Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant says the military offensive in Gaza will continue until the captives are freed and the rule of Hamas and its military capabilities are dismantled, Al Jazeera reports quoting Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
Speaking at a ceremony on Mount Herzl, he added that the campaign will shape the lives of Israelis “for decades to come”.
An Israeli air attack on a house in the Brazil neighbourhood of Rafah has killed four people, including a young girl, according to Wafa news agency.
Earlier, the Palestinian Civil Defence said Israeli drones fired on rescue workers trying to reach a building after it was bombed in the Brazil neighbourhood, which is located in southeast Rafah.
A series of air raid alerts have been issued this morning in Israel, Al Jazeera reports.
The Israeli military reported two alerts in northern Israel, with one being determined to be a false alarm.
Sirens have also sounded in two areas near the boundary between southern Israel and the Gaza Strip.
Israeli tanks, under cover from heavy fire from air and ground, have pushed further into Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, residents and Hamas media said, while airstrikes hammered Rafah in the south, Reuters reports.
In Jabalia, tanks were trying to advance towards the heart of the camp, the biggest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps. Residents said tank shells were landing at the centre of the camp and that air strikes had destroyed clusters of houses.
Israeli troops forced hundreds of Palestinians housed in shelters to leave. In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, Israel stepped up aerial and ground bombardments on the eastern areas of the city, killing people in an air strike on a house in the Brazil neighbourhood.
Residents said Israeli tanks are now stationed east of the Salahuddin Road that bisects the eastern part of the city, with the highway cut off by intense fighting. Residents added the eastern part of Rafah remained a “ghost town”.
Hamas armed wing said their fighters were engaged in gun battles with Israeli forces in one of the streets east of Rafah, and in the east of Jabalia.
About a dozen students arrested by police clearing a sit-in at a Denver college campus emerged from detainment to cheers from fellow pro-Palestinian protesters, several waving yellow court summons like tiny victory flags and imploring fellow demonstrators not to let their energy fade, Reuters reports.
Just how much staying power the student demonstrations over the crisis in Gaza that have sprung up in Denver and at dozens of universities across the United States will have is a key question for protesters, school administrators and police, with graduation ceremonies being held, summer break coming and high-profile encampments dismantled.
The student protesters passionately say they will continue until administrators meet demands that include a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, university divestment from arms suppliers and other companies profiting from the conflict, and amnesty for students and faculty members who have been disciplined or fired for protesting.
Academics who study protest movements and the history of civil disobedience say it’s difficult to maintain the people-power energy on campus if most of the people are gone.
But they also point out that university demonstrations are just one tactic in the wider pro-Palestinian movement that has existed for decades, and that this summer will provide many opportunities for the energy that started on campuses to migrate to the streets.
Read more here.
Pupils sitting cross-legged on the sand take classes in a tent near Khan Younis in Gaza. Two sisters connect online to a West Bank school from Cairo. A professor in Germany helps Palestinian students link up with European universities.
After watching their schools and universities be closed, damaged or destroyed in more than seven months of onslaught, Gazans sheltering inside and outside the territory are doing what they can to restart some learning.
“We are receiving students, and we have a very large number of them still waiting,” said Asmaa al-Astal, a volunteer teacher at the tent school near the coast in al-Mawasi, which opened in late April.
Instead of letting children lose a whole year of schooling as they cower from Israeli bombardment, “we will be with them, we will bring them here, and we will teach them,” she said.
Gaza and the occupied West Bank have internationally high literacy levels, but Israel’s blockade of the coastal Palestinian enclave and repeated rounds of conflict left education fragile and under-resourced.
Read the full story by Reuters here
Dalia Fahmy, associate professor of political science at Long Island University, says Egypt’s decision to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel marks an “unprecedented moment in the modern-day history” between the two countries.
“Egypt has been the most important mediator in the region, the first Arab nation to recognise and formalise ties with Israel in 1979. And here is the symbolic moment, where the Egyptian government puts its foot down. The first is a humanitarian one, where the Ministry of Foreign Affairs says the [Israeli] intervention currently comes in increasing severity. And that Israel’s actions in Gaza leading to the death of almost 40,000 individuals violates international humanitarian law and the fourth Geneva Convention,” she told Al Jazeera.
“This moment has deeper implications at the political level, because Israel has not proved itself in the eyes of Egypt as a good faith negotiator. It didn’t sign on to the ceasefire agreement even though it had said it would. Also for months, Egyptian officials have stated that Israeli invasion of Rafah would risk peace ties between the two countries. It’s more than the ICJ ruling, it’s also a blow to the ties between the two countries, because Israel … has actually seized the border and they have taken tactical provisional authority over the border.”
The Israeli military says it opened the “Western Erez” crossing into northern Gaza to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid “in accordance with the directive of the government of Israel and in coordination with the US government”, Al Jazeera reports.
There were no additional details.
The move came as Israeli tanks pushed deeper into the Jabalia refugee camp in north Gaza and sent tanks back into the Zeitoun and Sabra neighbourhoods of Gaza City.
Israeli forces again carried out nighttime raids across towns and villages in the occupied West Bank, according to Wafa news agency.
A large Israeli convoy, including a military bulldozer, raided the town of Azzun, east of Qalqilya, and arrested dozens of young men, Wafa reported. One young man suffered bruises and fractures after being detained during the raid, Wafa added.
Another young Palestinian man was also arrested during an Israeli raid in Deir Samet, west of Hebron, Wafa reported.
Israeli soldiers also fired tear gas during confrontations with Palestinians after raiding the village of Tal, southwest of Nablus, at dawn, Wafa added.
A Palestinian woman has been killed and 10 people injured in an Israeli bombing of a home in the Shujayea neighbourhood of Gaza City, Al Jazeera Arabic reports.
Gaza City is in the north of the Gaza Strip, where health and emergency services have been operating at reduced capacity after months of Israeli bombardment and blockades.
An all-out Israeli offensive on the Gaza city of Rafah would provoke “anarchy” without eliminating Hamas, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday, as Washington stepped up a pressure campaign against such an assault, AFP reports.
Separately, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan emphasized Washington’s concerns about an offensive in a call with his Israeli counterpart, Tzachi Hanegbi.
“Mr. Sullivan reiterated President Biden’s longstanding concerns over the potential for a major military ground operation into Rafah, where over one million people have taken shelter,” a White House readout of the phone call said.
It said Hanegbi “confirmed that Israel is taking US concerns into account,” but did not elaborate.
But Blinken, when asked on CBS‘s “Face the Nation” whether the US concurred with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement that Israeli forces had killed more civilians than Hamas militants since the conflict began, replied simply, “Yes, we do.”
Blinken said a full-scale invasion could come “potentially at an incredibly high cost” and that even a massive assault on Rafah was unlikely to end the Hamas threat.
“Israel’s on the trajectory, potentially, to inherit an insurgency with many armed Hamas left, or if it leaves, a vacuum filled by chaos, filled by anarchy and probably refilled by Hamas,” he said.
Blinken also confirmed that the hold President Joe Biden has placed on weapons to Israel — as the US continues pressing it to better protect civilians and avoid an all-out invasion of Rafah — is limited to 3,500 “high-capacity” bombs.
A delegation of senior members of the US Congress has held a meeting with Qatari representatives in Doha, according to the Qatari Foreign Ministry.
According to Al Jazeera, it said the two sides discussed “the latest developments in the Gaza Strip and the occupied Palestinian territories, especially joint mediation efforts to end the war on the Strip”.
Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari led the Qatari team.
Additionally, the Amiri Diwan announced that a delegation of US Congress members met with the emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
The US delegation was made up of a mix of Democrats and Republicans and included Representatives Salud Carbajal, Dave Joyce, Ami Bera, Derek Kilmer, Juan Vargas and Lance Gooden.
The Israeli military has said it opened a new humanitarian aid crossing into the Gaza Strip in coordination with the United States, Reuters reports.
The crossing, called ’Western Erez, was opened in the northern Gaza Strip to transfer humanitarian aid, the military said in a statement.
The Palestinian Authority has said the Israeli finance ministry was continuing to withhold tax revenues and as a result, only a part of public sector salaries would be paid this week, keeping up a squeeze on payrolls that has lasted for months, Reuters reports.
The Authority said it would pay Palestinian public sector employees 50 per cent of their March salaries on Tuesday after Israel withheld a transfer due for April.
It said the arrears would be paid once the financial situation allowed.
The Israeli finance ministry confirmed it had been decided not to transfer tax revenues this month but declined to provide details.
Israel collects tax on goods that pass through Israel into the West Bank on behalf of the Palestinian Authority and transfers the revenue to Ramallah under a longstanding arrangement between the two sides.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has defended a decision to pause a delivery of 3,500 bombs to Israel over concerns they could be used in the Gazan city of Rafah, saying Israel lacked a “credible plan” to protect some 1.4 million civilians sheltering there, Reuters reports.
Speaking on ABC News programme ‘This Week’, Blinken said that President Joe Biden remains determined to help Israel defend itself and that the shipment of 3,500 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs was the only US weapons package being withheld.
That could change, he said, if Israel launches a full-scale attack on Rafah, which Israel says it plans to invade to root out fighters of the ruling Hamas fighter group.
Biden has made clear to Israel that if it “launches this major military operation to Rafah, then there are certain systems that we’re not going to be supporting and supplying for that operation,” said Blinken.
“We have real concerns about the way they’re used,” he continued. Israel needs to “have a clear, credible plan to protect civilians, which we haven’t seen.”
A conference of international donors in Kuwait pledged over $2 billion to aid the devastated Gaza Strip over seven months of Israeli bombardment, AFP reports.
The conference, organised by the International Islamic Charitable Organisation (IICO) and the UN’s humanitarian coordination agency OCHA, said the funds would be dispersed over two years, with the possibility of extension, in efforts to support life-saving humanitarian interventions in the Palestinian territory.
Hamas has said that remarks by US President Joe Biden that a ceasefire in Gaza would be possible if Hamas released its hostages are a “setback” to negotiations, AFP reports.
“We condemn this position by the US president, we consider it a setback from the outcomes of the latest round of negotiations, which led to the movement’s agreement to the proposal put forward by mediators,” Hamas said in a statement.
It added that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “rushed to overturn” the talks by launching an offensive in Rafah.
Stopping British arms sales to Israel if it launches a ground assault on Rafah in the Gaza Strip would strengthen Hamas, United Kingdom Foreign Secretary David Cameron argues.
According to Al Jazeera, Cameron said he did not support an operation in Rafah in the absence of a plan to protect hundreds of thousands of civilians sheltering in the southern city on the Egyptian border.
However, the UK is in a “completely different position” to the United States in terms of providing arms to Israel, he said, noting that less than 1 per cent of Israel’s weapons come from the UK and they are controlled by a strict licensing system.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is making late German dictator Adolf Hitler “jealous” with his methods of “genocide” in Gaza, TRTWorld reports.
“Is it possible to look at what Israel has inflicted on the people of Gaza for months and see it as legitimate for Israel to bomb hospitals, kill children, oppress civilians, and condemn innocent people to hunger, thirst, and lack of medicine under various excuses?
“What did Hitler do in the past? He oppressed and killed people in concentration camps,” Erdogan told Greece’s Kathimerini newspaper in an interview.
“Wasn’t Gaza turned into an open-air prison not only after October 7 but also for years beforehand? Weren’t the people there condemned to limited resources for years, almost like a concentration camp? Who is responsible for the most brutal and systematic mass killings in Gaza after October 7?” the Turkish PM said.
“Netanyahu has reached a level that would make Hitler jealous with his genocidal methods. We are talking about Israel; which targets ambulances, hits food distribution points, and opens fire on aid convoys,” he said.
Sameh Shoukry has said that a “political will” is needed to reach a ceasefire during the ongoing negotiations between Israel and Hamas — with Egypt and Qatar acting as mediators, Al Jazeera reports.
“There are moderate proposals that meet the purposes for both parties that should be approved so that there would be a truce, a hostages-prisoners swap deal, to handle the difficult humanitarian situation, and prevent any continuation of the displacement,” Shoukry said during a news conference with visiting Slovenian counterpart, Tanja Fajon.
Fajon said that every effort should be made to prevent further escalation in Rafah and to reopen border crossings.
Egypt says it will formally join the lawsuit filed by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which accuses Israel of violating its obligations under the Genocide Convention in the Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera reports.
In a statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Egypt said the move comes due to the escalating Israeli aggression against Palestinian civilians.
“[It] comes in light of the worsening severity and scope of Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, and the continued perpetration of systematic practices against the Palestinian people, including direct targeting of civilians and the destruction of infrastructure in the Strip, and pushing Palestinians to flee,” the ministry said.
Egypt said it is calling on Israel to comply with its obligations as the occupying power and to implement the provisional measures issued by the ICJ, which require ensuring the access of humanitarian and relief aid in a manner that meets the needs of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
It also demands that Israeli forces not commit any violations against the Palestinian people.
In the statement, Egypt renewed its call to the Security Council and international parties to immediately take action to achieve a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and to stop military operations in Rafah, as well as to provide the necessary protection for Palestinian civilians.
A full-scale Israeli assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah “cannot take place”, the UN human rights chief insisted, saying it could not be reconciled with international law, AFP reports.
“The latest evacuation orders affect close to a million people in Rafah. So where should they go now? There is no safe place in Gaza!” Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement.
“These exhausted, famished people, many of whom have been displaced many times already, have no good options.
He said a full-scale offensive could have a “catastrophic impact […] including the possibility of further atrocity crimes.”
“I can see no way that the latest evacuation orders, much less a full assault, in an area with an extremely dense presence of civilians, can be reconciled with the binding requirements of international humanitarian law and with the two sets of binding provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice.”
Volker said he was deeply distressed by fast-deteriorating conditions in Gaza, saying the latest evacuation orders had triggered “massive displacement of an already profoundly traumatised population”.
He said the towns supposed to receive those displaced from Rafah had already been “reduced to rubble”.
Turk also voiced concern at reports of indiscriminate rocket fire from Gaza. He said a full-scale offensive on Rafah “cannot take place” and called on all states with influence to do everything in their power to prevent it.
He also called on Israel and Palestinian armed groups to agree on a ceasefire, and for all hostages to be released immediately.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has warned Israel against expanding its military operations to Rafah, Al Jazeera reports.
“We consider an offensive on Rafah […] to be irresponsible,” Scholz said on a talk show organised by the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND) media group in Potsdam just outside Berlin.
“We warn against this, and we do not believe that there is any concept that will ultimately lead to this happening without incredible human losses in terms of innocent civilians,” he said.
The German chancellor added that humanitarian aid must also be brought to Gaza, and there must be a perspective for peaceful coexistence in which two states can exist side by side.
The health ministry in Gaza said that at least 35,034 people have been killed in the territory during more than seven months of Israeli bombardment, AFP reports.
The toll includes at least 63 deaths over the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 78,755 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since October 7.
Months after Israel said it had dismantled Hamas’ command structure in northern Gaza — devastated by intense violence in the early stages of the offensive — fighting has resumed in recent days in Jabalia refugee camp and Gaza City’s Zeitun neighbourhood.
AFP correspondents reported intense clashes and heavy gunfire from Israeli helicopters in the Zeitun area early on Sunday, with medics and witnesses saying troops were engaged in combat in Zeitun as well as Jabalia.
