Israel-Gaza war live: Israel says 300 Palestinian gunmen killed in Rafah offensive | Israel-Gaza war

Israel says about 300 Palestinian gunmen killed in Rafah operation since 6 May

Israeli forces have killed about 300 Palestinian gunmen during an operation in the southern Gazan city of Rafah launched on 6 May, Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said on Thursday, reports Reuters.

Key events

Israel has not given a response to France on Paris’ proposals to reduce tensions between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, France’s foreign ministry spokesperson said on Thursday, reports Reuters.

Israel and Hezbollah have been engaged in escalating daily cross-border strikes over the past months – in parallel with the war in Gaza – and their increasing range and sophistication has raised fears of a wider regional conflict.

According to Reuters, France has historical ties with Lebanon and has proposed written proposals to both sides that would see Hezbollah’s elite unit pull back 10km (6 miles) from the Israeli border, while Israel would halt strikes in southern Lebanon.

France’s foreign minister Stéphane Séjourné went to both Lebanon and Israel in April to push France’s efforts, and Israel’s foreign minister was in Paris earlier this month. Lebanon’s foreign minister was in Paris for talks on Wednesday, reports Reuters.

“We have had a relatively positive response from the Lebanese, but I think we have not had any return from Israel at this point,” French foreign ministry spokesperson, Christophe Lemoine, told reporters in a daily briefing.

According to Reuters, the written proposal also looks at long-term border issues and had been discussed with partners including the US, which has its own efforts to ease tensions and exerts the most influence on Israel.

Israel says about 300 Palestinian gunmen killed in Rafah operation since 6 May

Israeli forces have killed about 300 Palestinian gunmen during an operation in the southern Gazan city of Rafah launched on 6 May, Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said on Thursday, reports Reuters.

Reuters has published more details on the report (see 11.08 BST) that Israel sent messages to Tehran via Egypt, saying that it would “compromise” in Gaza to avert an Iranian response to an attack on Iran’s embassy in Syria.

Israel has not confirmed or denied it was responsible for the attack in Syria, and prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office did not immediately give a comment on this latest report, said Reuters.

Citing Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency, which quotes the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) aerospace force, Reuters report that Amirali Hajizadeh said of Iran’s first ever direct attack on Israel: “We had to use a great number of missiles and drones to get through Israel’s Iron Dome, we used 20% of our military capability in the operation”.

Israel’ military spokesperson, Rear Adm Daniel Hagari, said at the time that Iran had launched dozens of ground-to-ground missiles at Israel, most of them intercepted outside Israeli borders by Israel and its allies. They included more than 10 cruise missiles, he said.

Israel, with the help of key western allies including the US, UK and Jordan, claimed to have intercepted 99% of the launches during the mass strike, but added that some ballistic missiles had reached Israel, damaging the key Nevatim airbase in southern Israel which remained operational.

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

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 international criminal court announced last week it was seeking arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, as well as for senior Hamas leaders. Photograph: Abir Sultan/AP

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.

Satellite image shows the UN camp and adjacent area, where tents have been removed, in the Tel al-Sultan area in the western district of Rafah, on 26 May, and in the aftermath of the Rafah airstrike, 29 May.
Satellite image shows the UN camp and adjacent area, where tents have been removed, in the Tel al-Sultan area in the western district of Rafah, on 26 May, and in the aftermath of the Rafah airstrike, 29 May.

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