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

Magdy al-Zaanen is often woken up at night by the cries of his two children.

Sleeping in a makeshift tent on the pavement of Gaza’s Deir al-Balah, they regularly get bitten by mosquitoes, leaving them in great pain. 

“My wife and I pretend to put medicine on the bites to trick them to go back to sleep,” says al-Zaanen. 

Mosquito bites are just one symptom of the growing environmental and health crisis that he and nearly two million internally displaced Palestinians in Gaza are facing since Israel began its war on the Strip in October.  

Nearly eight months of relentless Israeli bombardment and siege has all but destroyed infrastructure, waste management facilities, and the Palestinian civil defence. 

This has left human remains buried under mountains of debris for months, heaps of uncollected solid waste piling up on streets and sewage overflows are a regular occurrence. 

Read more: Overflowing waste threatens health crisis in Gaza as hepatitis spread

Israeli forces killed another son of Palestinian journalist Motasem Dalloul, the journalist reported in a post on X. 

Dalloul's son was killed by Israeli bombing at Al Zaytoun neighbourhood in Gaza City. 

Earlier in May, Israeli forces killed another of Dalloul's chilldren. 

A CNN analysis of a deadly Israeli air strike on a camp for displaced Palestinians in Rafah has found that US-made munitions were used in the attack.

Sunday's attack on an overcrowded group of tents in the southern Gaza Strip city killed at least 45 people and injured hundreds.

Footage of the aftermath, including images of a headless child, caused shockwaves across the world, sparking condemnation even by European states allied to Israel.

Video shows chaotic scenes, with panicked survivors running for safety amid the charred bodies, as rescuers and medics try to pull them from the wreckage. It also contains clues as to the weaponry used in the attack, which was analysed by CNN teams.

The US news network first matched details shown in the footage, such as the location signs strewn in the wreckage of the attack, to  known details about where it took place, namely the Kuwait Peace Camp.

Read more: Israel used 'US-made weapons' in Rafah massacre

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) recovered the bodies of two of its paramedics on Thursday who were killed by Israel last night in Rafah’s Tal as-Sultan area. 

The paramedics - Haitham Tubasi and Suhail Hassouna - were killed after Israel bombed their ambulance, according to PRCS.

“The Israeli occupation forces deliberately bombed the ambulance vehicle despite it bearing the internationally protected Red Crescent emblem,” PRCS said in a post on X.

The Palestnian health ministry called the attack a “heinous crime” which confirms Israeli military’s “intention to annihilate” Gaza’s health system.

Since 7 October, 19 PRCS medics have been killed in Gaza while on the job, according to the organisation.

According to Al Jazeera Arabic and the Wafa news agency, emergency crews in Ramallah, a city in the occupied West Bank, put out a fire at the main vegetable market that was sparked by Israeli munitions.

At least one Palestinian was wounded by the live fire, the news agency said.

The Israeli assault on Ramallah was part of a wave of Israeli military raids across the occupied West Bank, according to Wafa.

At least 66 people, including children, have been killed in four days of attacks on Rafah, this comes despite the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to immediately halt its offensive in Rafah.

“What more evidence do leaders need to show there is absolutely nowhere safe for children and families in Gaza?” said Xavier Joubert, Save the Children’s country director in the occupied Palestinian territory.

“They are permanently, constantly, fleeing for their lives, from one danger zone to another. And they’re not fleeing randomly - they’re going to the areas that Israel directed them to go to ‘for their own safety’. Then they are being attacked,” Joubert said.

“For those who haven’t yet been hit by explosive weapons fired directly into civilian areas, they are suffering the slow, agonising effects of starvation. Children’s mental and physical health is being pushed beyond breaking point, as they suffer unimaginable mental harm from the violence, serious physical injuries, including the loss of body parts, and the loss of families, homes, and their schools,” he added.

A temporary pier built by the US military to deliver aid to Gaza, which was damaged by heavy seas on Tuesday, will take at least a week to be repaired, according to US officials. The pier has been sent to Ashdod, Israel for repairs. 

United Nations experts have called for “decisive international action” following the "barbaric" Israeli attack that killed at least 45 Palestinians in camps in Rafah on Sunday.

“Harrowing images of destruction, displacement and death have emerged from Rafah, including infants torn apart and people burnt alive,” the UN experts said.

“Reports emerging from the ground indicate that the strikes were indiscriminate and disproportionate, with people trapped inside burning plastic tents, leading to a horrific casualty toll,” the statement said. 

"The attacks are a flagrant violation of international law. They are also an attack on human decency and our collective humanity,” the experts said.

“Even if Israeli leaders claim now that the strikes were a 'mistake', they bear international legal responsibility. Calling it a mistake will not make the strikes legal, bring back those killed in Rafah or give comfort to grieving survivors," the UN experts said.

“The agony of Gaza’s people must end now.” 

A career US State Department official resigned from her post on Tuesday, saying she could no longer work for the Biden administration after it released a report concluding that Israel was not preventing the flow of aid to Gaza.

Stacy Gilbert, who served as a senior civilian-military adviser to the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM), sent an email to staff saying she was resigning because she felt the State Department had made the wrong assessment, The Washington Post reported, citing officials who read the note.

The report was filed in response to President Joe Biden issuing a national security memorandum (NSM-20) in early February on whether the administration finds credible Israel's assurances that its use of US weapons do not violate either American or international law.

The report said there were reasonable grounds to believe Israel on several occasions had used American-supplied weapons "inconsistent" with international humanitarian law, but said it could not make a definitive assessment - enough to prevent the suspension of arms transfers.

Read more: State Department official resigns after Biden administration says Israel not blocking Gaza aid

The Israel Land Authority (ILA) has demanded that the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) vacate its headquarters in the Ma’alot Dafna area of occupied East Jerusalem within 30 days, the Times of Israel reports.

In a letter to the UN body, the ILA states that it owes them a sum of $7,326,711.19 for operating on land belonging to Israel without consent for the last seven years.

The move is believed to be politically motivated. Israel has long sought to stop Unrwa operating from the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Israeli military said that two Israeli soldiers were killed in a car-ramming attack in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday and that another soldier was killed in northern Gaza.

The latest Israeli soldier to die in Gaza raises the toll to 292 since Israel’s ground offensive began.

The United Nations has said that the amount of humanitarian aid entering the besieged Gaza Strip has dropped by two-thirds since Israel began its assault in Rafah. 

"The amount of food and other aid entering Gaza, already insufficient to meet the soaring needs, has further shrunk since 7 May," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) said.

Aid shipments have diminished "due to the closure of Rafah crossing, the inability to safely and consistently pick up commodities from the Karim Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing and limited deliveries through other entry points," Ocha said.

It's day 237 of Israel's war on Gaza. This is a recap of the last few hours to get you up to speed this morning:

• A CNN analysis of Sunday's deadly Israeli air strike in Rafah found that US-made munitions were used in the attack. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he was not aware of this.

• Israel’s military has said it has taken “operational control” of the Philadelphi Corridor between Gaza and Egypt, in a move experts say increases the chance of escalation

• Gadi Eisenkot, a minister in Israel's war cabinet, said it will take “three to five years for a significant stabilisation” in Gaza, followed by “many more” years to form a new government there.

• Algeria has presented a draft resolution to the UN Security Council (UNSC) that “demands an immediate ceasefire respected by all parties” and the release of all captives in Gaza

• Israeli forces conduct raids across the occupied West Bank

• The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) has said that vital medical supplies are fast running out in Gaza’s remaining hospitals as border crossings remain shut due to Israel’s ground assault on Rafah

Good evening MEE readers. On Wednesday, Israeli forces continued its military operations in Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza that the Biden administration had previously set as a red line for Israel.

Israel's military announced that it had seized the Philadelphi corridor, a 14-kilometre buffer zone along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Israel claims the tunnels are used to smuggle weapons to Hamas, and the seizure could complicate Israel's ties with Cairo.

Meanwhile, Hamas claimed a series of attacks on Israeli forces, including attacks on tanks, military bulldozers and Israeli soldiers.

At the UN, Algeria submitted its draft Security Council resolution that calls for Israel to stop its assault on Rafah. The US, which holds veto over in the Security Council, said the resolution "was not helpful".

In other news:

• A CNN analysis of Sunday's deadly Israeli air strike in Rafah found that US-made munitions were used in the attack. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he was not aware of this.

• Israeli soldiers have arrested four students in the town of Sarra, in the occupied West Bank, after raiding a school.

• Gadi Eisenkot, a minister in Israel's war cabinet, said it will take “three to five years for a significant stabilisation” in Gaza, followed by “many more” years to form a new government there.

• French President Emmanuel Macron said there should be an end to the "systematic postponement" to both the implementing of a two-state solution and of the setting up of a Palestinian state.

• Israel targeted a residential neighbourhood in the Syrian city of Baniyas, killing a girl and injuring 10 civilians, according to Syrian state media.

• Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva withdrew Brazilian ambassador to Israel Frederico Meyer from his post amid a diplomatic spat between the two countries.

• The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said on X that Israel's military targeted one of their ambulances in the Tal Sultan area of Rafah.

• Stacy Gilbert, a career State Department official, resigned from her post, saying she could no longer work for the Biden administration after it released a report concluding that Israel was not preventing the flow of aid to Gaza.

A career US State Department official resigned from her post, saying she could no longer work for the Biden administration after it released a report concluding that Israel was not preventing the flow of aid to Gaza.

Stacy Gilbert, who served as a senior civilian-military advisor to the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM), sent an email to staff saying she was resigning because she felt the State Department had made the wrong assessment, The Washington Post reported, citing officials who read the note.

The report was filed in response to President Joe Biden issuing a national security memorandum (NSM-20) in early February on whether the administration finds credible Israel's assurances that its use of US weapons do not violate either American or international law.

Read the full story by clicking below.

State Department official resigns after Biden administration says Israel not blocking Gaza aid