minister, Masrour Barzani, has accused Iran of killing innocent civilians in its strikes on the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards earlier said they attacked an Israeli spy centre in the region. Speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos after the attack, Barzani said the Iranian allegations were baseless and added that now was not the time for US forces to withdraw from the country.

• Iraq on Tuesday condemned Iran’s “aggression” on Erbil that led to civilian casualties in residential areas, according to a statement by the country’s foreign ministry, after Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they attacked Israel’s “spy headquarters” in Iraq’s Kurdistan region. The Iraqi government said it would take all legal measures against what it described as a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty and the security of its people, including filing a complaint at the United Nations security council.

• Iraq has recalled its ambassador from Tehran to discuss the recent Iranian attack on the city of Erbil, according to the country’s foreign ministry. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they attacked the “spy headquarters” of Israel in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region late on Monday.

• A US state department spokesperson has said that an Iranian attack near Iraq’s northern city of Erbil on Monday “undermined Iraq’s stability”. “We oppose Iran’s reckless missile strikes,” Matthew Miller said, adding that the US supported “the government of Iraq and the Kurdistan regional government’s efforts to meet the aspirations of the Iraqi people”.

• France has accused Iran of violating Iraq’s sovereignty after Iran’s Revolutionary Guards claimed to have struck a purported Israeli “spy headquarters” in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, Reuters reported. “Such acts represent blatant, unacceptable and worrying violations of Iraq’s sovereignty and an attack on its stability and security, as well as that of Kurdistan within it,” France’s foreign ministry said.

• Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have also claimed an attack in Syria. The group said it had fired ballistic missiles at “terrorist operations” in the country – including Islamic State targets – and destroyed them. A US defence official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the US tracked the missiles, which landed in northern Iraq and northern Syria, and initial indications were that the strikes were “reckless and imprecise”.

• Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said on Tuesday Israel was placing many obstacles to the entry of aid into Gaza that were worsening the plight of Palestinians. In remarks during a press conference with his Australian counterpart, Safadi said these hurdles meant only 10% of the total needs of more than 2 million people in Gaza under siege were being covered.

• Turkey said it had destroyed 23 targets in overnight airstrikes on Kurdish militants in northern Iraq and Syria, a further escalation of conflict south of its border. The attacks were the latest by Turkey since nine Turkish soldiers were killed in clashes with Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) militants in northern Iraq on Friday, Reuters reported.

• US Central Command said in a statement on Tuesday that it had seized Iranian advanced conventional weapons bound for Yemen’s Houthis on 11 January. It was the first seizure of “lethal Iranian-supplied advanced conventional weapons” to the Houthis since Houthi attacks against merchant ships began in November, the statement added.

• The Israeli military said on Tuesday that its special forces had carried out a strike in the area of Ayta ash Shab in Lebanon. “IDF special forces struck in order to remove a threat in the area of Ayta ash Shab in Lebanon,” the military said. It did not say what kind of forces had struck nor where specifically they had operated.

• Requiring Israel to agree to a time-bound, mandatory path to a two-state solution was key to future stability in Israel and the Palestinian territories, Qatar’s prime minister said on Tuesday during the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos. Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said the Palestinians had to be the ones to decide if the Hamas movement running Gaza would continue to play a political role in the future, Reuters reported.

• At least 24,285 Palestinians have been killed and 61,154 have been wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the health ministry in the territory said on Tuesday. In the past 24 hours, 158 Palestinians were killed and 320 wounded, the ministry added.

• A number of European states, “concerned” Arab countries and the United States were working on a concept for a unified Palestinian government that could attract reconstruction funds, Norway’s foreign minister said in an interview in Davos. “A number of countries are working with us ... trying to build a broad unity government,” Espen Barth Eide said, without naming the specific countries, Reuters reported. Norway was of the view that a unified Palestinian territory should be run by the Palestinian Authority, but “prefacing everything, it has to be what the Palestinians want”, he added.

• Egyptian authorities reportedly thwarted a drug smuggling attempt on the Egyptian-Israeli border on Monday. Two security sources told the Reuters news agency that there was an exchange of gunfire close to a crossing where aid deliveries for Gaza were being inspected. During the incident, six drug smugglers were arrested, the sources said.

• Aid officials in Gaza believe that pockets of famine already exist in the territory, with parents sacrificing remaining food for their children, an apple costing $8 and fuel for cooking almost impossible to find. UN agencies have said that Gaza urgently needs more humanitarian assistance as Palestinian authorities reported that the death toll in the territory during the Israeli offensive there had risen to more than 24,000. The World Food Programme, Unicef and the World Health Organization said in a joint statement that new entry routes needed to be opened to Gaza, more trucks needed to be allowed in each day, and aid workers and those seeking aid needed to be allowed to move around safely.

A Palestinian shop owner said Israeli troops used him as a human shield to protect themselves during a raid on the town of Dura in the occupied West Bank, Reuters reports.

Mobile phone footage showed Baha Abu Ras being marched up a street by a soldier who guided him from behind with one hand and kept a rifle resting on his shoulder with the other. Two Israeli soldiers advanced carefully behind them, their rifles raised.

Abu Ras said he had been taken from his mobile phone shop on Monday in Dura, near the city of Hebron, after Israeli soldiers searched the premises during a raid in which Palestinian officials said two Palestinians were shot dead.

“He [the first soldier] told me that he will use me as a human shield, that young people shouldn’t hurl stones,” Abu Ras told Reuters. “‘You will walk in front of me.’ That’s what happened and he took me toward the centre of the town.”

Asked about the incident, the Israeli military had no immediate comment. It said in an earlier statement that troops in Dura had used live fire to disperse about 100 people who had thrown stones and fired bombs at them.