Closing summary
Israeli tanks forged deeper into eastern Rafah on Tuesday, reaching some residential districts of the southern border city where more than a million people had been sheltering. Witnesses reported seeing tanks crossing the strategically important Salah al-Din road into the Brazil and Jneina neighbourhoods. Between 360,000 and 500,000 Palestinians have fled Rafah in the past week after Israeli warnings to evacuate eastern and central neighbourhoods.
A spokesperson for the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees, Louise Wateridge, who is in Rafah, wrote in a post on X that families still in the southern city had “moved as far west as possible”, describing inland in the city as a “ghost town”.
The World Court, also known as the international court of justice (ICJ), said it would hold hearings on Thursday and Friday to discuss a request by South Africa seeking new emergency measures over the Rafah incursion, which Qatar says has stalled efforts to reach a ceasefire. South Africa’s demand is part of a case it brought against Israel accusing it of violating the genocide convention in Gaza, and which Israel has called baseless.
Médecins Sans Frontières said that it had been “forced to stop providing healthcare at Rafah Indonesian Field hospital” as of Sunday. “MSF has seen a pattern of systematic attacks against medical facilities and civilian infrastructure since the beginning of the war. In light of this, as well as the advancing offensive, we have made the decision to leave Rafah Indonesian Field hospital,” the medical NGO said. It said the 22 patients who remained at the hospital have been referred to other facilities as MSF can “no longer guarantee their safety”.
The UK’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, said attacks on aid convoys headed for Gaza were “appalling” and that Israel must hold those responsible to account. The former Conservative prime minister said he would raise his concerns with Benjamin Netanyahu’s government after reports Israeli protesters blocked aid trucks, threw food packages on to the road and ripped open bags of grain. The aid lorries were targeted at the Tarqumiya checkpoint in the West Bank as they came from Jordan on Monday.
One of ActionAid’s partners in Rafah, Wefaq, has paused humanitarian operations there, with the charity warning that aid operations could grind to a “complete halt” as aid workers face an “unprecedented” level of danger making their jobs become “impossible”. The charity says that aid workers in Rafah are “experiencing the same inhumane living conditions as the rest of the population” and that “virtually no aid” has entered Gaza in recent days.
The Biden administration has assessed that Israel has amassed enough troops on the edge of Rafah to move forward with a full-scale incursion on the southern Gazan city over the coming days, CNN reported. The two senior administration officials also told the outlet that US officials are unsure if Israel has made a final decision to carry out the full-scale invasion.
We are closing this blog now, but you can stay up to date on the Guardian’s Middle East coverage here.
Updated
James Smith, a British emergency room doctor volunteering in hospitals in southern Gaza, said he had been told by a World Health Organization official that some emergency fuel had made it into the Gaza Strip, potentially enough for six days.
“Health is still being prioritised over other essential services, so when health looks a bit better it generally means other essential services are struggling,” he told Reuters. “It’s a zero-sum game.”
Palestinian hauliers said on Tuesday they feared for the security of aid convoys to Gaza, a day after Israeli protesters damaged trucks carrying much needed humanitarian supplies bound for the devastated enclave.
Reuters reports:
Footage circulated on social media showed at least one burning truck while other images showed trucks wrecked and stripped of their loads, which lay strewn over the road near Tarqumiya checkpoint outside Hebron in the occupied West Bank.
“Yesterday there was coordination for 70 trucks of aid to go the Gaza Strip,” said Waseem Al-Jabari, Head of the Hebron Food Trade Association.
“While the trucks were uploaded with products at the crossing settlers attacked the trucks and they destroyed the products and set fire in trucks,” he said, saying Israeli soldiers had stood by as the attack took place.
Monday’s incident was claimed by a group calling itself Order 9, which said it had acted to stop supplies reaching Hamas and accusing the Israeli government of giving “gifts” to the Islamist group.
Updated
Hospital forced to close as Israeli forces intensify offensive in Rafah - MSF
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said that it had been “forced to stop providing healthcare at Rafah Indonesian Field hospital” as of Sunday.
“MSF has seen a pattern of systematic attacks against medical facilities and civilian infrastructure since the beginning of the war. In light of this, as well as the advancing offensive, we have made the decision to leave Rafah Indonesian Field hospital,” the medical NGO said.
It said the 22 patients who remained at the hospital have been referred to other facilities as MSF can “no longer guarantee their safety”.
According to the UN’s office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs, 24 out of the 36 hospitals in Gaza are now out of service.
The fighting has forced many big aid organisations to shut down or cut operations across Gaza, amid increasingly acute shortages of fuel, food and clean water.
Health officials said they had received a consignment of emergency fuel and that healthcare was being prioritised over other services, meaning the few remaining hospitals in Rafah have a enough fuel to maintain reduced services for about six days.
Michel-Olivier Lacharité, MSF’s head of emergency operations, said:
We have had to leave 12 different health structures and have endured 26 violent incidents, which include airstrikes damaging hospitals, tanks being fired at agreed deconflicted shelters, ground offensives into medical centres, and convoys fired upon.
MSF staff were forced to flee Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in February after a shell struck the orthopaedic department and Israeli forces ordered the evacuation of the facility before raiding it, the charity said in its press release.
Here are some of the latest images of Gaza coming from the newswires:
Large parts of Rafah now a 'ghost town', says Unrwa spokesperson
A spokesperson for the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), Louise Wateridge, who is in Rafah, has said that families still in the southern city had “moved as far west as possible”, describing inland in the city as a “ghost town”.
“It’s hard to believe there were over 1 million people sheltering here just a week ago,” Wateridge wrote in a post on X.
This morning in western #Rafah: families have moved as far west as possible, now reaching the shore & along the beach. Today awoken by navy shelling.
— Louise Wateridge (@UNWateridge) May 14, 2024
Inland in Rafah is now a ghost town. It’s hard to believe there were over 1 million people sheltering here just a week ago. pic.twitter.com/2vcJRutzOS
Between 360,000 and 500,000 Palestinians have fled Rafah in the past week after Israeli warnings to evacuate eastern and central neighbourhoods before assaults that look set to open a bloody new phase of the war.
In the north of the territory, where Israeli troops launched a series of operations over the weekend, there were reports of the most intense battles for many weeks, forcing another 100,000 to flee after receiving instructions from the Israeli military.
Al-Mawasi, in the “extended humanitarian zone” designated by Israel as a destination for those told to evacuate Rafah and elsewhere, has limited sanitation, minimal water supplies and inadequate food, displaced people there have said.
Norway’s foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, has warned Israel against a large-scale military operation in Rafah, saying there is no place in Gaza civilians can seek safe shelter in.
He said:
It would be catastrophic for the population. Providing life-saving humanitarian support would become much more difficult and more dangerous.
The more than 1 million who have sought refuge in Rafah have already fled multiple times from famine, death and horror. They are now being told to move again, but no place in Gaza is safe.
The Norwegian government has proposed 1 billion kroner ($92.5m; £73.6m) in aid to Palestinians this year as humanitarian agencies warn of a looming famine in the Gaza Strip.
Figures in the revised budget presented on Tuesday, show a roughly quadrupling of the 258 million kroner provided in the initial finance bill adopted last year.
“The urgent need of aid in Gaza is enormous after seven months of war,” Norway’s minister of international development, Anne Beathe Tvinnereim, said.
“The food situation in particular is critical and there is a risk of famine,” she added, criticising what she called “an entirely man-made crisis”.
According to the draft budget, Norway intends to dedicate 0.98 percent of its gross national income to development aid this year.
Last month, Norway called on international donors resume payments to the UN agency for Palestinians refugees (Unrwa) after the Colonna report found Israel had yet to provide evidence that some Unrwa staff were linked to terrorist groups.
David Cameron calls attacks on aid convoys heading for Gaza 'appalling'
The UK’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, said attacks on aid convoys headed for Gaza were “appalling” and that Israel must hold those responsible to account.
Cameron wrote in a post on X:
Attacks by extremists on aid convoys en route to Gaza are appalling. Gazans are at risk of famine and in desperate need of supplies.
Israel must hold attackers to account and do more to allow aid in – I will be raising my concerns with the Israeli government.
On Monday, footage circulated on social media showing a group of men and women blocking aid trucks and pillaging and destroying their contents.
Boxes of food headed for Gaza, which is in the grip of a humanitarian emergency, were thrown on to the ground. Israeli police did not appear to intervene in the incident at the Tarqumiya checkpoint, west of Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Updated
My family is now sheltering in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. We had been living with two other families – 23 people – in an overcrowded house, writes Eman Mohamed, a maths teacher from Gaza.
But then more of our relatives from Rafah were displaced, and the number has now increased to 45. Imagine living in a house with so many people, each trying to make a small ration stretch beyond its limits in an attempt to get some calories for the day. Water, once taken for granted, is a precious commodity. We use seawater to bathe, and many get sick from drinking polluted water.
The living conditions here are abysmal for the tens of thousands of arrivals from Rafah seeking shelter and refuge. The crowding is unbearable. Outside on the streets are thousands of tents, filled with entire families. Some people sleep out in the open because there is nothing available to use as a tent, or even if they have a tent there is nowhere to put it because of the overcrowding.
Wastewater overflows into the streets and between the tents because there is nowhere else for it to go. The lack of sanitation causes disease, and the water is polluted. Mosquitoes and insects feed on the living, causing skin problems and reactions, and spreading more infections. We are fighting an invisible war against illness, infections and starvation.
You can read Mohamed’s opinion piece here:
Updated
Hamas’s armed wing said it had destroyed an Israeli troop carrier with an Al-Yassin 105 missile in the eastern al-Salam neighbourhood, killing some crew members and injuring others.
Summary of the day so far...
Israeli tanks pushed deeper into eastern Rafah on Tuesday morning, entering the neighbourhoods of al-Jneina, al-Salam and al-Brazil, residents said. Officials estimate that as many as 500,000 people have fled Rafah since being told to evacuate by the Israel Defense Forces before their first attacks around and in the city a week ago.
Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said Israel’s operations in Rafah have set back efforts at trying to reach a ceasefire in talks that are being mediated by Qatar and Egypt, although negotiations would continue. “Especially in the past few weeks, we have seen some momentum building but unfortunately things didn’t move in the right direction and right now we are on a status of almost a stalemate,” he told the Qatar Economic Forum. “Of course, what happened with Rafah has set us backward.”
The UN’s international court of justice (ICJ) will hold hearings on Thursday and Friday to discuss new emergency measures sought by South Africa over Israel’s attacks on Rafah during the war in Gaza, the tribunal said.
Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, meanwhile, said that Turkey has decided to submit its declaration of official intervention in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the ICJ. “We condemned civilians being killed on 7 October,” he told a press conference. “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.”
One of ActionAid’s partners in Rafah, Wefaq, has paused humanitarian operations there, with the charity warning that aid operations could grind to a “complete halt” as aid workers face an “unprecedented” level of danger making their jobs become “impossible”. The charity says that aid workers in Rafah are “experiencing the same inhumane living conditions as the rest of the population” and that “virtually no aid” has entered Gaza in recent days.
The Biden administration has assessed that Israel has amassed enough troops on the edge of Rafah to move forward with a full-scale incursion on the southern Gazan city over the coming days, CNN reported. The two senior administration officials also told the outlet that US officials are unsure if Israel has made a final decision to carry out the full-scale invasion.
Updated
World Court to hold hearings over Israel's attacks on Rafah
The UN’s international court of justice will hold hearings on Thursday and Friday to discuss new emergency measures sought by South Africa over Israel’s attacks on Rafah during the war in Gaza, the tribunal said. This is a Reuters snap. We will give you more information as we get it.
Israel’s international allies and aid groups have repeatedly urged against a ground incursion into Rafah, the southern city packed with Palestinians who say they have nowhere else to go.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, would be defying warnings of a potential humanitarian catastrophe by pushing ahead with a major offensive on the city.
Updated
Key event
Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, said that Turkey has decided to submit its declaration of official intervention in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the international court of justice (ICJ).
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, which it has repeatedly condemned.
“We condemned civilians being killed on 7 October,” 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.
On Sunday, Egypt announced its intention to formally support South Africa’s case at the ICJ, which alleges genocide by Israel in the war in Gaza.
Cairo said its move to back the case comes “in light of the worsening severity and scope of Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip”, according to a foreign ministry statement.
It further pointed to Israel’s systematic “targeting of civilians and destruction of infrastructure” and “pushing Palestinians into displacement and expulsion”.
South Africa brought its case to the ICJ in December, calling on the UN court to order Israel to suspend its military operations in Gaza. Israel has denied the allegations put forward by South Africa.
Al Jazeera has reported that dozens of killed and injured Palestinian people are under the rubble of a residential building in the Nuseirat refugee camp, in the central Gaza Strip, which was bombed by Israeli forces. This report has not yet been independently verified by the Guardian.
Charity warns that aid operations could grind to a 'complete halt' in Rafah
One of ActionAid’s partners in Rafah has paused humanitarian operations there, with the charity warning that aid operations could grind to a “complete halt” as aid workers face an “unprecedented” level of danger making their jobs become “impossible”.
The charity says that aid workers in Rafah are “experiencing the same inhumane living conditions as the rest of the population” and that “virtually no aid” has entered Gaza in recent days despite the deepening humanitarian crisis across the enclave.
One of ActionAid’s partners in Gaza, Wefaq, which is based in Rafah, has had to pause its operations after most of its staff were displaced from their homes, the charity said.
Israeli offensives have intensified in Gaza with witnesses reporting helicopter strikes and street battles in Rafah as hundreds of thousands of people flee intense fighting across the city.
It added that a hotline, supported by ActionAid, is still offering support for women and girls experiencing violence, but that the electricity and communication networks it depends on will stop running without sufficient fuel.
ActionAid says the Rafah crossing must be opened “immediately” and the Israeli offensive of the southern city should stop so that urgent supplies of food, fuel and medicine can be delivered safely to Palestinian people in desperate need.
Ziad Issa, head of humanitarian policy at ActionAid UK, said:
Due to fuel shortages and severe security constraints, our aid delivery services in Rafah are temporarily paused. Our partners have received multiple evacuation orders in the past few days, and the ongoing bombardment on Rafah is making it impossible for them to distribute aid safely within Rafah.
The obligation of conflicting parties is not only to ensure that aid gets through the borders but also to reach people inside Gaza.
The UK government must leverage its influence with Israel to protect civilians and aid workers in Gaza and facilitate the work of humanitarian organisations to deliver aid safely.
You can read the full press release here.
Updated
The UK’s Middle East minister, Lord Ahmad, said Israel is leaving its allies “very challenged” in assessing whether it is breaking international humanitarian law and its obligations under the Geneva conventions.
He admitted no aid, including fuel, has gone over the Rafah crossing since 6 May and the foreign secretary, David Cameron, would soon be receiving advice on whether UK arms were used in the Israel attacks on British aid workers in January and April.
Israel has admitted the attack in April that killed three UK aid workers was a mistake, and some officers involved have been dismissed.
Speaking to the foreign affairs select committee, Ahmad said he was not sure if Northern Gaza is on the brink of famine or in famine, “but the fact is there is malnutrition, the facilities in hospitals are dire and people are dying because of a lack of medicine support and basic amenities”.
Asked why there is a famine he replied directly: “the answer to that is due to the restrictions placed on aid getting through the borders”.
He added Israel “needs to recognise that as the occupying power under the Geneva Convention it has direct responsibilities and they need to ensure the food, the medicines, the support, the humanitarian aid needs to get in, and get in now”.
He indicated Cameron would be making a fresh legal assessment shortly, adding he believed he had made his views clear to the select committee. Israel, he said, “has the capacity to go in a much more measured and structured way”.
Pressed whether in practice “Israel’s activities has demonstrated a commitment to respect for IHL”, he said: “What is very clear to me, the challenges are intense and immense on IHL. I think Israel is really leaving many of its partners, including ourselves, pretty challenged on where we are currently on the issue of IHL, and how they are fulfilling their obligations.”
He said UK government judgment currently is Israel is not using food as a weapon of war, but added aid, food and medicines are not getting through. He said: “I am very clear on this that the fuel is needed to run the hospitals.”
He said officials were looking intensely on the prosecution of war. He said: “Our own assessment is that the operation in Rafah compared to what happened in Gaza City or Khan Younis has not been not on the same scale as those operations.”
But he then admitted: “There is no plan. Israel has not shown us a credible plan. You get a leaflet in the morning that says you must move by the afternoon. It is a pretty stark choice.”
He also acknowledged that the principles surrounding UK’s obligations about arms export licences applies whether the UK is exporting 1 % or 90 % of arms to Israel.
Asked about Israeli attacks on Medical Aid for Palestine in January and World Central Kitchen in April, Ahmad said “we need answers on this”.
He added more advice on whether UK licensed weapons used in the WCK attack would be going to the foreign secretary shortly.
The foreign secretary sends a recommendation to the business secretary who is responsible for the ultimate decision.
Updated
The World Health Organization (WHO) has voiced full confidence in the death toll figures from Gaza’s ministry of health after Israel questioned a change in the numbers.
Gaza’s health ministry last week updated its breakdown of the total fatalities of about 35,000 Palestinians, saying that about 25,000 of those people have so far been fully identified. UN agencies have republished these figures.
“The fact we now have 25,000 identified people is a step forward,” said WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier at a Geneva press briefing, saying that there was “nothing wrong” with health ministry data.
Farhan Haq, a UN spokesperson, said the new smaller numbers reflected those bodies which had been fully identified. The bigger figures included corpses for whom identification has so far not been completed.
Haq said it was expected that, as the process of identification continued, the official tolls among women and children would also rise.
You can read more about the figures here:
Updated
US believes Israel has amassed enough troops to launch full-scale Rafah assault - report
The Biden administration has assessed that Israel has amassed enough troops on the edge of Rafah to move forward with a full-scale incursion on the southern Gazan city over the coming days, CNN reported.
The two senior administration officials also told the outlet that US officials are unsure if Israel has made a final decision to carry out the full-scale invasion, which would be in defiance of Joe Biden’s warnings if it went ahead.
One of the officials also said that Israel has not made sufficient preparations – such as over food supplies, hygiene and shelter – ahead of its plans for evacuating Palestinians living in Rafah.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has said Israel lacked a “credible plan” to protect the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Rafah and warned an Israeli attack could create an insurgency by failing to kill all Hamas fighters in the southern Gaza city.
For the past week, the Israeli military has intensified bombardment and other operations in Rafah while ordering the population to evacuate from parts of the city, though residents say there is nowhere else safe left to go.
Fighting in Rafah has made it impossible for aid groups to access the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel. Officials estimate that as many as 500,000 people have already fled.
The US, which has provided crucial military and diplomatic support for Israel’s war on Gaza, has expressed growing impatience with Israel, saying it won’t supply offensive arms for a full-scale Rafah assault.
Updated
Swiss police have reportedly removed about 50 pro-Palestinian student protesters who have been holed up in a Geneva university building for nearly a week.
About 20 officers entered the UniMail building in the early hours of Tuesday morning, a journalist from the Keystone-ATS news agency said.
“The police intervened around 4:50 this morning to evacuate the fifty people still present in the university. Most of the demonstrators were asleep. After being gathered, they were directed to the establishment’s underground parking lot.” Julie Zaugg, a journalist with LemanbleuTV channel, said on X.
She said they shouted pro-Palestinian slogans before being handcuffed and taken away in vans.
La police est intervenue vers 4h50 ce matin pour évacuer la cinquantaine de personnes toujours présente dans l’université. La plupart des manifestants étaient endormis. Après avoir été rassemblés, ils ont été dirigés vers le parking sous terrain de l’établissement. @lemanbleutv
— Julie Zaugg (@Julie_zaugg) May 14, 2024
Geneva university officials had asked the protestors on Monday to vacate the premises and protest in a different manner.
University campuses around the world have been the stage of a growing number of protests by students, showing solidarity with Palestinains, who are demanding academic institutions divest from companies supplying arms to Israel.
The protests, which first spread across college campuses in the US, have reached universities in the UK, the rest of Europe, as well as Lebanon and India.
Updated
Qatar PM says Rafah operation sending ceasefire talks 'backwards'
Here are the quotes from Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, about Israel’s offensive in Rafah reversing the progress in ceasefire talks.
He told the Qatar Economic Forum:
Especially in the past few weeks, we have seen some momentum building but unfortunately things didn’t move in the right direction and right now we are on a status of almost a stalemate.
Of course, what happened with Rafah has set us backward.
“There is no clarity how to stop the war from the Israeli side. I don’t think that they are considering this as an option … even when we are talking about the deal and leading to a potential ceasefire,” sheikh Mohammed added.
Israeli politicians were indicating “by their statements that they will remain there, they will continue the war. And there is no clarity on what Gaza will look like after this”, he said.
Updated
Qatar PM: talks over Gaza ceasefire at stalemate after Rafah operation
Talks over a ceasefire in Gaza have reached a stalemate because of Israel’s operation in Rafah, Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, has said at an economic forum in Doha.
Sheikh Mohammed, whose country has mediated heavily between Hamas and Israel in trying to bring about a truce, said Qatar will continue its role. We will hopefully be able to bring you some quotes from the Qatari prime minister shortly.
Officials estimate that as many as 500,000 people have fled Rafah since being told to evacuate by the IDF before their first attacks around and in the city a week ago.
The Israeli offensive in Rafah, which borders Egypt, has closed a main crossing point for aid, something humanitarian groups say has worsened an already dire situation. There is widespread concern about how many civilians will be killed in the invasion.
Recent, indirect talks in Cairo on a ceasefire and hostage release deal were unsuccessful, with both the Israeli and Hamas delegations leaving.
Izzat El-Risheq, a member of Hamas’ political office in Qatar, said the Hamas delegation had approved an Egyptian-Qatari proposal that included the release of Israeli hostages held captive in Gaza and a number of Palestinians jailed by Israel.
Hamas has blamed Israel for the lack of agreement, and its Al-Aqsa TV’s Telegram account said the group would not make any concessions beyond those in the proposal it had accepted. Israel has said it is open to a truce, but has rejected demands for an end to the war.
Updated
Israeli forces have carried out at least eight strikes on humanitarian convoys and their facilities in Gaza since October, even after aid organisations provided their coordinates to the Israeli authorities, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.
HRW said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) did not issue warnings to the aid organisations before the strikes, which killed or injured at least 31 people.
In one incident, on 1 April, seven aid workers were killed in drone strikes in the city of Deir al-Balah. Missiles hit a convoy of three World Central Kitchen vehicles, two marked with the organisation’s logo on the roof and all carrying civilians.
HRW said the convoy “was travelling a route that the organisation said they had agreed upon with the Israeli military”.
You can read the full story by my colleague, Lorenzo Tondo, here:
Israeli tanks push deeper into eastern Rafah, residents say
Israeli tanks pushed deeper into eastern Rafah on Tuesday morning, entering the neighbourhoods of al-Jneina, al-Salam and al-Brazil, residents said.
“The tanks advanced this morning west of Salahuddin road into the Brzail and Jneina neighbourhoods. They are in the streets inside the built-up area and there are clashes,” one resident told Reuters.
Officials estimate that as many as 500,000 people have fled Rafah since being told to evacuate by the Israel Defense Forces before their first attacks around and in the city a week ago.
The Israeli military has ordered the evacuation of the eastern third of the city, which is packed with over a million Palestinian people taking refuge, according to estimates.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, is the last stronghold of Hamas.
Al-Mawasi, in the “extended humanitarian zone” designated by Israel as a destination for those told to evacuate Rafah and elsewhere, has limited sanitation, minimal water supplies and inadequate food, displaced people there have said.
Updated
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.
The Biden administration does not see it likely or possible that Israel will achieve “total victory” in defeating Hamas in Gaza, US deputy secretary of state Kurt Campbell has said.
While US officials have urged Israel to help devise a clear plan for the governance postwar Gaza, Campbell’s comments are the clearest to date from a top US official effectively admitting that Israel’s current military strategy won’t bring the result that it is aiming for.
“In some respects, we are struggling over what the theory of victory is,” Campbell said at a Nato youth summit in Miami on Monday. “Sometimes when we listen closely to Israeli leaders, they talk about mostly the idea of … a sweeping victory on the battlefield, total victory,” he said.
“I don’t think we believe that that is likely or possible and that this looks a lot like situations that we found ourselves in after 9/11, where, after civilian populations had been moved and lots of violence that … the insurrections continue.”
In other developments:
Residents said Israeli tanks pushed further into Jabaliya in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday, with tank shells landing at the centre of the city’s refugee camp and airstrikes destroying clusters of houses. Palestinian health officials said on Monday they had recovered at least 20 bodies of Palestinian people killed in overnight Israeli airstrikes on Jabaliya, while dozens of people were reported injured. Israeli forces fired on ambulances trying to reach injured people as air raids hit crowded residential areas within the sprawling refugee camp, Al Jazeera Arabic reported.
In the far south of the devastated territory on Monday, witnesses reported helicopter strikes and street battles in Rafah as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) consolidated their hold on neighbourhoods east of the strategic Salah al-Din road, which bisects the city. An unknown number of people were killed in an airstrike on a house in the Brazil neighbourhood.
Rafah residents received more evacuation orders through phone calls and text messages on Monday, causing more desperate people to start packing and leave, witnesses told Agence France-Presse (AFP). Up to 500,000 Palestinians have fled Rafah in the past week after Israeli warnings to evacuate before an imminent military assault. With the evacuation order and arrival of fighting, hospitals swiftly shut and meagre aid supplies vanished. Residents say they have no idea where they will go now, or how they will get there.
The White House has condemned an attack on an aid convoy heading to Gaza by Israeli settlers who threw packages of food into the road and set fire to the vehicles. Video of the incident on Monday at Tarqumiya checkpoint, west of Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, showed settlers blocking the trucks and throwing boxes of much-needed supplies on the ground.
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the Biden administration does not view the killings of Palestinians in Gaza by Israel in the war as genocide. “We do not believe what is happening in Gaza is a genocide. We have been firmly on record rejecting that proposition,” Sullivan told reporters at the White House.
At least 35,173 Palestinians have been killed and 79,061 injured by Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October, according to the enclave’s health ministry. Reuters reported the new figures from a ministry statement on Tuesday. There have been 82 Palestinians killed and 234 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry statement added.
A foreign UN security staff member was killed on Monday when a UN-marked vehicle travelling to a hospital in Rafah was struck – the first international UN fatality in the Gaza war, a UN spokesperson said, bringing the total death toll of UN personnel to about 190.
Updated
