Journalists in the southern Gaza city report new strikes early Wednesday as White House says it has not seen Israel ‘smash into Rafah’
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Israel has carried out fresh strikes in Rafah on Wednesday, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Israeli tanks reached the middle of Rafah on Tuesday, Reuters reported, citing witnesses. They also pushed towards western neighbourhoods, taking positions on the Zurub hilltop, after heavy bombardment. Not all Palestinians sheltering there are able to move, and some have decided there is greater danger in moving given fighting continues across much of Gaza and there is little shelter, food, water or sanitation elsewhere. The Israeli military said its forces continued to operate in the Rafah area, without commenting on reported advances into the city centre.
Israel’s military has denied striking a tent camp west of Rafah on Tuesday after Gaza health authorities said Israeli tank shelling had killed at least 21 people there, in an area Israel has designated a civilian evacuation zone, Reuters reports. Two days after an Israeli airstrike on another camp stirred global condemnation, Gaza emergency services said four tank shells on Tuesday hit a cluster of tents in al-Mawasi, a coastal strip Israel designated as an expanded humanitarian zone where it advised civilians in Rafah to go for safety.
An investigation by the Guardian has revealed how the former head of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, allegedly threatened a chief prosecutor of the international criminal court in a series of secret meetings in which he tried to pressure her into abandoning a war crimes investigation. The investigation, with the Israeli-based magazines +972 and Local Call, can also reveal how Israel has run an almost decade-long secret “war” against the court. The country deployed its intelligence agencies to surveil, hack, pressure, smear and allegedly threaten senior ICC staff in an effort to derail the court’s inquiries.
US aid efforts for Gaza have suffered a setback after the temporary pier built by the military broke apart in heavy seas, the Pentagon said on Tuesday. The $320m pier was intended to provide a crucial supply line for aid deliveries by sea to reach starving Palestinians and alleviate a humanitarian catastrophe. Now the effort is on hold for at least a week.
Ireland, Spain and Norway have all formally recognised a Palestinian state. The joint decision by two European Union countries plus Norway, a nation with a strong diplomatic tradition in peacemaking, may generate momentum for the recognition of a Palestinian state by other EU countries and could spur further steps at the United Nations, which would deepen Israel’s international isolation.
Denmark’s parliament on Tuesday voted down a bill to recognise a Palestinian state, after…
2024-05-29 01:34:48
Link from www.theguardian.com
