Gaza Turmoil
Live Reporting
UN chief Antonio Guterres is “appalled” by Israel’s escalating military activity in and around Rafah, a spokesperson said, as clashes have rocked the densely crowded southern Gaza city.
“These developments are further impeding humanitarian access and worsening an already dire situation,” Farhan Haq said according to AFP, while also criticising Hamas for “firing rockets indiscriminately. “
Israel says Egypt needs to reopen the Rafah crossing with Gaza
Israel’s foreign affairs minister has said Egypt must be “persuaded” to reopen the Rafah border crossing with Gaza to “allow the continued delivery of international humanitarian aid”, Reuters reports.
Israel Katz said in a statement, “the key to preventing a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip is now in the hands of our Egyptian friends”, adding foreign critics blaming Israel for the humanitarian situation in the strip are misguided.
He also said the Palestinian fighter group Hamas will “not control the Rafah crossing — this is a security necessity on which we will not compromise”.
Turkey says to apply to intervene in ICJ genocide case against Israel
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said that Turkey decided to submit its declaration of official intervention in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Reuters reports.
Earlier this month Fidan announced the decision to join the case launched by South Africa as Ankara stepped up measures against Israel over its assault on Gaza.
“We condemned civilians being killed on October 7,” he told a press conference with his Austrian counterpart.
“But Israel systematically killing thousands of innocent Palestinians and rendering a whole residential area uninhabitable is a crime against humanity, attempted genocide, and the manifestation of genocide,” he added.
Pro-Palestinian protesters cleared from Geneva university
Swiss police moved in to remove some 50 pro-Palestinian student protesters holed up in a Geneva universitybuilding for nearly a week, AFP reports citing media reports.
About 20 officers entered the UniMail building around 0300 GMT, a journalist from the Keystone-ATS news agency said.
“Most of the students were sleeping. After being gathered they were led to the underground parking garage,” Julie Zaugg, a journalist with LemanbleuTV channel, said on X.
She said they shouted pro-Palestinian slogans before being handcuffed and
UN agency says nearly 450,000 displaced from Gaza’s Rafah since May
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said that nearly 450,000 people have been displaced from Rafah since Israel began issuing evacuation orders for the south Gaza city eight days ago, AFP reports.
“UNRWA estimates that nearly 450,000 people have been forcibly displaced from Rafah since May 6,” the agency said on X, formerly Twitter, without specifying where they fled to.
Top UN court to hold hearings on Rafah offensive this week
The top UN court said it would hold hearings Thursday and Friday over a request from South Africa to impose emergency orders on Israel to halt its Rafah offensive, AFP reports.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague will hear lawyers from South Africa on Thursday, followed by Israel’s response the next day, it said in a statement.
Earlier this month, Pretoria petitioned the ICJ for so-called provisional measures over the incursion into Rafah, asking the court to order Israel to “immediately withdraw and cease its military offensive.” It also requested the court to order Israel to take “all effective measures” to facilitate the “unimpeded” access of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Nakba survivor says Gaza’s displacement crisis worse than previous wars
Fatima Hussein, an 87-year-old Palestinian woman, says Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza brings back memories of being displaced from her village in the Nakba 76 years ago.
“In ’48 I carried my nephew and today my son and grandchildren carried me,” Hussein told the Palestinian news agency Wafa. “And in ’48 I ran away on foot and today I ran away by bus with only a few clothes.”
Yet, she added, the current war has brought a level of destruction and displacement not seen in previous conflicts.
“In the tripartite aggression, they executed civilians in the streets and in ’67 they occupied the Gaza Strip … but not at this level and there was no repeated displacement,” Hussein said.
Gaza rescue efforts may stop due to lack of fuel, heavy equipment
Gaza’s civil defence crew is struggling to reach victims trapped under the rubble of bombed buildings, said a spokesperson for the agency, putting the lives of hundreds of injured Palestinians at risk.
Israeli forces “continue to target and destroy the heavy equipment that helps us recover the victims”, said the spokesperson at a press confernece outside Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah.
A severe fuel shortage is further straining rescue efforts, which may soon come to “a total halt”, added the spokesperson.
“As we speak, hundreds of victims remain buried under the rubble and our teams are not able to recover them. These numbers are continuing to rise.”
Israeli jets bomb houses in Jabalia camp
Israeli jets have bombed a number of homes on al-Ternis Street in the Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza Strip, our Al Jazeera Arabic colleagues on the ground are reporting.
They added that Israeli artillery shelling in the middle of the Zeitoun neighborhood, south of Gaza City, left one person dead and many wounded.
Red Cross sets up emergency field hospital in Rafah
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and partners are opening a field hospital in southern Gaza to try to meet what they described as an “overwhelming” demand for health services since Israel’s military operation on Rafah began last week.
“People in Gaza are struggling to access the medical care they urgently need due, in part, to the overwhelming demands for health services and the reduced number of functioning health facilities,” the ICRC said.
On Monday, medical staff at the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah received an evacuation order from Israeli forces.
According to the WHO, only a third of Gaza’s 36 hospitals and 30 percent of primary healthcare centres are functional in some capacity.
Why are social media users blocking celebrities over Israel’s Gaza war?
The growing protests against Israel’s war on Gaza have now spawned a cyberspace movement that has erupted in the past few days, targeting celebrities who are seen as being insensitive towards, or even supportive of, the death and destruction in the Palestinian enclave.
The campaign that took off after the Met Gala on May 6 has earned the names: Blockout 2024, celebrity block list and digitine.
The idea is to block celebrities on platforms such as Instagram, X and TikTok.
But what’s it all about, why are parallels to the French Revolution coming up, does blocking a celebrity hurt them, and is the campaign seeing any impact?
‘We don’t know where to go’: Civilians in northern Gaza under attack
While Israeli operations in Rafah have forced some 150,000 people to flee over the past week, Palestinians in northern Gaza are also facing death and displacement as the Israeli military ramps up attacks across the besieged enclave.
Palestinians in the Jabalia refugee camp are fleeing an intensifying Israeli assault in the area. Civilian shelters and schools have been hit while fighting between Palestinian groups and Israeli forces has reached the centre of the camp.
“The tank is behind the classrooms in the schools,” Umm Jumma, a resident of the camp, told Al Jazeera. “We did not want to leave until we saw it with our own eyes.”
Another Palestinian in Jabalia told Al Jazeera that civilians are “running in the streets”.
“We’ve been displaced from one place to the next … we don’t know where to go,” she said.
Israeli fighter jets bomb targets in three areas of south Lebanon
The air attacks were carried out overnight on the villages of Adaisseh, Kfarkela, and the town of Khiam, according to the Israeli military.
Structures described as “military buildings”, and used by Hezbollah, were targeted in the three locations, the military said, alongside grainy video clips of extensive night-time explosions in what appears to be residential areas of Lebanon.
Fast Facts: Nuseirat refugee camp
The Nuseirat refugee camp was established in the aftermath of the Nakba, referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948.
More than 750,000 Palestinians were forcefully displaced, leading to the creation of Israel.
Nuseirat refugee camp takes its name from a local Bedouin tribe and is located in the central Gaza Strip. Before Israel’s war on Gaza, it had been a densely populated camp, home to 85,409 Palestine refugees registered with UNRWA.
The camp has been the target of Israeli raids and attacks since the start of the war:
On October 18, the Grand Nuseirat Mosque was mostly destroyed.
On March 17, 36 members of the Tabatibi family were killed in an Israeli air strike.
On April 11, the Israeli army launched its first ground operation into the camp, attacking two mosques, a UN-run school and a Malaysian school, killing at least four people.
On April 12, Sami Shehadeh, a journalist with Turkish broadcaster TRT, had his foot amputated after being wounded in an Israeli strike.
Israel is attacking known aid worker locations in Gaza, says HRW
Israel’s military has carried out at least eight attacks on aid workers’ convoys and premises in Gaza since October last year, even though the aid groups had provided their coordinates to Israeli authorities, according to a prominent rights group.
Human Rights Watch, in a new report, said Israeli authorities did not issue advance warnings to any of the aid organisations before the attacks, which have killed or wounded at least 31 humanitarian workers and those with them.
It said aid groups allege that a bomb used in one Israeli attack in January was US-made and was delivered by an F-16 aircraft that reportedly uses British-made components.
“Israel’s allies need to recognize that these attacks that have killed aid workers have happened over and over again, and they need to stop,” said Belkis Wille, associate director at HRW.
UN calls for ‘full investigation’ after Israeli military fired on a car in Rafah, killing staffer
A United Nations staff member has been killed in an attack in eastern Rafah, after the vehicle they were travelling in came under fire. The Israeli military is believed to have carried out the attack, but it is yet to confirm whether its forces were responsible for the killing.
The UN has confirmed that this is their first international staff casualty in Gaza since Israel’s war on Gaza began, while UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned the attack and called for a full investigation.
Gaza death toll hits 35,173, more than 79,000 injured
A total of 35,173 people have been killed and 79,061 injured in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7, the Palestinian territory’s Health Ministry says in its latest casualty update.
The ministry said that 82 Palestinians were killed and 234 injured in the past 24 hours alone.
Israeli fighter jets, attack helicopters, tanks shatter Gaza
An Israeli Apache attack helicopter fires a missile while flying over the Gaza Strip on Monday [Atef Safadi/EPA]
A smoke plume from an explosion billows in the Gaza Strip on Monday [Jack Guez/AFP]
An Israeli fighter jet ejects flares over northern areas of the Gaza Strip on Sunday [Atef Safadi/EPA]
A smoke plume from an explosion billows in the Gaza Strip on Monday [Jack Guez/AFP]
‘Absurd’ to provide Israel with 900kg bombs, says Senator Sanders
US Senator Bernie Sanders has said that President Joe Biden is “clearly right” for pausing a weapons shipment of powerful bombs to Israel over fears of their potential use on civilians in Rafah.
“I certainly support the president saying that it is absurd to provide Israel with 2,000-pound [907kg] bombs, which could level an entire square block in the midst of Rafah, which is an incredibly densely populated area,” he told NBC News.
When asked if Israel’s war on Gaza could be Biden’s equivalent of the Vietnam War, Sanders said he is “strongly supporting the president”.
“But I think there are a lot of people in the Democratic base who are concerned about his support for Israel in this war,” he said.
Deir el-Balah in central Gaza running out of space as more displaced Palestinians arrive
It has been a very tiring and frustrating day for people in Rafah and Jabalia.
In Rafah, there has been intense air strikes, artillery shelling and people were forced to evacuate under fire. People around the Kuwaiti Hospital in the city have also been receiving calls to evacuate. And most people are fleeing towards Khan Younis and here, in central Gaza.
We have seen more people coming to Deir el-Balah, looking for tents, looking for space. But unfortunately, Deir el-Balah is running out of space.
Survivor of Israeli air attack faces long road to recovery
Israel’s war on Gaza has left many children orphaned in the besieged enclave.
Those who survive face a hard road ahead, like Ghazal from northern Gaza. She not only lost her entire immediate family in an Israeli air strike, but she was also left with severe injuries, meaning she will need to use a wheelchair for the rest of her life.
Resignation of US military official over Gaza war ‘seems to be the first’
Major Harrison Mann had been with the army for about 13 years with a specialisation in Middle East policy. He worked at an embassy. He had been working at the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) focusing on the Middle East.
That’s a fairly powerful agency within the Pentagon. But now he’s released this open letter.
He gave a little bit of his history saying that as a descendant of European Jews, he was raised in a particular moral environment when it came to bearing responsibility for “ethnic cleansing”.
So really strong words from the major.
He resigned on November 1 from the DIA and, at the time, people asked him, ‘Why did you quit early and you don’t have a job lined up?’
He didn’t go public until now, possibly because of what is happening in Rafah.
We don’t know if he is the first person from the armed forces to quit because of [the war in Gaza]. We know there have been a few resignations within the State Department. And they have all been very public about why they’ve left.
But, publicly quitting the Pentagon, because of this. This seems to be the first.
Israeli protesters attacking aid trucks bound for Gaza is “utterly unacceptable behaviour”, says US National Security adviser Jake Sullivan, after the latest incident in Hebron.
Fierce fighting rocks Gaza after US warning of post-war 'anarchy'
GAZA CITY (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Israel battled Hamas in Gaza on Monday, including in far-southern Rafah, despite US warnings against a full-scale invasion of the crowded city and of the threat of post-war "anarchy" across the Palestinian territory.
Clashes also raged in northern and central Gaza as Israel marked a sombre Memorial Day, which is followed by Independence Day from Monday night, more than seven months into the war sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack.
