Gaza live: Israel to build 'different government' in Gaza, says defence minister

In update to what is being described as a massacre, the Health Ministry in Gaza says 45 people have been killed in the Israeli attack of displaced Palestinians in Rafah, including 23 women, children and elderly, with 249 wounded.

The ministry added that at least 36,050 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war and 81,026 have been wounded.

"Outraged by the Israeli strikes that have killed many displaced persons in Rafah," said the French President Emmanuel Macron in post on X. 

"These operations must stop. There are no safe areas in Rafah for Palestinian civilians," he said adding that there needs to be an immediate ceasefire. 

Witnesses speaking to Al-Jazeera recounted the “massacre” in the camp in Rafah’s Tal as-Sultan area over the weekend by Israeli forces.

Majed al-Attar, a displaced person from Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, said he lost five members of his family.

“We were sitting in tents, and suddenly the camp was bombed. I lost five people from my family, all of whom were completely burned, among the people who killed pregnant women. Every time they told us that this area was safe until we were bombed,” he said.

The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency, Unrwa, said on Monday that reports of attacks on families seeking shelter in Rafah in the southern tip of the Gaza Strip were "horrifying".

When German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock presented the guidelines of her feminist foreign policy in March 2023, she proclaimed: “If women are not safe, then no one is safe.”

Considering Germany’s extensive support for the Israeli war on Gaza, that sentence now sounds like a farce. Since 7 October, more than 35,000 people, most of them women and children, have been killed in Gaza. In a matter of months, Germany has tarnished its reputation as an advocate for feminist principles, peace and adherence to international law. 

The Federal Foreign Office laid out 10 guidelines as part of its feminist foreign policy. The first guideline speaks to the importance of protecting civilians in armed conflicts.  

This focus is sensible, as research shows that women and children suffer particularly from the indirect consequences of armed conflicts, such as impeded access to food, water and medical care. 

Opinion: War on Gaza exposes Germany's feminist foreign policy as a sham

Israeli attacks on Palestinian civilians in Gaza were no longer justifiable, Italy said on Monday in one of the strongest rebukes Rome has delivered to Israel, Reuters reported. 

"There is an increasingly difficult situation, in which the Palestinian people are being squeezed without regard for the rights of innocent men, women and children who have nothing to do with Hamas and this can no longer be justified," Defence Minister Guido Crosetto told SkyTG24 TV.

"We are watching the situation with despair."

Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz announced in a diplomatic note to the Spanish embassy in Israel that it will ban their activities in the occupied West Bank.

The note states that the Spanish consulate in Jerusalem is prohibited “from conducting consular activities or providing consular services to residents of the Palestinian Authority,” said Katz in a post on X. 

The statement follows Spain's decision last week, alongside Norway and Ireland, to recognise the Palestinian state.

Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader of the UK Labour Party and a human rights advocate, has labelled Israel’s bombing of a tent camp in Rafah a “monstrous failure of humanity” in a post on X.

"Palestinian children should wake up feeling excited to go to school and play with their friends," he added.

 "The whole point of me pursuing a career is to use my skills to help our people," Rohan Gill, a 28-year-old registered nurse based in Brooklyn, New York, told Middle East Eye. "If I can't even do that, then what is the point?"

Gill was part of a medical team of volunteers with an organisation called Gila. He spent a month in Rafah volunteering in a primary care clinic. Here he tells us what he saw and why he desperately wants to go back.

Israeli forces have killed more than 36,000 Palestinians since 7 October, according to Gaza's health ministry. Over 80,000 have been wounded since the start of the war, and they are mostly women and children.

Read more: 'I want to go back': A New York nurse's journey to Gaza and back

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares will ask the other 26 European Union member states to issue official backing to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and take steps to ensure Israel respects its decisions.

“I am going to ask the other 26 partners to declare the backing of the International Court of Justice and its decision, and also, if Israel continues to pursue against that opinion of the court, we would try to take the right measures to enforce that decision,” he told reporters in a Brussels news conference following a ministerial meeting hosted by Norway and Saudi Arabia in Brussels over the weekend.

Following the press conference, Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock says that the World Court ruling is “binding” and that it must be respected.

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territory, described Israel’s attack on the tent camp in Rafah as “more horror”.

“This cruelty, along with blatant defiance of the int’l law and system, is unacceptable,” she said in a post on X. “The #GazaGenocide‌ will not easily end without external pressure: Israel must face sanctions, justice, suspension of agreements, trade, partnership and investments, as well as participation in int’l forums.”

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, speaking at a ministerial meeting hosted by Norway and Saudi Arabia in Brussels over the weekend, warned Israel that "it is absolutely necessary that Israel must accept that it cannot exist without the existence of a Palestinian state."

“Israel doesn’t get to decide whether or not the Palestinians have a right to self-determination. This is something that is enshrined in the UN’s charter and in international law,” he added. 

At the ministerial meeting, representatives of more than 20 countries discussed a political solution to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. 

High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said, on Monday, last week's World Court ruling on Gaza must be applied and the EU countries will discuss how to take action to implement the ruling, Reuters reported.