Gaza live: Biden moves ahead with military aid for Israel as it launches ground assaults on Rafah

Good morning Middle East Eye readers,

Here are the latest updates:

• Israeli forces killed at least three Palestinians in the Sabra neighbourhood and another in Shujaiya, as tanks reenter the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza
• Among those killed in Sabra was Talal Abu Zarifa, a senior member of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), the Wafa news agency reports
• Israeli continued striking buildings in central and southern Gaza, killing at least one person in a strike on a medical centre in the Bureij refugee camp
• Israel is preparing its Memorial Day ceremonies, with top Israeli politicians expected to attend the yearly event
• Student protesters at John Hopkins University ended their encampment after university officials agreed to review the school's ties with Israel

Good evening, Middle East Eye readers.

Our live coverage of Israel's assault on Gaza will shortly be closing for the evening.

Here are the day's key developments:

At least 35,034 Palestinian people have been killed and 78,755 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement.

Al Jazeera reported that the bodies of at least 45 Palestinians had arrived at al-Aqsa hospital amid the ongoing bombardment of Deir al-Balah and other areas in central Gaza.

Israeli forces have pushed deeper into Rafah, the southern Gaza city which used to be a refuge for Palestinians fleeing Israeli bombardments. Many thousands left on Sunday, bringing the total number of Palestinians who have fled following evacuation orders from Israel to about 300,000.

The UN agency for Palestinians, Unrwa, has condemned the displacement of Palestinians from Rafah as "inhumane", and emphasised that the displaced people had "nowhere safe to go".

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday defended a decision to pause a delivery to Israel of 3,500 bombs over concerns they could be used in the Gaza city of Rafah, saying Israel lacked a "credible plan" to protect some 1.4 million civilians sheltering there.

Other major developments include:

• UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron said on Sunday that he disagreed with comments made by US President Joe Biden that suggested imposing some restrictions on weapon exports if Israel attacked the city in southern Gaza.
• Egypt says it will intervene to support South Africa's genocide case against Israel before the International Court of Justice, Egypt's foreign affairs ministry announced on Sunday.
• The UN high commissioner for human rights has said that that a full Israeli assault on Rafah in south Gaza cannot "be reconciled with international law".
• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said that an expansion of the Israeli offensive in Rafah would be "irresponsible".
• Defence for Children International (DCI) says it has heard testimonies of three children who described how they were used as human shields by Israeli forces in the West Bank during a recent assault on Tulkarm refugee camp on 5 May.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that the United States and European countries were not doing enough to pressure Israel to agree a ceasefire in Gaza, after Palestinian militant group Hamas' move to accept a truce proposal.

Turkey has denounced Israel's attacks on Gaza, called for an immediate ceasefire, and criticised what it calls unconditional support for Israel by the West.

Ankara has halted all trade with Israel and said it had decided to join South Africa's initiative to have Israel tried for genocide at the International Court of Justice.

Speaking to Muslim scholars in Istanbul, Erdogan said Hamas had accepted a ceasefire proposal by Qatar and Egypt in a "step in the path toward a lasting ceasefire", but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government did not want the war to end.

"The response of the Netanyahu government was to attack the innocent people in Rafah," he said, referring to the Gazan city that Israel is targeting. "It has become clear who sides with peace and dialogue, and who wants clashes continuing and more bloodshed.

"And did Netanyahu see any serious reaction for his spoiled behaviour? No. Neither Europe nor America showed a reaction that would force Israel into a ceasefire."

The Israeli military said on Sunday that it had opened a new humanitarian aid crossing into the Gaza Strip in coordination with the United States.

The crossing, called Western Erez, was opened in the northern Gaza Strip in order to transfer humanitarian aid, the military said in a statement.

Dozens of students walked out of Duke University's commencement ceremony on Sunday as some chanted "free Palestine" in protest against its guest speaker, comedian Jerry Seinfeld, for supporting Israel throughout the war in Gaza, according to videos of the event posted on social media.

Other graduates shouted "Jerry! Jerry!" as the actor received an honorary degree, and Seinfeld delivered his speech without major interruptions, according to Reuters.

He has visited Israel and has vocally supported it since the Hamas attack of 7 October, even as Israel's military operations have since killed more than 35,000 Palestinians.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday defended a decision to pause a delivery to Israel of 3,500 bombs over concerns they could be used in the Gaza city of Rafah, saying Israel lacked a "credible plan" to protect some 1.4 million civilians sheltering there.

Speaking to ABC News' This Week, Blinken said that President Joe Biden remained determined to help Israel defend itself and that the shipment of 3,500 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs was the only US weapons package being withheld.

That could change, he said, if Israel launched a full-scale attack on Rafah.

Biden has made clear to Israel that if it "launches this major military operation to Rafah, then there are certain systems that we're not going to be supporting and supplying for that operation", said Blinken.

"We have real concerns about the way they're used," he continued. Israel needs to "have a clear, credible plan to protect civilians, which we haven't seen".

The Municipality of Gaza has reported "severe damage" to the water tank in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood of Gaza City following Israeli bombardment.

The municipality said in a post on X that the ongoing Israeli strikes have inflicted "extensive and far-reaching destruction on water infrastructure", with around 40 wells and 42,000 linear metres of pipelines damaged.

The Palestinian Authority's (PA) Ministry of Public Works and Housing has said that 226 buildings in the West Bank were destroyed or damaged by Israeli forces in April alone, with more than half of the damaged structures concentrated in Nablus.

Additionally, 82 buildings were damaged or destroyed in Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarm, and 43 in Ramallah.

The ministry added that Israeli forces destroyed 54,000 sqm of infrastructure during raids into Tulkarm and Jenin in April.

Hezbollah is planning to withdraw most of its combatants from the border with Israel, Lebanese news outlet Addiyar is reporting, citing a Hezbollah source.

The group is planning to rely on attack drones that will be launched from areas near the Israeli border, the source reported.

They added that Hezbollah will work to bolster the intelligence networks it allegedly operates in Israel.

Journalists from the London-based news outlet Al-Araby Al-Jadeed were detained by Israeli authorities while covering protests calling for a hostage deal in Tel Aviv, according to the Times of Israel.

According to reports on social media, the journalists were suspected of working for Al Jazeera, which was recently banned in Israel.

Video footage posted on X by Israeli journalist Oren Ziv showed the journalists being questioned by police, after they had reportedly seen live footage of the Tel Aviv protests being broadcast on Al Jazeera.

Egypt says it will intervene to support South Africa's genocide case against Israel before the International Court of Justice, Egypt's foreign affairs ministry announced on Sunday.

The ministry said in a statement that the move "comes in light of the worsening severity and scope of Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, and the continued perpetration of systematic practices against the Palestinian people, including direct targeting of civilians and the destruction of infrastructure in the Strip, and pushing Palestinians to flee".

In the statement, Egypt called on Israel, as the occupying power, to comply with its obligations, and to implement the provisional measures issued by the ICJ, requiring it to ensure adequate humanitarian aid access to Gaza and to refrain from committing human rights violations against Palestinians.

Egypt reiterated its call to the UN Security Souncil and international parties to take immediate action to halt violations in Gaza and military operations in Rafah.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said that an expansion of the Israeli offensive in Rafah would be "irresponsible".

"We warn against this, and we do not believe that there is any concept that will ultimately lead to this happening without incredible human losses in terms of innocent civilians," he said on Saturday on a talk show.

The UN high commissioner for human rights has said that that a full Israeli assault on Rafah in south Gaza cannot "be reconciled with international law".

"I can see no way that the latest evacuation orders, much less a full assault, in an area with an extremely dense presence of civilians, can be reconciled with the binding requirements of international humanitarian law and with the two sets of binding provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice,"  Volker Turk said in a statement.

Al Jazeera is reporting that the bodies of at least 45 Palestinians have arrived at al-Aqsa hospital amid the ongoing bombardment of Deir al-Balah and other areas in central Gaza.

The Israeli military have intensified attacks across Gaza in the last 24 hours, with Israeli air strikes killing some 27 Palestinians overnight.

The correspondent described the medical situation in Deir el-Balah as "critically dire", with al-Aqsa hospital the only functioning medical facility. The hospital is facing shortages of fuel and medical equipment.