Gaza Shutdown After Rafah: A U.S. Navy Ship Ship in Ashdod Beams Detected by Rough Seas

The UN says famine is already underway in northern Gaza, which has been largely isolated by Israeli troops for the past months, but is still getting aid through two land routes.

The Egyptian side of the crossing is not open until the control of the Gaza side is returned to the Palestinians. It agreed to temporarily divert traffic through Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing, Gaza’s main cargo terminal, after a call between U.S. President Joe Biden and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

Southern Gaza has been largely cut off from aid since Israel launched what it says is a limited incursion into Rafah on May 6. Since then a million Palestinians have left the city, most having already left other parts of the besieged territory.

Hamas claimed to have captured an Israeli soldier during fighting in northern Gaza and released video late Saturday showing a wounded man being dragged through a tunnel. The Israeli military and Hamas both denied that any of their soldiers had been captured.

Stormy weather sent a strip of docking and a small U.S. military vessel ashore near the southern Israeli city of Ashdod on Saturday. The U.S. Central Command said four of its vessels were affected by rough seas with two of them anchoring near the pier off the Gaza coast and another two in Israel.

A Serious Airstrike in Gaza During the Second Israeli–Israel War: State of the Art and Israel’s Top Legal Official

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel must take over Rafah in order to eliminate Hamas’ last remaining battalions and achieve its goal of “total victory” over the militants, who have recently regrouped in other parts of Gaza where the military had already operated.

Netanyahu faces growing pressure from the public to make a deal with Hamas to free the hostages in order to win their release, something Hamas has refused to do without guarantees of an end to the war and full withdrawal of Israeli troops. Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have ruled that out.

Scuffles broke out between Israeli police and protesters in Tel Aviv on Saturday after thousands gathered to demonstrate against the government and demand the return of the hostages. The protesters called on Netanyahu to resign.

There were arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, along with three Hamas leaders, after three European countries announced they would recognize a Palestinian state.

The International Court of Justice ordered Israel to cease its military offensive in Rafah. Israel must allow war crimes investigators access to Gaza, according to the United Nations court.

Israel is unlikely to comply with the orders, and has sharply condemned the ICC’s move toward arrest warrants for its leaders. Israel says it makes every effort to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas because the militants operate in dense, residential areas.

“Naturally, in a war of such scope and intensity, complex incidents also occur,” General Tomer-Yerushalmi said in a speech to the Israeli Bar Association. It was a serious incident last night in Rafah. She stated that the military regrets any harm to civilians during the war.

Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, the Israeli military’s top legal official, said on Monday that the airstrike was under review. She said military police opened 70 criminal investigations into possible wrongdoing during the war.

The horrific fires in Tal as Sultan, the Gaza Strip erupted by the Israeli military offensive on Sunday. Dr. Smith says there were 15 killed and 50 wounded in the air strike

“These are very, very tightly packed tents,” he said. There is a risk that this fire will spread to a huge distance with dire consequences in a very short period of time.

Though the United Nations estimates that more than 800,000 people fled Rafah in a matter of weeks after the Israeli military announced its offensive, the area remains densely populated, Dr. Smith said.

Speaking from a house a few miles away from the trauma center, the doctor said that there was now too dangerous a distance for him to cross.

Smith said that people were burned alive in their tents. I have been back in Gaza for over a month, and this is something I have not seen before. Truly one of the most horrific massacres to have occurred in recent days here in Rafah and across the Gaza Strip.”

Doctors Without Borders said more than 15 dead people and dozens of wounded in the Rafah strike were brought to a trauma stabilization center that it supports in Tal as Sultan.

Mr. al-Sapti said that at the scene of the strike he saw charred bodies and people screaming as firefighters tried to put out the flames. “The fire was very strong and was all over the camp,” he said. “There was darkness and no electricity.”

A construction worker who lived in Rafah with his wife and two children said that the strike destroyed the tent where he and his family were staying, but they were uninjured.

The Israeli military said it was targeting a Hamas installation and killed two senior Hamas militants. The strike caused a fire in an encampment just west of Rafah in a neighborhood called Tal al-Sultan, where dozens of Palestinians were sheltering. The area was designated a safe zone by the Israeli military, which dropped leaflets in the area last week saying humanitarian aid would be available there.

35 Palestinians were killed and over 50 others were injured in an air strike on Sunday, according to the Gaza health ministry. Most of the people killed were women and children, according to the report.

Israeli Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahma al-Thani: “An explosion… as a child’s cry,” Israel told NPR

I heard a loud noise at 6:30 pm yesterday. I heard an explosion, it sounded like an earthquake,” he told NPR. “I couldn’t get out of the door so I jumped out of the window and saw injured children… one without a head.”

The Israeli media is reporting that negotiations are supposed to resume next week. There were some high level discussions in Paris this weekend between the Israeli Mossad’s David Barnea, the U.S. CIA’s William J. Burns and the Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahma al-Thani.