Israel-Gaza war live: Rafah offensive could give Hamas ‘strategic victory’, US says; UNGA in new Palestinian vote

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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to submit a highly critical report to Congress as soon as Friday on Israel’s conduct in Gaza that stops short of concluding it has violated the terms for its use of US weapons, Axios said.

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The report, citing three officials, added that the State Department was reviewing the use of weapons by Israel and six other countries engaged in different armed conflicts.

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On Tuesday, Reuters reported that the Biden administration was set to miss a Wednesday deadline to report to Congress on whether Israel is violating international humanitarian law in Gaza.

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A national security memorandum, NSM-20, issued by President Joe Biden in February, required the department to report to Congress by May 8 how credible are Israel’s assurances that its use of U.S. weapons does not violate US or international law.

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Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that Israel will stand alone and “fight with our fingernails” in defiance of US threats to further restrict arms deliveries if Israeli forces proceed with an offensive on the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

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Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, was speaking on Thursday after Israeli and Hamas delegations left the ceasefire negotiations in Cairo. It was unclear whether the talks had broken down or simply paused. Hamas said early on Friday that the “ball is now completely” in Israel’s hands, while Israel has claimed that Hamas’ version of a deal fell far short of its requirements.

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The failure to reach an agreement in this week’s round of meetings raised fears of an imminent Israeli attack on Rafah.

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Netanyahu appeared to shrug off a public warning from the US president, Joe Biden, the previous night that if the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a major offensive on the city the US would not provide bombs and artillery shells to support the operation.

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It’s approaching 9.30am in Gaza and Tel Aviv, welcome to our live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war and the wider Middle East crisis. I’m Tom Ambrose and I’ll be with you throughout the day.

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The United States has warned Israel that it will be will be giving a strategic victory to Hamas if it carries out plans for an all-out assault on Rafah.

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White House national security spokesperson John Kirby says:

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Our view is any kind of major Rafah ground operation would actually strengthen Hamas’ hands at the negotiating table, not Israel’s.

\n

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Kirby also says that more civilian deaths in Rafah from an Israeli offensive would give more ammunition to Hamas’ “twisted narrative” about Israel.

It comes after US president, Joe Biden, said he would pause more offensive military assistance to Israel if it goes through with the operation in a city where more than 1 million civilians are sheltering.

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Meanwhile, the UN general assembly is expected to vote today on a resolution that would grant new “rights and privileges” to Palestine and call on the Security Council to favourably reconsider its request to become the 194th member of the United Nations.

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The United States vetoed a widely backed council resolution on in April that would have paved the way for full United Nations membership for Palestine, a goal the Palestinians have long sought and Israel has worked to prevent. US deputy ambassador Robert Wood made clear yesterday that the Biden administration is opposed to the assembly resolution.

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Other developments included:

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Egypt has said Hamas and Israel must show “flexibility” if they are to strike a deal for a ceasefire and hostage-prisoner exchange , according to a foreign ministry statement released Friday. The readout of a phone call between Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and US secretary of state Antony Blinken said both diplomats agreed on “the importance of urging the parties to show flexibility and make all the necessary efforts to achieve a ceasefire agreement and put an end to the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza”.

Hamas said early Friday that its delegation attending Gaza ceasefire negotiations in Cairo had left the city for Qatar, adding the “ball is now completely” in Israel’s hands. “The negotiating delegation left Cairo heading to Doha. In practice, the occupation [Israel] rejected the proposal submitted by the mediators and raised objections to it on several central issues,” the group said in a message to other Palestinian factions, according to Agence France-Presse.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has vowed that Israel will stand alone and “fight with our fingernails” in defiance of US threats to further restrict arms deliveries if Israeli forces proceed with an offensive on the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Netanyahu appeared to shrug off a public warning from the US president, Joe Biden, the previous night that if the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a major offensive on the city the US would not provide bombs and artillery shells to support the operation.

Israel’s former head of defence production and procurement on Thursday rejected the claim the country could manage without US arms, saying Israel would be forced to source arms elsewhere, according to Israeli public radio.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken is expected to submit a highly critical report to Congress as soon as Friday on Israel’s conduct in Gaza, according to Axios, which says that the report stops short of concluding it has violated the terms for its use of US weapons. Axios cited three officials in its reporting.

More than 100,000 people have fled Rafah after Israel intensified its bombardment, UN officials have said, in the largest movement of population in Gaza for many months. Humanitarian officials are tracking the number of people fleeing Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, where more than 1 million people displaced from elsewhere in the territory have been sheltering.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees has temporarily closed its East Jerusalem headquarters after “Israeli extremists” set fire to the perimeter following weeks of repeated attacks. “This evening, Israeli residents set fire twice to the perimeter of the Unrwa headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem,” the head of the agency, Philippe Lazzarini, said on X, lamenting that it was the second attack on the compound in a matter of days.

Israel’s assault around Rafah on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip is finally bringing what was left of Gaza’s medical system to its knees, doctors told Reuters. Rafah’s main al-Najjar hospital abruptly shut as fighting came close, while the Emirati maternity hospital, where 85 babies a day were being born, stopped receiving patients. The two checkpoints into southern Gaza have also been shut, blocking the arrival of basic supplies such as fuel, though Israel says it reopened its Kerem Shalom crossing on Wednesday and is trying to get aid through.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says it has only three days of fuel for its medical operations in southern Gaza. Speaking about the closure of the Rafah crossing from Egypt on Wednesday, WHO’s director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “Fuel that we expected to be allowed in today has not been allowed in, meaning that we only have enough fuel to run health services in the south for three more days.”

Cypriot officials confirmed that a vessel carrying aid to a pier built by the US off Gaza set sail from Cyprus on Thursday. The US flagged Sagamore left the port of Larnaca in the morning and US officials have said the vessel will be used to off-load supplies on to a floating pier.

At least 34,904 Palestinians have been killed and 78,514 injured in Israel’s military offensive in Gaza since 7 October, Gaza’s health ministry said in a statement on Thursday. The Hamas-run health ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.

Israeli protesters blocked aid trucks headed from Jordan to Gaza, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported. Hundreds of residents of Israel’s southern-most city, Eilat, joined the protest blocking the convoy at the border crossing with Jordan, the newspaper reported.

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Blinken report expected to say Israel is not breaking weapons terms, Axios reports

The report, citing three officials, added that the State Department was reviewing the use of weapons by Israel and six other countries engaged in different armed conflicts.

On Tuesday, Reuters reported that the Biden administration was set to miss a Wednesday deadline to report to Congress on whether Israel is violating international humanitarian law in Gaza.

The United Nations General Assembly is set to back a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member by recognising it as qualified to join and sending the application back to the UN Security Council to “reconsider the matter favourably.”

The Palestinians are reviving their bid to become a full UN member – a move that would effectively recognise a Palestinian state – after the United States vetoed it in the 15-member UN Security Council last month.

Reuters reports:

The vote by the 193-member General Assembly on Friday will act as a global survey of support for the Palestinians. An application to become a full UN member first needs to be approved by the Security Council and then the General Assembly.

But while the General Assembly alone cannot grant full UN membership, the draft resolution being put to a vote on Friday will give the Palestinians some additional rights and privileges from September 2024 – like a seat among the UN members in the assembly hall – but it will not be granted a vote in the body.

Diplomats said the draft text is likely to get the support needed to be adopted.

The Palestinian push for full UN membership comes seven months into a war between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and as Israel is expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank, which the UN considers to be illegal.

The Palestinians are currently a non-member observer state, a de facto recognition of statehood that was granted by the UN General Assembly in 2012.

‘We will fight with our fingernails’ says Netanyahu after US threat to curb arms

Julian Borger

The failure to reach an agreement in this week’s round of meetings raised fears of an imminent Israeli attack on Rafah.

Opening summary

It’s approaching 9.30am in Gaza and Tel Aviv, welcome to our live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war and the wider Middle East crisis. I’m Tom Ambrose and I’ll be with you throughout the day.

The United States has warned Israel that it will be will be giving a strategic victory to Hamas if it carries out plans for an all-out assault on Rafah.

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby says:

Our view is any kind of major Rafah ground operation would actually strengthen Hamas’ hands at the negotiating table, not Israel’s.

Kirby also says that more civilian deaths in Rafah from an Israeli offensive would give more ammunition to Hamas’ “twisted narrative” about Israel.

Other developments included:

Egypt has said Hamas and Israel must show “flexibility” if they are to strike a deal for a ceasefire and hostage-prisoner exchange , according to a foreign ministry statement released Friday. The readout of a phone call between Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and US secretary of state Antony Blinken said both diplomats agreed on “the importance of urging the parties to show flexibility and make all the necessary efforts to achieve a ceasefire agreement and put an end to the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza”.
Hamas said early Friday that its delegation attending Gaza ceasefire negotiations in Cairo had left the city for Qatar, adding the “ball is now completely” in Israel’s hands. “The negotiating delegation left Cairo heading to Doha. In practice, the occupation [Israel] rejected the proposal submitted by the mediators and raised objections to it on several central issues,” the group said in a message to other Palestinian factions, according to Agence France-Presse.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has vowed that Israel will stand alone and “fight with our fingernails” in defiance of US threats to further restrict arms deliveries if Israeli forces proceed with an offensive on the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Netanyahu appeared to shrug off a public warning from the US president, Joe Biden, the previous night that if the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a major offensive on the city the US would not provide bombs and artillery shells to support the operation.
Israel’s former head of defence production and procurement on Thursday rejected the claim the country could manage without US arms, saying Israel would be forced to source arms elsewhere, according to Israeli public radio.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken is expected to submit a highly critical report to Congress as soon as Friday on Israel’s conduct in Gaza, according to Axios, which says that the report stops short of concluding it has violated the terms for its use of US weapons. Axios cited three officials in its reporting.
More than 100,000 people have fled Rafah after Israel intensified its bombardment, UN officials have said, in the largest movement of population in Gaza for many months. Humanitarian officials are tracking the number of people fleeing Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, where more than 1 million people displaced from elsewhere in the territory have been sheltering.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees has temporarily closed its East Jerusalem headquarters after “Israeli extremists” set fire to the perimeter following weeks of repeated attacks. “This evening, Israeli residents set fire twice to the perimeter of the Unrwa headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem,” the head of the agency, Philippe Lazzarini, said on X, lamenting that it was the second attack on the compound in a matter of days.
Israel’s assault around Rafah on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip is finally bringing what was left of Gaza’s medical system to its knees, doctors told Reuters. Rafah’s main al-Najjar hospital abruptly shut as fighting came close, while the Emirati maternity hospital, where 85 babies a day were being born, stopped receiving patients. The two checkpoints into southern Gaza have also been shut, blocking the arrival of basic supplies such as fuel, though Israel says it reopened its Kerem Shalom crossing on Wednesday and is trying to get aid through.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says it has only three days of fuel for its medical operations in southern Gaza. Speaking about the closure of the Rafah crossing from Egypt on Wednesday, WHO’s director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “Fuel that we expected to be allowed in today has not been allowed in, meaning that we only have enough fuel to run health services in the south for three more days.”
Cypriot officials confirmed that a vessel carrying aid to a pier built by the US off Gaza set sail from Cyprus on Thursday. The US flagged Sagamore left the port of Larnaca in the morning and US officials have said the vessel will be used to off-load supplies on to a floating pier.
At least 34,904 Palestinians have been killed and 78,514 injured in Israel’s military offensive in Gaza since 7 October, Gaza’s health ministry said in a statement on Thursday. The Hamas-run health ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.
Israeli protesters blocked aid trucks headed from Jordan to Gaza, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported. Hundreds of residents of Israel’s southern-most city, Eilat, joined the protest blocking the convoy at the border crossing with Jordan, the newspaper reported.

The Guardian

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