Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 213

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has welcomed the decision by Hamas to accept a ceasefire in Gaza, adding he hopes Israel will do the same, Reuters reports.

Speaking after a cabinet meeting, Erdogan called on Western countries to increase pressure on Israel’s leadership to accept the ceasefire.

“We welcome the statement by Hamas that they accepted the ceasefire with our suggestion. Now, Israel must take the same step,” he said.

An Israeli official said no ceasefire had been agreed in Gaza after Hamas said it had accepted a proposal from Egyptian and Qatari mediators, Reuters reports.

The Israeli official said the proposal that Hamas had accepted was a “softened” version of an Egyptian proposal, which included “far-reaching” conclusions that Israel could not accept.

“This would appear to be a ruse intended to make Israel look like the side refusing a deal,” said the Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Separately, Hamas official Taher Al-Nono told Reuters that the ceasefire proposal entailed a ceasefire, reconstruction of Gaza, return of the displaced and a prisoner swap deal.

A ground invasion into Rafah poses “catastrophic risks” to the hundreds of thousands of children taking shelter in the area, the United Nations Children’s Fund has said according to Al Jazeera.

“Rafah is now a city of children, who have nowhere safe to go in Gaza. If large-scale military operations start, not only will children be at risk from the violence, but also from chaos and panic, and at a time where their physical and mental states are already weakened,” Unicef Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement.

“More than 200 days of war have taken an unimaginable toll on the lives of children.”

Unicef said children in Gaza are being “disproportionately” killed and wounded while suffering “more acutely from disruptions to healthcare and education”.

The United Nations has condemned Israel’s order for Palestinians to evacuate from Rafah in southern Gaza as “impossible to carry out safely” as alarm grows over the move, AFP reports.

“Today’s evacuation orders for East Rafah will only worsen the civilians’ suffering,” said Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, adding “a mass evacuation on this scale is impossible to carry out safely. “

A senior Hamas official has said that Israel must decide whether it accepts or “obstructs” a truce in Gaza after the Palestinian group announced it had accepted mediators’ latest proposal, AFP reports.

“After Hamas agreed to the mediators’ proposal for a ceasefire, the ball is now in the court of Israeli occupation, whether it will agree to the ceasefire agreement or obstruct it,” the official told AFP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak publicly about the negotiations.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk has called for a stop to the bombardment in Gaza, adding that more attacks on what is now the primary humanitarian hub in the Gaza Strip were not the answer, AFP reports.

“Enough of the killing,” Turk said.

“There must be a ceasefire. Humanitarian aid must be allowed to flow freely and at scale. And the hostages and those arbitrarily detained must be released at once.”

Turk said two crossings into Rafah had been shut, halting the inflow of “meagre” levels of humanitarian aid.

He said there was no location outside of Rafah able to cope with the mass displacement of more than a million people.

“The experience of the past seven months shows Palestinians who remain in Rafah will continue to be at risk of death and injury, whether by indiscriminate bombing, unlawful killing, or loss of access to food, water and healthcare. This must not be allowed to happen,” said Turk.

His statement said international humanitarian law prohibited ordering the displacement of civilians for reasons related to a conflict unless the security of civilians were involved or imperative military reasons require it — and even then it is subject to strict legal requirements.

“Failure to meet these obligations may amount to forced displacement, which is a war crime,” the statement said.

A group of Republican senators has sent a letter to International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Karim Khan, warning him not to issue international arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, and threatening him with “severe sanctions” if he does so, Zeteo reports.

In a one-page letter signed by 12 senators, Khan was informed that any attempt by the ICC to hold Netanyahu and his colleagues to account for their actions in Gaza would be interpreted “not only as a threat to Israel’s sovereignty but to the sovereignty of the United States.”

“Target Israel and we will target you,” the senators told Khan, adding that they would “sanction your employees and associates, and bar” their families from the United States.

Rather ominously, the letter concludes: “You have been warned.”

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Israel’s order for Palestinians to evacuate from eastern Rafah in Gaza is “inhumane”, the UN rights chief said, warning that suffering and destruction would soar beyond already “unbearable” levels, AFP reports.

Volker Turk said forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee to areas with almost no access to aid for survival was “inconceivable”.

“Gazans continue to be hit with bombs, disease, and even famine,” the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights said in a statement.

“And today, they have been told that they must relocate yet again as Israeli military operations into Rafah scale up.

“This is inhumane. It runs contrary to the basic principles of international humanitarian and human rights laws, which have the effective protection of civilians as their overriding concern.”

“Forcibly relocating hundreds of thousands from Rafah to areas which have already been flattened and where there is little shelter and virtually no access to humanitarian assistance necessary for their survival is inconceivable. It will only expose them to more danger and misery,” said Turk.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has said that with more than 1 million people crammed into Rafah, the consequences of a military offensive would be catastrophic.

The agency called for an “immediate and sustained ceasefire” in a post on X.

Saudi Arabia warned Israel against targeting Rafah as part of what it called a “bloody and systematic” campaign to storm all areas of Gaza and displace its citizens, the foreign ministry said in a statement according to Reuters.

The Palestinian Red Crescent told AFP that “thousands” of Gazans were leaving eastern Rafah amid bombing and after Israeli forces had ordered the southern Gaza area evacuated.

“The numbers of citizens moving from the eastern areas of Rafah towards the west are large, especially after the intensification of the bombing, there are thousands of citizens leaving their homes”, said Red Crescent spokesperson Osama al-Kahlout.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said the UK was “concerned deeply” about a possible offensive in Rafah after Israel told Palestinians to evacuate part of the southern Gaza city, AFP reports.

“We are concerned deeply about the prospect of a military incursion into Rafah given the number of civilians that are sheltering there and the importance of that crossing for aid,” he told broadcaster Sky News in an interview.

United Nations experts have condemned “unacceptable” violence by the Israeli military against women and children during the ongoing fighting in Gaza, particularly sexual violence and enforced disappearances, AFP reports.

“We are appalled that women are being targeted by Israel with such vicious, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, seemingly sparing no means to destroy their lives and deny them their fundamental human rights,” the seven special rapporteurs said in a statement.

The statement pointed to “continued reports of sexual assault and violence against women and girls, including against those detained by Israeli occupation forces”.

They cited UN reports saying women and girls in Gaza were victims of enforced disappearances.

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Unicef has warned that some 600,000 children packed into Gaza’s Rafah city face “further catastrophe”, urging against their forced relocation after Israel ordered an evacuation ahead of its long-threatened ground invasion, AFP reports.

“Given the high concentration of children in Rafah … Unicef is warning of a further catastrophe for children, with military operations resulting in very high civilian casualties and the few remaining basic services and infrastructure they need to survive being totally destroyed”, the United Nations children’s agency said in a statement.

It said Gaza’s youth were already “on the edge of survival”, with many in Rafah — where the agency said the population has soared to 1.2 million people, half of them children — already displaced multiple times and with nowhere else to go.

“More than 200 days of war have taken an unimaginable toll on the lives of children,” said Unicef executive director Catherine Russell.

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US President Joe Biden will speak to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after Israel’s military called for Palestinians to evacuate eastern Rafah ahead of an offensive, the White House has said.

“We have made our views clear on a major ground invasion of Rafah to the Israeli government, and the president will speak with the prime minister today,” a spokesman for the National Security Council told AFP.

Columbia, the prestigious New York university at the heart of US campus protests against Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, has announced that it cancelled the main ceremony for graduating students next week, AFP reports.

The Ivy League institution said it would “forego the university-wide ceremony that is scheduled for May 15” and hold a series of smaller events instead.

“We are determined to give our students the celebration they deserve, and that they want,” Columbia announced, saying “Smaller-scale, school-based celebrations are most meaningful to them and their families.”

“We will focus our resources on those school ceremonies and on keeping them safe, respectful, and running smoothly. A great deal of effort is already underway to reach that goal,” the university said.

Gaza civil defence and aid officials have said that Israeli jets struck two areas in eastern Rafah the Israeli military had ordered to be evacuated, ahead of a possible ground invasion of the Palestinian city, AFP reports.

“The areas targeted by the Israeli occupation are near the perimeter of Gaza International Airport, the Al-Shuka area, the Abu Halawa area, the Salaheddin street area and the Salam neighbourhood,” Gaza civil defence agency spokesman Ahmed Ridwan told AFP.

Another aid official confirmed the strikes.

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell has condemned Israel’s order for Palestinians living in eastern Rafah to flee the southern Gazan city ahead of an expected ground assault, AFP reports.

“Israel’s evacuation orders to civilians in Rafah portend the worst: more war and famine. It is unacceptable. Israel must renounce to a ground offensive,” Borrell wrote in English on X.

“The EU, with the International Community, can and must act to prevent such scenario,” he added.

France has said it is “strongly opposed” to Israel’s Rafah offensive, ahead of an expected ground assault in the southern city of the Gaza Strip, AFP reports.

“France reiterates that it is strongly opposed to an Israeli offensive on Rafah, where more than 1.3 million people are taking refuge in a situation of great distress,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

“The forced displacement of a civilian population constitutes a war crime.”

The health ministry in Gaza has said that at least 34,735 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory during almost seven months of fighting between Israel and Hamas, AFP reports.

The tally includes at least 52 deaths in the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 78,108 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since October 7.

Germany has called on all parties to continue negotiations towards a truce in Gaza, after disagreements between Israel and Hamas appeared to intensify at weekend talks in Cairo, AFP reports.

“The negotiations must not be jeopardised and all sides must make maximum efforts to ensure that the people in Gaza are supplied with humanitarian goods … and that the hostages are freed”, a foreign ministry spokeswoman told a government press briefing.

Palestinians in the southern Gazan city of Rafah voiced despair as Israel dropped fliers urging them to evacuate for their own “safety” ahead of a “limited” military operation, AFP reports.

Israel’s army said it was instructing Palestinian families in eastern Rafah to flee in preparation for an expected ground assault on the city, which abuts Gaza’s border with Egypt.

Residents of Rafah described emerging outside after a terrifying night in which around a dozen air strikes were carried out on the city, to find fliers falling from the sky telling them to “evacuate immediately”.

“The army is working with intensive power against the terrorist forces near you,” read a flier circulated in eastern Rafah.

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The number of Israeli soldiers killed in a rocket attack launched from the Gaza Strip towards the Kerem Shalom border crossing has risen to four, AFP reports quoting an update to the earlier figure by the military.

The military did not specify whether the soldier was among the 12 servicemen wounded in the attack on Sunday.