‘Operation al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 234: Israel bombs displaced Palestinians in Rafah tent camp, seeks resumption of prisoner exchange talks
Israel’s bombing of Rafah’s “safe zone” has killed at least 45 people, causing fires to spread across the tent camp and burning several people alive. Meanwhile, Israel gave the U.S. a new proposal to resume captive exchange talks.
Casualties
- 35,984 + killed* and at least 80,643 wounded in the Gaza Strip.*
- 520+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.**
- Israel revised its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,139.
- 636 Israeli soldiers have been announced killed since October 7, and at least 3,568 have been announced as wounded.***
*Gaza’s Ministry of Health confirmed this figure on its Telegram channel on May 26, 2024. Some rights groups estimate the death toll to be much higher when accounting for those presumed dead.
** The death toll in the West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. According to the PA’s Ministry of Health on May 26, this is the latest figure.
*** These figures are released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” The number of Israeli soldiers wounded according to Israeli media reports exceeds 6,800 as of April 1.
Key Developments
- Israel kills 275 Palestinians, wounds 666 since Thursday, May 23, across Gaza, raising the death toll since October 7 to 35,984 and the number of wounded to 80,643, according to the Gaza health ministry.
- The International Court of Justice orders Israel to halt Rafah operation and open border crossings for aid entry.
- Israel kills at least 45 Palestinians including children in airstrikes on a displaced tent camp in the Israeli-designated “safe zone” in western Rafah.
- Palestinian civil defense says that it had to use all remaining fire trucks in Rafah to put down the fires that spread in the western Rafah tent camp as a result of Israeli strikes.
- The Palestinian Red Crescent Society says that its teams transferred tens of “critically wounded” at the Rafah tent camp massacre, including many who “remained trapped in the flames” before being rescued.
- The Israeli army says its strike on the displacement camp was “based on intelligence information” and “in accordance with international law.”
- The Palestinian Civil Defense says that Israeli strikes destroyed 80% of its capabilities in Gaza.
- Israeli forces continue to close the Rafah border crossing for the 20th day in a row.
- Al-Qassam Brigades announce capturing Israeli soldiers in Jabalia, north of the Gaza Strip, on Saturday.
- Israel to resume ceasefire negotiations with a new proposal after an intelligence meeting with CIA chief in Paris.
- Arab and European ministers meet in Brussels to discuss ending war in Gaza.
Israel commits a new massacre against the displaced in Rafah, kills 275 across Gaza since Thursday
Israeli forces killed at least 40 Palestinians in multiple airstrikes that targeted a makeshift tent camp of displaced Palestinians in the northwestern part of Rafah.
The bombed area is part of the Israeli-designated “humanitarian safe zone,” where the Israeli army ordered Palestinians to flee on May 6 as it began its ground invasion of the southern Gaza Strip city. The tent camp is adjacent to an UNRWA warehouse.
Local media sources said that some eight Israeli missiles fell on the crowded camp after midnight, killing and wounding dozens of people and causing fires to spread across the camp.
The Palestinian civil defense said its teams had to use all the remaining fire trucks in the Rafah governorate to put down the fires, while the Palestinian Red Crescent Society spokesperson, Nibal Farsakh, said that the PRCS teams rescued people with severe burns and wounds who “where trapped in the flames” for a long time before being rescued. The wounded were transferred to the overwhelmed Kuwaiti hospital, and to other field medical aid bases.
The Israeli attack came just days after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to halt its offensive in Rafah and open all border crossings. The Israeli army claimed in a statement that it conducted the attack “based on intelligence information” that Hamas operatives were present in the area.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Gaza-based Palestinian health ministry said in a statement that the death toll of the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip since October 7 has risen to 35,984 as of Wednesday, in addition to 80,643 wounded.
According to the ministry’s data, 275 Palestinians arrived dead in the remaining hospitals in the Strip since Thursday, while 666 were wounded.
In the past 24 hours, local media sources reported that Israeli forces killed five members of a single family in the Zarqa area in the northern Gaza governorate. Israeli warplanes also bombed the Sabra and Zeitoun neighborhoods in Gaza City.
In the central Gaza Strip, Israeli strikes targeted the Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps, killing 10 Palestinians, including several children.
Meanwhile, heavy fighting continued between Israeli forces and the Palestinian resistance across the Gaza Strip, especially in the eastern part of Rafah and in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip.
On Saturday, the al-Qassam Brigades announced that its fighters ambushed Israeli special forces in Jabalia, killing and capturing Israeli soldiers. The group released video footage showing Palestinian fighters dragging an immobilized man in military uniform similar to that of Israeli special forces inside a tunnel. The Israeli army denied the event and said that none of its soldiers had been captured.
On Sunday, the al-Qassam Brigades fired a rocket barrage at Tel Aviv from the eastern part of Rafah, which Israeli forces invaded in early May. The Israeli army said in a statement that its troops continue to fight deeper in Rafah and that it has seized control of most of the Philadelphia corridor adjacent to the Egyptian border.
Simultaneously, Israeli forces continue to close the Rafah and Karam Abu Salem border crossings, preventing the entry of humanitarian aid into the Strip. Last month, the U.S. began operating the floating pear it built at the Gaza shore, which it said it would use to send humanitarian aid to Gaza. The Gaza-based government media office said on Sunday that all the humanitarian aid that has entered the Strip through the sea pier since its construction has been the equivalent of 100 aid trucks only, which is well below the required daily average number of trucks to meet the dire humanitarian needs in Gaza.
Prior to October 7 and under the Israeli blockade, 550 truckloads of goods entered the Gaza Strip every day, which was considered the minimum needed in humanitarian aid by the European Union last March.
Israel to resume ceasefire and prisoners’ exchange talks amid internal divisions
Israel will resume negotiations with Hamas in the hopes of reaching a prisoners’ exchange deal next week, Israeli public broadcasting reported on Saturday. Meanwhile, Axios reported that the head of the Israeli Mossad returned to Israel after meeting the CIA chief and Qatar’s Prime Minister in Paris last week, disagreeing on resuming talks.
Reports indicated that the Israeli negotiating team elaborated on a new deal proposal that was submitted to the American side. According to Reuters, which quoted undisclosed sources, Israel will resume talks next week after agreeing to move the negotiations forward with both the U.S. and Qatar.
Israeli media reported from several unnamed official sources that Israel is ready to discuss a “durable calm” in the Gaza Strip. The leaked information also pointed out that the latest Israeli proposal included “big concessions” in order to reach a deal that would see the release of Israeli captives in Gaza.
On Sunday, the Israeli war cabinet met under strict censorship to discuss the return to talks. Israeli PM Netanyahu slammed the leaking of information by his cabinet members, saying that it “emboldens Hamas.”
Meanwhile, Hamas’ spokesperson in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, said on Sunday that “there is no need for new negotiations,” as the group “already responded to the proposal put forward by mediators,” in reference to the proposal presented by Egypt and Qatar earlier this month, which Israel turned down, a day before beginning its ground invasion of Rafah.
Inside Israel, pressure mounts on Netanyahu as families of Israeli captives in Gaza demonstrated by the thousands over the weekend in several locations, especially in Tel Aviv, demanding a prisoner exchange deal. Israeli police clashed with protesters and arrested several people.
The protests have been echoed by opposition to Netanyahu’s leadership of the war by key members of his war cabinet, including war minister Yoav Gallant, who made his opposition to Israel’s permanent occupation of Gaza public. Last week, war cabinet member Benny Gantz gave Netanyahu an ultimatum to achieve the war goals and present a post-war plan by June 8, threatening to quit the war cabinet. Meanwhile, the opposition leader, Yair Lapid, accused Netanyahu of provoking chaos for his own political interest.
Netanyahu’s main allies in his government coalition, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, are opposed to a ceasefire deal and insist upon continuing the war and resettling the Gaza Strip. Both ministers have repeatedly threatened to quit the government coalition in case it signs a ceasefire deal and ends the war in Gaza.
BEFORE YOU GO – The mainstream media has reached a new low as it uncritically repeats government lies to justify the Israeli assault on Gaza. Mondoweiss has been there from the start, pushing back against this campaign to manufacture consent for genocide.
We are fighting the biased reporting and dehumanizing rhetoric by building a platform for Palestinians to tell their stories in their own words.
We need to do more. All of us. Will you join usin the fight against media bias and help us report the truth about Palestine?
No comments:
Post a Comment