Israel’s war on Gaza updates: Full Rafah attack a ‘humanitarian nightmare’

The live page is now closed. Follow along with our coverage of the Israeli war on Gaza here.

To learn more about Israel’s seizure of the Rafah crossing, you can read our coverage here.

You can also read about the developments surrounding a potential ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel.

We will soon be closing this live page. Here’s a recap of the day’s main developments:

• A delegation of officials arrived in Cairo to resume ceasefire talks after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that a proposal previously agreed to by Hamas “falls far short” of Israel’s expectations.
• A Hamas spokesperson said that “the ball is now in Netanyahu’s court” and that the US must exert greater pressure on Israel to bring the war to an end.
• Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has insisted that Israel will “deepen” its push into Rafah if negotiations fail.
• Israel seized the Rafah crossing on the border with Egypt, sparking fears that an already inadequate flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza could be further reduced and aid officials have continued to warn against an Israeli incursion into Rafah.
• Jordan said that Israeli settlers attacked an aid convoy at the Beit Hanoon crossing (known as Erez to Israelis) in northern Gaza, continuing a trend of Israeli protesters blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza with little pushback from Israeli authorities.

We are right here in downtown New York City where hundreds of people gathered in Union Square to demand an end to the war. To demand an end to the incursion in Rafah, in southern Gaza.

Hundreds of people have started marching all around this area.

We’ve already seen at least four people being arrested.

The police are saying that people need to be marching where people are marching right now, if not, they will be detained. They cannot block the road.

There has been a lot of tension… As I said, four people have been arrested and this just adds up to what we have been seeing in this city in the past few days.

University campuses with encampments and students being evicted, suspended, expelled, arrested in many cases.

The Israeli army has seized and closed the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, which has functioned as the main method that humanitarian aid enters the Strip for the duration of the war.

As a result, Gaza has been effectively cut off from humanitarian aid.

Watch our video to learn more:

UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths has said that the war on Gaza has reached a “critical juncture” and that Israel’s evacuation order for Rafah will result in “more death and displacement”. He reiterated that civilians who choose to stay in Rafah must still be protected.

“The decisions that are made today and their consequences in human suffering will be remembered by the generation that follows us,” Griffiths said in a statement. “Let us be ready for their reproaches.”

US Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley has called on President Biden to use his leverage with Israel to stop an assault on Rafah, where Israel had previously instructed displaced Palestinians to seek shelter. Palestinian sheltering there have nowhere left to go and humanitarian officials have warned that an Israeli assault would be a disaster for civilians.

“Israeli forces are attacking Rafah, the final place of refuge in the Gaza Strip,” Pressley said in a social media post.

“Over 1.4M Palestinians are sheltering there & are facing more death & destruction. @POTUS called an Israeli invasion of Rafah “a red line” & must use his power to stop this attack. #CeasefireNOW”.

Columbia Law School has said that graduates are “consistently sought out”, after a Monday letter from 13 conservative federal judges said they would not hire former Columbia students due to pro-Palestine protests on campus over the last several weeks.

The letter called the campus, where administrators have called in police to clear out antiwar demonstrations in solidarity with Gaza, an “incubator of bigotry”.

Law Dean Gillian Lester said in a statement today that Columbia law students were “consistently sought out by leading employers in the private and public sectors, including the judiciary”.

Al Jazeera correspondent Kristen Saloomey has said that UN chief Antonio Guterres has called for an immediate ceasefire three times in less than 24 hours, appealing to allies of Israel to use whatever leverage they have to stop an invasion of Rafah from going forward.

“It’s noteworthy that the United Nations has refused to assist any evacuation of displaced people in Rafah to another area, to allow for such a military operation,” said Saloomey.

“The UN has said that there are too many people in Rafah, that moving them would be too dangerous, and that there’s no place safe for them to go given the areas that they’re being directed to are already overcrowded and lacking water and toilets and other essentials that people would need.”

Josep Borrell says on X that “a ground operation in Rafah is materialising”, as the Israeli army continues to bomb the city in southern Gaza, adding that any invasion “which can only cause further unacceptable devastating humanitarian consequences”.

“Immediate ceasefire & unconditional liberation of all hostages are urgent. While famine is unfolding in Gaza, Israel must ensure humanitarian access”, Borrell added.

The US news outlet Politico has reported that the Biden administration has indefinitely delayed the release of a State Department report on whether Israel is violating international law in Gaza. The administration gave no reason for the last-minute change.

“The State Department was supposed to issue the report today,” reads the article, which cites three Senate aides and one House aide. “If it had concluded there was a violation, the U.S. would be expected to stop sending Israel military aid.”

The reporting comes as Israel pushes forward with military operations in Rafah, where the international community and the Biden administration have warned that an Israeli incursion could have disastrous impacts on hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians who sought refuge there under Israeli instruction.

As aid barely trickles into Gaza, a group of activists are trying to take matters into their own hands.

The Freedom Flotilla movement plans to set sail to Gaza carrying more than 5,000 tonnes of aid on a mission that means taking on great personal risk for its volunteers.

The Take looks into their years-long struggle to break Israel’s siege on Gaza.

Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, says it has begun discharging patients from Rafah Indonesian Field Hospital and is suspending its activities at Shaboura Clinic given the escalation in Rafah.

It said in a statement it will be handing over its activities at Al-Helal Al-Emairati Maternity Hospital to the Ministry of Health on Wednesday and will relocate its staff to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis “to continue to support maternity care in a safer area”.

“This movement was planned before the recent evacuation orders. Additionally, MSF is considering establishing two new field hospitals in the Middle Area/Deir Al-Balah,” its statement read.

By preventing the transfer of much-needed humanitarian aid into Gaza, Israel is violating orders handed down by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Human Rights Watch says.

“Despite children dying from starvation and famine in Gaza, the Israeli authorities are still blocking aid critical for the survival of Gaza’s population in defiance of the World Court,” said Omar Shakir, a director at Human Rights Watch.

“With each day that Israeli authorities block life-saving aid, more Palestinians are at risk of dying.”

The ICJ has twice ordered Israel to do more to allow aid into Gaza. The closure of land crossings into Gaza is “unacceptable”, the White House said earlier.

The head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, says a group of Israeli protesters have attacked the agency’s headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem after calls for protests against UNRWA by an Israeli municipal official.

“This protest called by an elected member of the Jerusalem municipality is nothing less than harassment, intimidation, vandalism & damage to UN property,” Lazzarini said in a social media post.

“It took place today at the UNRWA Headquarters in East Jerusalem under the watch of the Israeli Police. This has nothing to do with freedom of expression. Host countries, in this case Israel, are expected to protect United Nations premises, operations and staff at all times.”

A report by the Biden administration to US lawmakers on whether Israel is violating international humanitarian law or obstructing aid deliveries in Gaza is expected soon.

Washington’s provision of military assistance to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government has prompted protests across the US demanding that universities and President Biden withdraw support for Israel, including sending weaponry.

“I’ve had a lot of conversations … with folks in the administration, really urging them to make sure that this report is credible, that it’s seen to be based on facts and law and not based on what they would wish it would be,” Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen told reporters.

News reports suggest that the Biden’s administration has held up certain arms shipments to Israel in an apparent “political message” to Israel.

The US military completed construction of its Gaza aid pier, but weather conditions mean it’s currently unsafe to move the two-part facility into place, the Pentagon says.

“As of today, the construction of the two portions of the JLOTS – the floating pier and the Trident pier – are complete and awaiting final movement offshore,” Deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh told journalists, using an acronym for Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore – the official name for the pier capability.

Aid groups warn the $320m pier is far less effective than land routes that Israel continues to heavily restrict with truckloads of aid for Gaza waiting to get in.

The Sinai Organization for Human Rights publishes a video showing a large number of aid trucks on the road heading to Egypt’s al-Awja crossing with Israel south of Rafah. It is known as the Nitzana crossing to Israelis.

Egyptian authorities moved aid trucks from their waiting spots near the Rafah crossing to outer areas with the start of the Israeli military operation in the Philadelphi Corridor.