Gaza aid cut off as Israel shuts Rafah borders

UN agencies said on Tuesday the two main crossings into the southern Gaza Strip remain shut, virtually cutting off the enclave from outside aid as Israel invades the last refuge for more than a million displaced Palestinians. 

“The two main arteries for getting aid into Gaza are currently choked off,” said Jens Laerke, UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs spokesman.

The enclave has just a one-day buffer of fuel stocks, he said.

“If no fuel comes in for a prolonged period of time, it would be a very effective way of putting the humanitarian operation in its grave.”

A World Health Organisation official said no exceptions were being made for sick and injured patients, a limited number of whom were previously able to leave through Rafah. 

US President Joe Biden on Tuesday condemned a “ferocious surge” in anti-Semitism, during a Holocaust memorial speech amid Israel’s war in Gaza and pro-Palestine protests at American universities.

Mr Biden said too many people were forgetting that it was the Palestinian militant group Hamas that “unleashed this terror” with the October 7 attack on Israel, AFP reported.

“I have not forgotten, nor have you, and we will not forget,” he said at the US Capitol in an address to mark the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s annual Days of Remembrance ceremony.

“We’ve seen a ferocious surge of anti-Semitism in America and around the world.”

Mr Biden was referring to anti-war demonstrations at US and overseas universities.

He received some criticism for his remarks, including from activist group, Jewish Voice for Peace. 

“Biden’s speech used accusations of anti-Semitism to distract the American public from our complicity in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians,” Stefanie Fox, executive director of the group, said in a statement. 

“It was a grotesque betrayal of the memories of our families murdered in the Holocaust.”

Three people have been arrested after a driver hit a pro-Palestinian protester on a Manhattan street on Tuesday, police said.

About 25 protesters had been finishing a rally outside a building and were walking away when two of them had an argument with a driver.

The driver, 57, then struck a protester, 55, with his vehicle.

The demonstrator was treated at a hospital for minor injuries.

The motorist, the demonstrator and another protester were taken into custody.

-AP

A ground attack on Rafah must be prevented, Jordan’s King Abdullah told senior US politicians in Washington on Tuesday, after Israel captured the area’s crossing with Egypt and stopped aid going through.

“His majesty affirmed the need to prevent the Israeli military land operation against Rafah,” the official Jordanian news agency reported.

The king met House Speaker Mike Johnson and other senior members of Congress in the US Capitol, as part of a trip to Washington to discuss the Gaza war.

The agency quoted the king as saying that the Israeli takeover of the crossing, and the resulting halt in aid flows, will “compound the humanitarian crisis in Gaza”.

On Monday, the king met US President Joe Biden in the White House, as Israel was carrying out air strikes in Rafah in preparation for a ground assault.

He told Mr Biden that an Israeli ground offensive on the area would lead to a “new massacre”, according to a Royal palace statement.

The US military has finished construction of a floating pier that will enable offshore humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza, but poor weather is hampering the final placement of it.

“As of today, the construction of the two portions of the JLots – the floating pier and the Trident pier – are complete and awaiting final movement offshore,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said in a briefing.

JLots stands for Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, the term the Pentagon is using for the pier in the Mediterranean Sea.

Cargo ship MV Sagamore is already in Cyprus, prepared to load and transfer humanitarian aid from USAID and other organisations, as well as international partners.

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The Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq has renewed its call for US troops to withdraw from Iraq.

The group “did not perceive the American enemy’s seriousness in withdrawing the troops and dismantling its spy bases in Iraq”, a spokesman said.

“We also haven’t seen the necessary seriousness from the Iraqi government to remove them,” Abu Ali Al Askari said.

Washington and Baghdad have been in talks over the presence of US troops in Iraq.

The closure of border crossings into Gaza was “unacceptable”, the White House said after Israel sent tanks into Rafah and seized control of the crossing with Egypt.

“The crossings that have been closed need to be reopened, it is unacceptable for them to be closed,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

She said that a second crossing, at Karam Abu Salem, was expected to reopen on Wednesday.

Thomas Harding reports:

The UK government has criticised Israel for not making clear “a credible plan to protect civilians” before the imminent invasion of Rafah.

Pressure is growing on Downing Street to condemn Israel’s looming offensive in southern Gaza, where 1.4 million people live.

Labour opposition MPs on Tuesday said that the incursion could result in a civilian bloodbath.

“We’re on the edge of witnessing a massacre, a mass murder of innocent men, women and children at the behest of fanatical zealots in the Israeli Cabinet,” former shadow chancellor John McDonnell told Parliament.

Deputy foreign secretary Andrew Mitchell had told MPs that the government was “deeply concerned about the prospect of a military operation, given the number of civilians sheltering” in the strip.

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Lemma Shehadi and Thomas Harding report:

A UK-led team of emergency doctors was among the last to flee Gaza after Israel announced its imminent attack on Rafah, the strip’s last place of refuge.

Led by British surgeon Prof Nick Maynard, the team of doctors from the UK, Egypt and Kuwait had been in Gaza on a two-week mission with Medical Aid for Palestinians, a UK charity, and the International Red Cross.

Although the team had originally planned to leave Gaza on Monday, it was forced to change those plans after the Israeli military ordered an evacuation of eastern Rafah that morning.

The team drove into Rafah and towards the border crossing, where an Israeli military air strike landed “very close” to its convoy, a Map representative said.

Naufal Rashid, a British doctor and anaesthetist with the team, saw harrowing scenes as Palestinians sheltering in Rafah were forced to pack their belongings once again – with no certainty about where to go next.

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Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Nada AlTaher and Mohamad Ali Harisi report:

The Gaza ceasefire deal that Hamas accepted on Monday could boost a quest by the Palestinian Authority (PA), led by President Mahmoud Abbas, to re-establish its political relevance as a western ally at peace with Israel, observers said.

Over the past 24 hours, diplomatic efforts have turned to convincing Israel to accept the deal, which consists of a hostage and prisoner exchange, and enabling the return of displaced Palestinians.

The deal, supported by the US, also envisages a reconstruction phase, without any mention of the PA, which is dominated by the Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

But the US has been recently discussing with Arab players a postwar role for a reformed PA in Gaza, as well as the restoration of democratic rule in the PA’s West Bank areas, diplomats and regional sources say.

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Nada Maucourant Atallah reports:

An air strike that killed seven healthcare workers in the south of Lebanon in March was an “unlawful attack on civilians that failed to take all necessary precautions”, Human Rights Watch has said.

The strike on an emergency and relief centre in the southern village of Habariyeh, only five days after Israel killed seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen charity in Gaza, sparked outrage in Lebanon.

“If the attack on civilians was carried out intentionally or recklessly, it should be investigated as an apparent war crime,” HRW said on Tuesday.

On Monday, The Guardian, reported that an independent investigation found Israel used US-made weapons for the attack.

They killed seven volunteer paramedics, aged between 18 and 25, based on an analysis of shrapnel found at the site of the attack, the paper reported.

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Israeli settlers on Tuesday attacked an aid convoy that was travelling from Jordan to northern Gaza, but it then reached its destination, the kingdom’s Foreign Ministry said.

The ministry said the convoy was subjected to “aggression” by settlers near the border crossing of Erez, between Israel and Gaza, and that aid contents “were tampered with”.

The convoy “continued on its mission”, the Jordanian statement said.

In the past several weeks, the US, Jordan’s largest donor and main military backer, has been pressuring Israel to allow more aid into north Gaza through Jordan.

Willy Lowry reports from Washington:

The US has urged Israel to better protect aid convoys travelling from Jordan to Gaza.

“We have made it clear to them that they need to take action to prevent these attacks and they need to take action to hold people accountable,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.

Israeli activists with the right-wing organisation Tzav 9 blocked a convoy that was travelling from Jordan to the Erez crossing in Gaza, damaging lorries and humanitarian aid.

Israeli police said on Tuesday that six people suspected of having been involved in blocking the convoy had been arrested, The Times of Israel reported.

“They need to make arrests in this case, hold people accountable and send a strong public message as a deterrent that they will not tolerate these attacks on convoys that are just trying to deliver humanitarian assistance to innocent civilians that need it,” Mr Miller said.

Hamas official Osama Hamdan warned on Tuesday that if Israel’s military aggression continues in Rafah, there will be no ceasefire deal.

“(Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu and his Nazi government have to understand that the movement and the Palestinian resistance will not respond to any initiative for a ceasefire or a hostage deal under military pressure and escalation,” Mr Hamdan told a press conference in Beirut.

“The Rafah border crossing has been and will remain an Egyptian-Palestinian terminal and no occupation force will exist.”

A Hamas delegation, led by Khalil Al Hayya, arrived in Cairo on Tuesday from Doha, to follow up on efforts with Egyptian and Qatari mediators to reach an agreement to end Israel’s “aggression on our people in the Gaza Strip”.

Police clashed with pro-Palestinian protesters in the Dutch capital on Tuesday, a day after riot police violently broke up a camp at the University of Amsterdam.

Police officers used batons to prevent protesters from marching past the nearby Holocaust Monument on their way to Amsterdam city centre.

The Amsterdam force posted on X that riot police had closed off part of a major road in the centre for security reasons.

Earlier a crowd of several hundred had gathered, chanting slogans against the war in Gaza and denouncing Israel’s military operations.

“Free, free Palestine,” protesters shouted. “The people united will never be defeated.”

Police used a bulldozer to knock down barricades early on Tuesday and detained 169 people in sometimes violent clashes, according to witness statements and videos.

— AFP

Jihan Abdalla reporting from Washington:

Israel had informed the US that its military operation in Rafah would be limited in time, scale and scope and aimed at preventing weapons and funds from being smuggled into Gaza, the White House said on Tuesday.

National Security spokesman John Kirby said that talk on a hostage deal were also resuming in Cairo, led by CIA director William Burns who believes the two sides should be able to close the remaining gaps.

“This operation last night was limited and designed to cut off Hamas’s ability to smuggle weapons and funds into Gaza,” Mr Kirby said on Tuesday.

“Our views on Rafah remain the same. We’re going to be monitoring this situation very, very closely to see how it unfolds.”

Ellie Sennett reports in Washington:

Jordan’s King Abdullah II will discuss the state of play in Gaza with US politicians on Tuesday, amid rifts between Amman and a deeply pro-Israel Congress.

“His Majesty will definitely address the situation in Gaza and developments in the region,” a Jordanian official told The National in the lead up to the meetings in Washington.

King Abdullah will meet Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, although the visit will also include discussions with Republican and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate chambers, the official confirmed.

The House foreign affairs committee confirmed to The National that chairman Mike McCaul will also be present for meetings in the chamber.

The meetings between congressional leaders and King Abdullah, who has strongly advocated a ceasefire in Gaza and criticised Israel’s conduct in the war, come at a critical moment in negotiations between Israel and Hamas.

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The Israeli Foreign Ministry on Tuesday said recognising a Palestinian state after the October 7 attack would mean rewarding Hamas for murdering more than 1,000 Israelis.

“It means giving a prize to the Iranian Regime,” the ministry said on X. “It means living with the possibility of another October 7.

“The only way to promote peace is through direct negotiations, within the framework of a regional normalisation process.” 

Israel will continue its military offensive in Rafah until Hamas is destroyed or or until the release and return of the first hostage home, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Tuesday.

“Hamas terrorists have the blood of Israeli children on their hands. We will not cease operating in Rafah until Hamas is destroyed, or until the first hostage returns home,” Mr Gallant said on X.

“We may compromise in order to bring the hostages home, but if that option is removed, we will act.”