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

Seventeen medical personnel working for the US medical non-profit FAJR Scientific were forced to evacuate their safe house in Rafah, the organisation's chief executive officer told Al Jazeera.

Mosab Nasser said the group had arrived in Gaza for a two-week mission on 29 April.

"We were operating the first week of our mission with no problems and then the military operation started in eastern Rafah. But then it started trickling farther west where our safe house was," he said.

Nasser said the group had received orders to leave their safe house, adding that the Israeli offensive on Rafah is not restricted to the east of the city.

"What we have experienced is completely otherwise. In fact, bombs were falling in the neighbourhood where we were, within a distance of less than 500 metres from the supposedly safe house, which put our physicians and surgeons at risk," Nasser said.

The group are now trapped in Rafah as Israeli forces have closed the border crossing.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum has called on the Israeli government to strike a deal to secure the release of captives held in Gaza, following a video released by Hamas of one, Nadav Popplewell.

The Hamas military wing said earlier today that Popplewell had died of wounds sustained in an Israeli air strike over a month ago.

"Every sign of life received from the hostages held by Hamas is another cry of distress to the Israeli government and its leaders," the families group said in a statement.

"We don't have a moment to spare! You must strive to implement a deal that will bring them all back today."

The Qassam Brigades, Hamas's armed wing, has said that Israeli hostage Nadav Popplewell has died of wounds sustained in an Israeli air strike over a month ago.

Footage of the 51-year-old hostage, who was kidnapped during the group's assault on southern Israel on 7 October, was released earlier today

The Israeli military said that four rockets were fired at Kerem Shalom in southern Israel from Rafah.

According to the army, one of the rockets was intercepted, with the others hitting open areas and resulting in no casualties.

The French foreign ministry has called on Israel to halt its military operations in Rafah and to reopen the border crossing to allow the passage of aid into Gaza.

In a statement posted on X, the ministry condemned the Israeli attack on Gaza's southernmost city, warning it could cause "a catastrophic situation for the civilian population of Gaza".

The ministry urged Israel to return to negotiations, "the only possible path to lead to the immediate release of hostages and obtain a lasting ceasefire".

UK charity Oxfam has called on the UK to end its arms sales to Israel in order to halt the "senseless deaths" in Israel's ongoing assault on Gaza.

In a statement, the charity warned that the "appalling" human cost of the long anticipated expansion of Israel's military operations in Rafah will be "unconscionable".

"Consensus in the international community is clear: as Israeli bombs fall on homeless, starving and wounded Palestinians, there are no longer any places of safety in Gaza, there are no functioning hospitals and there is extremely limited aid available," a spokesperson said.

"The UK government will be complicit in this carnage as long as it continues to sell arms to Israel, in the knowledge that they are likely being used to kill and maim Gaza's population."

The Israeli military has said its troops are intensifying fighting in northern Gaza's Zeitoun neighbourhood, killing several fighters in the last few hours and seizing weaponry.

It said in a statement that forces had launched strikes on "tens" of targets in the past 24 hours.

The latest strikes have killed at least 30 civilians, including eight children in central Gaza.

Four health officials have been found killed among the bodies recovered at al-Shifa hospital, the health ministry said in a statement.

According to the ministry, this discovery brings the total number of medical staff killed during the war to 492.

The ministry added that Israeli forces had detained 42 medical staff from the hospital, who are being held in life threatening "dire conditions", and called on Israel to "immediately release all the medical staff ... and to act swiftly to salvage what is left of our medical facility".

Hamas has published a video of Israeli hostage Nadav Popplewell, who was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nirim, during the group's assault on southern Israel on 7 October, according to reports from Hamas media outlets.

The video reveals the 51-year-old captive, who identifies himself by name, with a bruise on his right eye.

The bodies of 80 Palestinians have been unearthed from three mass graves at Gaza's al-Shifa hospital, with dozens more discovered in the medical facility itself,  the health ministry has reported.

According to the ministry, this brings the total number of bodies recovered from mass graves throughout Gaza since October to 520.

The ministry added that some bodies were discovered with bullet wounds in their heads and chests, indicating that they had been executed at point-blank range.

A new mass grave at the hospital was uncovered earlier this week, the seventh to be discovered in Gaza since 7 October.

Israeli forces have killed at least 28 Palestinians and injured 69 in four massacres across Gaza in 24 hours, Wafa news agency has reported, citing medical sources.

The health ministry confirmed earlier today that the Palestinian death toll from the Israeli onslaught on Gaza, which began in October, has risen to 34,971, with another 78,641 people injured.

The Palestinian health ministry is reporting that at least 34,971 Palestinians have been killed and 78,641 others wounded since Israel's war on Gaza began in October.

There are also an estimated 10,000 Palestinians buried under the rubble of buildings flattened by Israeli bombing, according to the Palestinian civil defence.

Around 300,000 people have left eastern Rafah in the south of Gaza for a "humanitarian area in Al-Mawasai", following orders on Monday to leave, according to an Israeli military statement.

Israeli forces issued the order and captured the Rafah border crossing with Egypt as it prepared for a ground invasion of the city. On Saturday, it gave orders for more departures in eastern Rafah and northern Gaza.

On Friday, the UN said more than 100,000 Palestinians had evacuated Rafah this week.

Fifteen Palestinians, including women and former prisoners, have been arrested across the occupied West Bank since Friday, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society.

The arrests were in the governorates of Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah, Hebron, Qalqilya and Jerusalem.

According to the Prisoners Society, the latest arrests bring the total number of Palestinians detained in the West Bank since October to 8,680.

The Kuwaiti Speciality Hospital in Rafah "is now included in the places threatened with evacuation" by the Israeli military, according to a hospital director in Rafah.

"There is no other place for patients and injured people to go to but this hospital,"  Sahed al-Hams said in a video message to journalists, calling for "immediate international protection" for the hospital.