Israel’s war on Gaza updates: Rafah hospital closes due to Israeli bombs

Thank you for joining us for real-time updates on everything related to Israel’s war on Gaza.

To read more about the aftermath of the Israeli attack on the Rafah tent camp, access our story here.

For more news, analysis and opinion on the conflict, click here.

We will be closing this live page soon. Here is a recap of today’s events:

• The death toll from Israel’s bombing of a tent camp housing displaced people in a designated safe zone in Rafah is now 45, most of them women and children, leading to international outcry.
• Netanyahu called the deadly attack a “tragic incident” that his government is “investigating”.
• The Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah has been rendered non-operational, according to its director, due to intentional attacks by Israeli forces on the hospital’s staff and the surrounding area.
• Algeria has requested an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to discuss the situation in Rafah.
• The Iran-aligned Lebanese group Hezbollah says it has launched a barrage of rockets at northern Israel in response to a deadly Israeli strike outside a south Lebanon hospital earlier in the day.

A video posted on Instagram by Palestinian journalists shows groups of people leaving their place of shelter in Rafah amid intense clashes and bombing in the city under cover of darkness.

The journalists say this footage, which has been verified by Al Jazeera, was taken after midnight local time (21:00 GMT).

The Salman family wants the world to know they’ve been displaced eight times since Israel’s war on Gaza began.

As they packed up what’s left of their charred belongings following Israel’s latest attack on Rafah, they compared the military assistance given to Israel with the meagre food aid provided to Palestinians and asked if they’ll ever have anywhere safe to live again.

Watch our video report below:

Hundreds of demonstrators, if not thousands, have marched in the United Kingdom’s city of Manchester following the attack on a tent camp in Rafah yesterday.

Protesters carried banners that read “Stop Arming Israel” and “Ceasefire Now”, footage shared online showed, as they shouted slogans calling for the end of the occupation of Palestinian territory.

The Iraqi group, aligned with Iran, says via a statement that it launched three drones at the Israeli city of Eliat, aiming at military targets.

Local Israeli media reports that all three drones were intercepted as air raid sirens sounded in the city.

Footage posted by Israeli Army Radio shows the interception of one of the drones by Israeli air defences:

Translation – The alarms in Eilat: 2-3 drones were launched from the direction of Iraq and intercepted outside the territory of Israel.

Citing the attack on the tent camp in Rafah, which killed 45 people, US Congressman Eric Swalwell says, “The same tactics by the same leaders will only produce same or worse results”.

“Netanayhu’s [sic] reckless prosecution of Hamas has killed Israeli hostages, aid workers, and innocent Palestinians. And nothing changes,” the Democratic Party lawmaker said in a post on X.

Democratic US President Joe Biden has publicly opposed Israel’s offensive in Rafah, and his administration suspended one shipment of weapons to Israel over its concerns.

Yet, despite saying in early May that he would withhold more weapons if the country went ahead with a large-scale operation in Rafah, Biden has largely backed away from using such leverage even as Israeli leaders rejected Washington’s warnings.

Antonio Guterres says the attack “killed scores of innocent civilians who were only seeking shelter from this deadly conflict”.

“There is no safe place in Gaza. This horror must stop,” Guterres added in a post on X.

In a one-sentence post on X, Petra De Sutter says: “The time for sanctions is now”.

The deputy PM’s post shared an announcement about an upcoming meeting of EU and Israeli officials to discuss whether Israel is fulfilling its obligations to respect human rights as enumerated in an agreement on trade between the two parties.

The Turkish foreign ministry has slammed comments by Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz earlier today, calling his tone towards President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “disrespectful”.

“Unfounded accusations towards our President are a useless effort to change the agenda regarding the crimes committed by Israel in Palestine,” the ministry said in a statement.

“It is the Netanyahu Government that has killed nearly forty thousand Palestinians since October and barbarically massacred dozens of innocent Palestinians in an attack on a tent camp last night. Anyone who is complicit in these crimes will be tried in international courts.”

Algeria has requested an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to discuss the situation in Rafah, one day after Israeli strikes on a displacement camp there killed at least 45 people.

The meeting is expected to take place tomorrow at 19:00 GMT and will be a closed consultation, during which no resolutions can be voted on, only tabled and then voted on later.

The UNSC will also be briefed by Juliette Touma, director of communications for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

Canada is “horrified” by an Israeli air strike that hit a tent camp in Rafah, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said, calling for an “immediate ceasefire”.

“Canada does not support an Israeli military operation in Rafah. This level of human suffering must come to an end,” Joly said in a post on X.

Our Al Jazeera Arabic colleagues are reporting that an Israeli bombing targeted a residential apartment at Za’roub roundabout, west of the southern Gaza city.

On Sunday, Israeli forces bombed a tent camp housing displaced people in northwest Rafah, killing 45 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) says it has destroyed one uncrewed aerial system (UAS) launched from an area controlled by Yemen’s Houthi group.

“It was determined the UAS presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels in the region,” it said in a post on X.

Houthi forces in Yemen have been waging a months-long campaign to target shipping vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden which the Houthis say have links to Israeli firms or ports. Houthi leaders say their attacks on shipping will end when Israel ends its war on Gaza.

European Union foreign ministers have agreed to hold a meeting of the EU-Israel Association Council to assess Israel’s compliance with the association agreement’s human rights obligations, DPA news agency is reporting.

The bloc’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, announced the move in Brussels, stepping up pressure on Israel to comply with a ruling from the International Court of Justice to halt an offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

The ICJ ruling cited “immense risk” to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians taking shelter in Rafah, the southernmost part of Gaza.

Counter to the ICJ ruling, Israel has carried out “an increase on the military activities, an increase in the bombing” that has led to an increase in civilian deaths, Borrell said.

The EU foreign policy chief said EU foreign ministers asked him “to propose further concrete measures” to ensure Israel’s compliance with the ICJ ruling.

“Another grim update from Gaza. Israel’s airstrike on Rafah last night reportedly killed scores of people, many of them women and children burned alive,” Martin Griffiths says in a post on X.

Griffiths, head of United Nations emergency relief, called for immediate action to protect civilians, ensure their safety and give them access to aid.

“We’re still unable to pick up goods from Kerem Shalom [Karem Abu Salem crossing] at the scale needed due to impediments and active fighting,” he added.

“Such impunity cannot continue”.