Israel’s war on Gaza updates: Clashes rage in southern Gaza’s Rafah

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To read more about the eight Israeli soldiers killed in southern Gaza, click here.

To find out more about Israel-Hezbollah tensions in southern Lebanon, read this.

And to stay updated on all of our coverage of the war in Gaza, go here.

Here’s a quick look at the latest news:

• “Our operation today is a painful blow to the enemy army and we have more,” said Abu Obeida, the spokesperson of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, about the killings of eight Israeli soldiers in an ambush in Rafah today.
• Italy is a “friend of Israel”, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told Al Jazeera at the closing of the G7 summit in Italy.
• Israeli forces raided occupied West Banks communities and beat a young man from the Jenin refugee camp unconscious, reported Wafa.
• Mass demonstrations in Tel Aviv are taking place against Netanyahu and his government and in support of Israel reaching a deal for the release of all captives held in Gaza.
• The UN is warning that 50,000 children in Gaza require urgent treatment for malnutrition and the population faces “catastrophic” levels of hunger because of Israeli restrictions on humanitarian aid.

James Elder, the UN’s child relief agency spokesperson, has posted a video on X in which he tours a displaced persons’ camp in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, that houses children who have been orphaned by Israel’s war on Gaza.

Visibly sweating inside one of the tents, he says the rising heat exacerbates the crises of poor hygiene and disease in displacement camps across Gaza.

These concerns were echoed earlier today by UN World Food Programme Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau, who spent two days assessing the plight of Palestinians this week, saying the challenges are “like nothing I have ever seen”.

”The situation in southern Gaza is quickly deteriorating. One million people in southern Gaza are trapped without clean water or sanitation in a highly congested area along the beach in the burning summer heat. We drove through rivers of sewage,” said Skau.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society has taken to X to highlight the situation of four of its team members, who it says were “forcibly disappeared” and detained by Israeli forces for more than five months.

“PRCS expresses deep concern for the safety of its detained teams, whose fate remains unknown, and calls on the international community to urgently intervene to pressure the Israeli occupation authorities to immediately release our detained teams,” the group said.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reports two strikes on Lebanese territory this evening.

The agency says that the villages of Aitaroun and Aita al-Shaab were struck, the first by a drone that fired three missiles and the second by Israeli warplanes.

Earlier today, two UN officials based in Lebanon warned of a “very real” threat of miscalculation that could lead to a wider war as cross-border fighting between Hezbollah and Israel rages.

Displaced Palestinian children in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Gaza’s central city of Deir el-Balah are celebrating Eid al-Adha, despite the conditions of the ongoing war.

Social media footage, verified by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency Sanad, showed crowds of children singing in celebration.

Yemen’s Houthis struck a Ukrainian-owned, Polish-operated bulk cargo carrier in two separate missile attacks on June 13, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said today.

The crew on board the carrier said earlier today they were abandoning the ship “due to continued fires and an inability to control them”, CENTCOM stated.

“This continued malign and reckless behavior by the Iranian-backed Houthis threatens regional stability and endangers the lives of mariners across the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden,” it added.

Police made arrests during protests in Tel Aviv, which have been occurring weekly for months, against Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government and in support of the Israeli captives held in Gaza.

Social media footage, verified by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency Sanad, depicted skirmishes between Israeli police and the demonstrators.

Translation: Police violence – arrest of a protester and policemen pushing Knesset member Rabbi Gilad Karib.

Translation: Clashes during the demonstration against the government at the Kaplan intersection – arrest of one on the spot.

Translation: Naama Lazimi and Gilad Karib fight for the rights of the demonstrators in the streets in front of the Ben-Gvir police – elected officials who are dedicated to protecting the public. 

The Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, said in a statement that its fighters targeted an Israeli Markava tank with a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) in the Saudi neighbourhood of the southern Gaza Strip city.

Earlier today, Hamas fighters killed eight Israeli soldiers travelling in military vehicles in Rafah after firing RPGs and then ambushing a support force deployed to the scene.

The attacks today marked one of the deadliest days for Israeli soldiers in Gaza in months as its ground invasion of the southern region continues to ramp up.

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic quoted Abu Obaida, the spokesperson of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, as saying the following about the killings of Israeli soldiers today:

• “Our complex and qualitative operation today in Rafah is a new confirmation of the enemy’s failure in the face of our resistance.
• “Our operation today is a painful blow to the enemy army and we have more.
• “Our painful strikes to the enemy will continue wherever he is. The occupation army will find nothing but death ambushes in any part of our land.”

Israeli media outlet Ynet, citing the army’s spokesperson, reports that a 19-year-old sergeant succumbed to wounds he received in an explosion in southern Gaza’s Rafah on Monday.

In the incident in which he received the wounds, an officer and three other soldiers were killed, the spokesperson added.

Earlier today, the Israeli army announced the deaths of eight soldiers who were killed in an ambush by fighters of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, also in Rafah.

White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has said that mediators from Qatar and Egypt plan to engage with Hamas soon to see if there is still a way to push ahead with the ceasefire proposal offered by US President Joe Biden.

Sullivan said he spoke with Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and that they would speak again about Gaza tomorrow while both are in Switzerland for the Ukraine peace summit.

Hamas has welcomed the ceasefire proposal and is looking to secure an end to the war, a demand Israel still rejects.

Sullivan said that US officials have examined Hamas’s response closely.

He said the next step will be for Qatari and Egyptian mediators to talk to Hamas and “go through what can be worked with and what really can’t be worked with”.

“We anticipate a back-and-forth between the mediators and Hamas. We’ll see where we stand at that point. We will keep consulting with the Israelis and then hopefully, at some point next week, we’ll be able to report to you where we think things stand and what we see as being the next step to try to bring this to closure,” Sullivan said.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni wrapped up the three-day global event by discussing the core points of the group’s final communique.

Concerning Gaza, the document stressed the G7’s support for a ceasefire deal laid out by US President Joe Biden. It also said that Israel “must comply with its obligation under international law” and “refrain from” launching an offensive in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah.

Yet, it stopped short of condemning Israel for its conduct during this war, which is currently being investigated by the International Court of Justice – the world’s highest court – in a genocide case being brought by South Africa against Israel.

In light of the absence of strong language towards Israel’s actions in Gaza, Al Jazeera asked the prime minister what it would take for the G7 to condemn Israel or to consider steps similar to those taken against Russia, such as sanctions or a ban on weapon sales to Israel.

Meloni dodged the question. And while she said that Palestinians have the right to have their own state, she made it clear that Italy is a “friend of Israel”.

“Now, what we have to do is to work for peace and it is exactly what we’re doing and work for peace we have to dialogue and we have to recognise the right of Israel to be safe,” Meloni told Al Jazeera.

Israeli forces reportedly assaulted a young man from the Jenin refugee camp, in the occupied West Bank, which led to his hospitalisation, according to Palestinian security and local sources, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Soldiers severely beat Saddam Abu Rmeila, a resident of the camp who was arrested two days ago, according to Wafa.

Following his assault, he was left unconscious at the eastern entrance of the town of Yabad. Abu Rmeila was subsequently transported to Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin for medical treatment, the agency said.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent in the Gaza Strip reports that soldiers are currently burning a number of homes in the central district of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.

They also report that other homes are being targeted with tank shells.

Fierce clashes have been occurring all day in the city, where earlier eight Israeli soldiers were killed when Hamas fighters ambushed them.

We’ve been reporting on large protests in Israel, which have been occurring weekly for months, against Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government and in support of the Israeli captives held in Gaza.

Video posted by Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 shows Israelis flooding Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv, demanding early elections and saying that Netanyahu has not done enough to secure the release of the captives.

Translation: A minute’s silence in memory of those who fell during the demonstration in Kaplan 

Hamas fighters killed eight Israeli soldiers traveling in military vehicles in Rafah after firing rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and then ambushing a support force deployed to the scene.

The attacks on Saturday marked one of the deadliest days for Israeli soldiers in Gaza in months as its ground invasion of the southern region continues to ramp up.

Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, said in a statement its soldiers “carried out a complex ambush against enemy vehicles” in the Saudi neighbourhood of Tal as-Sultan district, western Rafah city.

The armed group said it fired Yassin-105 RPGs at a D9 military bulldozer, killing and wounding an unidentified number of Israeli soldiers. A “rescue force” vehicle that later arrived was also attacked, “resulting in its destruction and the death of all its occupants”.

Read more here.

Al Jazeera is reporting from Amman, Jordan because it has been banned from reporting inside Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that this is a heavy price to pay, but it should not divert away from the fact that Israel still has to achieve all of its goals in this war.

Nearly nine months into this deadly war in Gaza, the Israeli army has not achieved any of these goals. They have not released all of the remaining Israeli captives. They have not ensured that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel. And they have not dismantled Hamas’s military and political capabilities.

We also heard from Israel’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid, who essentially emphasised the same thought: That this is a heavy price to pay, and that this is a war that is going to experience losses.

We’re hearing from a wide variety of people at this hour that the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, that group’s spokesperson, has said that Israel cannot win in Gaza against Hamas. And we also heard from one Israeli captive who was released by the Israeli army in what they called a rescue mission that killed nearly 300 Palestinians, calling on the Israeli government to enter into a deal. The demands from protesters are becoming much more severe.

After the Israeli army announced that eight of its soldiers were killed in southern Gaza’s Rafah today, the Israeli prime minister issued a video statement via X.

Here are a few key points he made:

• We paid a heavy price in our just war.
• We fight to preserve our existence and our future, and we fight to recover those who were kidnapped.
• Our brutal enemy has no intention of stopping, but rather wants to continue trying to annihilate us, so there is no alternative to victory.
• We are at the height of a difficult war on many fronts, including international forums, and we face many challenges ahead.
• Despite the destabilizing price, we will adhere to the war goals of eliminating Hamas and returning the kidnapped, and so that Gaza will not pose a threat again.

Israel’s war on Gaza, now eight months old, has, as of today, killed at least 37,296 people and wounded 85,197.