Crisis in Gaza
Live Reporting
Gaza’s main crossings still shuttered, not viable: UN
It is “nearly impossible” to distribute aid within Gaza, where more than 1.7 million people are displaced, says the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), adding that the crossings are either “closed, unsafe to access, or not logistically viable”.
The main Rafah crossing on the border with Egypt, now seized by Israel’s military, has been completely shuttered since May 8, cutting off the only evacuation route for injured Palestinians in need of medical treatment.
Three quarters of Gaza’s telecom towers out of service
Israeli attacks on Gaza have knocked out telecommunications and internet at least 10 times since October last year, while rendering 75 percent of the enclave’s mobile phone towers inoperable, according to Palestine’s Central Bureau of Statistics and Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.
The blackouts have isolated Gaza’s population, obstructed journalists from reporting on Israeli attacks, and hampered search-and-rescue operations, said a statement from the ministry and statistics bureau cited by the Wafa news agency.
Digital rights group AccessNow, which reports on global internet censorship, said evidence shows Gaza’s outages stem from a combination of Israel’s “direct attacks on civilian telecommunications infrastructure (including cell towers, fiber optic cables, and ISP offices), restrictions on access to electricity (through infrastructure attacks, denial of service, and blockading of fuel required to run generators), and technical disruptions to telecommunications services”.
Rights groups, including Amnesty International, have warned that the blackouts challenge efforts to document potential rights abuses.
Israeli forces arrest 12 Palestinians in occupied West Bank: Prisoner’s Society
Israeli forces have arrested at least 12 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank overnight, including children and former prisoners, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said.
Arrests were conducted in governorates of Ramallah, Hebron, Jenin, Nablus, Tubas and Qalqilya.
Israeli forces also carried out large-scale raids on exchange shops in all governorates, it said.
Israeli jets continue bombardment in Jabalia
Israeli air strikes have continued to pound northern Gaza’s Jabalia, where Israeli troops have engaged in fierce gun battles with Palestinian fighters.
A video posted on Instagram by Palestinian activist Mohamed Ahmed, and verified by Al Jazeera, shows smoke rising over targeted buildings in central Jabalia on Thursday morning.
Yesterday, Israeli tanks and troops pushed deep into densely populated neighbourhoods of Jabalia, encountering fierce resistance, as Israeli jets frequently raided parts of the city.
One Israeli strike hit a family home, killing at least four people in addition to causing injuries, according to Wafa news agency.
Hamas leader says Israel ‘put negotiations at an impasse’
Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas’s political bureau, has blamed Israel for the current deadlock in Gaza ceasefire talks, saying their amendments on the proposal introduced by mediators Qatar and Egypt have “put the negotiations at an impasse”.
“We recently announced our agreement to the proposal presented to us by our brothers in Egypt and Qatar, which was known to the American administration. But the [Israeli] occupation responded to this proposal by occupying and controlling the Rafah crossing and starting aggression in the Rafah area,” he said.
Haniyeh also rejected any post-war settlement in Gaza that excludes the group.
Hundreds of thousands flee Rafah under controversial military evacuation orders
According to the UN, at least 600,000 Palestinians have fled the Rafah district since the start of the Israeli military incursion.
The Israeli military has mobilised more troops in order to expand fighting in the area despite describing the operation as being limited. There is a lot of destruction in the eastern portion of Rafah city where confrontations are continuing.
In the past couple of hours, there have been more attacks, with four Palestinians from the same family killed in the western part of Rafah.
The military has also dropped leaflets in the western areas of Rafah, close to al-Mawasi, calling for any kind of help from Palestinian residents to find Israeli captives.
CENTCOM announces Gaza floating aid pier has been anchored
The US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) has announced that a new US-built, temporary humanitarian aid pier was anchored to the beach in Gaza this morning.
It said trucks carrying humanitarian assistance are expected to “begin moving ashore in the coming days”, with the aid set to be received and distributed by the UN.
Relief groups have warned that the plan – which aims to boost aid deliveries to the besieged enclave – faces the same challenges that they do, namely a lack of safety and fuel.
Arrests as US police storm pro-Palestine campus protests
Police in the US arrested students at an encampment set up at the University of California, Irvine in support of a ceasefire in Gaza. This comes after hundreds of students closed off a lecture hall on the campus on Wednesday.
The university is one of many across the country where protesters have been demanding that institutions divest from Israeli companies.
Students at the University of Florida in Gainesville have also been demonstrating against the war in Gaza, ignoring the university’s orders not to do so.
California state university head on leave after agreeing to Israel boycott
Mike Lee, the president of Sonoma State University in northern California, has announced that he is on leave following backlash at his administration’s decision to agree to an academic boycott of Israel.
Lee agreed to the boycott as part of a much-criticised deal with protesters to remove their encampment, set up as part of a student-led movement demanding divestment from Israel at universities across the US. The deal also saw an “advisory council” set up to ensure compliance with the boycott.
Lee, who has faced criticism from Jewish groups and lawmakers, said he intended to “create a safe and inclusive campus for all” by agreeing to the protesters’ demands, but said that his “campus-wide message did just the opposite”.
“In my attempt to find agreement with one group of students, I marginalised other members of our student population and community. I realise the harm that this has caused, and I take full ownership of it,” he said.
Jewish Biden appointee who resigned says US president has ‘blood on his hands’
Lily Greenberg Call is the first “Biden appointee” to resign as a result of Joe Biden’s complete acquiescence to Israel’s slaughter in Gaza.
Actually, another Jewish member of the US administration did resign – a career military officer in the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Greenberg Call talks in her resignation letter about how she was a true believer in the Biden administration having worked on Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.
However, she writes that she can no longer, in good conscience, continue to represent this administration amidst President Biden’s disastrous, continued support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
She actually goes on to say that President Biden has the blood of innocent people on his hands.
And she particularly centres her opposition on being Jewish. In particular, she is very triggered by President Biden’s consistent conflation of Jewishness and supporting what Israel is doing in Gaza.
Biden, she writes, is making Jews the face of the American war machine – and that is so deeply wrong. And she says that both Biden and Israel are making Jews less safe around the world.
Reports that Israeli military ‘worried’ political leadership not heeding US advice on Gaza
We know that the Americans have been frustrated and have also suggested that Netanyahu try to formulate a plan for how Gaza should be governed once the war is over.
We’ve seen more and more unnamed members of the Israeli military establishment – but members of the military establishment nonetheless – being quoted throughout the Israeli media landscape and Israeli media outlets expressing frustration about the fact they don’t think enough is being done to come up with a plan for a post-war scenario in Gaza.
Members of the military establishment are being quoted in Israeli outlets saying that they are very worried because political leadership in Israel is not heeding the advice of the US and what the US is urging Israel to do.
And that could constitute a bigger fracture in the relationship between the US and Israel going forward.
Italian chef Gabriele Rubini says he was attacked by ‘Zionists’
Prominent Italian chef Gabriele Rubini, better known as Chef Rubio, has said that he was ambushed by a group of “Zionists” outside his home in Italy.
The television personality – who has labelled Israel a “fascist” state, was arrested for his pro-Palestine activism and had been accused of anti-Semitism – posted a video on X showing his bloodied face and swollen eye after the attack.
“Terrorists. These are the Zionist Jews. Six of them waited for me outside the house and cut the gate wires to massacre me,” he wrote.
Other posts on the celebrity chef’s social media page showed the inside of a vehicle strewn with glasses from broken windows and him later in hospital with a bandage on a head wound and flashing a V sign for “victory” with the fingers of his right hand.
Deepening divisions in Israeli war cabinet over Netanyahu’s lack of planning for post-war Gaza
A public spat has laid bare the divisions in Israel’s war cabinet.
On Wednesday at a news conference in Tel Aviv, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant stated publicly that Israel should not be involved in military rule in Gaza once the war is over. He also called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to publicly reject that scenario as well.
Not too long after that, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Palestinian Authority won’t rule Gaza and added that as long as Hamas remains, no other party will govern in Gaza.
Also responding, a third member of the war cabinet in Israel, Benny Gantz, backed Gallant and said that Gallant speaks the truth and that it is the leadership’s responsibility to do the right thing for the country at all costs.
This is all really showing deepening divisions among members of the war cabinet at a very critical time.
At a time when more critics of Netanyahu are stating that he has not expressed any clear plan for how Gaza should be governed once the war is over, in a so-called “day after” scenario.
Three Palestinians killed as Israeli military storms Tulkarem
The Israeli military has shot and killed three Palestinians in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem, the Wafa news agency reports.
Israeli forces opened fire in the streets and deployed snipers, killing three Palestinian men in their 20s, as they stormed the city, according to Wafa. Another man was arrested in the town of Anabta, east of Tulkarem, during the raid.
The Israeli military has also arrested four workers after conducting raids on money exchange shops in Bethlehem, el-Bireh, Jenin, Tulkarem, Nablus and Tubas, where fighting and explosions have also been reported.
Israeli raids have been reported elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, including:
The city of Hebron
The town of Beit Ummar
The city of Jericho
Two Palestinians were shot during the Israeli military’s storming of Qalqilya
A man was arrested during raids on the towns of as-Samu and Bani Naim in Hebron Governorate
Israel carried out 80 attacks on aid in Gaza since January
The research group Forensic Architecture said it has identified at least 80 separate attacks by Israeli forces targeting humanitarian aid in Gaza since January.
The attacks include at least 37 against civilians seeking aid, all near the Israeli-controlled checkpoints on Salah al-Din Street and al-Rashid Street in northern Gaza.
“The frequency and widespread nature of these attacks suggests that Israel is systematically targeting aid,” the group said.
Hamas’s political bureau has blamed Israel for the current deadlock in truce talks, saying their amendments to the Gaza ceasefire proposal introduced by Qatar and Egypt led negotiations into an impasse.
Israeli settlers have attacked a truck and beaten its driver near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, apparently thinking the vehicle was carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Israel PM says no humanitarian crisis as 500,000 flee Rafah
RAFAH, Gaza (AFP) - Israel's prime minister on Wednesday (May 15) insisted there was no "humanitarian catastrophe" in Rafah as he announced nearly 500,000 people had been evacuated from the south Gaza city amid intense fighting.
It came as Palestinians commemorated the 76th anniversary of the "Nakba", when around 760,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes during the 1948 wartime creation of Israel.
