UN worried over aid flow as Israel pushes assault into Rafah that’s forced US to hold back military support
Israeli tanks have already sealed off eastern Rafah from the south, capturing and shutting the only crossing between the enclave and Egypt. An advance on Friday to the Salahuddin road that bisects the Gaza Strip completed the encirclement of the “red zone” where they have ordered residents out.
Hamas says it accepted Egyptian-Qatari ceasefire proposal Israel rejected and vowed to go on with attacks
President Joe Biden spoke with Netanyahu and reiterated US concerns about an invasion of Rafah. US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said American officials were reviewing the Hamas response “and discussing it with our partners in the region.”
Israel vows military operation in ‘very near future’ after Hamas rejected latest ceasefire offer in Cairo talks
Israel didn’t send a delegation to the latest talks. Egyptian state media reported that the Hamas delegation went for discussions in Qatar, where the group has a political office, and will return to Cairo for further negotiations on Tuesday.
UN humanitarian agency estimates 10,000 people are buried under rubble in Gaza
Nearly all of the 600,000 children now sheltering in the southern border city of Rafah are “injured, sick or malnourished”, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) chief said in a video post on X on Wednesday.
PM Netanyahu on edge as International Criminal Court turns searchlight on Israeli crimes in Gaza
Without a police force, the ICC relies on member states to arrest suspects, which has proven to be a major obstacle to prosecutions. Netanyahu said on Friday on the social platform X that Israel “will never accept any attempt by the ICC to undermine its inherent right of self-defence.”
Gaza hospital staff questioned by ICC war crimes prosecutors as World Court probes Israeli crimes
In recent days, Palestinian officials have also demanded investigations after hundreds of bodies were exhumed in mass graves at Nasser. The two sources were not able to say whether such graves formed part of any questioning.
Senior Hamas official says group is willing to lay down arms in exchange for Palestinian independence
Speaking to the AP in Istanbul, Al-Hayya said Hamas wants to join the Palestine Liberation Organization, headed by the rival Fatah faction, to form a unified government for Gaza and the West Bank. He said Hamas would accept “a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the return of Palestinian refugees in accordance with the international resolutions,” along Israel’s pre-1967 borders.
Israeli military intelligence chief resigns over his role in failing to prevent October 7 attack
Haliva, as well as other military and security leaders, were widely expected to resign in response to the glaring failures that led up to October 7 and the scale of its ferocity. But the timing of the resignations has been unclear because Israel is still fighting Hamas in Gaza and battling the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in the north. Tensions with Iran are also at a high following attacks between the two enemies.
Prime Minister Netanyahu faces resistance at home as thousands of Israelis join anti-government protests
Surveys indicate that most Israelis blame Netanyahu for the security failures that led to the devastating attack by Hamas fighters on communities in southern Israel on October 7. Israel’s longest-serving prime minister has repeatedly ruled out early elections, which opinion polls suggest he would lose, saying that to go to the polls in the middle of a war would only reward Hamas.
Iran-Israel hostility spirals rapidly from sub-threshold level to overt war that sucks in Middle East
Israel’s targeting of the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1 has been widely regarded as a step up in its openness to hit at Iran directly, though Tehran is accused of targeting an Israeli embassy in the past. The recent behaviour is a departure from the past when either party often tried to shroud their actions in the cloak of plausible (or sometimes implausible) deniability.
