Closing summary
It is 5pm in Gaza and Tel Aviv. We will be closing this blog soon, but you can stay up to date on the Guardian’s Israel-Gaza war coverage here.
Here is a recap of the latest developments:
An Israeli official told Reuters that Israel sees no sign of a breakthrough in Egyptian-mediated talks on a truce with Hamas that would free some Gaza hostages, but is keeping its delegation of what it describes as “mid-level” negotiators in Cairo for now.
US President Joe Biden’s administration paused a shipment of weapons to Israel last week in opposition to apparent moves by the Israelis to invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah, a senior administration official told Reuters and two other news agencies. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that as Israeli leaders seemed to approach a decision on a Rafah incursion, “we began to carefully review proposed transfers of particular weapons to Israel that might be used in Rafah” beginning in April.
Israel will not agree to end the war and leave Hamas in power, an Israeli government spokesperson reiterated on Wednesday. According to Reuters the spokesperson declined to comment on reports of the US witholding arms.
Hospitals in the southern Gaza Strip have only three days of fuel left, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday, due to closed border crossings. “The closure of the border crossing continues to prevent the UN from bringing fuel. Without fuel all humanitarian operations will stop. Border closures are also impeding delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza,” WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.
Tedros also said al-Najjar, one of the three hospitals in Rafah, was no longer functioning due to the ongoing hostilities in the vicinity and the military operation in Rafah.
Qatar called on the international community on Wednesday to prevent a “genocide” in Rafah after Israel’s seizure of the Gaza city’s crossing with Egypt and threats of a wider assault, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP). In a statement the Gulf state appealed “for urgent international action to prevent the city from being invaded and a crime of genocide being committed”.
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (Cogat), the Israeli military body in charge of Palestinian civilian affairs, said the Kerem Shalom crossing reopened early on Wednesday. But Juliette Touma, the director of communications for the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), said no aid had entered as of midday Wednesday and that the UN agency had been forced to ration fuel, which is imported through Rafah.
CIA Director William Burns was reported to be holding talks with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Israeli officials on Wednesday. A source familiar with his travel shared the report with Reuters as Burns was headed to Israel from Cairo, where ceasefire negotiations had been taking place.
Aid for Gaza was being loaded on to a ship in Cyprus on Wednesday in what was expected to be the first cargo to be delivered using a US pier built to expedite supplies to Gaza. Konstantinos Letymbiotis, a Cyprus government spokesperson, said a US jetty built to handle aid shipments to Gaza had been completed. It was unclear when the vessel would depart.
António Guterres, the UN secretary general has said that a full-scale assault on Rafah “would be a human catastrophe”. Posting on X on Wednesday, Guterres wrote: “Countless more civilian casualties. Countless more families forced to flee yet again – with nowhere safe to go.”
The United Arab Emirates said on Wednesday it strongly condemns Israel’s takeover of the Rafah border crossing on the Palestinian side and warned of the consequences of military escalation.
At least 34,844 Palestinians have been killed and 78,404 injured in Israel’s military offensive in Gaza since 7 October, Gaza’s health ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. The Hamas-run health ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.
A Palestinian was killed in Israeli shelling in the Brazil neighbourhood of eastern Rafah, according to Al Jazeera correspondents reporting from the area. The attack also injured several people, they said. Medical sources told the news outlet that over the past 24 hours, the Kuwaiti hospital, one of the few health facilities still operational in Rafah, had recorded 129 injured patients and the bodies of 35 people killed.
Hamas said its fighters were battling Israeli troops in the east of Rafah. Armed groups of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah said in separate statements that gunfights continued in the central Gaza Strip, while residents of northern Gaza reported heavy Israeli tank shelling against eastern areas of Gaza City and districts.
Australia, on Wednesday, reiterated its objections to a major Israeli ground offensive into Rafah. Foreign affairs minister of Australia, Penny Wong posted on X saying that Australia had “been clear” about its objections and had reiterated “this to Israel again today”.
“Israeli security forces have unlawfully used lethal force in fatal shootings of Palestinians in the West Bank,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a new report based on the documentation of several cases. According to HRW, research into eight deaths in four incidents between July 2022 and October 2023 concluded that “Israeli forces wrongfully fatally shot or deliberately executed Palestinians who posed no apparent security threat”.
Russia said on Wednesday that the war in Gaza was escalating due to Israel’s incursion into Rafah and that Moscow so far saw no prospect for a peace settlement in Gaza or the wider Middle East. The Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told reporters: “There are no prospects for resolving the situation in the Gaza Strip. On the contrary, the situation in the conflict zone is escalating daily.”
Police began clearing a pro-Palestinian tent encampment at George Washington University in Washington DC on Wednesday, hours after dozens of protesters left the site and marched to president Ellen Granberg’s home. According to event organisers, nearly 30 people were arrested as police used pepper spray to contain the crowd.
A police investigation is under way after alleged attacks on a pro-Palestine camp at Monash University, as protesters vow they “won’t be cowed or intimidated”. The Gaza solidarity encampment alleged repeated incursions have been made since it was established a week ago, with property destroyed, items stolen and students threatened and harassed.
Student protests demanding that universities sever ties with Israel over the Gaza war have spread across Europe, sparking clashes and arrests as new demonstrations broke out in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Switzerland and Austria. Students at various European universities, inspired by ongoing demonstrations at US campuses, have been occupying halls and facilities, demanding an end to partnerships with Israeli institutions because of Israel’s assault on Gaza.
The Israeli ambassador to the UK says antisemitism has never seen “such a big peak” around the world, with reference to ongoing student protests at university campuses in the US and in Britain, as demonstrators call for a ceasefire and divestment from companies linked to Israel’s war in Gaza.
The Israeli military said that its fighter jets struck Hezbollah military compounds overnight. In a post on Telegram and on X, the IDF lists the areas hit as “Kfarkela, Ayta ash Shab, Khiam, and Maroun El Ras”.
Tel Aviv is to cancel its annual Pride parade and will replace it with a march dedicated to the hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza, reported the Times of Israel. “This is not the time for celebrations,” Tel Aviv’s mayor Ron Huldai said on social media.
The US military said on Tuesday that Yemen’s Houthi rebels had launched three “uncrewed aerial systems”, commonly known as drones, but caused no injuries or damage.
Updated
South Gaza hospitals have only three days’ fuel left, says World Health Organization
Hospitals in the southern Gaza Strip have only three days of fuel left, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said Wednesday, due to closed border crossings, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Despite international objections, Israel sent tanks into the overcrowded southern city of Rafah on Tuesday and seized the nearby crossing into Egypt that is the main conduit for aid into the besieged Palestinian territory.
“The closure of the border crossing continues to prevent the UN from bringing fuel. Without fuel all humanitarian operations will stop. Border closures are also impeding delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza,” WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.
One of the three hospitals in Rafah, Al-Najjar, is no longer functioning due to the ongoing hostilities in its vicinity and the military operation in Rafah.
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) May 8, 2024
The closure of the border crossing continues to prevent the UN from bringing fuel. Without fuel all humanitarian…
“Hospitals in the south of Gaza only have three days of fuel left, which means services may soon come to a halt.”
Tedros said al-Najjar, one of the three hospitals in Rafah, was no longer functioning due to the ongoing hostilities in the vicinity and the military operation in Rafah.
“At a time when fragile humanitarian operations urgently require expansion, the Rafah military operation is further limiting our ability to reach thousands of people who have been living in dire conditions without adequate food, sanitation, health services and security,” he said. “This must stop now.”
Pro-Palestinian protesters built barricades at the University of Amsterdam on Wednesday, using desks and railings to block off the canalside entrance in the heart of the city as they vowed to stay put until the institution severs all ties with Israel, reports Reuters.
Riot police used a bulldozer to knock down barricades at another University of Amsterdam site on Tuesday and detained 169 people, but said the university had not yet asked for similar intervention on Wednesday.
The students in the Dutch capital are joining a wave of sit-ins and other actions at universities throughout Europe against Israel’s war in Gaza, after larger-scale disturbances at US universities.
According to Reuters, the University of Amsterdam management are hoping talks on Wednesday will bring an end to the protests, but the students were digging in, pulling up bricks from the streets and pavements near to the 19th century campus and forming human chains to send them to the barricade.
Updated
Geneva Abdul is a reporter and feature writer for the Guardian.
The Israeli ambassador to the UK says antisemitism has never seen “such a big peak” around the world, with reference to ongoing student protests at university campuses in the US and in Britain, as demonstrators call for a ceasefire and divestment from companies linked to Israel’s war in Gaza.
“Antisemitism was never in such a big peak and height around the world, we see that in American campuses, we see that in British campuses,” Tzipi Hotovely said, speaking at the Israeli embassy in London on Wednesday.
“And whoever thinks that it will just go away without fighting it just doesn’t learn anything from history. We need to fight back,” she said.
The ambassador’s remarks come as university students around the world have been staging protests demanding academic institutions divest from companies supplying arms to Israel. The protests, which first gained traction in the US, have since reached universities in the UK, as well as in Europe, Lebanon and India.
On Tuesday, US president Jo Biden decried antisemitic posters and slogans on college campuses, as student protesters strongly pushed back against the implication that pro-Palestinian encampments were driven by hatred. On Tuesday more than 750 Jewish students from 140 US campuses issued a joint letter calling for a ceasefire and rejecting Biden’s warning against a “surge of antisemitism”.
Hotovely spoke at the launch of an immersive virtual reality tool documenting the 7 October attacks, including footage of Millet Ben Haim, 28, who spoke on Wednesday on a panel of having survived the Nova dance festival attack, where as many as 360 young Israelis were murdered.
Also speaking on the panel on Wednesday was Mazal Tazazo, 33, who also survived the Nova dance festival attack after faking her own death, and 37-year-old Remo Salman El-Hozayel, a police officer who rescued partygoers by driving them to a nearby greenhouse.
During Hamas’s 7 October attacks, 1,200 people in southern Israel were killed and more than 200 others were taken hostage. Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed more than 34,700 people.
Israel has drawn international condemnation after pressing ahead with its campaign on Gaza’s southernmost city this week, where more than a million Palestinians are taking refuge.
Speaking with the Guardian afterwards, Hotovely said Israel is “obligated” to release their 132 hostages, and said “the world forgets that”.
“When the world says Israel cannot do the Rafah operation for instance it’s like saying Hamas can keep on controlling the Gaza Strip,” Israel’s former deputy foreign minister said. Hotovely has previously rejected the long-suggested plan of a two-state solution.
“We are now in a point where Hamas needs to understand we want our hostages back and we want to make sure that they won’t be able to commit terrorism again,” she said.
Updated
Israel says it will not agree to a ceasefire that leaves Hamas in power in Gaza
Israel will not agree to end the war and leave Hamas in power, an Israeli government spokesperson reiterated on Wednesday.
According to Reuters the same spokesperson declined to comment on reports of the US witholding arms.
More details soon …
Updated
'A full-scale assault on Rafah would be a human catastrophe', says UN secretary general
António Guterres, the UN secretary general has said that a full-scale assault on Rafah “would be a human catastrophe”.
Posting on X today, Guterres wrote:
A full-scale assault on Rafah would be a human catastrophe.
Countless more civilian casualties. Countless more families forced to flee yet again – with nowhere safe to go.
Meanwhile, the repercussions will be felt far beyond, in the occupied West Bank, and across the region.
A full-scale assault on Rafah would be a human catastrophe.
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) May 8, 2024
Countless more civilian casualties.
Countless more families forced to flee yet again – with nowhere safe to go.
Meanwhile, the repercussions will be felt far beyond, in the occupied West Bank, and across the region.
Updated
No sign of breakthrough in Cairo hostage and ceasefire talks – Israeli official
An Israeli official has told Reuters that Israel sees no sign of a breakthrough in Egyptian-mediated talks on a truce with Hamas that would free some Gaza hostages, but is keeping its delegation of what it describes as “mid-level” negotiators in Cairo for now.
The Times of Israel is reporting that Tel Aviv is to cancel its annual Pride parade, and will replace it with a march dedicated to the hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza. “This is not the time for celebrations,” Tel Aviv’s mayor Ron Huldai said on social media.
The United Arab Emirates said on Wednesday it strongly condemns Israel’s takeover of the Rafah border crossing on the Palestinian side and warned of the consequences of military escalation, Reuters reports.
Our graphics team has produced this updated map of the situation in southern Gaza and Rafah.
My colleagues Neha Gohil and Jon Henley have put together this explainer about student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.
Aid for Gaza was being loaded on to a ship in Cyprus on Wednesday in what was expected to be the first cargo to be delivered using a US pier built to expedite supplies to Gaza, Reuters reports.
Containers were being stacked on the US flagged Sagamore, docked at the port of Larnaca, on Wednesday. Some containers to the ship were labelled as aid from the United Arab Emirates.
Konstantinos Letymbiotis, a Cyprus government spokesperson, said a US jetty built to handle aid shipments to Gaza had been completed. It was unclear when the vessel would depart.
At least 34,844 Palestinians have been killed and 78,404 injured in Israel’s military offensive in Gaza since 7 October, Gaza’s health ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
The Hamas-run health ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.
Police have begun to clear a pro-Palestinian tent encampment at George Washington University in Washington DC, hours after dozens of protesters left the site and marched to president Ellen Granberg’s home, reports the Associated Press (AP).
GW Hatchet, the university’s student-run newspaper said officers gave a third and final warning to demonstrators at about 3.30am (EDT) on Wednesday that all who remained at the encampment would be arrested.
According to event organisers, nearly 30 people were arrested as police used pepper spray to contain the crowd.
Mayor Muriel Bowser and Washington DC’s Metropolitan police department (MPD) chief Pamela Smith are set to testify about the District’s handling of the protest at a House committee on oversight and accountability hearing on Wednesday afternoon, reports the AP.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images on the newswires:
Further to the earlier statement by the Israeli military that the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza was reopened on Wednesday (see 07.23 BST), the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) said no aid has yet entered and there is no one to receive it on the Palestinian side, reports the Associated Press (AP).
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (Cogat), the Israeli military body in charge of Palestinian civilian affairs, said the Kerem Shalom crossing reopened early on Wednesday. But Juliette Touma, the director of communications for Unrwa, said no aid had entered as of midday Wednesday and that the UN agency had been forced to ration fuel, which is imported through Rafah.
The Rafah crossing has been a vital conduit for humanitarian aid since the start of the war and is the only place where people can enter and exit. Kerem Shalom is Gaza’s main cargo terminal.
Russia said on Wednesday that the war in Gaza was escalating due to Israel’s incursion into Rafah and that Moscow so far saw no prospect for a peace settlement in Gaza or the wider Middle East, reports Reuters.
“An additional destabilising factor, including for the entire region, was the launch of an Israeli military ground operation in Rafah,” Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told reporters.
“About one and a half million Palestinian civilians are concentrated there. In this regard, we demand strict compliance with the provisions of international humanitarian law.”
According to Reuters, speaking more broadly about efforts to find a lasting settlement in the Middle East, Zakharova said: “I would like to call it a settlement, but, alas, it is far from a settlement.”
“There are no prospects for resolving the situation in the Gaza Strip. On the contrary, the situation in the conflict zone is escalating daily.”
Australia reiterates objections to major Israeli ground offensive into Rafah, says foreign minister
Australia has reiterated its objections to a major Israeli ground offensive into Rafah.
Foreign affairs minister of Australia, Penny Wong posted on X saying that Australia had “been clear” about its objections and had reiterated “this to Israel again today”.
Australia has been clear about our objections to a major Israeli ground offensive into Rafah, and we have reiterated this to Israel again today. pic.twitter.com/Rx1SAe5erC
— Senator Penny Wong (@SenatorWong) May 8, 2024
She shared a post reading:
More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million population are sheltering in Rafah, from the fighting elsewhere.
The impacts on Palestinian civilians from an expanded military operation would be devastating.
That’s why our call remains for a humanitarian ceasefire to enable hostages to be released and unimpeded aid to flow.
We support the continued work of Qatar, the US and Egypt to broker a deal.”
Updated
Human Rights Watch say Israeli security forces have 'unlawfully used lethal force' in fatal shootings of Palestinians in West Bank
“Israeli security forces have unlawfully used lethal force in fatal shootings of Palestinians in the West Bank,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) writes today in a new report based on the documentation of several cases.
According to HRW, research into eight deaths in four incidents between July 2022 and October 2023 concluded that “Israeli forces wrongfully fatally shot or deliberately executed Palestinians who posed no apparent security threat”.
“Israeli security forces are not just unlawfully killing Palestinians in Gaza, but have been killing Palestinians without a legal basis in the West Bank, including deliberately executing Palestinians who posed no apparent threat,” said Richard Weir, senior crisis and conflict researcher at HRW.
“These killings are taking place at a level without recent precedent in an environment in which Israeli forces have no need to fear that their government will hold them accountable,” he added.
Israeli forces in 2023 killed 492 Palestinians, including 120 children, in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). That figure is more than twice as many as in any other year since the UN began systematically documenting fatalities, said HRW.
A Palestinian has been killed in Israeli shelling in the Brazil neighbourhood of eastern Rafah, according to Al Jazeera correspondents reporting from the area.
The attack also injured several people, they add.
Medical sources told the news outlet that over the past 24 hours, the Kuwaiti hospital, one of the few health facilities still operational in Rafah, has recorded 129 injured patients and the bodies of 35 people killed.
Hamas said its fighters were battling Israeli troops in the east of Rafah, reports Reuters. Residents said the fighting was still on the outskirts.
Armed groups of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah said in separate statements that gunfights continued in the central Gaza Strip, while residents of northern Gaza reported heavy Israeli tank shelling against eastern areas of Gaza City and districts.
Just in case you are catching up on the latest developments on the situation in Rafah, this handy explainer by the Guardian’s international security correspondent Jason Burke runs through some key questions.
An Israeli source has told the Times of Israel that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer and other top Israeli officials will meet CIA chief William Burns at 1.30pm (11.30am BST) today.
Updated
Patrick Wintour is diplomatic editor for the Guardian
An Israeli military offensive on the city of Rafah would break international humanitarian law and not lead to the eradication of Hamas, Andrew Mitchell, the UK’s deputy foreign minister, said on Tuesday, but he held back from spelling out any planned British consequences if a full-scale invasion goes ahead.
The line, agreed with the US, is aimed at limiting the options of the Israeli government so that it will accept a version of the three-stage peace deal adopted by Hamas. The UK said its aim was to secure a permanent and sustained ceasefire, and the removal of Hamas from the future governance of Gaza.
The British statement that Israel has presented no credible plan for the invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza that complies with international humanitarian law follows a similar statement by the French foreign ministry on Monday. But Mitchell went further in saying such an invasion may end up strengthening, not weakening, Hamas.
You can read Patrick Wintour’s full piece here:
Qatar calls for 'urgent international action' over Rafah
Qatar called on the international community on Wednesday to prevent a “genocide” in Rafah after Israel’s seizure of the Gaza city’s crossing with Egypt and threats of a wider assault, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
In a statement the Gulf state, which has been mediating between Israel and militant group Hamas, appealed “for urgent international action to prevent the city from being invaded and a crime of genocide being committed”.
According to AFP, Israel struck targets in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday after seizing the main border crossing with Egypt. Israel has vowed for weeks to launch a ground incursion into Rafah, despite a clamour of international objection.
The attacks on the southern city, which is packed with displaced civilians, came as negotiators and mediators met in Cairo to try to hammer out a hostage-release and truce deal in the seven-month war.
Qatar, which has hosted Hamas’s political office in Doha since 2012, has been engaged – along with Egypt and the US – in months of behind-the-scenes mediation between Israel and the Palestinian group.
Caitlin Cassidy is a higher education reporter for Guardian Australia.
A police investigation is under way after alleged attacks on a pro-Palestine camp at Monash University, as protesters vow they “won’t be cowed or intimidated”.
The Gaza solidarity encampment alleged repeated incursions have been made since it was established a week ago, with property destroyed, items stolen and students threatened and harassed.
During the first alleged incident last Wednesday morning, the encampment claimed about a dozen men carrying Israeli and Australian flags entered the campsite, smashing a marquee, taking food and shaking students’ tents.
Four days later, they claim, many of the same people – reportedly, mostly, allegedly middle-aged men from outside the university – again attended the camp, leading Monash to call the police.
Organiser Jos Downey claimed that the attacks continued on Monday, alleging that a student from campus forcibly entered the encampment and physically assaulted the Monash Student Association’s queer officer, Madeline Curkovic.
You can read the full report here:
Here are some of the latest images coming out from Rafah today via the newswires:
Updated
Qatar’s ministry of foreign affairs said on Wednesday that it strongly condemns Israel’s Rafah incursion and called for international intervention to prevent the city from being invaded, reports Reuters.
Israel says it is reopening Kerem Shalom aid crossing into Gaza
Israel was reopening the Kerem Shalom crossing on its border with the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, reports the Reuters news agency citing a statement from the Israeli agency in charge of it said.
According to the statement, aid trucks routed through from Egypt were already undergoing security inspections there.
Israel had closed Kerem Shalom crossing on Sunday after a Hamas shelling attack nearby killed four soldiers.
Updated
The Guardian’s First Edition newsletter this Wednesday discusses what Israel’s Rafah offensive means for the prospect of peace.
For today’s newsletter Rupert Neate speaks to Peter Beaumont, a senior Guardian international reporter who has worked extensively in the region for decades, about the significance of the Rafah crossing and what the latest Israeli offensive means for the prospect of peace in a conflict that was ignited by the deaths of more than 1,100 Israelis and after seven months has resulted in at least 34,000 deaths among Palestinians.
You can read the full discussion here:
Campus protests by pro-Palestinian activists have spread across Europe, as some called for a break in academic ties with Israel over the war in Gaza, reports Associated Press.
German police broke up a protest by several hundred people who had occupied a courtyard at Berlin’s Free University.
Protesters also occupied a university building in Amsterdam hours after police detained 169 people at a different campus location.
Elsewhere in Europe, some student camps have been allowed to stay in places like the lawns of Cambridge.
In recent days, students have held protests or set up encampments in Finland, Denmark, Italy, Spain, France and Britain.
Read our full report here:
We heard Tuesday that Israeli military forces had taken control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt.
Here’s an image that has come through to us of what it looked near that part of Gaza on Tuesday:
People have been fleeing Rafah since Israel ordered people to leave parts of the city.
Here are some of the latest images coming to us as Palestinians make their way to other parts of Gaza:
The Israeli military says that its fighter jets struck Hezbollah military compounds overnight.
In a post on Telegram and on X, the IDF lists the areas hit as “Kfarkela, Ayta ash Shab, Khiam, and Maroun El Ras”.
It also says that it hit infrastructure in the areas of southern Lebanon and that “in addition, the IDF struck overnight in order to remove a threat in the areas of Tayr Harfa and Jibbain.”
Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged regular fire since the 7 October attacks by Hamas and the subsequent war in Gaza.
במהלך הלילה, מטוסי קרב של חיל האוויר תקפו מבנים צבאיים של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה בדרום לבנון במרחבים כפר כילא, עייתא א-שעב, אלחיאם ומארון א-ראס.
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) May 8, 2024
כמו כן, הותקפו תשתיות טרור של הארגון במרחבים חולא ועיתרון שבדרום לבנון >> pic.twitter.com/aonzcPFExd
The US military says Yemen’s Houthi rebels have launched three “uncrewed aerial systems”, commonly known as drones, but caused no injuries or damage.
“A coalition ship successfully engaged one UAS, U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) forces successfully engaged the second UAS, and the final UAS crashed in the Gulf of Aden.
“There were no injuries or damages reported by U.S., coalition, or merchant vessels,” US central command posted on X.
Centcom also said that the Houthis launched an anti-ship ballistic missile over the Gulf of Aden but there were no injuries or damages reported.
May 7 CENTCOM Update
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) May 8, 2024
Between approximately 11:02 p.m.and 11:48 p.m. (Sanaa time) on May 6, Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists launched three uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) over the Gulf of Aden from Houthi controlled areas in Yemen. A coalition ship successfully engaged one UAS,… pic.twitter.com/ZyWcMIVMD4
CIA director expected to meet with Netanyahu
CIA Director William Burns is to hold talks with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Israeli officials, a source familiar with his travel told the Reuters news agency.
Burns is heading to Israel from Cairo, where ceasefire negotiations have been taking place.
All five delegations participating in the talks on Tuesday – Hamas, Israel, the US, Egypt and Qatar – have reacted positively to the resumption of negotiations according to Reuters.
Meetings are expected to continue on Wednesday morning, two Egyptian sources said.
White House spokesperson John Kirby said Hamas presented a revised proposal, and the new text suggests the remaining gaps can “absolutely be closed.” Speaking on Tuesday, he declined to specify what those were.
“Everybody is coming to the table,” Kirby said.
Israel on Monday declared that a three-phase proposal approved by Hamas was unacceptable because terms had been softened.
US paused Israel bomb shipment last week, says senior official
US President Joe Biden’s administration paused a shipment of weapons to Israel last week in opposition to apparent moves by the Israelis to invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah, a senior administration official has told Reuters and two other news agencies.
Biden has been trying to head off a full-scale assault by the Israelis against Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinian have sought refuge from combat elsewhere in Gaza.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that as Israeli leaders seemed to approach a decision on a Rafah incursion, “we began to carefully review proposed transfers of particular weapons to Israel that might be used in Rafah” beginning in April.
“As a result of that review, we have paused one shipment of weapons last week. It consists of 1,800 2,000lb bombs and 1,700 500lb bombs,” the official said, according to Reuters. The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse reported similar comments from a senior US official.
“We are especially focused on the end-use of the 2,000lb bombs and the impact they could have in dense urban settings as we have seen in other parts of Gaza. We have not made a final determination on how to proceed with this shipment,” the official said.
Four sources told Reuters that the shipments, which have been delayed for at least two weeks, involved Boeing-made joint direct attack munitions, which convert dumb bombs into precision-guided ones, as well as small diameter bombs.
Welcome and opening summary
It’s 7:12am in Gaza and Tel Aviv and 12:12pm in Washington, welcome to our live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war and the wider Middle East crisis. I’m Reged Ahmad and I’ll be with you for the next while.
The US paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that the country was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, a senior administration official told Reuters on Tuesday.
The shipment was supposed to consist of 1,800 900-kilogram bombs and 1,700 225-kilogram bombs, according to the official, who spoke to several news agencies on the condition of anonymity.
The focus of US concern was how the bombs could be used in a dense urban setting. More than 1 million civilians are sheltering in Rafah after evacuating other parts of Gaza.
The official said the decision to pause the shipment was made last week and no final decision had been made yet on whether to proceed with the shipment at a later date.
Meanwhile, CIA Director William Burns is expected to travel from Cairo to Israel later on Wednesday to meet Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli officials, a source familiar with his travel told Reuters.
More on that in a moment but first, here’s a summary of the latest developments:
The United States believes the remaining differences between Israel and Hamas can be bridged in negotiations over the latest ceasefire proposal, as talks resume in Cairo on Wednesday. All five delegations participating in ceasefire talks on Tuesday – Hamas, Israel, the US, Egypt and Qatar – reacted positively to the resumption of negotiations, and meetings were expected to continue on Wednesday morning, two Egyptian sources told the Reuters news agency.
Israel has launched a major military offensive against Hamas forces in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, seizing control of a key border crossing and cutting off most aid into the territory a day before indirect talks on a ceasefire deal are due to restart. “This is the beginning of our mission to take out the last four Hamas brigades in Rafah. You should be in no doubt about that whatsoever,” a government spokesperson said.
White House national security council spokesperson John Kirby said the operation along the Gaza-Egypt border in eastern Rafah was not a full-on Israeli invasion of the city that President Joe Biden has repeatedly warned against on humanitarian grounds, reports Associated Press. Kirby said Israel described it as “an operation of limited scale and duration” aimed at cutting off Hamas arms smuggling.
An Israeli military offensive on the city of Rafah would break international humanitarian law and not lead to the eradication of Hamas, Andrew Mitchell, the UK’s deputy foreign minister, said on Tuesday, but he held back from spelling out any planned British consequences if a full-scale invasion goes ahead.
Aid agencies in Gaza have less than a day’s fuel for trucks and tankers that deliver vital food, medicine, water and diesel to millions across the territory, threatening an almost complete shutdown of operations including bakeries and hospitals, officials have warned.
All main entry points to the south of Gaza are closed and there has been widespread looting of existing stocks in Rafah after aid agencies were forced to leave warehouses unguarded after warnings to evacuate the area from Israel Defense Forces (IDF) ahead of the military offensive launched on the city on Tuesday morning.
Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to ensure that the Kerem Shalom crossing is open for humanitarian assistance, during a Monday call with Joe Biden, the White House reported.
Scott Anderson, the senior deputy director of United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa), said that the closing of Kerem Shalom and other aid passages threatens the critical fuel supply in Gaza. “Everything we do in Gaza is run by diesel. We currently have one day of diesel on hand. If we don’t have a resume by tomorrow, everything will stop,” he said to CNN.
Joe Biden reportedly demanded that Israel immediately reopen the Kerem Shalom crossing, one of the key routes for bringing aid into Gaza, during a call with Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, Axios reported, citing a senior US official.
The US military has completed construction of its Gaza aid pier, but weather conditions mean it is unsafe to move the two-part facility into place, the Pentagon said Tuesday. The pier will cost at least $320m and is aimed at boosting aid deliveries. “As of today, the construction of the two portions of the JLOTS – the floating pier and the Trident pier – are complete and awaiting final movement offshore,” Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told journalists, using an acronym for Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, the official name for the pier capability. US Central Command (Centcom) “stands by to move the pier into position in the near future,” she added. Once the weather clears, the pier will be anchored to the Gaza shore by Israeli soldiers, keeping US troops off the ground.
During a 30-minute phone call, Biden and Netanyahu also spoke about ongoing hostage negotiations and Israel’s upcoming ground invasion of Rafah, Axios reported.
Thousands of people are evacuating from Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, hours after the Israeli military told residents and displaced people in eastern neighbourhoods to leave in advance of a long-threatened attack on the city and its environs. Witnesses described frightened families leaving the city on foot, riding donkeys or packed with their belongings into overloaded trucks on Monday. Overnight Israeli airstrikes had reinforced “panic and fear”, prompting more to heed the instructions to move.
Student protests demanding that universities sever ties with Israel over the Gaza war have spread across Europe, sparking clashes and arrests as new demonstrations broke out in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Switzerland and Austria.
Joe Biden warned against a “ferocious surge of antisemitism in America” at a Holocaust event Tuesday, as student protests against Israel’s military strikes on Gaza and the resulting humanitarian crisis continued to roil campuses across the US.
