Israel-Gaza war live: prospects for hostage exchange deal uncertain amid reports talks with Hamas in Egypt ended ‘without results’

Prospects for an exchange deal involving the release of more hostages remained uncertain as Hamas insisted it would not discuss anything less than a complete end to Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh visited Egypt on Wednesday for the first time in more than a month for discussions with Egyptian officials who are seeking to mediate another truce.

Reuters reports that a source said envoys were intensively discussing which of the hostages still held by Palestinian militants in Gaza could be freed in a new truce and which Palestinian prisoners Israel might release in return.

However, the meeting with Haniyeh ended “without results”, a Palestinian official told the BBC.

Taher Al-Nono, Haniyeh’s media adviser, told Reuters that Hamas was not willing to discuss releasing more Israeli hostages until Israel permanently ends its military campaign in Gaza and humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians increases.

We cannot talk about negotiations while Israel continues its aggression. Discussing any proposal related to prisoners must occur after the cessation of aggression.

Israel has insisted all remaining women and infirm men among the hostages be released, the source briefed on the negotiations said.

The Wall Street Journal quoted Egyptian officials as saying Hamas rejected an Israeli offer to stop fighting for one week in exchange for dozens of hostages.

Islamic Jihad, a smaller Palestinian militant group that is also holding hostages in Gaza, said its leader would visit Egypt in coming days as well to discuss a possible end to the conflict.

White House spokesperson John Kirby said on Wednesday:

These are very serious discussions and negotiations, and we hope that they lead somewhere.

Welcome back to our live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war. I’m Adam Fulton and here’s a rundown on the latest developments to bring you up to speed.

The prospects for an exchange deal involving the release of more hostages in Gaza remains uncertain after Hamas said it would not discuss anything less than a complete end to Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

The Palestinian militant group’s most senior political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, visited Egypt on Wednesday for talks with Egyptian officials seeking to mediate another truce but the meeting ended “without results”, a Palestinian official told the BBC.

The White House said the negotiations were “very serious … and we hope that they lead somewhere”.

But Taher Al-Nono, Haniyeh’s media adviser, said Hamas was not willing to discuss releasing more Israeli hostages until Israel ended its military campaign in Gaza and the volume of humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians increased.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, appeared to rule out a ceasefire as he vowed on Wednesday that Israel would continue its war against Hamas “to the end”.

More on that story shortly. In other headlines as it just passes 7.15am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv:

• At least 12 people were killed in a series of explosions in Rafah in southern Gaza, near the border with Egypt, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said. Dozens of people, including women and children, were wounded when the blasts occurred near the Kuwaiti hospital on Wednesday, it said. An Al Jazeera broadcast captured a strike near the hospital while one of its correspondents was live on air.

• Israel ordered the evacuation of large areas of southern Gaza’s main city on Wednesday, the United Nations has said. Israel had released maps showing new areas covering about 20% of Khan Younis that had been marked for evacuation, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

• The Palestinian death toll in Gaza has passed 20,000, Hamas says. According to the latest figures from the media office of the territory’s government, those killed since the war began on 7 October included about 8,000 children and 6,200 women.

• The UN security council has postponed a vote calling for a ceasefire in Gaza until Thursday as diplomats struggle to agree on the language of the draft resolution. The UN resolution, drafted by the United Arab Emirates, has been changed several times amid reported policy differences inside the Biden administration.

• The Israeli military says it has uncovered a major Hamas command centre in the heart of Gaza City, inflicting what it described as a serious blow to the militant group. The army had exposed the centre of a vast underground network used by Hamas to move weapons, militants and supplies throughout the Gaza Strip, it said on Wednesday.

• The first aid convoy to travel direct from Jordan to Gaza since the start of the war has delivered 750 metric tonnes of food to the Palestinian territory, the UN World Food Programme has said. The 46-truck convoy travelled through the Israel-Gaza Kerem Shalom border crossing, through which Israel last week approved the temporary delivery of aid into Gaza, opening a new route for supplies. Meanwhile, Israel’s foreign minister has said it wants to fast-track the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza through a maritime corridor from Cyprus.

• Emmanuel Macron has said that Israel’s goal of fighting terrorism did not mean it had to “flatten Gaza”, referring to its response to Hamas’s attack on 7 October. The French president called on Israel “to stop this response because it is not appropriate, because all lives are worth the same and we defend them”.

• The UN human rights office (OHCHR) has said it received “disturbing” information alleging that Israel Defence Forces (IDF) summarily killed at least 11 Palestinian men in front of their family members in Gaza. A report by the OHCHR in the occupied Palestinian territory said the incident took place on 19 December in the Al Remal neighbourhood in Gaza City, and warned that the allegations “raises the alarm about the possible commission of a war crime”. The Guardian was unable to confirm the claims. The IDF has not responded to them.

• The head of the UN World Health Organisation has said he is “deeply concerned” about the “toxic mix of disease, hunger and lack of hygiene and sanitation” that people in Gaza are facing. The territory was “already experiencing soaring rates of infectious disease outbreaks”, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned. He also said the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City – northern Gaza’s last functioning hospital until earlier this week – was a “shell” of its former self due to lack of fuel, staff and supplies, and bodies had been placed in rows in its courtyard “as they couldn’t be given safe and dignified burials”.

• The political leaders of Hamas have begun talks with the group’s military wing about how to govern Gaza and the West Bank after the war with Israel ends, according to a report. “We want the war to end,” Husam Badran, a member of Hamas’s political bureau in Qatar, told the Wall Street Journal, amid sharpening divisions with Hamas’s military faction.

• Amnesty International has called for an urgent investigation into what it called Israel’s “enforced disappearance” of Palestinian detainees from Gaza, after reports of deaths in military detention centres. The Israeli army said it was investigating the deaths.