Egypt has said Hamas and Israel must show “flexibility” if they are to strike a deal for a ceasefire and hostage-prisoner exchange in the seven-month conflict in the Gaza Strip, according to a foreign ministry statement, *AFP * reports.
The readout of a phone call between Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said both diplomats agreed on “the importance of urging the parties to show flexibility and make all the necessary efforts to achieve a ceasefire agreement and put an end to the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza”.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said Thursday it was temporarily shuttering its east Jerusalem headquarters after “Israeli extremists” set fire to the perimeter following weeks of repeated attacks, AFP reports.
“This evening, Israeli residents set fire twice to the perimeter of the UNRWA headquarters in occupied east Jerusalem,” agency chief Philippe Lazzarini said on X, formerly Twitter, lamenting that it was the second attack on the compound in a matter of days.
He described how “a crowd accompanied by armed men were witnessed outside the compound chanting ‘Burn down the United Nations’.” UNRWA and staff from other UN agencies at the time were on the compound, which has on its grounds petrol and diesel stations for a fleet of UN cars.
“While there were no casualties among our staff, the fire caused extensive damage to the outdoor areas,” Lazzarini said, adding that UNRWA staff had put out the fire themselves.
The attack came after two months of “Israeli extremists staging protests outside the UNRWA compound”, he said, adding that one protest earlier this week “became violent when demonstrators threw stones at UN staff and at the buildings of the compound”.
Thursday’s arson attempts marked “an outrageous development”, Lazzarini said. “Once again, the lives of UN staff were at a serious risk”.
“In light of this second appalling incident in less than a week, I have taken the decision to close down our compound until proper security is restored.” The UNRWA chief lamented that “over the past months, UN staff have regularly been subjected to harassment and intimidation”.
“Our compound has been seriously vandalised and damaged. On several occasions, Israeli extremists threatened our staff with guns.”
After a US veto foiled the Palestinians’ drive for full UN membership, the General Assembly is expected to grant them some additional rights in the global body — a symbolic win that has already irked Israel, AFP reports.
With the onslaught in Gaza raging, the Palestinians in April relaunched a request dating back to 2011 to become full members of the United Nations, where their current status is a “non-member observer state.” To succeed, the initiative needed a Security Council green light and then a two-thirds majority vote in the General Assembly.
But the United States — one of five veto-holding members on the Security Council and Israel’s closest ally — blocked it on April 18.
Now the Palestinians are turning to the General Assembly, where diplomats and observers say a resolution calling for their full UN membership is likely to win broad majority support.
The draft resolution, introduced by the United Arab Emirates, says “the State of Palestine is qualified for membership in the United Nations in accordance with article 4 of the Charter and should therefore be admitted.” It calls on the Security Council to “reconsider the matter favorably.”
That is unlikely to occur, as the United States opposes any recognition of statehood outside of a bilateral accord between the Palestinians and Israel, whose current right-wing government is adamantly opposed to a two state solution.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he hopes he and US President Joe Biden can overcome their disagreements over the onslaught in Gaza, after Biden withheld some weapons from Israel, Reuters reports.
“We often had our agreements but we’ve had our disagreements. We’ve been able to overcome them. I hope we can overcome them now, but we will do what we have to do to protect our country,” Netanyahu said in an interview on the “Dr. Phil Primetime” show.
Hamas has announced that its delegation attending Gaza ceasefire negotiations in Cairo had left the city for Qatar, adding the “ball is now completely” in Israel’s hands, AFP reports.
“The negotiating delegation left Cairo heading to Doha. In practice, the occupation (Israel) rejected the proposal submitted by the mediators and raised objections to it on several central issues,” the group said in a statement, adding it stood by the proposal.
“Accordingly, the ball is now completely in the hands of the occupation.”
Amnesty International has said that all states must immediately halt the transfer of weapons, parts and ammunition to Israel and Palestinian fighter groups.
In a post on X, the human rights group said there was a risk they could be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international law.
Donald Trump has accused election rival Joe Biden of siding with Hamas when he threatened to stop sending US weapons to Israel, calling the president’s stance “disgraceful”, AFP reports
“Crooked Joe is taking the side of these terrorists, just like he has sided with the radical mobs taking over our college campuses,” Trump posted on his Truth Social network, referring to the protests against the bombardment in Gaza that have spread across US universities.
Speaking later to reporters outside the courtroom at his hush money trial in New York, Trump said that “what Biden is doing with respect to Israel is disgraceful.”
“He’s totally abandoned Israel and nobody can believe it,” said the former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
The new prime minister of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Mohammed Mustafa, has led a delegation to Riyadh to meet with Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Al Jazeera reports.
The PA’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the two discussed ways of “enhancing and coordinating relief efforts in Gaza” along with the mid-to-long-term ways the PA is undertaking promised reforms.
Mustafa also discussed the PA’s “worsening financial crisis” after Israel cut the tax revenues it collects on its behalf along with the “aggression of the occupation” across the West Bank.
The Saudi Foreign Ministry said the two sides discussed developments in Rafah in southern Gaza as well.
US President Joe Biden believes that a major Rafah operation by Israel will not advance the country’s objective of defeating Hamas in Gaza, the White House said according to Reuters.
“Smashing into Rafah, in his view, will not advance that objective,” spokesperson John Kirby said in a briefing with reporters.
Kirby said Hamas had been pressured significantly by Israel and that there were better ways now to go after what remains of the group’s leadership than an operation with significant risk to civilians.
“The argument that somehow we’re walking away from Israel, or we’re not willing to help them defeat Hamas just doesn’t comport with the facts.”
“We still believe that there’s a path forward, but it’s gonna take some leadership on both sides,” said Kirby.
“And it’s going to take a little bit of moral courage on both sides to finally be able to come across that table and ink this deal.”
Kirby said US-Israel consultations were ongoing about alternatives to a major ground operation in Rafah.
“That’s a choice that Israel will have to make,” he said of the offensive in densely packed Rafah.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has received a phone call from United Nations chief Antonio Guterres where they discussed Gaza truce talks and the “huge humanitarian consequences” of an Israeli military operation in Rafah, the Egyptian presidency said according to Reuters.
Hamas on Thursday called for an end to airdrops of aid after two Palestinians were killed in northern Gaza when an aid pallet crashed into a warehouse after its parachute failed to open.
Several countries, including the United States, Britain and France, have resorted to regular aid airdrops in northern Gaza, where humanitarian agencies have warned of a looming famine.
On Tuesday, two people died when an aid parachute fell on the roof of a warehouse where residents had gathered to collect relief supplies.
The latest fatalities take to at least 21 the number of people killed when airdrops of aid have gone disastrously wrong, according to the Hamas authorities.
“We reiterate that airdrops pose a real danger to the lives of citizens and do not provide a real solution to alleviate the food crisis plaguing northern Gaza,” Salama Marouf, head of the government’s media office in Gaza, said in a statement.
“We call for an immediate halt to the delivery of aid in this ineffective and erroneous manner, and we call for the full activation of the land crossings to deliver humanitarian aid to northern Gaza.”
Israel has submitted Gaza truce mediators with its reservations about a Hamas proposal for a hostage-release deal, and deems this round of negotiations in Cairo to have ended, a senior Israeli official has said according to Reuters.
The Israeli delegation is returning from the Egyptian capital and Israel will proceed with its operation in Rafah and other parts of the Gaza Strip as planned, the official added.
Hamas and Israeli negotiators have left Cairo “after a two-day round of negotiations” for a truce in Gaza, AFP reports quoting Egypt’s state-linked Al-Qahera News.
Efforts by Egyptian, Qatari and US mediators “are ongoing to bring the two sides’ points of view closer”, the media outlet reported, citing a high-level Egyptian source.
In an apparent message to US President Joe Biden, who has opted to suspend some weapons deliveries to Israel, Netanyahu has posted a video of an address he delivered on Sunday to commemorate the Holocaust, Al Jazeera reports.
In the speech, Netanyahu said, “No amount of pressure … will stop Israel from defending itself” and achieving its objectives.
“Eighty years ago in the Holocaust, the Jewish people were totally defenceless against those who sought our destruction. No nation came to our aid,” he said.
“I pledge here today from Jerusalem on this Holocaust Remembrance Day: If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone. But we know we are not alone because countless decent people around the world support our just cause,” Netanyahu continued.
Iran has freed seven of the 25 crew of a Portuguese-flagged ship that was seized in the Gulf on April 13, AFP reports quoting Portugal’s foreign ministry.
Five Indians, a Filipino and an Estonian from the MSC Aries were released, the ministry said in a statement.
Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has told the country’s “enemies and friends” that it would do whatever necessary to achieve its aims in Gaza and the north, in an apparent response to US pressure to halt its operation in Rafah, Reuters reports.
“I turn to Israel’s enemies as well as to our best of friends and say — the State of Israel cannot be subdued,” he said, according to remarks released by his office.
“We will stand strong, we will achieve our goals — we will hit Hamas, we will hit Hezbollah, and we will achieve security.
“We have no choice, we have no other country. We will do whatever is necessary, and I repeat — whatever is necessary, in order to defend the citizens of Israel, to remove the evil threats against us, and to stand up to those who attempt to destroy us,” he said.
Slovenia’s government has passed a decree on recognising a Palestine state that will be sent to parliament for approval by mid-June, AFP reports.
“The decree for the recognition of Palestine is part of the government’s efforts to end as soon as possible the atrocities in Gaza,” Prime Minister Robert Golob told a news conference adding the final decision could be adopted earlier than a June 13 target date.
“We will continue to follow the progress concerning peace talks, the release of hostages and the reform of the Palestinian authority and, if it proves to be faster, we might end the recognition process earlier,” Golob said.
Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon said she was “glad over the decisive and irreversible step towards recognition”, in a message posted on X.
Turkish Trade Minister Omer Bolat has said that Israeli claims of Ankara easing its trade ban with Israel are “absolutely fictional and have nothing to do with reality”, Reuters reports.
Turkey’s trade ban with Israel will remain in place until a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and humanitarian aid flow to the region is secured, the minister said in a post on X.
Foreign Secretary David Cameron described Britain’s system and scale of arms exports to Israel as completely different to that of the United States, saying the sales it licences are relatively small and policed by strict procedures, Reuters reports.
Cameron was responding to a question on whether Britain would follow the US after it warned that it would withhold weapons from Israel in case of a major invasion of Rafah.
“There’s a very fundamental difference between the US situation and the UK situation,” Cameron said after a speech.
“The US is a massive state supplier of weapons to Israel … we do not have a UK Government supply of weapons to Israel, we have a number of licences, and I think our defence exports to Israel are responsible for significantly less than one per cent of their total.”
Sick and wounded Palestinians are dying by the hour as they remain trapped in Gaza without medical care due to Israel’s closure of border crossings, Al Jazeera reports quoting the enclave’s health ministry.
“The wounded and sick suffer a slow death because there is no treatment and supplies and there is no possibility for them to travel,” the ministry said, adding that Gaza’s only dialysis centre has now closed.
“We launch an urgent and humanitarian appeal for pressure and urgent action to save the lives of these sick and wounded people, open the crossings, and allow the necessary medical and relief trucks to enter the hospitals,” it added.
Palestinians sit to next to their belongings as people flee Rafah after Israeli forces launched a ground and air operation in the southern Gaza city on May 9 — Reuters
Palestinian children pull water containers as people flee Rafah amidst an Israeli ground and air operation in the southern Gaza city on May 9. — Reuters
Palestinians travel in an animal-drawn cart as they flee Rafah amidst an Israeli ground and air operation in the southern Gaza city on May 9. — Reuters
Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who often uses social media to harangue political opponents, has posted a love heart emoji between the words Hamas and Biden, allegedly insinuating that the Palestinian group loves US President Joe Biden, Al Jazeera reports.
There are no other comments in his post on the X platform.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, seemingly reacting to the post, called the far-right minister a national liability and urged Netanyahu to immediately fire him.
“If Netanyahu doesn’t dismiss Ben-Gvir today, he puts every soldier in the [Israeli military] and every citizen in the state of Israel in danger,” Lapid wrote on X.
An adviser to Iran’s supreme leader has said the country will have to change its military stance against building a nuclear weapon if the country faces existential threats, Al Jazeera reports.
“We have no decision to build a nuclear bomb, but should Iran’s existence be threatened, there will be no choice but to change our military doctrine,” Iran’s Student News Network reported Kamal Kharrazi as saying.
The Israeli military has shot a 15-year-old Palestinian boy in the leg in the occupied West Bank city of Qalqilya, Al Jazeera reports citing the Wafa news agency.
Israeli forces fired tear gas and live bullets during their storming of the city in the early hours of this morning, during which they also arrested a man in his 20s, according to Wafa.
The teenager has been taken to hospital and his condition has been described as stable.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has said that “around 80,000 people have fled Rafah” following the Israeli ground assault.
“People are facing yet another forced displacement in the Gaza Strip,” the agency said in a post on X.
The agency added that the people who have fled Rafah are “seeking refuge elsewhere”, however, the “toll on these families is unbearable” as “nowhere is safe”.
