Several areas in Lebanon have come under Israeli attack on Saturday evening, according to reports.

The IDF is attacking Tyre, Baalbek, and southern Lebanon, the Jerusalem Post reported, after rocket alert sirens were heard throughout Israel’s north earlier in the day.

Several rockets were reportedly seen crossing from Lebanon and falling into open areas.

A senior Hamas official told AFP on Saturday that the militant group had received no indication from Qatar that it should leave the country, where its political office has been based for years.

It comes as Qatar reportedly said it was withdrawing from its role mediating talks between Israel and Hamas to bring the conflict to an end. They also said the office was “no longer” serving its purpose.

“We have nothing to confirm or deny regarding what was published by an unidentified diplomatic source and we have not received any request to leave Qatar,” the official said from Doha, after a diplomatic source told AFP.

Qatar, with the United Sates and Egypt, has been engaged in months of fruitless negotiations for a truce with hostage and prisoner releases.

The informed source said Qatar had already “notified both sides, Israel and Hamas as well as the US administration” of its decision.

“The Qataris conveyed to the US administration that they would be ready to re-engage in mediation when both sides … demonstrate a sincere willingness to return to the negotiating table”, the source added.

Qatar has withdrawn as a key mediator for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal, and warned Hamas that its Doha office “no longer serves its purpose”, a diplomatic source told AFP on Saturday.

“The Qataris informed both the Israelis and Hamas that as long as there is a refusal to negotiate a deal in good faith, they cannot continue to mediate. As a consequence, the Hamas political office no longer serves its purpose,” the source said on condition of anonymity.

It comes as the US told the gulf state that allowing the militant Islamist group to have a base there is no longer acceptable.

Qatar has been home to a Hamas political office for more than a decade. Senior leaders of the terror group have also lived there.

Israel has said reports warning of a potential famine in Gaza are overstated, with its military saying the independent Famine Review Committee (FRC) was relying on unreliable data.

“Unfortunately, the researchers continue to rely on partial, biased data and superficial sources with vested interests,” the military said in a statement, Reuters reports.

The FRC said on Friday in a rare alert that there was a strong likelihood of imminent famine in parts of north Gaza with immediate action required from the warring parties to ease a catastrophic situation.

Israel’s military said it had increased aid efforts including opening an additional crossing on Friday.

In the last two months, 39,000 trucks carrying more than 840,000 tons of food have entered Gaza, it said, and meetings were taking place daily with the U.N. which had 700 trucks of aid awaiting pickup and distribution.

With some critics decrying a starvation tactic in north Gaza, Israel’s main ally the U.S. has set a deadline within days for it to improve the humanitarian situation or face potential restrictions on military cooperation.

Hamas may have to quit political base in Qatar

Jason Burke

Hamas may be forced to close its offices in Qatar, after the US told the tiny Gulf state that allowing the militant Islamist group to have a base there is no longer acceptable.

Qatar, a key US partner in the Middle East, has hosted the political office of Hamas for more than a decade and allowed many senior leaders of the organisation to live there.

The request was reported by Reuters late on Friday but has yet to be officially confirmed.

“After rejecting repeated proposals to release hostages, [Hamas] leaders should no longer be welcome in the capitals of any American partner. We made that clear to Qatar following Hamas’s rejection weeks ago of another hostage release proposal,” the senior official told Reuters, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Critics of the US request say it will hinder engagement with elements of Hamas potentially more inclined to compromise, and could boost the influence of more hostile states, such as Iran, over the group.

Hamas still holds about 100 hostages seized during its surprise attack into Israel last October. Multiple rounds of negotiations aimed at securing an end to the 13 month-long war in Gaza have failed.

The small but influential Gulf state has been a key intermediary in the talks to broker a ceasefire and is likely to comply with the US request, analysts said. The US official told Reuters that Qatar, which is designated as a major non-Nato ally by Washington, passed on the demand to Hamas leaders about 10 days ago.

Hamas leaders have been preparing for many months to leave Qatar, with Turkey and Iraq suggested as possible alternatives. The group recently opened a political office in Baghdad.

Hamas officials denied Qatar has told the organisation to leave and there has been no reaction from Qatar’s foreign ministry to the reports.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi has warned the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, where Israel is battling Iran-backed groups, could spill over beyond the Middle East.

According to Agence France Presse (AFP) in a speech on Saturday that aired on Iranian state TV, Araghchi said: “The world should know that in case of the expansion of war, its harmful effects will not be limited only to the West Asia region; insecurity and instability can spread to other regions, even far away.”

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the conflicts in the Middle East.

At least 14 people were killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza late on Friday and early on Saturday, the Palestinian news agency Wafa has reported.

The dead included nine who were killed when Israeli fighter jets bombed tents housing displaced people in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.

Al Jazeera reported that women and children were among the dead and that the tents were in the al-Mawasi area, which Israel has designated a “humanitarian zone” although it has repeatedly attacked it.

Another five were killed and others wounded when Israeli forces targeted a school housing displaced people in Gaza City. Al Jazeera reported that two journalist siblings, Ahmad Abu Sakhil and Zahra Abu Sakhil, were among the dead together with their father, Muhammad.

Israel has repeatedly been accused of targeting journalists in its military campaign – an unprecedented number have died in the conflict – which it denies.

Al Jazeera reported that a “densely populated house” was also hit in Beit Lahiya with at least one dead and others injured.

Lebanese state media said Israeli air strikes also hit Beirut’s southern suburbs on Friday, while at at least three people were killed and 30 others wounded on Friday in Israeli strikes on the southern city of Tyre.

More on that soonest. In other developments:

• There is a “strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas” of the northern Gaza Strip, a committee of global food security experts warned on Friday, as Israel claims to be pursuing a military offensive against Palestinian militant group Hamas in the area. “Immediate action, within days not weeks, is required from all actors who are directly taking part in the conflict, or have influence on its conduct, to avert and alleviate this catastrophic situation,” the independent Famine Review Committee (FRC) said in a rare alert.

• The FRC said it could be “assumed that starvation, malnutrition, and excess mortality due to malnutrition and disease, are rapidly increasing” in north Gaza. “Famine thresholds may have already been crossed or else will be in the near future,” the global hunger monitor said.

• Nearly 70% of the people killed in the war in Gaza are women and children, according to a UN analysis of verified deaths that highlights the heavy civilian toll of the conflict. In a new report, the most detailed analysis of its kind yet, the UN human rights office said it had verified 8,119 of those killed during the first six months of the war in Gaza. Of the fatalities, 3,588 were children and 2,036 were women. The youngest victim was a one-day-old boy and the oldest was a 97-year-old woman.

• The UN’s peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon said on Friday that the Israeli military’s “deliberate and direct destruction” of its property was a “flagrant violation” of international law. Since Israel launched a ground campaign across the border against Hezbollah fighters at the end of September, Unifil has accused the Israel Defense Forces on several occasions of deliberately attacking its bases, including by shooting at peacekeepers and destroying watchtowers, which Israel denies. In its latest accusation, Unifil said the IDF used excavators and a bulldozer to destroy part of a fence and concrete structure at a UN peacekeeping position in southern Lebanon on Thursday. Peacekeepers had also observed Israeli troops this week removing a barrel that marks blue line, it said.

• Benjamin Netanyahu has appointed a hardline supporter of the war in Gaza and longtime backer of settlements in the West Bank as his ambassador to the US as Israel prepares for the incoming administration of Donald Trump. Yechiel Leiter, an American-born rightwing publicist and former government aide who immigrated to Israel four decades ago, was announced as Israel’s next ambassador to Washington on Friday.

• Amsterdam police have made more than 60 arrests after what authorities called “hateful antisemitic violence” against Israeli football fans. A plane carrying football supporters brought home from the Dutch capital by the Israeli government landed on Friday at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport after the clashes on Thursday, which took place after a Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv.

• Amsterdam’s police chief, Peter Holla, said there had been “incidents on both sides”, starting on Wednesday night when Maccabi fans tore down a Palestinian flag from the facade of a building in the city centre and shouted “fuck you Palestine”. A social media video verified by Reuters showed Maccabi fans setting off flares and chanting “Olé, olé, let the IDF win, we will fuck the Arabs”, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.