Mass displacement as Israelis intensify assaults

We’ve published several new pieces covering various aspects of the conflict over the past day.

Here are a few highlights:

• News: Rift in Israel war cabinet as defence chief opposes ‘military rule’ in Gaza
• Listen: A Palestinian doctor’s fight to speak about Gaza on Nakba Day
• Opinion: Gaza lost much more than a hospital when it lost al-Shifa
• Watch: Nakba remembered: What is the right of return?
• Feature: Palestinian life under Israeli occupation – An illustrated guide
  

   ‘Scale of crisis defies imagination’, says IRC

  The International Rescue Committee (IRC) says it is facing “significant disruptions to its humanitarian operations” following Israel’s ground operations in Rafah, southern Gaza, which resulted in the closure of the Rafah crossing and a blockade on entry of humanitarian workers and aid.

  Kiryn Lanning, IRC team lead for the occupied Palestinian territory, said: “I have recently returned from Gaza, where the scale of the crisis defies imagination. Facilities across southern Gaza have been repurposed into makeshift shelters overflowing into the streets. This displaced population is now facing acute shortages of basic necessities such as food, water, and adequate sanitation.”

  Three-quarters of Gaza’s telecom towers out of service

  Israeli attacks on Gaza have knocked out telecommunications and internet at least 10 times since October last year, while rendering 75 percent of the enclave’s mobile phone towers inoperable, according to Palestine’s Central Bureau of Statistics and Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.

  The blackouts have isolated Gaza’s population, obstructed journalists from reporting on Israeli attacks, and hampered search and rescue operations, said a statement from the ministry and statistics bureau cited by the Wafa news agency.

  Digital rights group Access Now, which reports on global internet censorship, said evidence shows Gaza’s outages stem from a combination of Israel’s “direct attacks on civilian telecommunications infrastructure (including cell towers, fiber optic cables, and ISP offices), restrictions on access to electricity (through infrastructure attacks, denial of service, and blockading of fuel required to run generators), and technical disruptions to telecommunications services”.

  Rights groups, including Amnesty International, have warned that the blackouts challenge efforts to document potential rights abuses.

  What to expect at the ICJ hearing today

  As we’ve been reporting, the ICJ will hold at 13:00 GMT a public hearing over the extra emergency measures sought by South Africa against Israel’s attacks on Rafah during its war on Gaza.

  We’ve spoken to William Schabas, a professor of international law at Middlesex University whose work focuses on human rights and international criminal law, to unpack the case. Here’s what he said:

  • This will be the fourth request by South Africa for provisional measures. At the end of January, they were successful in getting an order and they again obtained an additional order late in March.
  • They will be presenting before the court this afternoon in The Hague that the circumstances have developed and evolved now where they are essentially claiming that this is the end of Gaza and with the threatened destruction of Rafah that this is sort of the final stage.
  • So they are asking for a renewed order and, in particular, they are focusing on a requirement of a ceasefire, that the military activities stop altogether.
  • The court has clearly indicated the urgency of the matter. The application was filed on Friday of last week and they’ve set a hearing for today, five days later.
  • This is extremely unusual; they haven’t responded with the same kind of urgency before so it shows that the court is taking this as a very serious matter.

  Note: You will be able to follow the proceedings at the ICJ in our separate live coverage starting in a few hours. Stay tuned for details.

  Israeli jets continue bombardment in Jabalia

  Israeli air strikes have continued to pound northern Gaza’s Jabalia, where Israeli soldiers have engaged in fierce gun battles with Palestinian fighters.

  A video posted on Instagram by Palestinian activist Mohamed Ahmed, and verified by Al Jazeera, shows smoke rising over targeted buildings in central Jabalia on Thursday morning.

  Yesterday, Israeli tanks and troops pushed deep into densely populated neighbourhoods of Jabalia, encountering fierce resistance, as Israeli jets frequently raided parts of the city.

  One Israeli strike hit a family home, killing at least four people in addition to causing injuries, according to Wafa news agency.

  WFP suspends food distribution in Rafah

  The UN’s food agency says it has run out of stocks in southern Rafah and has suspended food aid distributions there since May 11.

  Food deliveries are still ongoing in Khan Younis and Deir el-Balah, it said, but in a limited capacity.

  Earlier, we brought you an update from the WFP, which said its food and fuel stocks in all of Gaza are set to run out within a matter of days. This is due to the Israeli seizure and closure of the Rafah-Egypt border crossing and the limited entry of supplies through the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing from Israel into Gaza.

  Israel launches investigation into soldiers killed by ‘friendly fire’

  We now have more information on news of Israeli “friendly fire” that killed five of its soldiers in northern Gaza on Wednesday.

  “Five soldiers of the 202nd Paratrooper Battalion were killed last night in a mass casualty incident as a result of fire by our forces,” the Israeli military said in a statement, adding that seven other troops were wounded.

  According to a preliminary investigation, two Israeli tanks in the area opened fire on a house used by the Israeli battalion’s deputy commander, the military said.

  “The shooting consisted of two tank shells,” it said. “From the initial investigation … it appears that the tank fighters identified a gun barrel coming out of one of the windows in the building, and directed each other to shoot at the building.”

  The latest fatalities take to 278 the number of Israeli troops killed in the Gaza military campaign since the start of the ground offensive on October 27.

  Hamas leader says Israel ‘put negotiations at an impasse’

  Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas’s political bureau, has blamed Israel for the current deadlock in Gaza ceasefire talks, saying their amendments on the proposal introduced by mediators Qatar and Egypt have “put the negotiations at an impasse”.

  “We recently announced our agreement to the proposal presented to us by our brothers in Egypt and Qatar, which was known to the American administration. But the [Israeli] occupation responded to this proposal by occupying and controlling the Rafah crossing and starting aggression in the Rafah area,” he said.

  Haniyeh also rejected any post-war settlement in Gaza that excludes the group.

  Israeli ‘clearing’ operations in Jabalia target of mounting Palestinian attacks: Monitors

  Palestinian fighters say they have carried out the largest number of attacks per day on Israeli forces operating in the Jabalia refugee camp since the start of the Gaza ground invasion, war monitors report.

  Palestinian armed groups reported carrying out 34 attacks on Wednesday against Israeli forces who re-entered the northern Gaza camp on Saturday in a renewed push to “clear” resistance from northern parts of the Palestinian territory.

  With Palestinian attacks average 30 daily, “this marks the highest rate of claimed attacks per day in Jabalia since the war began”, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP) said in their latest battlefield report.

  In southern Rafah city, Israeli forces discovered a Hamas facility containing “models of Israeli Merkava tanks and armoured personnel carriers”, which were used in the training of Palestinian fighters, the US-based think tanks report.

  The report also notes that Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi has likened Israel’s “clearing” operations in Gaza to an unachievable, “Sisyphean task”.

  According to the UN, at least 600,000 Palestinians have fled the Rafah district since the start of the Israeli military incursion.

  The Israeli military has mobilised more troops in order to expand fighting in the area despite describing the operation as being limited. There is a lot of destruction in the eastern portion of Rafah city where confrontations are continuing.

  In the past couple of hours, there have been more attacks, with four Palestinians from the same family killed in the western part of Rafah.

  The military has also dropped leaflets in the western areas of Rafah, close to al-Mawasi, calling for any kind of help from Palestinian residents to find Israeli captives.

  More than 15,000 children killed in Gaza: Red Crescent

  The Palestine Red Crescent Society has reported that more than 15,000 children have been killed in Gaza.

  Since October 7, more than 35,000 people have been killed by Israeli attacks on the besieged enclave. About 500 Palestinians have also been killed in attacks by Israeli forces and settlers across the occupied West Bank.

  Arrests as US police storm pro-Palestine campus protests

  Police in the US arrested students at an encampment set up at the University of California, Irvine in support of a ceasefire in Gaza. This comes after hundreds of students closed off a lecture hall on the campus on Wednesday.

  The university is one of many across the country where protesters have been demanding that institutions divest from Israeli companies.

  Students at the University of Florida in Gainesville have also been demonstrating against the war in Gaza, ignoring the university’s orders not to do so.

  CENTCOM announces Gaza floating aid pier has been anchored

  The US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) has announced that a new US-built, temporary humanitarian aid pier was anchored to the beach in Gaza this morning.

  It said trucks carrying humanitarian assistance are expected to “begin moving ashore in the coming days”, with the aid set to be received and distributed by the UN.

  Relief groups have warned that the plan – which aims to boost aid deliveries to the besieged enclave – faces the same challenges that they do, namely a lack of safety and fuel.