Middle East crisis live: Iran says response to killing of Hamas chief will be ‘definite and calculated’; no deal agreed in ceasefire talks

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, has spoken with his Italian counterpart, Antonio Tajani. He was reported to have told Tajani that Iran’s response to the killing of the Hamas chief in Tehran would be “definite and calculated”.

Iran blames Israel for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on 31 July, which Araqchi was quoted by Iran’s state media as saying was “an unforgivable violation of Iran’s security and sovereignty”.

The Israeli government officially declined to comment on Haniyeh’s death, but the strike was widely acknowledged as an Israeli operation both inside the country and beyond.

“Iran does not seek to increase tensions. However it is not afraid of it,” Araqchi told his Italian counterpart on the phone. He said that Iran’s response would be “definite, calculated and accurate”, according to the statement.

Israel vowed to kill all Hamas leaders after the 7 October attacks, and its intelligence services have a history of carrying out covert killings inside Iran, mostly targeting scientists working on the country’s nuclear programme.

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza and the wider Middle East crisis.

Ceasefire talks in Cairo have ended with no agreement, several sources have told media, though lower level negotiations were set to continue and the US said it was still “feverishly” pursuing a deal.

The news came hours after Israel and the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah launched their heaviest exchange of fire since the war began, with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing that the Israeli air raids were “not the end of the story”.

Months of on-off talks have failed to produce an agreement to end Israel’s devastating military campaign in Gaza or free the remaining hostages seized by Hamas in the militant group’s 7 October attack on Israel which triggered the war.

Key sticking points in ongoing talks mediated by the US, Egypt and Qatar include an Israeli presence in the so-called Philadelphi Corridor, a narrow 14.5-km-long (9-mile-long) stretch of land along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt.

Mediators put forward a number of alternatives to the presence of Israeli forces on the Philadelphi Corridor and the Netzarim Corridor which cuts across the middle of the Gaza Strip, but none were accepted by the parties, Egyptian sources told Reuters.

Speaking at a news conference in Halifax, Canada, US national security advisor Jake Sullivan said Washington was still “feverishly” working in Cairo with Egyptian and Qatari mediators as well as the Israelis to get a ceasefire and a hostage deal.

In other developments:

• In central Gaza meanwhile the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said an Israeli order to evacuate the area around al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah had caused chaos and called the situation “unacceptable”. “MSF is considering whether to suspend wound care for the time being, while trying to maintain life-saving treatment. From around 650 patients, only 100 remain in the hospital, with 7 in intensive care unit according to the Ministry of Health,” it said on X.

• About 60 media and rights organisations on Monday urged the European Union to suspend a co-operation accord with Israel and impose sanctions, accusing it of “massacring journalists” in Gaza. “In response to the unprecedented number of journalists killed and other repeated press freedom violations by the Israeli authorities since the start of the war with Hamas, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and 59 other organisations are calling on the European Union to suspend its Association Agreement with Israel and to adopt targeted sanctions against those responsible”, the groups said in a joint statement.

• Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has said his country will respond to the assassination of Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. “Iran’s reaction to Israeli terrorist attack in Tehran is definitive, and will be measured & well calculated,” Araghchi wrote in a post on X. “We do not fear escalation, yet do not seek it – unlike Israel.”

• US defence secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered two aircraft carrier strike groups to remain in the Middle East, Reuters reports, citing the Pentagon.

• Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah delivered a public address after Sunday’s exchange of fire, saying that the group’s response to the Israeli assassination of a senior commander in Beirut had been delayed for several reasons including mass Israeli and US military mobilisation. He added: “We will assess the impact of today’s operation. If results are not seen to be enough, we will respond another time.”

• Jordan has warned that heightened escalation between Israel and Hezbollah could lead to a “regional war”, echoing comments made by Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, earlier. Foreign ministry spokesperson Sufain Qudah said that Israel’s relentless “aggression” in Gaza and the failure to reach a ceasefire was exposing the region to the dangers of an expansion of the conflict, Jordanian state media reported.

• The UN’s Palestine relief agency, Unrwa, has said it will launch a polio vaccination campaign with the World Health Organization, Unicef, and other partners for more than 600,000 children under 10 years old, over the coming days. The UN is appealing to Israel and Hamas for a humanitarian ceasefire to allow humanitarian workers to carry out the immunisation campaign.

• Europe’s most senior diplomat will call for sanctions on two far-right Israeli ministers, as the EU battles to rescue its credibility on the Middle East. At a meeting of the EU’s 27 foreign ministers on Thursday, Josep Borrell will make the case for sanctions against Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, whose inflammatory statements and behaviour have drawn international condemnation.

• At least 40,405 Palestinian people have been killed and 93,468 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

• Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels praised attacks by Hezbollah on Israel on Sunday and renewed threats to launch their own assault in response to Israeli strikes on a port in Yemen. “We congratulate Hezbollah and its secretary-general on the great and courageous attack carried out by the resistance this morning against the Israeli enemy,” the Houthis said in a statement.