The Chinese and Indonesian foreign ministers called for an immediate and lasting ceasefire in Gaza after a meeting in Jakarta on Thursday, condemning the humanitarian costs of the ongoing war that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.

According to the Associated Press (AP) news agency, Indonesia’s minister of foreign affairs Retno Marsudi told reporters that the two countries share the same view about the importance of a ceasefire and of resolving the Palestinian problem through a two-state solution.

“I am sure that China would use its influence to prevent escalation,” Marsudi said, adding that China and Indonesia “would also fully support Palestine’s membership in the UN.”

The AP reports that the meeting took place on the second day of a six-day tour during which Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi will also visit Papua New Guinea and Cambodia.

Wang blamed the US for holding up ceasefire resolutions at the UN. “The conflict in Gaza has lasted for half a year and caused a rare humanitarian tragedy in the 21st century. The UN security council responded to the call of the international community and continued to review the resolution draft on the ceasefire in Gaza, but it was repeatedly vetoed by the US,” Wang told reporters.

The US vetoed a number of proposed security council resolutions because they did not tie a ceasefire directly to the release of Israeli hostages or condemn Hamas’s 7 October attacks, before allowing a resolution to a pass with an abstention in late March.

US officials have argued that the ceasefire and hostage releases are linked, while Russia, China and many other council members favored unconditional calls for a ceasefire.

“This time, the US did not dare to stand in opposition to international morality and chose to abstain. However, the US claimed that this resolution was not binding,” Wang said. “In the eyes of the US, international law seems to be a tool that can be used whenever it finds useful and discarded if it does not want to use it.”

Israel reportedly deploys extra weapons for assumed Rafah offensive

Bethan McKernan

Bethan McKernan is Jerusalem correspondent for the Guardian.

Israel has reportedly deployed extra artillery and armoured personnel carriers to the Gaza Strip periphery, suggesting that the military is preparing for its long-threatened ground offensive on Rafah, the only place of relative safety for at least 1.4 million displaced Palestinian civilians.

Israeli daily Ma’ariv also said on Wednesday that troops had been put on alert and “the governing principle of the operation” had been approved by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) general staff and Yoav Gallant, the defence minister. The IDF declined to comment on the reports.

The IDF confirmed on Tuesday it was buying 40,000 tents to prepare for the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians who have sought shelter in Rafah, the southernmost town in the Gaza Strip, which is only major urban area in the territory that Israeli ground forces have not yet entered.

The new operation in the six-month war against the Palestinian militant group Hamas will reportedly focus first on securing northern and central Gaza, particularly the string of refugee camps around the town of Deir al-Balah, Ma’ariv said.

It comes 10 days after Israel withdrew the bulk of its ground forces from the strip, leaving one division to man the Netzarim Corridor, the Israeli-built buffer that now divides the coastal territory.

But Palestinians on the ground said there had been a renewed presence of Israeli ground troops in northern Gaza this week, including in Beit Hanoun, where tanks surrounded school buildings where displaced people were sheltering.

You can read more of Bethan McKernan’s report here:

Qatar says it is reassessing its role as a mediator between Israel and Hamas, according to comments made by the gulf state’s prime minister.

“Qatar is in the process of a complete re-evaluation of its role,” prime minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani told a Doha news conference, according to Agence France- Presse.

“There is exploitation and abuse of the Qatari role,” he said, adding that Qatar had been the victim of “point-scoring” by “politicians who are trying to conduct election campaigns by slighting the State of Qatar”.

Qatar, with the US and Egypt, has been engaged in weeks of talks aimed at securing a truce in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Earlier on Wednesday, sheikh Mohammed said negotiations had stalled.

“We are going through a sensitive stage with some stalling, and we are trying as much as possible to address this stalling,” the Qatari premier said.

Qatar, which has hosted Hamas’s political leadership since 2012 with the blessing of the US, has rebuffed frequent criticism of its mediation from Israel including by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

On Tuesday the Qatari embassy in Washington issued a statement rebuking Democratic lawmaker Steny Hoyer over his calls for Qatar to exert pressure on Hamas to secure a hostage release.

The Qatari premier said Doha had “warned from the beginning of this war against the expansion of the circle of conflict, and today we see conflicts on different fronts”.

It has gone 8am in Gaza and 9am in Tel Aviv. This is our latest Guardian live blog on the Israel-Gaza war and the wider Middle East crisis.

Qatar says it is reassessing its role as a mediator between Israel and Hamas after suffering criticism, its prime minister said on Wednesday.

“Qatar is in the process of a complete re-evaluation of its role,” prime minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani told a Doha news conference, according to Agence France-Presse.

“There is exploitation and abuse of the Qatari role,” he said, adding that Qatar had been the victim of “point-scoring” by “politicians who are trying to conduct election campaigns by slighting the State of Qatar”.

More on that in a moment but first, here’s a summary of the latest developments:

• Israel has reportedly deployed extra artillery and armoured personnel carriers to the Gaza Strip periphery, suggesting that the military is preparing for its long-threatened ground offensive on Rafah, the only place of relative safety for at least 1.4 million displaced Palestinian civilians.

• Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked the visiting foreign ministers of Germany and Britain for their support on Wednesday but said Israel would reach its own decisions on its security. “They have all sorts of suggestions and advice. I appreciate that. But I want to make it clear – we will make our own decisions, and the state of Israel will do everything necessary to defend itself”. Israel is still expected to respond to the unprecedented state-on-state attacked launched at it by Iran at the weekend.

• European Union leaders agreed Wednesday to impose new sanctions on Iran’s drone and missile producers, EU chief Charles Michel said. “We have decided to put in place sanctions against Iran, it is a clear signal that we wanted to send,” the European Council president said at an EU summit in Brussels. “The idea is to target the companies that are needed for the drones, for the missiles,” reports Agence France-Presse.

• Israel considered carrying out a strike on Iran in retaliation for last weekend’s unprecedented attack but then aborted the plan, according to Israeli and US media reports. Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported that following discussions with US President Joe Biden, Netanyahu decided not to proceed with pre-arranged plans for retaliatory strikes on Iran in the event of an attack, reports Associated Press.

• Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi warned in Tehran on Wednesday morning that the “tiniest” invasion by Israel on Iranian soil would bring a “massive and harsh” response. Raisi said the weekend’s attack was a limited one, and that if Iran had wanted to carry out a bigger attack, “nothing would remain from the Zionist regime”. Raisi was speaking at Iran’s national army day parade. At the same event, Iranian army chief commander, Maj Gen Abdolrahim Mousavi, said that any aggression against Iran’s interests will be met with a “firm and regret-inducing response”.

• German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said she made clear to Netanyahu that the Middle East must not be allowed to slide into a situation whose outcome is completely unpredictable. “Because that would serve no one,” she said. “Not Israel’s security, not the many dozens of hostages still in the hands of Hamas, not the suffering population of Gaza, not the many people in Iran who are themselves suffering under the regime, and not the third countries in the region who simply want to live in peace.”

• UK foreign minister David Cameron has also called for restraint, saying while it was clear the Israelis were preparing to act, the UK “hopes they do so in a way that does as little to escalate this as possible”.

• The 25 crew members of the MSC Aries, which was seized by Iran on 13 April, are safe, shipping firm MSC said on Wednesday, adding that discussions with Iranian authorities are in progress to secure their earliest release. “We are also working with the Iranian authorities to have the cargo discharged,” the Swiss headquartered company said in a statement.

• Netanyahu’s office issued a statement which also said he had told Cameron and Baerbock that Israel rejected claims by international organisations that there was starvation in Gaza. In March the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) stated that 1.1 million people in the Gaza Strip were experiencing catastrophic food insecurity.

• Negotiations between Israel and Hamas to secure a truce in Gaza and a release of hostages have stalled, Qatar’s prime minister said on Wednesday. “We are going through a sensitive stage with some stalling, and we are trying as much as possible to address this,” he said.

• The Security Council vote on the Palestinians’ bid to become a full member state of the United Nations is expected to occur on Thursday or Friday, diplomats said, as discussions continued. Several diplomatic sources had told Agence France-Presse earlier that the vote would take place on Thursday, but the situation has since changed with some member states asking for a Friday vote.

• Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said it attacked an Israeli army base near the border on Wednesday, with the latest in a series of tit-for-tat strikes wounding 14 soldiers, according to Israel’s military. Hours after the strike on Arab al-Aramshe, an Arab-majority village in northern Israel near the border, Israeli forces hit targets in eastern Lebanon, a Hezbollah source told AFP. According to the source, the strikes targeted a warehouse in Iaat, a residential area near Baalbek, and “lightly” wounded one man.

• Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that Israel has “intensified airstrikes on Gaza City and the central Gaza Strip, killing dozens and injuring others with various wounds, amid widespread property destruction”. The Hamas-led health authority in Gaza said Israel’s military offensive had now killed 33,899 people since 7 October.

• Turkey’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan met Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Tuesday during a visit to Qatar to discuss humanitarian aid to Gaza, ceasefire efforts and hostages, it was revealed. Haniyeh will visit Turkey at the weekend to hold talks with Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

• Israel’s government has accelerated the construction of settlements across East Jerusalem, with more than 20 projects totalling thousands of housing units having been approved or advanced since the start of the war in Gaza six months ago, planning documents show.

• Italian foreign minister Antonio Tajani on Wednesday called on Israel to halt its military operations in Gaza. The call comes ahead of Tajani hosting a G7 foreign ministers meeting which is expected to press for further sanctions on Iran.

• The US is also expected to impose new sanctions, with national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, saying they will target Tehran’s missile and drone program, Revolutionary Guards and defence ministry.

• Israel’s cabinet on Wednesday approved a five-year, 19bn shekel ($5bn) plan to rebuild and strengthen communities near the Gaza border after the 7 October attack by Hamas militants, the prime minister’s office said. Netanyahu said Israel would invest the funds in housing, infrastructure, education, employment, health and other areas.

• The Chinese and Indonesian foreign ministers called for an immediate and lasting ceasefire in Gaza after a meeting in Jakarta on Thursday, condemning the humanitarian costs of the ongoing war. Indonesia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi told reporters that the two countries share the same view about the importance of a ceasefire and of resolving the Palestinian problem through a two-state solution. “I am sure that China would use its influence to prevent escalation,” Marsudi said, adding that China and Indonesia “would also fully support Palestine’s membership in the UN”, reports Associated Press.