Live Blog Update| Israel's genocide in Gaza
This is an entry from: Gaza live: Israel to build 'different government' in Gaza, says defence minister

Evening recap

29 May 2024 23:22 BST

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.