Israel Gaza war live: US pauses shipment of bombs to Israel amid concerns over Rafah offensive

About 1.4 million Palestinians — more than half of Gaza‘s population — are packed into the city and its surroundings, living in densely packed tent camps, shelters or overcrowded apartments after fleeing to Rafah in hope of escaping Israel‘s attacks.

On Monday, people received flyers in Arabic ordering people to move to nearby Israel-declared humanitarian zone called Muwasi. The flyers detailed which neighborhood blocks needed to leave and where humanitarian zones had expanded to.

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Israel was reopening Kerem Shalom crossing on its border with the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, a statement from the Israeli agency in charge of it said,

It added that aid trucks routed through from Egypt were already undergoing security inspections there.

Israel had closed Kerem Shalom crossing on Sunday after a Palestinian shelling attack nearby killed four soldiers.

US president Joe Biden’s administration halted a shipment of bombs to Israel amid concerns that Israeli forces were going to launch a major ground offensive in Rafah, an official from the Biden administration revealed.

Israel was set to receive 1,800 bombs weighing around 2,000lbs (907kg) and 1,700 bombs weighing 500lbs (227kg) last week, the White House administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Officials in Israel have not “fully addressed” the concerns of humanitarian needs of civilians in Rafah as flagged by Washington, the official said.

When I was in Gaza last month, I witnessed hell on earth, writes Melanie Ward. A ground invasion of Rafah will cause mass human suffering and a further healthcare catastrophe. A ceasefire cannot come soon enough.

The Israeli tanks that entered the periphery of Rafah early yesterday stoked global fears that an offensive on Gaza’s southernmost city could endanger the more than a million Palestinian civilians sheltering there.

The ground assault dimmed hopes of an immediate ceasefire deal that the US, Egypt and Qatar have spent months pushing for. In the hours before the attack began, Hamas agreed to a ceasefire proposal that the Israeli government swiftly rejected.

About 1.3 million Palestinians — more than half of Gaza’s population — are jammed into Rafah and face the prospect of having to evacuate with no good plan for where to find adequate shelter.

Here’s what we know so far about the operation and evacuation plan:

Israeli troops seized control of Gaza’s vital Rafah border crossing yesterday in what the White House described as a limited operation, as fears mount of a full-scale invasion of the southern city and ceasefire talks with Hamas remain on a knife’s edge.

The UN warned of a potential collapse of the flow of aid to Palestinians from the closure of Rafah and the other main crossing into Gaza, Kerem Shalom, at a time when officials say northern Gaza is experiencing “full-blown famine”.

The move comes after hours of whiplash in the Israel-Hamas war, with the militant group on Monday saying it accepted an Egyptian-Qatari mediated ceasefire proposal. Israel, meanwhile, insisted the deal did not meet its core demands.

By capturing Rafah, Israel gained full control over the entry and exit of people and goods for the first time since it withdrew soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005, though it has long maintained a blockade of the coastal enclave in cooperation with Egypt.

The incursion appeared to be short of the full-fledged offensive into Rafah that Israel has planned and might have been a pressure tactic in the ceasefire talks.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it an “important step” toward dismantling Hamas’ military and governing capabilities, and defence minister Yoav Gallant said Israel would “deepen” the Rafah operation if the talks on the hostage deal failed.

Osama Hamdan, a Hamas official based in Beirut, said the militant group would not respond to military pressure or threats and would not accept any “occupying force” at the Rafah crossing.

Facing heat over its military support for Israel’s war, the Joe Biden administration is due to deliver a first-of-its-kind formal verdict this week on whether the airstrikes on Gaza and restrictions on delivery of aid violated international and US laws designed to save civilians from the worst horrors of war.

A decision against Israel would add to pressure on Mr Biden to curb the flow of weapons and money to Israel’s military.

The administration agreed in February, at the insistence of the Democrats in Congress, to look at whether Israel has used US weapons and other military assistance in a lawful manner.

Additionally, under the same agreement, it must tell Congress whether it deems Israel has acted to “arbitrarily deny, restrict, or otherwise impede, directly or indirectly” delivery of any US-supported humanitarian aid into Gaza for starving civilians there.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters yesterday that the department was trying to meet today’s deadline for completing the review but “it’s possible it slips just a little bit”.

The Biden administration is compelled to make a decision just as Israel’s assault on the crowded southern Gaza city of Rafah — which is opposed by the US — risks undermining ceasefire negotiations and changing the course of the war and Americans’ support for it.

Hamas official Osama Hamda warned that if Israel’s military aggression in Rafah continued, there would be no truce agreement.

Israel’s military said it was conducting a limited operation in Rafah to kill fighters and dismantle infrastructure used by Hamas, which runs Gaza. It told civilians, many displaced from elsewhere in Gaza earlier in the conflict, to go to an “expanded humanitarian zone” some 20 km away.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres appealed to Israel and Hamas to spare no effort in coming to a truce agreement. “Make no mistake, a full-scale assault on Rafah would be a human catastrophe,” Mr Guterres said.

In Geneva, UN humanitarian office spokesperson Jens Laerke said “panic and despair” were gripping the people in Rafah.

The United States believes the remaining differences between Israel and Hamas can be bridged in negotiations over the Palestinian militant group’s latest ceasefire proposal, as talks resume in Cairo today.

Israeli forces yesterday seized the main border crossing between Gaza and Egypt in Rafah, the southern Gaza city where more than one million displaced Palestinians have sought shelter during Israel’s seven-month-old offensive. This cut off a vital route for aid into the tiny enclave, where hundreds of thousands of people are homeless and hungry.

In Cairo, all five delegations participating in ceasefire talks yesterday – Hamas, Israel, the US, Egypt and Qatar – reacted positively to the resumption of negotiations, and meetings were expected to continue this morning, two Egyptian sources said.

CIA director Bill Burns was to travel from Cairo to Israel later today to meet Israeli officials, including prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a source familiar with his travel said.

Israel on Monday declared that a three-phase proposal approved by Hamas was unacceptable because terms had been softened.

White House spokesperson John Kirby said Hamas presented a revised proposal, and the new text suggests the remaining gaps can “absolutely be closed”. However, he declined to specify what those were.

Without addressing whether there had been a holdup in arms shipments, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reaffirmed that Washington’s commitment to Israel’s security was “ironclad.”

When asked about the reports on the arms holdup, she added: “Two things could be true, in the sense of having those conversations, tough, direct conversations with our counterparts in Israel … in making sure citizens lives are protected … and getting that commitment.”

The Pentagon said on Monday that there had not been a policy decision to withhold arms from Israel, America’s closest Middle East ally.

Still, the delays appeared to be the first since Biden’s administration offered its full support to Israel following Hamas’s 7 October attack, which killed about 1,200 people with about 250 others abducted, of whom 133 are believed to remain in captivity in Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s campaign to destroy Hamas has led to a seven-month-long military campaign that has killed a total of 34,789 Palestinians, most of them civilians, the Gaza Health Ministry said.