Rafah battles intensify as Israel takes over Gaza-Egypt border strip
Rafah residents reported intense artillery shelling and gunfire on Thursday in Gaza’s far-southern city after Israel said it had seized a strategic corridor on the Palestinian territory’s border with Egypt, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Israel said on Wednesday that its forces had taken “operational control” over the 14-kilometre (8.5-mile) Philadelphi corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border, which it claims was used for weapons smuggling.
Egypt, a longtime mediator in the conflict which has become increasingly vocal in its criticism of the Israeli operation, has rejected claims of smuggling tunnels running beneath the buffer zone.
According to AFP, Egyptian officials have said a potential Israeli takeover of Philadelphi could violate the two countries’ landmark 1979 peace deal, though there has been no official comment from Cairo since the military’s announcement.
On the ground in the Gaza Strip, witnesses reported fighting in central and western Rafah, reports AFP.
According to the news agency, witnesses also said Israeli forces had demolished several buildings in the city’s eastern areas where the Israeli incursion began on 7 May, initially focusing on the vital Rafah border crossing, a key entry point for humanitarian aid.
An AFP correspondent reported artillery and gunfire in Gaza City’s southern neighbourhood of Zeitun, in the territory’s north, where witnesses saw thick plumes of smoke rising over Jabalia refugee camp and Beit Lahia.
Key events
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei met with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on Thursday in Tehran, Iran’s Student News Network (SNN) said.
According to Reuters, SNN said that Assad had expressed condolences over the recent death of Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash.
Lisa O’Carroll
Lisa O’Carroll is the Guardian’s Brussels correspondent.
EU workers staged a silent protest over the continuing attacks on Rafah outside the main institutional buildings in Brussels on Thursday.
Some held banners declaring “civil servants demand ceasefire in Gaza” while others called for the end to “EU Israel agreements that don’t respect EU values”.
It comes less than a week after 200 staffers wrote to protest against what they believe is an insufficient response by the EU to the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Israeli campaign against ICC may be ‘crimes against justice’, say legal experts
Efforts by Israel’s intelligence agencies to undermine and influence the international criminal court (ICC) could amount to “offences against the administration of justice” and should be investigated by its chief prosecutor, legal experts have said.
Responding to revelations about Israeli surveillance and espionage operations against the ICC, multiple leading international law experts said the conduct of Israeli intelligence services could amount to criminal offences.
The disclosures about Israel’s nine-year campaign against the court were published on Tuesday as part of a joint investigation by the Guardian, the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call. It details how the country’s intelligence agencies were deployed to surveil, hack, put pressure on, smear and allegedly threaten senior ICC staff.
The ICC’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, last week announced he was seeking arrest warrants for war crimes and crimes against humanity for Hamas and Israeli leaders. The decision to seek warrants against Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and defence minister, Yoav Gallant, were the first time an ICC prosecutor had taken action against the leaders of a close western ally.
You can read the full piece by Bethan McKernan in Jerusalem and Harry Davies here:
Janez Lenarčič, the European commissioner for crisis management, has called on Israel to “stop its campaign against UNRWA.”
I call on #Israel to:
🔴 stop its campaign against @UNRWA;
🔴 refrain from proceeding with law designating UNRWA as a terrorist organisation;
🔵 comply with its legal obligation to ensure safety and security of UNRWA staff and premises.
2/3 pic.twitter.com/XwGNrkuMuz
— Janez Lenarčič (@JanezLenarcic) May 30, 2024
Humanitarian aid for Gaza is continuing to depart Cyprus by sea and will be held in floating storage until a U.S.-built military pier undergoes repairs, a Cypriot spokesperson said today, Reuters reported.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its “aerial defense systems intercepted a cruise missile from the east that approached Israel earlier today.”
Our aerial defense systems intercepted a cruise missile from the east that approached Israel earlier today.
No damage or injuries were reported as a result of this incident. pic.twitter.com/qDV80PmkhD
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) May 30, 2024
UNRWA said that that are now over 16,000 people living in a Deir Al-Balah school
“The living conditions are dire, with scarce resources, insufficient sanitation facilities & very limited supplies,” it said.
Over 16,000 people now live in this Deir Al-Balah @UNRWA School. Families are living in classrooms, hallways & makeshift shelters built with plastic.
The living conditions are dire, with scarce resources, insufficient sanitation facilities & very limited supplies. #CeasefireNow pic.twitter.com/G6xFrHZ9Qc
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) May 30, 2024
An image depicting refugee tents spelling out the phrase “all eyes on Rafah” has become one of the most-shared pieces of content relating to the Israel-Gaza war, spreading rapidly on social media this week. The graphic, which was generated using artificial intelligence, had been shared on Instagram more than 45m times by Wednesday.
Nick Robins-Early, a journalist based in New York, has written a piece for the Guardian about how the AI-generated image swept across social media. You can read it here:
Israel sent messages to Tehran via Egypt that it would “compromise” in Gaza to avert an Iranian response to an attack on Iran’s embassy in Syria, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.
According to Reuters, Tasnim’s report cited the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) aerospace force.
Iran launched explosive drones and fired missiles at Israel in April in its first direct attack on Israeli territory, a retaliatory strike for what it said was an Israeli strike on its Damascus consulate, in which seven officers of the IRGC were killed.
“Israel sent messages through Egypt’s foreign minister that it will compromise in the war in Gaza to avoid Iran’s retaliation”, Amirali Hajizadeh is reported to have said.
Space technology company, Maxar, collected new satellite imagery yesterday (29 May) from Rafah that shows the aftermath of the recent Israeli airstrike near the large tent camp and a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa) facility in the Tel al-Sultan area in the western district of the city.
Our pictures team have put together the below slider that shows the two images.
