al Jazeera:

Israel’s war on Gaza live: ‘Unrelenting nightmare’ for weary Palestinians

By Stephen Quillen

“Decisive international action” – including sanctions and an arms embargo – must be imposed on Israel over its widely condemned assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, dozens of UN experts demand.
Israel’s attack on Rafah is not a “major operation”, the US State Department says, even though thousands of troops are in the area, dozens of Palestinians have been killed, and one million people displaced.
Israel’s military killed more than 60 people – including many women and children – in four days of attacks on “safe zones” in Rafah, Save the Children charity says.
A UN agency says 18,500 pregnant Palestinian women are fleeing Rafah’s “unrelenting nightmare”.
At least 36,224 Palestinians have been killed and 81,777 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7.

26m ago
(08:25 GMT)
‘Nonstop’ raids by Israeli military cause ‘desperation’ in occupied West Bank
The Israeli military’s violent raid on Ramallah yesterday, which left a vegetable market in flames, is “emblematic of the destruction” people experience regularly across the occupied West Bank, said Nour Odeh, a Ramallah-based political activist.
Israeli military raids, along with severe economic restrictions, are a part of a deliberate strategy by Israeli authorities to drive economic desperation and undermine the Palestinian Authority (PA), Odeh said.
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank must now also “see their countrymen and women slaughtered en masse in Gaza”, she said.
“They are prisoners to their own geography and subjected to these kind of nonstop onslaughts” Odeh told Al Jazeera.
“It’s now worse than ever before,” she said.
Palestinian emergency responders check fire damage in the central vegetable market after an Israeli raid in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank caused the blaze on May 30,2024 [Ali Sawafta/Reuters]
36m ago
(08:15 GMT)
Three injured from Gaza City air attack
An Israeli air strike has hit a residential apartment in Gaza City’s Tuffah neighbourhood, injuring at least three people, the Wafa news agency reports.
The injured have been taken to al-Ahli Arab Hospital, said Wafa, without providing information on their condition.
We’ll bring you more information on the attack as we have it.
46m ago
(08:05 GMT)
Spain rejects Israeli ‘restrictions’ on its Jerusalem consulate
Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares says Spain rejects “restrictions” that Israel plans to impose on the activities of its consulate in Jerusalem in response to Madrid’s recognition of a Palestinian state.
“This morning we sent a note verbale to the Israeli government in which we reject any restriction on the normal activity of the Spanish consulate general in Jerusalem, as its status is guaranteed by international law,” he said during an interview with radio Onda Cero.
56m ago
(07:55 GMT)
Egypt denies agreement with Israel to reopen Rafah border crossing: Report
An Egyptian official has denied that an agreement was reached with Israel to reopen the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip, Egyptian TV has reported.
Quoting a high-level source, Egypt’s state-affiliated al-Qahera News TV said on Friday that “there is no truth” in media reports about an Egyptian-Israeli agreement to reopen the vital crossing to Gaza – the Palestinian side of which was taken over by the Israeli military earlier this month.
“Egypt insists on a full Israeli withdrawal from the crossing as a condition to resume its work,” the source told the channel, according to Germany’s DPA news agency.
Since the capture of the Rafah border crossing by Israeli tanks, Egypt had indicated it would not coordinate aid transports through Rafah until Israeli forces withdrew and returned control of the frontier to Palestinian authorities.
Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979.
But, Israel’s war on Gaza has fuelled anti-Israeli sentiment in Egypt and ties are strained amid fears in Cairo that Israel wants to trigger a mass exodus of desperate Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
1h ago
(07:40 GMT)
Israel ‘demolishing’ homes, public facilities in eastern Rafah neighbourhoods
Hani Mahmoud
Reporting from Deir el-Balah, central Gaza
The Israeli military has continued to bomb Rafah and push deeper into the western part of the city.
Eyewitnesses described seeing tanks and armoured vehicles, with artillery shells reaching as far as the tent camp for displaced people in the western part of the city, which is an evacuation zone.
As it stated, the Israeli military has full control over the Philadelphi Corridor and is now systematically demolishing homes in the eastern part of Rafah city.
The entire eastern part of Rafah, including the as-Salam and al-Jenina neighbourhoods, has been cleared of residential buildings and public facilities.