Israel formally declares war against Hamas as it battles to push militants off its soil
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Blinken delivers some of the strongest US public criticism of Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday delivered some of the Biden administration’s strongest public criticism yet of Israel's conduct of the war in Gaza, saying Israeli tactics have meant “a horrible loss of life of innocent civilians” but failed to neutralize Hamas leaders and fighters and could drive a lasting insurgency. In a pair of TV interviews, Blinken underscored that the United States believes Israeli forces should “get out of Gaza,” but also is waiting to see credible plans from Israel for security and governance in the territory after the war. Hamas has reemerged in parts of Gaza, Blinken said, and “heavy action” by Israeli forces in the southern city of Rafah risks leaving America’s closest Mideast ally “holding the bag on an enduring insurgency.”
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Middle East CrisisBlinken Says Rafah Fighting Threatens Aid Gains in Gaza
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken warned on Wednesday that recent gains in getting desperately needed humanitarian aid to people in the Gaza Strip risked being undone by the fighting in southern Gaza. For over a week, since Israel began what it describes as a limited military operation against Hamas in the southern city of Rafah, one border crossing vital to the transit of the aid has been closed, and another severely restricted. “At the very time when Israel was taking important and much needed steps to improve the provision of humanitarian assistance,” Mr. Blinken said, “we’ve seen a negative impact on the fact that we have this active, very active conflict in the in the Rafah area.”
- Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, warned on Wednesday that Israel could slide toward establishing military rule over Gaza unless an alternative government is set up. Seven months into the war, Israel has yet to settle on a proper civilian alternative to Hamas’s administration, Mr. Gallant told reporters, saying that he had submitted his own plan for different “Palestinian entities” to take charge. He called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to explicitly rule out setting up “military governance” in Gaza. “Since October, I have been raising this issue consistently in the cabinet and have received no response,” said Mr. Gallant. “The end of the military campaign must come with political action.”
- Palestinians on Wednesday marked the mass displacement of the hundreds of thousands who fled or were expelled during the wars surrounding the establishment of Israel in 1948. Palestinians call that period the Nakba — the disaster — and generally hold rallies on May 15, the date Israel declared its independence. This year, the commemoration of the historical trauma falls as war once again forces Palestinians to flee their homes. An estimated 1.7 million Gazans have been displaced by the Israeli assault.
- Israel will “significantly increase” its quota of foreign workers to help address a labor shortage stemming from the war in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Wednesday. More than 300,000 workers, up to 3.3 percent of Israel’s population, will be allowed to work in the country under new measures, according to a statement. Since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks, Palestinians, who had made up a sizable portion of Israel’s labor force, have mostly been barred from the country, leading to shortages of workers in construction, agriculture and other sectors.
- Deadly gunfire that hit a United Nations-marked car in Rafah came from a tank, a U.N. spokesman said on Tuesday. The spokesman, Farhan Haq, said the United Nations had yet to determine who was responsible for the incident on Monday, but added that the Israeli military is the only force known to have deployed tanks in Gaza. The gunfire killed a U.N. staff member who was identified as Col. Waibhav Anil Kale, an Indian citizen who worked for the U.N. Department of Safety and Security, Mr. Haq said. A Jordanian woman working for the same agency was injured in the gunfire and is recovering, he said
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Aid for Gaza will soon flow from pier project just finished by US military, Pentagon says
The Pentagon said Thursday that humanitarian aid will soon begin flowing onto the Gaza shore through the new pier that was anchored to the beach and will begin reaching those in need almost immediately. Sabrina Singh, Pentagon spokeswoman, told reporters that the U.S. believes there will be no backups in the distribution of aid, which is being coordinated by the United Nations. The U.N., however, said fuel imports have all but stopped and this will make it extremely difficult to deliver the aid to Gaza’s people, all 2.3 million of whom are in acute need of food and other supplies after seven months of intense fighting between Israel and Hamas. “We desperately need fuel,” U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said. “It doesn’t matter how the aid comes, whether it’s by sea or whether by land, without fuel, aid won’t get to the people.”
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Israel’s war on Gaza: ICC prosecutor says Israel used starvation as weapon
- International Criminal Court chief prosecutor says he is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and three Hamas leaders.
- US President Biden says the ICC prosecutor’s request is “outrageous”, reiterating his support for Israel, and US lawmakers have threatened to move against the court.
- Meanwhile, Israeli army strikes on Jabalia and Beit Lahia in north Gaza have killed 18 Palestinians in recent hours.
- More than 100 Palestinians have been killed in the past 24 hours, the Gaza health ministry said, as Israel intensified its attacks across the enclave. Doctors Without Borders reports that the besieged al-Awda Hospital close to Jabalia refugee camp has completely run out of drinking water.
- At least 35,562 people have been killed and 79,652 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The death toll in Israel from Hamas’s attack is 1,139, with dozens still held captive.
Here’s a recap of the day’s events.
- ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan filed an application for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and three Hamas leaders, Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri and Ismail Haniyeh.
- The unprecedented move has divided Western countries, with the US among the loudest critics of the ICC prosecutor. Several international rights groups have cheered the effort.
- Intensified fighting has continued, with several people killed in attacks in central Gaza and at least 18 killed in Jabalia and Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza.
- The UN has said 900,000 people – 40 percent of Gaza’s population – have been forced to flee within the enclave in the last two weeks of intensified fighting.
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Middle East Crisis: For Gazans Relocating Once Again, Conditions Are ‘Horrific’
As Israel’s invasion of Rafah stretches into its third week, hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the southern Gaza city have encountered miserable conditions in their new encampments and shelters. Shortages of food, clean water and bathrooms have made the experience of relocating particularly dreadful, Gazans say, and price gouging has made the trip unaffordable for those who need transportation, including older and disabled people. “We’re dealing with horrific circumstances,” said Khalil el-Halabi, a retired U.N. official in his 70s who left Rafah last week for Al-Mawasi, a beachside area that Israel has designated as a “humanitarian zone.”
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UNRA says aid to Rafah has been suspended, and other news.
- The U.N. agency that aids Palestinians said it had suspended food distribution in Rafah, the southern Gazan city from which hundreds of thousands of people have fled as Israel conducts what it has called a limited operation there. The agency, known as UNRWA, cited in a post on social media a lack of supplies and security, and warned that closures and disruptions at two critical border crossings in southern Gaza had blocked medical supplies from reaching hospitals for the past 10 days.
- Seven Palestinians, including a 50-year-old doctor, were killed and 19 others were wounded during an Israeli military raid in Jenin in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Tuesday morning, according to the Palestinian Authority’s Health Ministry. It was the latest in a series of near-nightly raids that Israeli officials describe as counterterrorism operations in the West Bank, where over 500 Palestinians have been killed since the war in Gaza began.
- France expressed support for the International Criminal Court, taking the opposite stance of the United States and some other allies of Israel, after the court’s chief prosecutor said he would seek arrest warrants for leaders of both Israel and Hamas. “France supports the International Criminal Court, its independence and the fight against impunity in all situations,” the French Foreign Ministry said on Monday. But Stéphane Séjourné, France’s foreign minister, stressed on Tuesday that the warrant requests “must not create an equivalence” between Hamas, which he called a terrorist group, and Israel, which he said was a “democratic state” that must “respect international law.”
- Missiles hit the emergency room of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza on Tuesday, the hospital’s director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, told Reuters. Video footage from the news agency showed people evacuating the scene, some wearing white medical coats, others being wheeled out on gurneys. The Israeli military has renewed its offensive in the north, and Kamal Adwan is one of two hospitals in the area that was still partially operational. The other, Al Awda, has been surrounded by fighting for three days, according to its acting director and the World Health Organization.
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Middle East Crisis. Spain, Norway and Ireland Recognize a Palestinian State, a Blow to Israel
Spain, Norway and Ireland said on Wednesday that they would recognize an independent Palestinian state, a rebuke to Israel that, though largely symbolic, reflected dwindling international patience with its military offensive in Gaza and its decades of occupation of Palestinian territories. Scores of countries have recognized Palestinian statehood, but the closely coordinated announcements by the three nations carried added weight amid the growing toll of the war in Gaza, and because most Western European countries, and the United States, have resisted taking such a step out of solidarity with Israel.
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Israel tells negotiators to continue hostage talks
Israel’s war cabinet has instructed negotiators to resume talks on a deal to release hostages held in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said early Thursday. The statement came hours after the families of five female Israel soldiers released footage of their capture by Hamas on Oct. 7, in the hope it would push authorities to restart stalled negotiations. The International Court of Justice said it would deliver a ruling Friday on emergency measures — requested by South Africa, citing the assault in Rafah — for Israel to cease military operations in Gaza.
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Canada pledges more visas for Gazans, says it's 'horrified' by Israeli attack in Rafah
Canada said on Monday it will issue visas to 5,000 Gazans, more than it originally pledged, and said it was "horrified" by an Israeli airstrike in Rafah that triggered a blaze causing 45 deaths.
The visas for Canadians' relatives living in the enclave represent a five-fold increase from the 1,000 temporary resident visas allotted under a special program that Canada announced in December.
"While movement out of Gaza is not currently possible, the situation may change at any time. With this cap increase, we will be ready to help more people as the situation evolves," Immigration Minister Marc Miller
A spokesperson for Miller said 448 Gazans had been issued a temporary visa, including 254 under a policy not related to the special visa program, and 41 have arrived in Canada so far.
An Israeli airstrike late on Sunday night triggered a fire in a tent camp in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, prompting an outcry from global leaders including from Canada.
"We are horrified by strikes that killed Palestinian civilians in Rafah," Canada's Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said in a statement, adding that Canada does not support an Israeli military operation in Rafah.
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Israel’s war on Gaza live: ‘Rafah is on fire’
- Israeli forces seize control over Gaza’s border with Egypt with heavy fighting under way as troops push deeper into the civilian-packed West of Rafah city.
- At least 25 Palestinians are killed in incessant Israeli drone, artillery, and air strikes through the war-battled territory.
- The UN’s World Food Programme calls for an immediate truce in Gaza and warns that its ability to help the starving and desperate people there is fading fast with “Rafah on fire”.
- At least 36,171 Palestinians have been killed and 81,420 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7. The death toll in Israel from Hamas’s attack is at least 1,139, with dozens of people still held captive in Gaza.
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Middle East Crisis - Israel’s Claim of Control Over Border Zone Risks Raising Tensions With Egypt
Earlier this year, the Egyptian government warned that if Israeli forces occupied a roughly eight-mile-long border strip between Egypt and Gaza — known in Israel as the Philadelphi Corridor — it would pose a “serious threat” to ties between the two countries. Yet so far there has been little Egyptian response to Israel’s announcement on Wednesday that it had taken “tactical control” of the zone. Israel and Egypt — former enemies that fought at least three major wars — have clashed diplomatically over the Israeli military campaign in Gaza, and particularly over Israel’s ground offensive in Rafah. The Egyptian government faced public pressure to take a tougher stance against Israel after Israeli troops entered Rafah, which borders Egypt and is packed with Gazans fleeing the fighting elsewhere. But the Egyptian and Israeli authorities have long coordinated closely on security matters, with military officials regularly meeting in Cairo and Tel Aviv, and both sides view that close-knit relationship as a cornerstone of their national security policies, former Israeli and Egyptian officials say.
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