Sam Hancock
Live reporter

We're going to bring our live coverage of the war in Gaza to an end for today, thanks for following along. Just before then, here's a short summary of the day's key developments:

• In a phone call with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Joe Biden said the US's policy on Gaza would hinge on Israel addressing the suffering of civilians and safety of aid workers there
• White House spokesman John Kirby said the US wants to see Israel announce changes to its approach to make the situation in Gaza "better for Palestinian people" in the "coming hours and days"
• Biden also told Netanyahu that strikes on humanitarian workers were "unacceptable", as was the overall humanitarian situation there
• The Israeli body that coordinates aid getting into Gaza says an independent investigation into a strike on charity vehicles, which killed seven aid workers, is being carried out
• Meanwhile, the parents of Jacob Flickinger - one of those workers - told the BBC they believe the convoy was "chased down" and they reject Israel's account of the incident as a "mistake"
• The BBC's Gaza correspondent Rushdi Abualouf reported that no aid has reached the north of the Strip since the attack and residents are living in tragic, near-famine conditions

Image source, .

This page was written by Thomas Mackintosh, Ece Goksedef, Alex Smith, Joe McFaddon, Ali Abbas Ahmadi, Yaroslav Lukov, Jacqueline Howard, Ben Hatton and Brandon Livesay. It was edited by James Harness, Aoife Walsh, Sophie Abdulla, Marita Moloney, Robert Plummer and me.

Tom Bateman
US State Department correspondent

The parents of Jacob Flickinger, the US-Canadian citizen who's among seven aid workers killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza, say the attack was a “crime” and have rejected Israel’s explanation for it.

John Flickinger and Sylvia Labrecque tell me they believe the convoy was “chased down” and “targeted” as part of an attempt to use food as a weapon.

They have called for an independent investigation and for Israel to pay reparations to the families of all aid workers killed in Gaza, thought to number about 200 since October.

The Israeli military has apologised for the strike on the workers, calling it a tragic mistake, and has vowed to investigate.

Flickinger, 33, was a dual citizen and had travelled to Gaza with the food aid charity World Central Kitchen.

His parents say he wanted to help because he “knew that people were starving out there”. The couple have not yet received a call from President Biden. They say no US official has contacted them and they were initially told of their son’s death by the US Embassy in Israel.

“I would like to hear from someone in the US government,” Flickinger tells me, adding that the Canadian government has been “very helpful”.

• Here's what BBC Verify has found out about the strike

US officials approved the transfer of "thousands more bombs" to Israel on the same day Israeli air strikes in Gaza killed seven aid workers, the Washington Post reports, citing anonymous government officials.

The deaths of the World Central Kitchen aid workers - in an attack that the charity group's founder, Jose Andrés, said was "targeted systematically" - has drawn global condemnation.

The arms approval highlights the Biden administration's commitment to providing military aid to Israel - despite growing calls for a ceasefire and the thousands of Democrats who have submitted protest votes against President Biden, frustrated by his military aid support sent to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

The US approved the transfer of more than 2,000 bombs, all from authorisations granted by Congress several years before the Israel-Gaza war began, according to the Post.

• There's more on the US's arms sales to Israel here

Who decides on UK-Israel arms exports?published at 21:30 British Summer Time 4 April

21:30 BST 4 April

Harry Farley
Political correspondent

The decision over arms exports to Israel is exposing divisions within the Conservative Party - which holds government in the UK - over the conflict in Gaza.

Conservative MPs such as Flick Drummond, David Jones and Paul Bristow, as well as party grandees Lord Soames and Lord Swire, have called on the government to suspend arms export licences to the Middle Eastern country.

But other Conservatives I've spoken to say it's a "ridiculous call", with one MP telling me: “Are Tehran cutting off arms to Hamas and Hezbollah? Of course not. So it would be an act of utter stupidity for the West to pull support for the region’s only liberal democracy whilst Iran continues to arm and fund the terrorist rape and murder cults that surround them.”

Technically, it's up to the business secretary to decide on issuing arms export licences. However, one MP familiar with the process said that in reality - because revoking arms licences to Israel would be so sensitive - the decision would be taken by the Cabinet, and ultimately the prime minister. So Rishi Sunak will have a difficult decision to make.

Suspending arms export licences to Israel would have little practical impact on the war in Gaza. Business Minister Greg Hands has previously told MPs that UK arms exports to Israel were worth £42m in 2022, representing just 0.02% of Israel's military imports that year.

But it would be a major move diplomatically to revoke arms licences for an ally. And it would also be hugely controversial within Sunak's own party, with many Conservative MPs strongly supportive of Israel.

Image source, EPA

In London, Sadiq Khan has added his voice to calls for the UK government to suspend weapons sales to Israel after an air strike in Gaza killed seven aid workers.

During an interview with PoliticsJOE earlier, the city's mayor said the government "should be pausing all sales of weapons" to Israel and asked: "[Prime Minister Rishi Sunak] claims to be chums ... with Benjamin Netanyahu. Where is the evidence we're using that influence to put pressure on the Israeli government?"

Other senior British politicians have urged similar:

• Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf repeated his belief that the UK is "complicit" in the killing of civilians if arms sales continue
• David Lammy, shadow foreign secretary, called for the government to release its legal advice about whether Israel has broken international law, while Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said “the government must take swift action to suspend arms exports to Israel"
• Tory peer Nicholas Soames agreed it was "probably time" for the UK to suspend arms sales
• And more than 600 legal experts, including three former Supreme Court justices, signed an open letter calling for the export of weapons to stop

Sunak said earlier this week that the UK has a "very careful" arms licensing regime.

Here's a moment from the White House briefing we reported on earlier, where National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters US policy for Gaza "will be dependant on our assessment of how well the Israelis implement changes to make the situation in Gaza better for the Palestinian people".

Pushed on how long President Biden would give Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to make those changes, he added "days and hours".

Watch the remarks here:

The most strident US statement on Israel so farpublished at 20:35 British Summer Time 4 April

20:35 BST 4 April

Tom Bateman
US State Department correspondent

The White House statement on the Biden-Netanyahu call is the most strident it has issued so far on Israel. It reflects the “outrage” President Biden’s officials have described about his reaction after the World Central Kitchen strike.

It basically demands that Israel protect civilians and let food aid into Gaza.

Here’s the key line:

That’s a significant shift - it will be interpreted as a threat - that there is a limit to US support given the catastrophically high numbers of civilians killed, the attacks on food delivery convoys, and that Gaza is on the brink of famine.

The statement doesn’t set out which “US policy” areas it is talking about - but the bedrock to the US-Israel relationship is the supply of weapons, a policy which Biden has been under increasing pressure to start conditioning in order to make the Israelis protect civilians and let aid in.

For the White House, arms transfers have so far remained off-limits to be used as leverage. Now many will read this statement as the administration signalling it is prepared for that to change.

A phone call between US President Joe Biden and Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu was "direct" and "business-like", the White House has said.

Spokesman John Kirby said the leaders listened to one another - but admitted that in the lead up, Biden had grown frustrated that messages to Netanyahu didn't seem to be getting through.

A White House readout said that Biden told Netanyahu:

• US support for Israel will depend on steps being taken to "address civilian harm" and "humanitarian suffering" in Gaza
• Strikes on humanitarian workers and the overall humanitarian situation in the Strip are unacceptable
• An immediate ceasefire is essential to stabilise and improve the humanitarian situation and protect innocent

Meanwhile, here are some other developments from Gaza:

• No aid trucks have entered northern Gaza since the strike on Monday - Oxfam says people in the region have been forced to survive on an average of 245 calories a day, less than a can of fava beans, since January
• An Israeli government spokesperson signalled the findings of an investigation into the strike could be released in the "coming weeks", but a spokesman for Cogat - the Israeli body that co-ordinates humanitarian aid to Gaza - suggested it could be days
• Mayor of London Sadiq Khan joined a growing number of prominent politicians and legal experts calling on the UK government to suspend arms exports to Israel

On the war more generally, John Kirby is asked by a reporter whether he believes Israel can defeat Hamas, which controls Gaza.

"Obviously that's going to be up to the Israeli Defense Forces and the Israeli government to determine," he responds. "As I've said many, many times, it's difficult to eliminate an ideology."

He adds that it's possible to "decapitate their leadership, dry up their resources, eliminate their infrastructure, their ability to store, train".

But Kirby insists the point that matters is how this is achieved: "It's the how that the president was focused on today."

That's it for the briefing - and for our updates on it.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, asked by a reporter if President Biden has become frustrated that messages to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu don't seen to be getting through, says "yes".

"There's been growing frustration," he adds.

Another reporter asks if the US still has leverage in its relationship with Israel.

"I keep getting this question about leverage, Israel's an ally," he responds. "The president believes strongly, and has for his entire public career, in the security of the Israeli people."

Another question about whether Netanyahu still listens to the US sees Kirby say it was evident from the call between the two leaders earlier that they listen to each other's concerns.

"The prime minister reiterated his thanks to President Biden and this administration for the support that we have continued to provide Israel," Kirby tells the world's media.

Image source, White House

Kirby, still addressing reporters at the White House, is pressed on how the US will react if Israel doesn't make changes to the way it's waging war in Gaza.

He says US policies will be shaped by how well Israel makes changes to its own policies on the ground -adding that he wants to see more aid getting into Gaza and steps to protect civilians and humanitarian workers.

Asked if the White House may remove military aid, Kirby says he won’t preview decisions that haven’t been made yet.

“There are things that need to be done. There are too many civilians being killed,” he says

He adds that the phone call between Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu was "very direct" and "business-like".

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby is speaking at the White House briefing and - after repeating some of the lines we've covered already from Biden and Netanyahu's call - sends Israel a clear message.

He says the US, in the coming hours and days, will be looking for concrete steps that Israel has made.

Elaborating, he says the US hopes to see a "dramatic increase" in humanitarian aid getting into Gaza - as well as a general reduction in violence against civilians and aid workers.

Kirby says the US wants to see that the Israelis are "willing and able to take practical, immediate steps to protect aid workers and demonstrate that they had that they had civilian harm mitigation in place".

He adds that more details on the specifics of these measures would need to be offered by the Israelis themselves.

Image source, The White House

We're about to hear some more from the White House as its daily press briefing is due to begin in the next few minutes.

It seems likely the phone call between President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu will come up, but whether we'll get any more information than what's already been released is unclear.

You can follow the briefing live by pressing the Play button at the top of this page - we'll also be filing any news-worthy lines right here.

The White House statement - covered in our last post - also says that Biden and Netanyahu "discussed public Iranian threats against Israel and the Israeli people".

"President Biden made clear that the United States strongly supports Israel in the face of those threats," it says.

There's more on those threats from Iran here.

The White House has just published an official record of the call between the president and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

It says the two leaders discussed the situation in Gaza, with Biden "emphasising that the strikes on humanitarian workers and the overall humanitarian situation are unacceptable".

Biden is also said to have made clear the need for Israel to "announce and implement a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers".

The readout adds that Biden told his Israeli counterpart, the US's policy "with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel’s immediate action on these steps" - and stressed that an immediate ceasefire "is essential to stabilize and improve the humanitarian situation and protect innocent civilians".

Netanyahu's office is yet to issue its readout of the call.

Image source, EPA

We're still waiting for a readout of the call that's taken place between Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu - until then, here are five things the US president said earlier this week about the Israeli strike that killed seven aid workers in Gaza:

• Biden said he was "outraged and heartbroken" at Israel's killing of the World Central Kitchen employees
• Distributing aid in Gaza is "so difficult", he said, because Israel had "not done enough to protect aid workers trying to deliver desperately needed help to civilians"
• He called on Israel to swiftly conduct an investigation that "must bring accountability", and make its findings public

• "The United States has repeatedly urged Israel to deconflict their military operations against Hamas with humanitarian operations, in order to avoid civilian casualties," he said
• Biden also accused Israel of not doing enough to protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza

Read more about Biden's comments here.

A phone call between US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reported by Reuters and ABC to have taken place.

We don't yet know exactly what they are discussing, but it was expected that Biden would bring up the need to better protect humanitarian workers.

It's the first time the two leaders have spoken since an Israeli strike killed seven aid workers in Gaza on Monday.

The White House's daily briefing is scheduled for 13:30 local time (18:30 BST). We'll find out more about the phone call then.

A little earlier, we reported on a spokesperson for Cogat - the Israeli body that coordinates humanitarian aid to Gaza - saying they hope an investigation into the killing of seven aid workers could report back in the next few days.

An Israeli government spokesperson has since suggested that the investigation could take longer.

"In the coming weeks, as the findings become clear, we will be transparent and share the results with the public," Raquela Karamson tells reporters.

Karamson also echoes the suggestion by Cogat's Shimon Friedman that the review could lead to changes in how Israel conducts operations:

On the Today Podcast this week, Amol Rajan and Nick Robinson ask whether the killing of seven aid workers in Gaza and two Iranian generals in Syria will affect what's happening on the ground in the war between Israel and Hamas.

They also speak to the former head of MI6, Sir Alex Younger, and Tel Aviv-based political analyst Dahlia Scheindlin.

Listen in on BBC Sounds by heading here.

Israel braced for Iran's response to Damascus strikepublished at 16:47 British Summer Time 4 April

16:47 BST 4 April

Hugo Bachega
Middle East correspondent, in Jerusalem

The Israeli authorities seem to believe an Iranian response is imminent following the strike on an Iranian diplomatic consulate in the Syrian capital, Damascus, that we mentioned in our last post.

The attack, widely believed to have been carried out by Israel, killed two Iranian generals and five others. It sparked an angry reaction from Tehran and threats of revenge.

On Wednesday, the Israeli military announced it had drafted reservists to boost air defences. This morning, it said it had halted home leave for combat units. Meanwhile, GPS systems were being disrupted in central parts of the country, including areas of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, in an apparent attempt to fend off guided missiles that use those systems.

A BBC producer said her GPS had located her in Cairo when she was in Jerusalem. Other users have shared similar accounts on social media. GPS is already disrupted in northern Israel, near the border with Lebanon, where Israel and the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah have exchanged fire almost daily for the last six months.

Separately, the Israeli army told the population that there was no need for them to buy generators, gather food or withdraw money, which is likely to be an indication of the mood across the country.

Friday is considered to be a particularly sensitive day as it marks Quds Day - or Jerusalem Day - the last Friday in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.