Image source, AFP

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told the US Secretary of State that Israel will go into Rafah.

Netanyahu told secretary Antony Blinken, who is in Israel, that he hoped there would be US support. But he also said Israel was prepared to enter the city without support from their key ally.

There are about 1.5 million Palestinians sheltering in the city of Rafah, which has become a massive refugee camp.

People from cities and villages in the north fled to Rafah for refuge.

Russia's ambassador to the Security Council Vasily Nebenzya made Moscow's opposition to the US draft resolution clear even before the vote.

He accused the United States of doing nothing to rein in Israel in Gaza, and mocked Washington for speaking of a ceasefire after "Gaza has been virtually wiped off the face of the Earth".

"We have observed a typical hypocritical spectacle," he said.

Nebenzya said that the resolution would have "ensured the impunity of Israel, whose crimes are not even assessed in the draft".

The UK's representative to the Security Council says she is "deeply disappointed" that Russia and China did not back the US draft resolution.

Dame Barbara Woodward says the UK had voted for an "an immediate and sustained ceasefire", to free Israeli hostages, and to "urge against a ground offensive into Rafah".

She says the UK will continue to do "everything we can" to get aid into Gaza, but asserts that an immediate cessation of hostilities is needed to get the required amount of aid into the enclave.

Image source, Getty Images

The US representative to the UN Security Council, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, is speaking after the failed vote.

She says Russia and China did not want to vote for a resolution put forward by the United States because they would rather see the US fail.

"Once again Russia puts politics over progress."

The US draft resolution has failed. There were 11 votes in favour, three against and one abstention.

Russia and China vetoed the draft resolution that tied an immediate ceasefire in Gaza to the release of hostages held by Hamas.

Algeria also voted against the draft and Guyana abstained.

Image source, AFP

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US representative to the UN Security Council, is speaking now. She has urged all members to vote for the US's draft resolution.

"We want to see an immediate and sustained ceasefire as part of a deal that leads to the release of all hostages being held by Hamas and other groups and that will allow much more life-saving, humanitarian aid to get into Gaza.

"The US, Egypt and Qatar are working around the clock in the region to secure an immediate and sustained ceasefire as part of a deal that leads to the release of all hostages being held by Hamas and other groups that will help us address the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

"We believe we're close. We're not there yet unfortunately.

She says the Security Council has a critical role to play and adopting the resolution will put pressure on Hamas to accept the deal on the table.

The UN Security Council meeting has just begun.

The members are discussing a US draft resolution that calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, tied to the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas, before taking a vote on it.

Image source, Reuters

It's past lunch time in Israel and it's just gone 13:00 in the UK. Here's a summary of the latest developments:

• The UN Security Council is meeting to vote on a US resolution that expresses support for a hostage deal and links that to the imperative for an immediate ceasefire
• It comes as top US diplomat Antony Blinken is on a visit to Israel as part of his efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages, amid fraying US-Israel ties
• Blinken was pictured shaking hands with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, and is scheduled to meet other members of the Israeli government

• A UN-backed food security assessment this week said 1.1 million people in Gaza were struggling with catastrophic hunger and starvation
• Unicef's James Elder described the devastation in Gaza as "unlike anything most people have ever seen", and told the BBC that a ceasefire is "almost Gaza’s last hope"

• Finland has become the latest country to say it will resume funding the UN's Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), after halting its support in January when Israel accused some of the agency's members of having ties to Hamas

As we've been reporting, the UN Security Council in New York is preparing to vote on a US draft resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza tied to the release of hostages held by Hamas.

We're expecting the vote to take place in just a few minutes - at about 13:00 GMT (09:00 local time).

Continue to follow our live page as we bring you all the latest news from the outcome of the vote.

Yesterday, EU leaders called for an "immediate humanitarian pause" in Gaza and urged Israel not to launch a major ground offensive in Rafah.

A statement released on behalf of all 27 leaders said: "The European Council calls for an immediate humanitarian pause leading to a sustainable ceasefire" while it also called for "the unconditional release of all hostages".

The Council added that it "urges the Israeli government not to undertake a ground operation in Rafah".

The EU leaders have been deeply divided on the war in Gaza and have struggled to have a united response until now.

Joel Gunter
Reporting from Jerusalem

Image source, Majdi Fathi/BBC

When dawn broke last Monday morning, signalling the beginning of Ramadan, it brought a cruel irony for the people of Gaza.

The holy month when Muslims fast during daylight had arrived amid a looming famine. Gazans had already endured five months of war. Virtually the entire population was already dependent on food aid to survive.

"The people here have already been fasting for months," said Dr Amjad Eleiwa, the deputy director of the emergency department at al-Shifa hospital, Gaza City.

"They scour the city looking for food to survive, but they cannot find any."

The global body responsible for declaring famine, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), reported on Monday that 1.1 million people - virtually half the population of Gaza - was already starving and the rest of the people there could be in a famine by July.

• You can read Joel Gunter’s full report here

Image source, Getty Images

Finland has become the latest country to say it will resume funding of the largest aid organisation in Gaza, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

In January, Israel accused 12 of UNWRA's staff of involvement in the Hamas attacks on 7 October. That led to several countries, including the US and the UK, suspending support.

It follows the announcement by several states such as Australia, Canada and Sweden, that funding will resume.

Finland's Foreign Trade and Development Minister Ville Tavio said in a statement: "Improvement of UNRWA's risk management, meaning preventing misconduct and initiating close monitoring, provides us with sufficient guarantees at this point for resuming the support."

UNRWA is investigating the information supplied by Israel regarding the allegations against its staff, with a final report expected in April.

Image source, Getty Images

The chair of the UK Foreign Affairs committee says there are too many restrictions on aid being allowed into Gaza.

Speaking on Radio 4's Today programme, Alicia Kearns says she shares the concerns of the foreign secretary David Cameron about British supplies being stuck on Gaza's border.

Kearns says on a daily basis, the rules change on what is allowed in, the kind of containers that can be used and how often the border is open. She also claims that a lack of humanitarian visas for aid workers is hampering efforts to distribute the supplies.

She says this means having to "resort to a maritime humanitarian corridor, when we all know this is not the most efficient way to deliver aid".

Asked about international efforts to secure a ceasefire, Kearns says Hamas must return Israeli hostages for an agreement to move forward.

The foreign editor of the British newspaper Jewish News says he believes there will be a mixed reception from Israel's leaders to the latest visit by the US Secretary of State.

Speaking to BBC News, Jotam Confino, says he thinks Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu may not be comfortable meeting Antony Blinken.

Confino believes the US will be trying to steer Israel's leader away from carrying out an extensive ground offensive in Rafah and trying to appeal to more moderate figures in the government such as Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz.

He also suggests the US will want to discuss ceasefire negotiations in Qatar because "after all a ceasefire is best reached through direct negotiations or indirect negotiations and not through a UN Security Council resolution".

He believes both Netanyahu and Hamas seem to have an interest in prolonging the war, adding that the PM wants to protect his position and Hamas hopes international support for Israel will fade which could force them to stop the war.

Image source, Family Handout

As we've been reporting, the UN Security Council will vote this afternoon on a draft resolution by the US calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and the return of the hostages held there by Hamas.

The US, along with Egypt and Qatar, has been working on a deal between Israel and Hamas in Doha to secure a ceasefire in exchange for the release of the hostages.

Of the 253 hostages taken by Hamas during the 7 October attacks on Israel, 130 still remain in Gaza, and Israel believes at least 30 of them are dead.

Families of the hostages still kept in Gaza have organised campaigns fighting for their release but in the five months since the attack, the focus on the hostages has been fading – and they are having to fight hard to keep them in the public eye.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s 23-year-old son, Hersh, was kidnapped on October 7. She has not gone back to work since and campaigns full-time for the release of her son.

"I believe it and I have to believe it, that he will come back to us,” she says and adds the agony must end, and not only for Israelis.

"There are thousands and thousands of innocent civilians in Gaza who are suffering," she says. "There is so much suffering to go around. And I would love for our leaders, all of them, to say, 'we're going to do what we have to do so that just the normal people can stop suffering'."

US text marks a significant departure from long-held positionpublished at 11:01 Greenwich Mean Time 22 March

11:01 GMT 22 March

Raffi Berg
Middle East editor

Image source, EPA-EFE

The wording of the US draft resolution, which the UN Security Council will vote on shortly, signals growing impatience towards Israel by its closest ally.

Since the start of war triggered by Hamas's deadly attack on Israel on 7 October, Washington has vetoed three draft resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. It has argued that such a move would be wrong while delicate negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage releases were continuing between Israel and Hamas.

However, the US's stance has been sharply criticised as shielding Israel from pressure to wind down its offensive amid an escalating death toll in Gaza.

Now the US's own text marks a significant departure from its long-held diplomatic position. It says there is "an imperative of an immediate and sustained ceasefire". Importantly, the same sentence goes on to say "and towards that end unequivocally supports" ongoing hostage release negotiations, specifically linking the two.

It is unclear whether a majority of the other 14 members of the Security Council will vote in favour of the resolution, which some might feel does not go far enough.

But the fact that the US is now backing calls for a ceasefire in principle is another sign of growing tensions between the Biden administration and the government of Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of Israel's looming offensive on Rafah, which the US has made clear it does not unequivocally support.

A Gaza aid worker has told the BBC that people in the territory are “desperate, eating anything they can find”, as they struggle for food.

Rachael Cummings is Save the Children’s deputy team leader for the Gaza response.

Image source, APTN

We've just seen the first images of the meeting between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Blinken's visit to Israel marks his continuing efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza linked to the release of hostages held by Hamas.

His trip comes ahead of a key UN Security Council vote on a draft resolution by the US on the need for a pause in the fighting and the release of the hostages.

We'll bring you more details from the meeting as we get them.

Another key issue is displacement. Almost two million people - most of Gaza's population - are reported to have fled their homes from the fighting.

The UN says more than half of Gaza's population is now crammed into Rafah - previously a town of 250,000 people.

"Their living conditions are abysmal - they lack the basic necessities to survive, stalked by hunger, disease and death," according to the UN's relief co-ordinator Martin Griffiths.

Overcrowding has become a major concern in UN emergency shelters in central and southern Gaza, with some far exceeding their capacity. Other families are living in tents or makeshift shelters in compounds or on open areas of waste ground.

• You can read more about the issues face by Palestinians in Gaza here

Image source, .

We're looking at the key issues affecting people in Gaza - one being the desperate living conditions and food shortages as the conflict between Israel and Hamas continues.

On 7 October Hamas attacked Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 253 others hostage. Israel responded with an intense bombing campaign, followed by a ground invasion, with the aim of eliminating Hamas, which is a proscribed as a terrorist organisation in the UK, the US and other countries.

Armoured bulldozers created routes for tanks and troops, as Israeli forces tried to clear the area of Hamas fighters based in northern Gaza.

Having cut Gaza in two, the Israelis pushed further into Gaza City, where they faced resistance from Hamas. While Israeli forces have since conducted ground operations across much of northern Gaza, there are still clashes in some areas, according to analysts from the Institute for the Study of War.

Whole districts in Gaza City have been razed to the ground and swathes of agricultural land and greenhouse areas have been returned to sand under the tracks of heavy vehicles and tanks as part of clearing operations by Israeli troops.

• Learn about how life has changed for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip here

Image source, .