Israel presses ahead with Rafah assault, ignoring ICJ orders and global outcry

The New Arab's live blog on Israel's war on Gaza has now ended. Thanks for following. We will be back at 8:00 BST. 

Thousands of people gathered outside the British Prime Minister's residence in London on Tuesday evening to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and decry the attacks on Rafah.

Activist group the Palestine Solidarity Committee said over 10,000 demonstrators were outside Downing Street to pressure the UK government to halt its support for Israel after dozens of civilians have been killed by Israeli attacks in the past days.

10,000+ people at Downing Street now for Palestine as Israel continues its brutal attack on Rafah.

Our govt and the Labour leadership have provided support for Israel as it commits genocide. They have blood on their hands. They must call for a #CeasefireNOW and #StopArmingIsrael pic.twitter.com/ziCnwUx0Go

— PSC (@PSCupdates) May 28, 2024

Algeria has said it will propose a United Nations Security Council resolution to "stop the killing in Rafah", Algeria's ambassador to the UN told reporters on Tuesday.

"Algeria will circulate this afternoon a draft resolution on Rafah," Ambassador Amar Bendjama said. "It will be a short text, a decisive text, to stop the killing in Rafah."

The comments come after the UNSC held a 15 member urgent meeting to discuss Israel's latest assault on Rafah on Sunday which killed some 45 Palestinians.

Read more here.

US politician and former diplomat to the United Nations Nikki Haley has been photographed signing a 155 mm shell on a recent trip to Israel.

Writing on the Israeli military lethal weapon, the former Republican presidential candidate wrote: "Finish them! America loves Israel, Always, Nikki Haley".

The move was denounced online by some Americans, with one X user commenting: "While Americans watch Israel burn Gaza alive, and Palestinian children are beheaded, Nikki Haley writes love notes on bombs that drop on civilians."

“Finish Them, America ♥️ Israel Always!”

Message from @NikkiHaley, written on an Israeli missile intended for Hamas. pic.twitter.com/DgPQYNvkWM

— Team Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaleyHQ) May 28, 2024

The World Health Organization (WHO) said it was able to deliver supplies to Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in north Gaza for the first time in over two weeks, the director-general said on Tuesday.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the hospital in Gaza City is serving twice the number of people it is designed for and is lacking vital medical equipment.

"Road destruction, lack of safe access and fuel for missions is continuing to impede movement to the north. The city is full of debris and solid waste," the director wrote on X.

He said the WHO mission delivered 15,000 litres of fuel, 14 beds, and medicine and trauma supplies for 1,500 people.

Amid ongoing intense hostilities, @WHO and partners still managed to reach Al-Ahli Hospital in #Gaza city. First mission to the north of the Strip since 13 May.

We delivered 15,000L of fuel, 14 hospital beds, medicines and trauma supplies to cover the needs of 1,500 people.… pic.twitter.com/ipGWR2Hkkk

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) May 28, 2024

Senior Hamas politburo official Izzat al-Rishq said on Tuesday that it is clear Israel intends to "deliberately kill the largest number of civilians" following the strikes on a displacement camp near Rafah on Sunday which killed some 45 civilians.

Qatar-based al-Rishq said Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his army were afflicted by a "state of frenzy, thirst for blood, murder, and revenge" in a statement shared on Hamas' Telegram channel.

"If Netanyahu and his army think that by escalating their massacres and terrorism they can succeed in breaking the will of our people and achieving an alleged victory, then they are delusional," he said.

The military wing of Hamas said it struck Israeli forces near the Rabaa al-Asawiya neighbourhood in southern Rafah city on Tuesday.

Al-Qassam released a statement saying it hit the army with "107 short-range missiles", referring to  107-mm rocket launchers.

Fighting has been reported across the Gaza Strip throughout Tuesday, including dozens of civilian casualties.

Lebanon's Hezbollah group said it targeted a group of Israeli soldiers at al Raheb military base on Tuesday with artillery shells.

In a statement on the group's Telegram channel, it said it had been surveilling soldiers near the southern border wall.

"While they were moving, [Hezbollah] fired artillery shells and caused them confirmed injuries," the statement said.

Israel and Hezbollah have been engaged in attacks since October which have caused significant damages and casualties among fighters and civilians on both sides.

France's parliament on Tuesday suspended a left-wing lawmaker for two weeks after he held up a Palestinian flag during a heated debate over whether France should recognise Palestinian statehood.

Sebastien Delogu, a member of parliament for the France Unbowed (LFI) party from the southern city of Marseille, stood up with the flag during questions to the government.

Parliament speaker Yael Braun-Pivet denounced what she called unacceptable behaviour, and lawmakers voted to suspend Delogu for two weeks and cut his parliamentary allowance by half for two months.

Delogu left the lower chamber making a V-sign for victory, as right-wing and centrist lawmakers inside applauded the sanctions against him. Some deputies exchanged heated words outside the chamber.

« Nous ne sommes rien sur terre, si nous ne sommes pas d’abord l’esclave d’une cause, celle des peuples et celle de la justice et de la liberté. » Frantz Fanon

Pas de justice, pas de paix ! #Palestine #Rafah pic.twitter.com/JjunNMROvo

— Sébastien DELOGU (@sebastiendelogu) May 28, 2024

The US-based Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention has said Israel and the US are playing leading roles in acts of genocide in Gaza, in a strongly worded statement on Tuesday.

"The Lemkin Institute has had it with the cynical lies and propaganda from Israel and the USA," it said.

"Let us be clear: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The US is complicit in genocide. These are not political statements. They are statements that are made from knowledge and experience."

The institute first began working in 2017 when it investigated the genocide of Yazidi communities in Iraq by the Islamic State group, known as Daesh.

France's President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday that recognition of a Palestinian state was not a "taboo subject" but that it should take place at a "useful moment".

"There is no taboo for France and I am completely ready to recognise a Palestinian state, but... I think that this recognition should happen at a useful moment," he said at a press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

"I won't do a recognition of emotion," he added.

The decisions by Spain, Norway and Ireland to formally recognise a Palestinian state have sparked a debate over the issue.

Within the 27-nation European Union, there is disagreement over the move.

For decades, formal recognition of a Palestinian state has been seen as the endgame of a negotiated peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Washington and most Western European nations have said they are willing to eventually recognise Palestinian statehood, but not before agreement on thorny issues like the status of Jerusalem and final border demarcations.

The United States said Tuesday it was "deeply saddened" after an Israeli attack in the Gazan city Rafah killed 45 people as a blaze tore through a camp for displaced people.

"We are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of life in Rafah over the weekend," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.

The Israeli military "has promised that its investigation will be swift, comprehensive and transparent. We will be watching those results closely," he said.

"We will continue to emphasize to Israel their obligation to comply fully with international humanitarian law, minimize the impact of their operations on civilians and maximize the flow of humanitarian assistance to those in need."

Mexico announced on Tuesday its intervention in the case against Israel at the International Court of Justice on charges of genocide, giving its backing for South Africa.

Mexico is the latest nation to give its public backing for the case at the world's top court in which Israel is being tried on charges of genocidal acts in its war on Gaza. Egypt, Turkey, Ireland, Libya, and Colombia have also announced formal support in recent months.

Mexico states that it "seeks to intervene, in order to provide its view on the potential construction of the content of the provisions of the Convention relevant to this case".

The country has previously expressed support for the involvement of the International Criminal Court to investigate atrocities in Gaza.

Amnesty International has decried the new border crossing openings and the floating pier as "cosmetic changes" in what is a rapidly collapsing aid system in war-ravaged Gaza.

In a joint warning, 20 leading NGOs have warned that civilian deaths from starvation, disease and denied medical access will increase in Gaza as land entry points remain effectively shut.

"As Israeli attacks intensify on Rafah, the unpredictable trickle of aid into Gaza has created a mirage of improved access while the humanitarian response is in reality on the verge of collapse," a statement from Amnesty read.

One of the main medical agencies operating in Gaza, Médecins Sans Frontières, has not received supplies since 6 May and the lack of clean water has become a major hamper to medical care. It said that items like desalination kits which purify water are "almost always denied" entry into Gaza by Israeli authorities.

Read more about the humanitarian situation in Gaza here.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday condemned Israel's deadly May 26 air strikes on Rafah in the Gaza Strip and called for the horror and suffering to stop immediately, his spokesperson said.

"The Israeli authorities must allow, facilitate and enable the immediate, safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance to those in need and all crossing points must be open," U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.

A World Health Organization official said on Tuesday the last hospital in Rafah could stop functioning and a substantial number of deaths could be expected if Israel launches a "full incursion" into the southern Gaza city.

"If the incursion would continue, we would lose the last hospital in Rafah," Richard Peeperkorn, the WHO representative for Gaza and the West Bank, said on the sidelines of the World Health Assembly in Geneva, as Israeli tanks were reported to have advanced into the centre of Rafah.

He said that in the case of a "full incursion", a contingency plan involving treating patients in a string of ill-equipped field hospitals "will not prevent what we expect: substantial additional mortality and morbidity".

A U.S. built temporary pier that had been used to deliver additional humanitarian aid into Gaza was damaged by rough seas and has temporarily suspended operations, according to three U.S. officials who spoke to The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The Joint Logistics Over The Shore, or JLOTS, pier only began operations last week and had provided an additional way to get critically needed food to Gaza.

Palestinian group Islamic Jihad released a video on Tuesday showing an Israeli hostage alive and held in the Gaza Strip.

The captive, identified by Israeli media as Sasha Trupanov, 28, is seen speaking in Hebrew in the 30-second clip.

It was unclear when the footage, in which he is seen wearing a T-shirt, was taken.

Trupanov, a Russian-Israeli dual national, was captured on October 7 from kibbutz Nir Oz along with his mother, grandmother and girlfriend.

The three women were freed during a truce between Hamas and Israel at the end of November, which led to the release of 105 hostages.

An Egyptian security delegation is trying in coordination with Qatar and the U.S. to reactivate talks to reach a truce in Gaza and release hostages, Egypt's state-affiliated Al-Qahera News TV channel said on Tuesday, citing a senior official.

The official said Egypt took a firm stance against dealing with the issue of reopening the Rafah crossing with Gaza except with Palestinian and international parties, and not with Israel, whose forces seized the crossing in early May.

The official was quoted by Al-Qahera News as saying Egypt had told all concerned parties that efforts to revive the talks had been undermined by Israel's three-week-old assault on Rafah in southern Gaza, which had brought "dire consequences".

Last week, Egypt threatened to withdraw as a mediator in Gaza ceasefire negotiations after CNN reported that Egyptian intelligence had changed the terms of a recent truce proposal and scuttled a deal. 

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said during a speech on Tuesday that Israel was "without conscience or any controls, and is worse than the Nazis."

The University of Copenhagen said on Tuesday it would halt investment in companies that do business in the occupied West Bank amid student protests pressuring the campus to cut financial and institutional ties with Israel.

The university will, as of May 29, divest its holdings worth a total of about 1 million Danish crowns ($145,810) in Airbnb , Booking.com and eDreams, it said in a post on social media platform X.

The university said it would work with fund managers to manage its investments and ensure they comply with a United Nations list of companies involved in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

The University of Copenhagen has a yearly revenue of over 10 billion crowns, some of which is invested in bonds and equities.

Gaza's civil defence agency said an Israeli strike killed at least 21 people at a displacement camp west of the southern city of Rafah on Tuesday, days after a similar strike that sparked global outrage.

Mohammad al-Mughayyir, a senior official at the agency, said 21 people had been killed in an "occupation strike targeting the tents of displaced people west of Rafah".

Palestinian group Hamas also said an Israeli strike had caused "dozens of martyrs and wounded" in the area.

When asked for comment about the incident, Israel's army requested coordinates of the strike.

Desperately needed medical evacuations from Gaza - already very limited - came to a full stop when Israel launched its military offensive on Rafah three weeks ago, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.

WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said that since Israel launched its military offensive in the densely crowded southern city of Rafah in early May, "there's been an abrupt halt to all medical evacuations".

She warned that the cut-off obviously meant more people will die waiting for treatment.

Denmark's parliament on Tuesday voted down a bill to recognise a Palestinian state, after the Danish foreign minister previously said the necessary preconditions for an independent country were lacking.

The Danish bill was first proposed in late February by four left-wing parties.

"We cannot recognise an independent Palestinian state, for the sole reason that the preconditions are not really there," Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said when the bill was first debated in parliament in April.

"We cannot support this resolution, but we wish that there will come a day where we can," Rasmussen, who was not present at the vote on Tuesday, added.

The Israeli military says it used small munitions in Sunday's airstrike on a displacement camp in Rafah, claiming the deadly fire which killed at least 45 people was caused by a secondary explosion.

Seven Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded in new Israeli strikes on an area of tents housing displaced people west of Rafah on Tuesday, Gaza health authorities said.

The new Israeli strikes targeted tents of displaced families in the designated humanitarian area in Mawasi in western Rafah, according to medics and residents. Hamas media said the number of deaths stood at 20.

South Africa on Tuesday condemned an Israeli attack on a tent camp in the Gazan city of Rafah, adding that current conditions in Gaza justified its genocide case against Israel at the World Court.

"The South African government joins the international community in condemning the deplorable and brutal attacks on innocent civilians after Israeli forces bombed a tent camp housing displaced Palestinians in a designated safe zone in Rafah," the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) said in a statement.

"The heinous attacks came two days after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to end its military offensive in Rafah."

South Africa's DIRCO added: "We must pose the question of how long the international community will continue to watch as an entire population is annihilated before the world can unite to urgently act against these brutal and incessant attacks."

Ireland officially recognised a Palestinian state on Tuesday, the government said in a statement, defying Israel which had condemned the plan.

The government approved the recognition in a cabinet meeting Tuesday morning.

"The Government recognises Palestine as a sovereign and independent state and agreed to establish full diplomatic relations between Dublin and Ramallah," the statement said.

"An Ambassador of Ireland to the State of Palestine will be appointed along with a full Embassy of Ireland in Ramallah."

Irish prime minister Simon Harris the move was about keeping hope for peace alive.

"This decision of Ireland is about keeping hope alive. It is about believing that a two-state solution is the only way for Israel and Palestine to live side by side in peace and security," he said in the statement.

"I again call on Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel to listen to the world and stop the humanitarian catastrophe we are seeing in Gaza."

A merchant vessel was "taking on water" off the Yemeni port of Hodeida on Tuesday after it was damaged in a missile attack, maritime security firm Ambrey said.

The ship was "targeted with three missiles," Ambrey said, adding that a distress call said it "had sustained damage to the cargo hold and was taking on water".

The distress call also reported that "the vessel was listing", Ambrey added.

The firm did not identify the ship or say how many crew members were on board.

The Gaza Strip's health ministry said Tuesday that at least 36,096 people have been killed in the territory during more than seven months of the Israeli offensive.

The toll includes at least 46 deaths over the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 81,136 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began on October 7.

Spain on Tuesday formally recognised a Palestinian state in a decision approved by its cabinet in parallel with similar moves by Ireland and Norway, a government spokeswoman said.

Pilar Alegria said the cabinet had "adopted an important decision to recognise a Palestinian state", which had "one objective: to help Israelis and Palestinians achieve peace".

Influential Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr renewed his calls to close the US embassy in Baghdad Tuesday after an Israeli strike killed dozens of civilians in a camp in Gaza.

Sadr condemned the Israeli strike and Washington's "shameless" support for the "genocide" he charged was under way in Gaza.

"I reiterate my demand to expel" the US ambassador and "close the embassy through diplomatic means without bloodshed," he said in a statement on X.

He said that would be a more effective deterrent than the use of force and would mean US officials "don't have an excuse to destabilise Iraq".

Israeli strikes on Rafah have killed at least 16 Palestinians, first responders said Tuesday, as residents reported an escalation of fighting in the southern Gaza city.

Strikes overnight killed a total of 16 people in the Tel al-Sultan neighborhood in northwest Rafah, according to the Palestinian Civil Defense and the Palestinian Red Crescent.

"It was a night of horror," said Abdel-Rahman Abu Ismail, a Palestinian from Gaza City who has been sheltering in Tel al-Sultan since December. He said he heard "constant sounds" of explosions overnight and into Tuesday morning, with fighter jets and drones flying over the area.

He said it reminded him of the Israeli invasion of of his neighborhood of Shijaiyah in Gaza City, where Israel launched a heavy bombing campaign before sending in ground forces in late 2023. "We saw this before," he said.

طواقم الإسعاف تواصل نقل شهداء وجرحى من تل السلطان جراء الغارات الليلية العنيفة بالتزامن مع توغل قوات جيش الاحتلال غرب #رفح pic.twitter.com/kcq4CxCQqC

— المؤسسة الفلسطينية للإعلام - فيميد (@FimedAr) May 28, 2024

Norway hailed its recognition Tuesday of a Palestinian state as a "special day" for its relations with Palestinian authorities.

"Norway has been one of the most fervent defenders of a Palestinian state for more than 30 years," Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said in a statement, adding: "The day that Norway officially recognises Palestine as a state is a special day for Norway-Palestine relations."

"It is regrettable that the Israeli government shows no sign of constructive commitment," Eide added, calling on the international community to boost its efforts for a two-state solution.

"I trust the Palestinian government will continue the difficult reform work and lay the groundwork for governance in the [occupied] West Bank as well as Gaza after a ceasefire," he said.

Several Israeli tanks on Tuesday reached the centre of Rafah, witnesses told Reuters, three weeks into a ground operation in the southern Gaza Strip city that has has drawn intense scrutiny from neighbouring Egypt and from the United States.

The tanks were spotted near Al-Awda mosque, a central Rafah landmark, the witnesses said. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on their account, saying it would issue a statement about the Rafah operation later.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz accused Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of being a "partner to incitement" to Jewish "genocide" Tuesday as Madrid prepared to recognise the State of Palestine.

"You are a partner to incitement to genocide of the Jewish people", Katz wrote on X, while making a parallel between Spanish minister Yolanda Diaz on the one hand, and Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei and Hamas Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar on the other following her call for a free Palestine, "from the river to the sea".

Israel gunfire killed and wounded at least six people, including a doctor, in the vicinity of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, Palestinian media reported.

Israel on Tuesday reportedly hit tents of displaced people in the Salam camp, west of Rafah, Al Arabiya and its sister news channel Al Hadath said.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) militia grouping has claimed to have carried out a drone attack on a "vital target" in the southern Israeli coastal city of Eilat.

The Iran-backed militia said in a Telegram statement on Tuesday that the attack came "in support of our people in Gaza, and in response to the Zionist massacres against the unarmed Palestinian civilians and the massacres that the usurper entity [Israel] commits against Palestinian civilians."

The Times of Israel reported earlier that Israeli air defences had downed two drones targeting Eilat.

Footage shared by IRI's media shows the moment the drones were launched.

مشاهد من اطلاق المقاومة الاسلامية في العراق ثلاث طائرات مسيرة باتجاه ايلات " ام الرشراش "

بتاريخ 27-5-2024 pic.twitter.com/iurchGIKEy

— Arab-Military (@ashrafnsier) May 28, 2024

The Egyptian state-affiliated media has revealed the preliminary results of an investigation into the killing of an Egyptian soldier in the North Sinai city of Rafah, which borders Gaza.

Al-Qahera News TV quoted "a high-level source" as saying on Monday that the initial results "indicate that there was gunfire between members of the Israeli occupation forces and members of the Palestinian resistance."

The source added that the results also showed that there was "firing in several directions and that Egyptian security personnel took protective measures and dealt with" the source of gunfire.

China expressed on Tuesday "grave concern" over Israel's military operations in Rafah, where an Israeli strike killed dozens in a displaced persons camp.

China "expresses its grave concern over the ongoing Israeli military operations in Rafah", foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said, urging "all parties to protect civilians and civilian facilities".

The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) said on Tuesday that around one million people have fled the Gazan city of Rafah in the past three weeks.

UNRWA said the flight from Rafah "happened with nowhere safe to go and amidst bombardments, lack of food and water, piles of waste and unsuitable living conditions."

Providing assistance and protection is becoming nearly "impossible", the agency said.

About 10,000 people took part in a demonstration near the Israeli embassy in Paris on Monday against Israel's deadly shelling of the Gaza city of Rafah.

The demonstration gathered a few hundred metres (yards) from the embassy in the centre of the French capital before protesters chanted "We are all Gaza children", "Free Gaza" and other pro-Palestinian slogans.

One large banner at the rally showed presidents Emmanuel Macron of France, Joe Biden of the United States, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the slogan "it is humanity they are assassinating". France and the United States have condemned the Israeli attack.

« Cessez le feu ». « Israël assassin, des sanction contre Israël ». Foule de plus dense place Saint-Augustin à Paris, #Gaza #RafaH pic.twitter.com/zg24lBTLSF

— Djilali BELAID (@dbelaid) May 27, 2024