Patrick Jackson
Live page editor

We're taking a break from live coverage of the war in Gaza for a few hours.

This page will be relaunched overnight if there are any major developments, otherwise we'll be back in the morning UK time.

If you'd like to read more in the meantime, our colleagues at BBC Business have the latest on the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea.

They've also taken an in-depth look at what the crisis on one of the world's most important shipping routes may mean for global trade.

In case you missed it yesterday, the BBC's South East Asia correspondent Jonathan Head has written about the story of a Thai worker who has returned home after being released from being held hostage in Gaza.

Image source, EPA

It's coming up to 03:00 in Israel and Gaza and 01:00 in London, and here's a recap of the past 24 hours:

A vote on a new UN Security Council resolution calling for an "suspension" of hostilities has been postponed for the second day in a row after intense negotiations on the language of the proposal.

The language of the resolution proposed by the United Arab Emirates has already been watered down from calling for a ceasefire to get US backing, reports say, as it has consistently vetoed previous resolutions.

Reports also indicate negotiations over a new hostage exchange deal are in their early stages - with talks held in Poland between the US, Qatar and Israel earlier, while the head of Hamas's political wing will travel to Egypt shortly.

On the ground in Gaza, humanitarian agencies have expressed their anger and frustration at the lack of aid allowed to enter the strip.

More than 100 Palestinians have been killed in the north and south in the latest Israeli air strikes, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry. Around 19,600 people have been killed so far, the ministry also said.

BBC Arabic has spoken to men from Gaza who say they were detained by the Israeli army for nearly a month, alleging abuse and mistreatment before their release a few days ago.

UK MP Layla Moran, whose relatives are trapped in Gaza, says her family are "down to their last can of corn", and urged the UK government to support an immediate ceasefire

The head of the UN's maritime agency has condemned Houthi attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea, warning they could threaten world trade

One of the world's biggest shipping firms, Hapag-Lloyd, has said it will not resume sailing on the vital trade route linking the Indian Ocean with the Mediterranean sea without safety guarantees.

Mohammed Alghusain and his family had a comfortable life back in Gaza. A good job, a penthouse on the beach, the children at excellent schools. Then everything changed on 7 October. He lost it all.

Mohammed has dual citizenship with Canada. When he got a call from the Canadian embassy, he was offered a way out of the war - but not all his loved ones could come.

Meta's moderation of Israel-Gaza footage criticisedpublished at 23:46 Greenwich Mean Time 19 December 2023

23:46 GMT 19 December 2023

Tom Singleton
Technology reporter

Social media has an enormous role in shaping perceptions of this conflict, and two of the most popular and therefore influential platforms – Facebook and Instagram – are owned by one company, Meta.

So the decisions it makes about what content people can and can’t see really matter.

Today, Meta’s Oversight Board has ruled it got two of those decisions wrong.

One related to an Instagram video which showed the deadly consequences of a strike on Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza. The other concerned footage on Facebook of an Israeli woman being kidnapped.

Both were initially taken down by Meta. The board has ruled they shouldn’t have been.

It urges Meta to “respond more quickly to changing circumstances on the ground” and suggests the use of automated moderating tools (rather than a human moderator) increases the likelihood of “valuable” posts being wrongly suppressed.

The board admits such decisions are “very difficult”, and acknowledges Meta’s responsibility not to incite hatred. But it says the firm also has to focus on freedom of expression for all sides.

“These testimonies are important not just for the speakers, but for users around the world who are seeking timely and diverse information,” says Board co-chair Michael McConnell.

Image source, Getty Images

As we reported earlier, diplomats have been working to make a draft resolution on the situation in Gaza amenable to all members of the UN Security Council - particularly Israel's ally, the US, which vetoed the previous resolution.

The United Nations rose from the ashes of World War Two as an organisation of "peace-loving" states, and the Security Council - which met for the first time in 1946 - was specifically tasked with ensuring global peace and security.

It has had a more active role on the world stage in recent years, introducing sanction regimes and authorising the use of force in conflicts.

Five nations - China, France, Russia, the UK and the US - are permanently represented on the Security Council. They broadly reflect the post-war power structure that held sway when the council was formed and have the right of veto.

If one of them votes against a resolution, it cannot be passed. But a resolution can be passed if a permanent member abstains.

Members of this privileged group work alongside 10 non-permanent member countries. Currently these are Albania, Brazil, Ecuador, Gabon, Ghana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates.

Each member - permanent or otherwise - holds the presidency of the council for a one-month period, on a rotating basis.

Hugo Bachega
Middle East correspondent, in Jerusalem

Image source, Telegram

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) group has published a video with two hostages being held in Gaza urging the Israeli government to engage in negotiations for their release.

The men, who identify themselves as Gadi Moses, 79 and Elad Katzir, 47, were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz on 7 October, and appear separately in two clips.

They both warn that Israel’s bombings are endangering their lives.

Prisoners of war and hostages are protected under international humanitarian law and so the BBC does not broadcast the full details of material which may have been filmed under duress.

While Hamas is the biggest and most powerful armed group in Gaza, other Palestinian factions like PIJ's armed wing - the al-Quds brigades - participated in the 7 October attacks and took hostages from Israel.

PIJ, like Hamas, is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the UK, US and Australia.

Around 240 people were taken to Gaza in the initial assault, which also saw around 1,200 people killed in Israel.

More than 100 have since been released as part of an exchange deal for Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

Image source, Telegram

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says around 100 people were killed by Israeli attacks across the Strip today.

Hundreds of others were left injured, the health ministry's spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said on social media.

Earlier, the ministry said 19,667 people had been killed by Israeli operations in Gaza since 7 October, when it responded to Hamas's 7 October attacks on southern Israel that killed at least 1,200 and saw some 240 taken hostage.

Israel has deployed a new brigade and additional engineering forces to fight Hamas in Khan Younis, a military spokesman has said.

In his evening briefing, Daniel Hagari says the Israel Defense Forces is "intensifying and deepening our operation" in the key southern city to dismantle what he described as "Hamas's strongholds" there.

The IDF spokesman also said its forces have uncovered "1,500 terrorist tunnel shafts and tunnel routes of Hamas" in Gaza so far. The BBC is unable to independently verify that claim.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) says Israeli forces took control of Al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza on Sunday after "besieging it for 12 days".

The medical charity says men over 16 were "taken out of the hospital, stripped, bound and interrogated" and six MSF staff were among them.

"After the interrogations, most of them were sent back into the hospital and told not to move," MSF says, adding that dozens of patients, including 14 children, are still inside al-Awda.

"Over the past 10 weeks, Al Awda has been besieged, damaged in strikes, and medical staff have been killed in blasts. It is the last functioning hospital in the north of Gaza that we know of," MSF says.

In recent weeks, hospitals and medical facilities in Gaza have become caught up in intense fighting, with many reporting a lack of supplies and power.

Last month, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Al-Shifa, Gaza's largest hospital, had ceased to function and that the situation inside was "dire and perilous".

A meeting between Qatar's prime minister and the heads of both the US and Israeli intelligence services was positive, but no new hostage deal is imminent, a source has told Reuters.

The news agency reports the talks between Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani and the chiefs of the CIA and Mossad took place in Poland's capital Warsaw earlier.

The trio discussed a possible new deal to secure the release of Israelis held hostage in Gaza in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, as well as a "humanitarian pause" in fighting.

"The talks were positive with negotiators exploring and discussing different proposals in an attempt to progress on negotiations," the source familiar with the talks told Reuters. "An agreement is not expected imminently however."

A previous hostage deal in November saw a pause in fighting that lasted for a week, and led to more than 100 hostages being freed from Gaza and 240 Palestinians released from prisons in Israel.

The CIA declined to comment when approached by Reuters.

A humanitarian pause to allow aid into Gaza is "not what is needed right now", the head of UN Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says.

Gemma Connell says the war must end because a pause would "not provide the relief that will enable the Gaza Strip to be resuscitated".

"It does not provide people with the prospect of being able to return to life.

"It does not provide the children right now living in tents just outside of where I am staying with the ability to return to their homes and rebuild them," she tells the BBC.

Nada Tawfik
Reporting from New York

The UN Security Council vote on the UAE's Gaza draft has once again been delayed to allow negotiations to continue.

The new time is Wednesday at around 16:00GMT (11:00 in New York) after the council's meeting on Afghanistan.

Hamas leader's visit to Cairo could signal move towards negotiationspublished at 20:22 Greenwich Mean Time 19 December 2023

20:22 GMT 19 December 2023

Hugo Bachega
Middle East correspondent, in Jerusalem

Diplomatic efforts continue for a new deal between Israel and Hamas in Gaza to secure the release of more hostages being held in the territory and the delivery of much-needed humanitarian aid.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is expected to visit Cairo on Wednesday, a source has told the BBC, the latest sign of movement towards possible negotiations. Egypt, alongside Qatar, helped broker a truce last month that led to a week-long ceasefire and the exchange of around 100 hostages for Palestinians being held in Israeli jails.

Earlier today, Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said his country was “ready for another humanitarian pause and additional humanitarian aid” to enable the release of hostages. That came a day after Israeli and US intelligence chiefs met the Qatari prime minister to discuss steps to free more captives.

Any negotiations are unlikely to be easy. On Sunday, Khalil Al-Hayya, a senior Hamas leader, said any further exchanges were conditional on a comprehensive ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. Israel, however, has rejected a ceasefire saying this would only benefit Hamas - a position that has US support. Herzog used the word “pause” instead.

More than 100 captives remain in Gaza, and Israel says one of the goals of its military offensive is to guarantee their release. Hamas sees them as leverage in any negotiations with Israel.

Image source, Reuters

White House National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby has just been speaking to media in the US.

On the topic of the UN Security Council vote scheduled for this afternoon, he says: "We're still working through the modalities of the resolution."

Kirby added it was "important for us that the rest of the world understands what's at stake here." He specifically mentioned the attacks carried out by Hamas on 7 October, and how "Israel has a right to defend itself against those threats".

Kirby also reiterated that America does not support a permanent ceasefire - but was in favour of more localised pauses to allow aid to enter Gaza.

Image source, Reuters

As we've just reported, a source has told the BBC that Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh will travel to Cairo tomorrow, but details are yet to emerge of the reason for the visit.

A prominent member of the movement in the late 1980s, Israel imprisoned Haniyeh for three years in 1989 as it cracked down on the first Palestinian uprising.

Haniyeh was appointed Palestinian prime minister in 2006 by President Mahmoud Abbas after Hamas won the most seats in national elections, but was dismissed a year later after the group ousted Abbas' Fatah party from the Gaza Strip in a week of deadly violence.

He was elected head of Hamas's political bureau in 2017.

In 2018, the US Department of State designated Haniyeh a terrorist. He has lived in Qatar for the past several years.

Read more about Hamas's most prominent leaders here.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh will travel to Cairo in Egypt tomorrow, a source tells the BBC.

We'll bring you more on this update shortly.

We've just been told the UN Security Council's vote on a resolution to halt hostilities in Gaza has been delayed again.

It's now scheduled for 22:00 GMT (17:00 ET).

There have been intense discussions over the wording of the draft resolution, and members of the council will want to avoid any chance of it being vetoed.

The US vetoed the last draft resolution because of the language that it contained.

Israel's Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, has said that Israeli military ground operations will “expand to additional areas” in the Gaza Strip, Israeli media reports say.

While touring the Gaza border, Gallant said: "Khan Younis has become the new capital of terror. We will not let up in our action there until we get to the senior Hamas officials", the Times of Israel reported, citing quotes published by his office.

Adnan El-Bursh
BBC Arabic, reporting from Rafah

Image source, Getty Images

Casualties were still arriving at the Abu Yousef al Najjar Hospital in Rafah city when we were there this morning.

Eyewitnesses have told me Israeli jets hit a group of houses and residential buildings in the city and the bodies kept coming in, one after another, joining others which had been lying on the floor in white shrouds since the early morning.

At the site of the air strike, I stood in front of a destroyed building – now just a pile of rubble – which used to be the home of a colleague of mine, local journalist Adel Zaroub.

Adel was killed along with his entire family in an air strike that targeted the residential area of Tal al-Sultan, west of Rafah. “The family has been completely erased from existence. No boy or girl is left from the family to keep its memory alive,” a sobbing relative told me.

The health ministry has said that at least 20 people have been killed in these air strikes on Rafah, and heavy machinery is still digging here, hoping to reach more casualties stuck under the debris.

Without specifically commenting on the incident, the Israeli army says it carried out a "targeted operation" in the middle of Rafah, killing a "Hamas financier" called Subhi Ferwana.

Image source, US State Department

We've been listening to a press briefing held by the US State Department, where spokesman Matthew Miller has been talking about the UN Security Council.

Miller says the US is working with colleagues on the Security Council to draft a resolution to halt hostilities in Gaza.

The US would welcome a resolution that supports addressing humanitarian needs of Gaza, Miller says, but adds that it's the details of this resolution that matter.

"It very much does depend on the content," Miller says.

He would not be drawn into the exact issues the US has with the language in the current draft of the resolution, saying it was still being discussed by members of the Security Council.

Miller added that an extended humanitarian pause could perhaps be obtained if Hamas were to agree to release more hostages.

And the timing of the vote is still very much up in the air.

It has already been delayed today, and Miller simply stated "it's possible there could be a vote today".