Israel-Hamas war latest: US-made bombs used in deadly Rafah strike (2024)

The Palestinian health minister said on Wednesday there was “no indication” from Israel that the Rafah crossing, Gaza’s most vital aid lifeline, could be opened soon.

“Since it was closed, we have no indication that the Israelis would like it to be opened any time soon,” the minister, Majed Abu Ramadan, told reporters at the World Health Assembly in Geneva.

Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, was a major entry point for humanitarian relief before Israel ramped up its military offensive on the Gaza side of the border earlier this month, severing key supply lines of aid and medical supplies and threatening to worsen an already catastrophic humanitarian situation.

Israeli tanks have launched raids across Rafah in defiance of the International World Court for a second day on Wednesday.

The Israeli military sent its tanks into the heart of Rafah for the first time on Tuesday, despite an order from the International Court of Justice, the UN’s top court, to end its ground offensive on the city, where many displaced Palestinians had sought refuge from widespread bombardment.

The United States, Israel’s closest ally, reiterated its opposition to a major Israeli ground offensive in Rafah but said on Tuesday said that Israel’s latest actions in the city did not cross Biden’s “red line.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday hit out at the United Nations and called on the “Islamic world” to react after the latest deadly Israeli strikes in Gaza.

“The UN cannot even protect its own staff. What are you waiting for to act? The spirit of the United Nations is dead in Gaza,” Mr Erdogan told lawmakers from his AKP party.

The Turkish leader also lashed out at fellow Muslim-majority countries for failing to take action over the deadly Israeli strike.

“I have some words to say to the Islamic world: what are you waiting for to take a common decision? Israel is not just a threat to Gaza but to all of humanity,” he said.

“No state is safe as long as Israel does not follow international law and does not feel bound by international law,” Mr Erdogan added.

An Israeli national security adviser has said that he expected fighting in Gaza to continue throughout 2024 at least.

Tzachi Hanegbi added that Israel is now in control of 75 per cent of the Philedelphi buffer zone, the border separating the Gaza Strip and Egypt.

“Inside Gaza, the IDF is now in control of 75 percent of the Philadelphi corridor, and I believe it will be in control of it all with time,” Mr Hanegbi told an Israeli public broadcaster.

He added: “Together with the Egyptians, we must ensure weapon smuggling is prevented.”

An AI-generated image showing orderly lines of tents stretching into a dusty desert, with white structures in the centre forming the call to action “ALL EYES ON RAFAH,” has gone viral, amassing over 39 million shares as of Wednesday morning.

The image has been shared by celebrities including Palestinian supermodel sisters Gigi and Bella Hadid, actor Mark Ruffalo and singer-songwriter Kehlani.

We reported earlier that an Israeli airstrike caused a huge fire at a tented camp for displaced people in Rafah on Sunday, killing at least 45 people (see post at 8:05 am).

Footage filmed at the scene showed numerous corpses being dragged from the wreckage of the destroyed tents. In one clip, a man can be seen carrying the body of a decapitated child.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu labelled the strike a “tragic mistake”.

Nikki Haley, the former Republican presidential nominee, signed Israeli artillery shells with the inscription “Finish Them!” on a Memorial Day visit to Israel.

The former South Carolina Governor visited the West Bank and northern Israel on Tuesday for a tour of a kibbutz ravaged by Hamas’ October 7 attack, where she was accompanied by Danny Danon, former Israeli envoy to the United Nations and infamous hawkish member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party in the Knesset.

Mr Danon shared a series of images showing Ms Haley signing an artillery shell. Alongside her note, she added that “America loves Israel!”.

A day earlier, Ms Haley criticised the Biden administration for temporarily withholding weapons in an attempt to dissuade a full-scale Israeli ground offensive on Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah.

“What America needs to understand is - if Israel’s fighting our enemies, how can we not help them?” said Ms Haley. “I want Israelis to know you’re doing the right thing. Don’t let anybody make you feel wrong because Israel is not wrong in this.”

The Hamas-run health ministry says at least 36,171 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since October 7.

A further 81,420 have been injured, it added.

The figures reported by the ministry do not differentiate between fighters and civilians.

Three Israeli soldiers were killed by an explosion in a booby-trapped building on Tuesday amid the offensive in Gaza’s southernmost city, according to an initial IDF investigation.

The soldiers all served in the Nahal Brigade’s 50th Battalion.

Three more soldiers were badly wounded, the IDF said.

The deaths bring the number of killed Israeli troops during the IDF’s assault on the Gaza Strip to 291.

Actor Robert De Niro has branded Donald Trump a “clown” who will become a “dictator for life” if he is re-elected, in a speech outside the the New York City courtroom where the Republican presidential candidate’s hush money trial is being held.

De Niro, a longtime political activist and critic of Mr Trump, said when he ran for President in 2016 it was initially laughed “off like a joke”.

“We’ve forgotten the lessons of history that showed us other clowns who weren’t taken seriously until they became vicious dictators,” he said. “With Trump we have a second chance and no one is laughing now. This is the time to stop him by voting him out once and for all.”

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The World Health Organisation (WHO) has delivered medical supplies to Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City, marking their first mission to the northern part of the Strip in two weeks, Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday.

The mission delivered fuel, hospital beds, medicines and other medical supplies to the Al-Ahli hospital, Mr Tedros announced on X.

“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,” said Mr Tedros.

He said the supplies were enough to cover the needs of 1,500 people but insisted that much more was needed.

“Al-Ahli hospital is serving twice the number of people it is designed for, lacking essential surgical supplies,” said Tedros.

He added: “No life-saving surgery can be performed in the evening due to the lack of specialized staff.”

UK police on Wednesday said that 40 people had been arrested and three officers injured after protesters refused to disperse following a demonstration in London over Israel’s latest offensive in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city.

The Metropolitan Police Service (Met) said the demonstrators were arrested late on Tuesday for offences including breaching public order conditions, obstructing roads and assaulting emergency workers.

It said two officers sustained minor injuries after being assaulted while a third suffered a “serious facial injury” after being struck by a bottle thrown from within the crowd.

The Met said they had launched an investigation to identify who threw the bottle.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has called for a ceasefire and unhampered humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip, where pockets of the war-ravaged enclave are experiencing famine.

“We desperately need a political solution that will allow us to have a ceasefire to get aid in,” IFRC President Kate Forbes said on Wednesday.

“We’re ready to make a difference. We have to have access, and to have access there has to have a ceasefire,” said Ms Forbes.

The IFRC president is a volunteer position and oversees a network that unites 191 organisations working during and after disasters and wars, such as the Palestine Red Crescent Society, which has ambulance crews in Gaza.

The US suffered an embarrassing setback after the temporary pier built for aid deliveries to Gaza was broken apart by heavy seas, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.

It will take at least a week to repair the $320m (£250m) pier, which was erected to produce a crucial supply line for aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip by sea.

The pier will be pulled out and sent to the southern Israeli city of Ashdod, where US Central Command will repair it said Sabrina Singh, the deputy press secretary for the defence department.

“Upon completion of the pier repair and reassembly, the intention is to re-anchor the temporary pier to the coast of Gaza and resume humanitarian aid to the people who need it most,” said Singh.

Thousands of people protested in Paris, others marched in New York, Israel and Lebanon amid global outcry over an Israeli airstrike that caused a huge fire at a tented area for displaced people in Rafah, and killed at least 45 people.

It comes after the International Court of Justice, the UN’s top court, ruled last week that Israel must halt its military offensive in Rafah in southern Gaza.

Saudi Arabia has accused Israel of committing “continuous genocidal massacres” in Gaza, saying it holds the country responsible for“what is happening in Rafah and all across the occupied Palestinian territories”.

In one ofits most strongly worded statements since thewar began, the Saudi foreign ministry said Israel’s “continuous blatant violations of all international and humanitarian resolutions, laws, and norms…exacerbate the magnitude of the unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe experienced by the Palestinian people.”

Saudi Arabia was thought to be on course to normalise its relations with Israel under a US-backed plan before the war upended the process, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to commit to recognising a future Palestinian state seen as a key reason why the talks have faltered.