Israel-Gaza war live: EU foreign policy chief ‘horrified’ by Rafah attack as Macron says he is ‘outraged’ | Israel-Gaza war

An Israeli strike targeting a motorcycle in southern Lebanon on Monday hit next to a hospital entrance, killing at least one person and injuring several civilians who were gathered outside, local health officials said.

The strike killed the motorcycle driver in the town of Bint Jbeil, according to the Associated Press (AP). It was not immediately clear who the driver was.

Mohammed Suleiman, director of the Salah Ghandour hospital in Bint Jbeil, said they had received one person who had been killed and nine injured in the strike, most of whom were “civilians who were in front of the hospital, where family members and people accompanying the patients usually gather”.

Two of the injured people were in “highly sensitive” condition, he said. The strike also caused minor damage to the hospital, an AP photographer at the scene said.

Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said he is “horrified by news coming out of Rafah on Israeli strikes killing dozens of displaced persons, including small children.”

“I condemn this in the strongest terms,” he said, adding: “There is no safe place in Gaza. These attacks must stop immediately. ICJ orders & IHL must be respected by all parties.”

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has said that he is “outraged” by the Israeli airstrikes – on a camp housing displaced Palestinians in Rafah – that are reported to have killed at least 40 people.

“These operations must stop. There are no safe areas in Rafah for Palestinian citizens. I call for full respect for international law and an immediate ceasefire,” he wrote in a tweet on X.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said Sunday’s airstrike targeted tents for displaced people near a UN facility in Tal al-Sultan, about 2km (1.2 miles) north-west of the centre of the southern city of Rafah.

• Gaza’s civil defence agency said that the death toll had risen to 40 from overnight Israeli strikes that set ablaze tents of displaced Palestinian people in the southern city of Rafah. The agency said that many bodies were “charred” after the strikes triggered a fire that ripped through a displacement centre in northwest Rafah. Qatar’s foreign ministry said the strikes could hinder mediation efforts to reach a ceasefire in the conflict and to secure a hostage release deal.

• Israel’s army had said overnight that its aircraft had “struck a Hamas compound in Rafah”, killing Yassin Rabia and Khaled Nagar, both senior officials for the Palestinian militant group in the occupied West Bank. It added that it was “aware of reports indicating that as a result of the strike and fire that was ignited, several civilians in the area were harmed. The incident is under review.”

• The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency, Unrwa, has said that reports of attacks on families seeking shelter in Rafah in southern Gaza were “horrifying”. “There are reports of mass casualties including children and women among those killed. Gaza is hell on earth. Images from last night are yet another testament to that,” Unrwa wrote on X.

• Relations between the EU and Israel took a nosedive on the eve of the diplomatic recognition of a Palestinian state by EU members Ireland and Spain. Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, told Spain that its consulate in Jerusalem will not be allowed to help Palestinians. EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell threw his full weight to support the international criminal court, whose prosecutor is seeking an arrest warrant against prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others, including the leader of Hamas. There is a meeting between EU foreign ministers and Middle East Arab leaders today in Brussels in which Israel’s war in Gaza is expected to dominate.

• The international criminal court should investigate as war crimes three Israeli airstrikes that killed 44 Palestinian civilians, including 32 children, in the Gaza Strip last month, Amnesty International said. The strikes – one on al-Maghazi on 16 April, and two on the southern city of Rafah on 19 and 20 April 2024 – also injured at least 20 civilians, the organisation said.

• Israel is investigating the deaths of Palestinians captured during the war in Gaza, as well as a military-run detention camp where a human rights group has alleged abuse of inmates, the armed forces’ chief prosecutor said.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said that the death toll had risen to 40 from overnight Israeli strikes that set ablaze tents of displaced Palestinian people in the southern city of Rafah (reports had previously put the death toll at 35).

The agency said on Monday that many bodies were “charred” after the strikes triggered a fire that ripped through a displacement centre in northwest Rafah.

“The massacre committed by the Israeli occupation army in the refugee tents northwest of Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip has left 40 martyrs and 65 wounded,” agency official Mohammad al-Mughayyir was quoted as saying by AFP.

“We saw charred bodies and dismembered limbs … We also saw cases of amputations, wounded children, women and the elderly.”

“We retrieved a large number of child martyrs from the Israeli bombardment, including a child without a head and children whose bodies have turned into fragments,” a Palestinian paramedic told Anadolu news agency.

The Israeli attack sparked strong protests from Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait and from Qatar which warned it could “hinder” budding steps to revive stalled truce and hostage release talks (see earlier post at 10.12).

Israel’s army had said overnight that its aircraft had “struck a Hamas compound in Rafah”, killing Yassin Rabia and Khaled Nagar, both senior officials for the Palestinian militant group in the occupied West Bank.

It added that it was “aware of reports indicating that as a result of the strike and fire that was ignited, several civilians in the area were harmed. The incident is under review.”

Lisa O’Carroll

Lisa O’Carroll, the Guardian’s Brussels correspondent, has a little more detail about what EU members will be discussing at their meeting with Arab leaders today in Brussels:

Ireland’s deputy prime minister Micheál Martin said they will be discussing reforms of the Palestinian Authority as part of a potential political plan.

“I’m now going into the EU foreign affairs council, where the Arab contact group will present their thinking in more detail. My view is that the EU needs to get fully behind a cross-regional plan,” he said.

“The EU needs urgently to support the Palestinian Authority’s own reform plan, which I discussed with Palestinian prime minister Mohammed Mustafa last night.

“I believe this provides a pathway for effective governance by the PA, throughout Palestinian territory.”

Israel is investigating the deaths of Palestinians captured during the war in Gaza, as well as a military-run detention camp where a human rights group has alleged abuse of inmates, the armed forces’ chief prosecutor said.

Citing accounts by former inmates and a doctor from the Sde Teiman base, the Physicians for Human Rights group said last month that detainees have suffered severe violence causing fractures, internal bleeding and even death.

Palestinians have also accused Israeli soldiers of illegal killings during the almost eight-month-old conflict in Gaza.

“To date, 70 military police investigations have been opened into incidents that have raised suspicion of criminal offences,” Major-General Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi, the military advocate-general, told a conference hosted by the Israel Bar Association.

“These investigations also address allegations raised about the incarceration conditions at Sde Teiman detention centre and the deaths of detainees in IDF custody. We are treating these allegations very seriously and are taking action to probe them.”

Lili Bayer

Lili Bayer is the Guardian’s Europe live blogger

The Belgian prime minister, Alexander De Croo, said in a social media post that “yesterday, a so-called ‘safe zone’ outside Rafah was bombed by Israel, killing tens of women and children”.

“We urgently need partners ready to sit around the table to discuss peace,” he added.

Lisa O’Carroll

Lisa O’Carroll is the Guardian’s Brussels correspondent

There is likely to be division, as there has been since the outbreak of war in the Middle East, but some countries including Spain and Luxembourg want will seek joint support from EU foreign ministers today for the international court of justice order calling for Israel to halt the violence.

If not, then the EU just looks like a “dog which barks a lot but doesn’t bite,” said Luxembourg foreign minister Xavier Bettel on his way into the summit of foreign ministers in Brussels.

Qatar’s foreign ministry has said the Israeli airstrike on Rafah, which reportedly killed at least 35 Palestinian people, could hinder mediation efforts to reach a ceasefire in the conflict and a hostage release deal.

Several attempts at brokering a new truce, after a week-long cessation of hostilities in November, have foundered. The last round of talks, mediated by the US, Egypt and Qatar, quickly drew to a stalemate after Israel launched its attack on Rafah.

US intelligence officials met Israeli and Qatari delegations in Paris on Friday in an attempt to get negotiations back on track, but Hamas downplayed reports of tentative progress, telling Reuters on Sunday that the group had not received anything from the mediators on new dates for the resumption of talks, as Israeli media had reported.

The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency, Unrwa, has said that reports of attacks on families seeking shelter in Rafah in southern Gaza were “horrifying”.

“Information coming out of Rafah about further attacks on families seeking shelter is horrifying,” Unrwa wrote on X.

“There are reports of mass casualties including children and women among those killed. Gaza is hell on earth. Images from last night are yet another testament to that.”

Palestinian health and civil emergency service officials said on Sunday Israeli airstrikes killed at least 35 Palestinian people and injured dozens of others in an area in Rafah designated for those who have been displaced.

It came only days after the international court of justice ordered Israel to immediately halt its assault on Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of civilians are still sheltering.