Middle East crisis live: dozens reported dead and more than 100 wounded after Israeli attacks on Gaza aid centres | Middle East and north Africa

The death toll from violence in Sweida province, heartland of Syria’s Druze minority, has risen to 940 since last weekend, a war monitor said, despite the announcement of a ceasefire, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the dead included 326 Druze fighters and 262 Druze civilians, 182 of whom were “summarily executed by defence and interior ministry personnel”.

They also included 312 government security personnel and 21 Sunni Bedouin, three of them civilians who were “summarily executed by Druze fighters”. Another 15 government troops were killed in Israeli strikes, the Observatory said.

Donna Ferguson

A statement on Saturday by one of the three religious leaders of the Syrian Druze community, sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, said the ceasefire would guarantee safe exit for tribe members and the opening of humanitarian corridors for besieged civilians to leave.

Hours earlier, the US envoy announced that Israel and Syria had agreed to a ceasefire, after Israel sided with the Druze factions and joined the conflict, including by bombing a government building in Damascus.

The UN had also called for an end to the “bloodshed” and demanded an independent investigation of the violence, which has killed at least 718 people from both sides since Sunday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Iran’s state media is reporting that at least 15 people were killed after a bus overturned in the south of the country, the Associated Press (AP) reports.

State-run IRNA quoted Masoud Abed, the head of Fars province’s emergency organisation, as saying that so far 15 people were confirmed dead and 27 were injured after the accident in the south of Shiraz city, the capital of the province.

Abed also said 11 ambulances and two ambulance buses were dispatched to the scene.

With nearly 17,000 casualties annually, Iran is among the top countries for road and street accidents. The toll is attributed to the disregard of safety measures, the use of old vehicles and inadequate emergency services.

Israeli troops opened fire on Saturday toward crowds of Palestinians seeking food from distribution hubs run by an Israeli-backed group in southern Gaza, killing at least 32 people, according to witnesses and hospital officials, the Associated Press (AP) reports.

The two incidents occurred near hubs operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. In other violence, two Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, health officials said.

The GHF launched operations in late May with backing from the US and Israel. The two governments are seeking to replace the traditional UN-led aid distribution system in Gaza, saying that Hamas militants siphon off supplies. The UN denies the allegation.

While the GHF says it has distributed millions of meals to hungry Palestinians, local health officials and witnesses say that hundreds of people have been killed by Israeli army fire as they try to reach the distribution hubs.

The army, which is not at the sites but secures them from a distance, says it only fires warning shots if crowds get too close to its forces.

William Christou

My colleague William Christou has written the following article on the unrest in Syria:

Seven months on from Bashar al-Assad’s fall, Syria is descending into yet another wave of bloody sectarian violence.

A local dispute between a Bedouin tribesman and a member of the Druze minority sparked clashes that drew in Syrian government forces and triggered Israeli airstrikes – leaving a trail of bodies in their wake.

The scenes were reminiscent of the coastal massacres of March, when 1,500 mostly Alawite civilians were slaughtered in revenge for a failed assault by fighters loyal to Assad, who came from the sect.

The killings have halted the enthusiasm that abounds over the new Syrian state and are a grim reminder of the momentous challenges it faces in unifying the country after nearly 14 years of brutal civil war.

The Syrian president, Ahmed al-Sharaa – whose Sunni Islamist group led the offensive that ousted Assad – has won the hearts of most of the western world, his success in international diplomacy rivalled only by his stunning battlefield victories. Donald Trump has called him an “attractive, tough guy”, while the EU was swift to bring Sharaa’s Syria out of international isolation.

At home however, progress has been halting. Syria is still deeply divided, and negotiations to integrate the one-third of the country controlled by Kurdish forces has stalled. Talks to fully integrate the Druze-majority province of Sweida, where the current violence is unfolding, have been slow moving.

You can read more of William Christou’s piece here: Escalating unrest in Syria lays bare new regime’s momentous challenges

Syria’s Islamist-led government said its internal security forces began deploying in Sweida on Saturday as the presidency called on all parties to respect a ceasefire following bloodshed in the predominantly Druze area that has left hundreds dead, Reuters reports.

In a statement, the Syrian presidency announced an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire and urged all parties to commit to it and end hostilities in all areas immediately.

The country’s interior ministry spokesperson said earlier on Saturday that internal security forces had begun deploying in Sweida, in southern Syria.

US envoy Tom Barrack announced on Friday that Syria and Israel had agreed to a ceasefire. Israel intervened in the conflict earlier this week, hitting government forces and the defence ministry building in Damascus as it declared support for the Druze minority.

Barrack, who is the US ambassador to Turkey and Washington’s Syria envoy, said that Israel and Syria agreed to the ceasefire supported by Turkey, Jordan and neighbours.

Druze religious leader sheikh Yousef Jarbou said in a video broadcast by state media on Wednesday that Syria’s Druze had reached a ceasefire agreement with the Syrian government in Sweida that would take immediate effect, yet clashes continued to erupt in the ensuing days.

An earlier ceasefire announced on Tuesday night collapsed after only a few hours.

Gaza’s civil defence agency on Saturday said Israeli attacks killed 26 people and wounded more than 100 near two aid centres in the south of the Palestinian territory, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.

Agency spokesperson Mahmud Basal told AFP that 22 were killed near a site southwest of Khan Younis and four near another centre northwest of Rafah, blaming “Israeli gunfire” for both.

One witness said he headed to the Al-Tina area of Khan Younis before dawn with five of his relatives to try to get food when “Israeli soldiers” started shooting.

Abdul Aziz Abed, 37, told AFP:

My relatives and I were unable to get anything.

Every day I go there and all we get is bullets and exhaustion instead of food.

The Israeli military said it was “looking into” the claims when contacted by AFP.

Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify tolls and details provided by the agency and other parties.

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

Gaza’s civil defence agency on Saturday said Israeli attacks killed 26 Palestinians and wounded more than 100 near two aid centres in the south of the Palestinian territory.

Agency spokesperson Mahmud Basal told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that 22 were killed near a site southwest of Khan Younis and four near a centre northwest of Rafah, blaming “Israeli gunfire” for both.

US president Donald Trump said on Friday that another 10 hostages will be released from Gaza shortly, without providing additional details.

Trump made the comment during a dinner with lawmakers at the White House, lauding the efforts of his special envoy Steve Witkoff. Israeli and Hamas negotiators have been taking part in the latest round of ceasefire talks in Doha since 6 July, discussing a US-backed proposal for a 60-day ceasefire.

“We got most of the hostages back. We’re going to have another 10 coming very shortly, and we hope to have that finished quickly,” Trump said.

Trump has been predicting for weeks that a ceasefire and hostage-release deal was imminent, but agreement has proven elusive.

The truce proposal calls for 10 hostages held in Gaza to be returned along with the bodies of 18 others, spread out over 60 days. In exchange, Israel would release a number of detained Palestinians.

The armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Friday accused Israel of blocking a deal in talks for a temporary ceasefire and the release of hostages in Gaza.

Negotiators from both sides have been in indirect talks in Qatar since July 6 to try to agree on a 60-day truce in the conflict, which would see 10 captives freed.

In other developments:

• Gaza’s civil defence agency said that Israeli fire killed 10 aid seekers on Friday, as a hospital director in the south warned of an influx of patients with acute malnutrition. Civil defence spokesperson Mahmud Bassal said that Israeli fire killed nine people “near the US aid centre in the Al-Shakoush area, northwest of Rafah city in southern Gaza” on Friday.

• Two of the most senior Christian leaders in Jerusalem made a rare visit to war-torn Gaza on Friday, a day after Israeli fire killed three at the Palestinian territory’s only Catholic church, provoking international condemnation. The Roman Catholic Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, and his Greek Orthodox counterpart, Theophilos III, greeted local Christians and toured the Holy Family Church in Gaza City.

• At least 718 people have been killed in Syria’s Sweida province, a war monitor said Saturday in an updated toll for nearly a week of violence in the heartland of the Druze minority. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights counted 146 Druze fighters and 245 civilians among the dead since Sunday, 165 of whom “were summarily executed by personnel of the defence and interior ministries”.

• Armed tribes supported by Syria’s Islamist-led government clashed with Druze fighters in the community’s Sweida heartland on Friday, a day after the army withdrew under Israeli bombardment and diplomatic pressure. The UN called for an end to the “bloodshed” and demanded an “independent” investigation of the violence.

• The US said early on Saturday that it had negotiated a ceasefire between Israel and Syria’s government as new clashes erupted in Syria’s Druze heartland following violence that prompted massive Israeli strikes. Tom Barrack, the US pointman on Syria, said in the early hours of Saturday in the Middle East that Sharaa and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu “have agreed to a ceasefire” negotiated by the US.

• Dr Omar Obeid, who heads the Sweida division at Syria’s Order of Physicians, said Sweida’s only government hospital has received “more than 400 bodies since Monday morning”, including women, children and elderly people. He said: “It’s not a hospital any more, it’s a mass grave,”

• Syria’s government misread how Israel would respond to its troops deploying to the country’s south this week, encouraged by US messaging that Syria should be governed as a centralized state, eight sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Israel carried out strikes on Syrian troops and on Damascus on Wednesday in an escalation that took the Islamist-led leadership by surprise, the sources said, after government forces were accused of killing scores of people in the Druze city of Sweida.

• Syria’s presidency on Friday pledged to send forces to halt the clashes between Bedouin tribal factions and Druze fighters in Sweida, in the south of the country, and urged “restraint”. In a statement, the presidency urged “all parties to exercise restraint and prioritise reason”, adding: “The relevant authorities are working on dispatching a specialised force to break up the clashes and resolve the conflict on the ground.”

• Nearly 80,000 people have been displaced by sectarian violence in southern Syria that began last week, the UN’s migration agency said on Friday. In a statement, the International Organization for Migration said “79,339 people have been displaced since 13 July, including 20,019 on 17 July”, adding that water, electricity and telecoms services in Sweida had “collapsed” and fuel shortages had crippled transportation and emergency logistics.

• Israel has agreed to allow limited access by Syrian forces into the Sweida area of southern Syria for the next two days, an Israeli official said on Friday, after days of bloodshed in the predominantly Druze area that has killed more than 300 people. The Syrian presidency said late on Friday that authorities would deploy a force in the south dedicated to ending the clashes, in coordination with political and security measures to restore stability and prevent the return of violence.

• Israel has declined to renew the visa for Jonathan Whittall, the senior U.N. aid official for the occupied Palestinian territories, a U.N. spokesperson said on Friday, adding there were intensifying threats of reduced access to suffering civilians. Eri Kaneko, spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said visas for U.N. staff were recently renewed for shorter periods than usual and access requests to Gaza were denied for multiple agencies. Kaneko said permits for Palestinian staff to enter East Jerusalem were also withheld.

• Yemen’s Houthi militant group said late on Friday it had attacked Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv with a ballistic missile, while the Israeli military said the projectile was intercepted after air raid sirens were triggered in several parts of the country. Most of the dozens of missiles and drones the Houthis have launched at Israel have been intercepted or fallen short. Israel has carried out a series of retaliatory strikes.

• Iraq said on Friday that drones which hit several military radar systems last month were launched from within the country but manufactured abroad, without identifying the perpetrators. On 24 June, the Iraqi government said that several small suicide drones targeted multiple Iraqi military sites and bases, including the radar systems at Camp Taji, north of Baghdad, and Imam Ali Base in Dhi Qar Province in southern Iraq.