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

The Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said it is expected that cabinet member Benny Gantz will "resign from the government," the Israeli Haaretz news website reported.

Lapid made the statements after a meeting with opposition figures Avigdor Lieberman and Gideon Sa'ar, when the three agreed on "a plan to replace the government".

Crews of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) evacuated from al-Quds field hospital located in al-Mawasi area, a designated "safe area" for Palestinians.

In a post on X, the PRCS said the move comes in light of the "increased threat level from the Israeli occupation, continued artillery and air bombardments in its vicinity, and the complete evacuation of residents from the surrounding area".

The number of PRCS members killed since 7 October rose to 30, with at least 17 killed while on duty. 

Palestinian health minister Majed Abu Ramadan said there was "no indication" from Israel that the Rafah crossing, which is highly relied upon to supply Gaza with essential humanitarian aid, would be re-opened soon.

“Since it was closed, we have no indication that the Israelis would like it to be opened any time soon,” the minister told reporters on the sidelines of the World Health Assembly in Geneva.

On 7 May, the Israeli military said it has taken "operational control" of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, the only point of exit and entry between Gaza and Egypt. The military said that its 401st Armoured Brigade captured the crossing in southern Gaza, following an overnight military operation. 

The Israeli flag was raised on flag poles at the crossing, while the Palestinian flag was pulled to the ground.

Palestinian NGOs and professional unions declared that the besiged Gaza Strip is now a "famine-stricken zone."

The new conference was held in Ramallah by Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs Network (PNGO) in Deir el-Balah.

Shawa added that raw sewege has overflowed amongst tents where people are sheltering resulting in people going without drinking water 

The situation is detiroiorating by the minute said Shawa made worse by the “ruthless, merciless bombardment by the Israeli warplanes”.

Muhammad Eida, a Palestinian NGO director added that Gaza is now  a "famine-stricken zone as the Israeli genocidal war enters the eighth month”.

“Many dead bodies are still trapped underneath the ruins,” he says, adding that others are “still strewn on the roads”.

“It is Israel’s goal to starve the population to force them out of Gaza Strip” he continues.

Hamas is prepared to show "flexibility" about the future governance of Gaza, as long as the decision to rule the war-battered enclave is agreed upon by other Palestinian factions and is not imposed by either the United States or Israel, a senior Palestinian source with knowledge of Hamas' policies has told Middle East Eye.

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the topic, also said that Hamas felt the balance of power was "tilting" in its favour as Israel grapples with mounting political divisions over the future of post-war Gaza.

"Hamas is confident that it is deeply rooted in the region and nobody can bypass it," the source told MEE.

Read more: Hamas said to express 'flexibility' over post-war Gaza future

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the "global community [is] watching live the barbarism of [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, who is sick in mind, maniac, psychopath, a vampire that feeds on blood," Anadolu news agency reported on Wednesday.

“European heads of state and government, you have become complicit in Israel’s vampirism due to your silence,” he said, adding that the US’s hands are especially “stained with blood”.

“Inside Gaza, the IDF is now in control of 75 percent of the Philadelphi Route and I believe it will be in control of it all with time," said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, the Times of Israel reported. 

"Together with the Egyptians, we must ensure weapon smuggling is prevented," he added.

Hanegbi said that he expects fighting in Gaza to continue throughout 2024 at least.

A UK pension fund for university staff has investments in companies accused of being complicit in possible Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

The Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) fund is one of the UK's largest pension funds, worth £2.8bn ($3.6bn). Approximately 420,000 university staff members pay into the fund every month, with their institutions matching their contributions.

Portfolio documents seen by Middle East Eye show that the USS has allocated funds to companies that rights groups have linked to Israel’s war in Gaza.

The USS allocates £32m to the USS UK Equity Fund as part of its pension portfolio. Within that fund, it invests in Barclays Bank, Qinetiq and Melrose Industries, which rights groups accuse of being complicit in suspected Israeli war crimes. 

Read more: UK universities pension fund worth billions invests in companies linked to Israel

At least 36,171 Palestinians have been killed and 81,420 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October, the Palestinian health ministry said on Wednesday. 

The ministry added that 75 people were killed and 284 wounded in the past 24 hours. 

Three Israeli soldiers were killed on Tuesday in the ongoing assault on Gaza.

Their deaths bring the number of troops killed in Israel's invasion of Gaza to 291.

The three soldiers were killed by a blast in a booby-trapped building, according to the Israeli military. An additional seven soldiers were seriously wounded in other operations in Gaza, the military added.

The US senator Elizabeth Warren has come under fire for approving weapons sales to Israel following a post on X in which she also condemned the massacre of Palestinians over the weekend.

"The Israeli bombing of a refugee camp inside a designated safe zone is horrific. Israel has a duty to protect innocent civilians and Palestinians seeking shelter in Rafah have nowhere safe to go. Netanyahu’s assault of Rafah must stop. We need an immediate cease-fire," she said. 

The post was quickly community noted with additional information in which Warren not only voted for weapons sales to Israel but also voted to defund the UN Relief and Works Agency, which provides humanitarian assistance to Palestinians. 

Dua Lipa shared a post on Instagram calling for an end to “Israeli genocide”.

“Burning children alive can never be justified,” the international musician wrote on Tuesday. “The whole world is mobilising to stop the Israeli genocide. Please show your solidarity with Gaza.”

The far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is also a minister in the Defense Ministry, said on Wednesday that Palestinian resistance groups in the occupied West Bank “must be fought like in Gaza”.

Smotrich's comments were reported by the Times of Israel and follow sporadic gunfire from the West Bank village of Tulkarm into the Israeli town of Bat Hefer in the central Sharon region.

It was unclear who fired into Bat Hefer, and reports by Israeli politicians that it was Palestinians could not be independently verified. 

“We must not allow them to do in the Sharon what they did on 7 October near the Gaza border,” Smotrich said.

“Terror needs to be uprooted anywhere, even if it means Tulkarm will look like Gaza looks today,” he added. 

Smotrich added that a future Palestinian state would pose “an existential threat to the State of Israel”.

Hamas has told international mediators it is ending its participation in ceasefire talks aimed at ending the war on Gaza, following Sunday's "massacre" in Rafah by Israel, a source close to the Palestinian organisation has told Middle East Eye.

At least 45 people were killed and dozens more wounded, most of them women and children, when Israel struck a camp housing displaced Palestinians in the Tel al-Sultan neighbourhood of western Rafah.

The air strikes, which resulted in some Palestinians being burned alive, came just two days after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to "immediately halt its military offensive in Rafah".

A source close to Hamas told MEE on Tuesday that the Palestinian organisation had informed mediators it was ending its participation in negotiations until Israel ends its offensive on Rafah, withdraws its troops, and that the Rafah crossing, a critical entry point for food, medicine and other supplies for Gaza's 2.3 million people, is reopened under its previous administration.

Read more: Hamas ends ceasefire talks until Israel halts Rafah operation and withdraws troops

Oman’s Foreign Ministry has denounced Israel’s latest attacks “targeting displaced persons’ camps in Rafah”, adding to the growing international condemnation of the strikes, in a post on X. 

In the statement, the ministry called on the international community to take immediate action to “stop the systematic and ongoing war crimes and genocide committed against the Palestinian people”.