Region

RAFAH, Palestinian Territories — Israeli warplanes and artillery pounded Rafah on Saturday, as the government dismissed an order by the top UN court to halt its military offensive in the southern Gaza city.

At the same time, renewed international efforts were under way aimed at securing a ceasefire in the war sparked by Palestinian group Hamas' unprecedented October 7 surprise attack on Israel.

An Israeli official said the government had an "intention" to restart stalled negotiations over the coming days.

In a case brought by South Africa alleging the Israeli military operation amounts to "genocide", the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to halt its Rafah offensive, and demanded the release of hostages and the "unhindered provision" of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

The Hague-based ICJ, whose orders are legally binding but lack direct enforcement mechanisms, also instructed Israel to keep open the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza, after Israel's seizure of the Palestinian side earlier this month effectively shut it.

Israel gave no indication it was preparing to change course in Rafah, insisting the court had got it wrong.

The ruling said Israel must "immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part".

But National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, in a joint statement with the foreign ministry, said: "Israel has not and will not carry out military operations in the Rafah area that create living conditions that could cause the destruction of the Palestinian civilian population, in whole or in part."

Hamas, the Iran-backed Islamist group that has ruled Gaza since 2007, welcomed the ruling but criticised the court’s decision to exclude the rest of the Palestinian territory from its order.

‘Nothing left here’

Israel carried out strikes throughout the Gaza Strip early on Saturday as fighting raged between the army and Palestinian militants.

Witnesses and AFP teams reported strikes or shelling in Rafah, the central city of Deir Al Balah, and Gaza City and Jabalia refugee camp in the north.

In Gaza City, an AFP photographer saw a grieving woman embracing one of several bodies, some of children, which were shrouded in blood-stained white cloth and laid on the ground outside a clinic ahead of funerals.

They were killed in a strike on a school turned shelter in nearby Jabalia, relative Saleh Al Aswad told AFP.

Umm Mohammad Al Ashqa, a Palestinian woman from Gaza City displaced to Deir Al Balah by the war, told AFP she hoped “the court’s decision will put pressure on Israel” to end the fighting, “because there is nothing left here”.

Mohammed Saleh, also interviewed in Deir Al Balah, said Israel “considers itself above the law” and would not stop.

The ICJ ruling came days after the International Criminal Court prosecutor, Karim Khan, requested arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It also followed announcements by Ireland, Spain and Norway that they would formally recognise the State of Palestine — a move two other European governments, Germany and Portugal, signalled on Friday they were not ready to join.

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares demanded Saturday that Israel comply with the ICJ’s ruling.

Paris meeting

Diplomatic efforts have resumed to seek the first ceasefire in Gaza since a week-long truce and hostage release in November.

The Israeli official, requesting anonymity to discuss the negotiations, told AFP that “there is an intention to renew these talks this week, and there is an agreement”.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has come under increasing domestic pressure over the fate of the hostages, with demonstrators rallying again in Tel Aviv on Saturday.

The official did not elaborate on the agreement, but Israeli media said intelligence chief David Barnea had agreed a new framework for negotiations in a meeting with US and Qatari mediators in Paris.

Speaking at the US military academy West Point, President Joe Biden said his administration was engaged in “urgent diplomacy to secure an immediate ceasefire that brings hostages home”.

Internet down

Mediator Egypt was continuing “its efforts to reactivate ceasefire negotiations”, said Al Qahera News, which has links with Egyptian intelligence.

Israeli forces entered Rafah in early May, defying global opposition and prompting an exodus of more than 800,000 people, according to UN figures.

Troops took over the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing, further slowing sporadic deliveries of aid for Gaza’s 2.4 million people.

The White House said Egypt had agreed to temporarily send UN aid through another crossing, Kerem Abu Salem near Rafah, on Gaza’s border with Israel.

The Al Qahera report said Egypt was exerting “pressure on Israel to urgently let in the aid and fuel” stranded at the Rafah crossing, and mentioned “temporary measures” to provide Gazans with humanitarian relief.

The UN has warned of famine in the besieged territory, where most hospitals are no longer functioning.

The Kuwaiti hospital in Rafah pleaded for fuel deliveries to ensure the “continued operation” of the only medical facility in the area still receiving patients.

Telecommunications operator Paltel said internet access in northern Gaza was disrupted on Saturday “due to the ongoing aggression”.

Meanwhile the US military said four of its vessels, supporting a temporary pier built to deliver aid to Gaza by sea, had run aground in heavy seas.

“No US personnel will enter Gaza. No injuries have been reported and the pier remains fully functional,” a statement from US Central Command.

DUBAI — A missile attack targeted a Greek-owned cargo vessel off Yemen on Thursday without causing any casualties or damage, maritime security agencies said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels have waged a campaign of attacks against Israeli-linked shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden since November in a show of support for Gaza amid the Israel-Hamas war.

The Joint Maritime Information Centre, which is run by a Western-led naval task force in the region, identified the vessel targeted in the latest attack as the Maltese-flagged bulk carrier Yannis.

Global tracking service MarineTraffic said the ship was en route from Russia to Kenya and identified its owner and operator as Greek shipping firm Eastern Mediterranean Maritime Limited.

Another bulk carrier owned by the same company, the Cyclades, was attacked by the Huthis late last month.

Maritime security firm Ambrey said the Cyclades was likely targeted "due to its listed operator's ongoing trade with Israel".

The attempted attack on the Yannis occurred 68 nautical miles off the rebel-controlled Yemeni port city of Hodeida, Ambrey said on Thursday.

“The vessel had undergone what she described as a ‘missile attack’ at the location,” it said, adding that “no injuries or damage were reported.”

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, run by the Royal Navy, reported “a missile impacting the water in close proximity” to the ship.

“Vessel and all crew are safe and proceeding to next port of call,” it said in an advisory.

The rebel attacks on shipping along the vital trade route have prompted countermeasures by a Western-led naval task force and reprisal strikes on Huthi targets by British and US warplanes.

On Wednesday, US military forces shot down four drones in rebel-controlled parts of Yemen, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said.

“It was determined these systems presented an imminent threat to US coalition forces, and merchant vessels in the region,” CENTCOM posted on social media platform X.

OCCUPIED PALESTINE — Israel launched devastating air strikes on Gaza early Thursday while also saying it is ready to resume stalled talks on a truce and hostage release deal with Hamas to pause the war raging since October 7.

The Gaza Strip's civil defence agency said two pre-dawn air strikes had killed 26 people, including 15 children, in Gaza City alone.

Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said one strike hit a family house, killing 16 people, in the Al Daraj area, and another killed 10 people inside a mosque compound.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Fierce street battles also raged in Gaza's Jabalia and Rafah where the armed wings of Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad said they had fired mortar barrages at Israeli troops.

International pressure for a ceasefire has mounted on Israel and its prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as three European countries said Wednesday they would recognise a Palestinian state.

The week started with the International Criminal Court's (ICC's) prosecutor seeking arrest warrants on war crimes charges against Netanyahu and his defence minister as well as three Hamas leaders.

Israel has angrily rejected those moves, voicing "disgust" over the ICC request and labelling any recognition of Palestinian statehood a "reward for terrorism".

But domestic pressure has also risen as supporters of hostages trapped in Gaza again rallied outside Netanyahu's office, passionately demanding a deal to bring them home.

Bleak assessment

The previous round of truce talks, involving US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators, ended shortly after Israel launched its attack on Gaza's far-southern city of Rafah early this month.

Israel went ahead with the assault on the last city in Gaza to be entered by its ground troops in defiance of global opposition, including from top ally the United States.

Washington voiced concerns that about 1.4 million Palestinians who had been trapped in the city would be caught in the line of fire.

Israel has since ordered mass evacuations from the city, and the UN says more than 800,000 people have fled.

US President Joe Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, said the Rafah operation “has been more targeted and limited” than feared and “has not involved major military operations into the heart of dense urban areas”.

But he stopped short of saying that Israel had addressed US concerns, adding that Washington was closely watching ongoing Israeli actions.

Israel’s national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi has meanwhile given a bleak assessment of the war to a meeting of parliament’s foreign affairs and defence committee, according to a report by Israel’s Channel 13.

He reportedly said that Israel has “not achieved any of the strategic aims of the war — not conditions for a hostage deal; we haven’t toppled Hamas; and we haven’t allowed residents of the [Gaza] periphery to safely return home”.

‘Cycles of violence’

The bloodiest ever Gaza war broke out after Hamas’s unprecedented attack on October 7 on Israel. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 35,800 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Israel has also imposed a siege that has deprived Gaza’s 2.4 million people of most clean water, food, medicines and fuel.

The sporadic arrival of aid by truck slowed further after Israeli forces took control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

Israel has faced ever greater opposition to the bloody war from around the world, and pro-Palestinian protests have swept university campuses.

Israel reacted with fury after Ireland, Norway and Spain said they would recognise a Palestinian state on May 28, a move praised by Palestinians and across the Arab world.

Israel recalled its envoys to Dublin, Oslo and Madrid and summoned the three ambassadors for a rebuke.

Most Western governments say they are willing to recognise Palestinian statehood one day, but not before thorny issues such as final borders and the status of Jerusalem are settled.

The White House said Biden opposed unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, saying it should be realised “through direct negotiations”.

Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris called the October 7 attack “barbaric” but stressed that “a two-state solution is the only way out of the generational cycles of violence”.

TEHRAN — Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi was laid to rest on Thursday, concluding days of funeral rites attended by throngs of mourners after his death in a helicopter crash, state media reported.

Hundreds of thousands marched in his home town Mashhad to bid farewell to Raisi ahead of his burial following processions in the cities of Tabriz, Qom, Tehran and Birjand.

The 63-year-old died on Sunday alongside his foreign minister and six others after their helicopter went down in the country's mountainous northwest while returning from a dam inauguration on the border with Azerbaijan.

Once the five days of public mourning, announced on Monday, have passed, the authorities including acting President Mohammad Mokhber will focus on organising an election for a new president set for June 28.

Men and women, who were mainly clad in black chadors and clutching white flowers, crowded the main boulevard of Mashhad, the Islamic republic's second city in the northeast where Raisi was born.

Some held aloft placards paying tribute to Raisi as the "man of the battlefield" as a large truck carrying his body drove through the sea of mourners.

"I have come, O king, give me refuge," said a slogan emblazoned on top of the truck, in reference to Imam Reza, the eighth imam of Shiite Islam.

Posters of Raisi, black flags and Shiite symbols were erected along the streets of Mashhad, particularly around Raisi's final resting place — the Imam Reza shrine, a key mausoleum visited by millions of pilgrims every year.

Earlier thousands of people holding images of Raisi and waving flags lined the streets of Birjand, capital of the eastern province of South Khorasan, for the procession of Raisi's coffin.

Raisi was South Khorasan’s representative in the Assembly of Experts, a clerical body in charge of selecting or dismissing Iran’s supreme leader.

‘Epic farewell’

Raisi had widely been expected to succeed supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who led prayers in Tehran on Wednesday for the late president and knelt before the coffins of the eight people killed in the helicopter crash.

Among them was foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who was buried on Thursday in the shrine of Shah Abdol-Azim in the town of Shahre Ray south of the capital.

Iranian officials and foreign dignitaries paid their respects to the late top diplomat at a ceremony in Tehran ahead of the burial.

Massive crowds had gathered for a funeral procession in the Iranian capital on Wednesday to pay their final respects to the president, whom officials and media dubbed a “martyr”.

Iran’s conservative newspapers carried large front-page pictures of the gathering on Thursday, hailing the ceremonies as an “Epic farewell” and saying Raisi would forever remain “In the hearts of the people”.

Reformist dailies such as Sazandegi carried headlines that read: “The last farewell”.

RAFAH, Palestinian Territories — North Gaza's last two functioning hospitals, Al Awda and Kamal Adwan, are barely operational, doctors and the World Health Organisation  (WHO) said on Tuesday with the Hamas-Israel war now in its eighth month.

Hospital officials said Israeli forces had fired on the facilities and that snipers had been deployed near one of them.

"Today marks the third day of the siege on Al Awda Hospital in northern Gaza," the hospital's acting director Dr Mohammad Saleh told AFP.

He reported that Israeli forces had been "firing at the hospital buildings" and that "snipers" have taken up position in nearby houses.

Dr Saleh said the “southern wall” of the hospital “has been destroyed” and “all medical staff and patients” are inside the hospital wards.

Moving around the hospital was “extremely difficult”, he said.

But staff still had to transfer water “from the second building to the first one because the occupation [Israeli] forces hit the first building with a shell on the fifth floor yesterday [Monday], destroying the water tanks”.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference in Geneva that “148 hospital staff, 22 patients and their companions are trapped inside” the hospital.

The WHO regularly visited Al Awda in April to deliver medical supplies and fuel, but Ghebreyesus also reported snipers aiming at the building and artillery hitting the fifth floor.

Evacuation under way 

Dounia Dekhili, emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Gaza, said “nothing is coming in or out” of the hospital because of fears of sniper fire.

“Our operating theatre supervisor has been hiding for a few days, he can hear gunshots,” Dekhili told AFP after speaking to the man inside Al-Awda.

Dr Saleh did not report any casualties, but said the episode was reminiscent of the last Israeli military operation in the area of the northern Gaza hospital, which is located next to the Jabalia refugee camp.

In December, Israeli forces besieged Al Awda for days, killing two staff and detaining others, MSF reported at the time.

Despite AFP requests, the Israeli military has yet to comment on the operation in Al Awda.

Tuesday also saw patients and staff being evacuated from another north Gaza hospital, Kamal Adwan, its director Dr Hossam Abu Safia told AFP.

“Currently, the hospital is being evacuated of the wounded, patients, and medical staff,” he said, adding that “there are several patients that the medical teams have not been able to evacuate”.

He said “the reception and emergency entrance gate of Kamal Adwan Hospital was targeted by an artillery shell from the Israeli army”, as soldiers advanced towards the complex.

‘ICU area hit’ 

Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the Palestinian Territories, said Tuesday from Jerusalem that the hospital’s intensive care unit reception area had been hit.

“At the moment, 20 health staff and 13 patients remain,” Peeperkorn said, adding that “these are ... functional hospitals we cannot afford to lose”, referring to both Kamal Adwan and Al Awda.

“These are the only two functional hospitals remaining in northern Gaza. Ensuring their ability to deliver health services is imperative,” Ghebreyesus said in Geneva.

Israeli troops have previously raided other medical facilities in Gaza, including Al Shifa in Gaza City, the territory’s largest hospital, now reduced to rubble after a March operation, the WHO said.

Israel’s military accuses Hamas of using hospitals as command centres to plan and launch attacks against its forces, a charge the militant group denies.

The Gaza Strip has been gripped by war since Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 35,647 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run Palestinian territory’s health ministry.

BEIRUT — A source close to Hizbollah said four fighters were killed on Monday in south Lebanon, with the Iran-backed group announcing several dead and a retaliatory attack, while Israel claimed strikes.

Hizbollah, a Hamas ally, has traded near daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces since the Palestinian group's October 7 surprise attack on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.

The source close to Hizbollah told AFP that "at least four Hizbollah fighters were killed in Israeli raids on two different sites in southern Lebanon", identifying the locations as Naqura on the coast and Mais Al Jabal, a border village to the east.

A Hizbollah fighter was also killed on Monday in a strike in neighbouring Syria blamed on Israel, a separate source from the group told AFP.

The Shiite Muslim movement said five of its fighters, including two from Naqura, had been killed, without providing details on where or when they had died.

The Israeli military said fighter jets struck “a Hizbollah terrorist cell” and a launch post in the Mais Al Jabal area, while Israeli army “artillery fired to remove a threat” in the Naqura area.

Hizbollah said it launched a heavy rocket attack at an Israeli army barracks in the country’s north “in retaliation” for the Naqura strike, while also announcing other attacks on Israeli positions.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported Israeli strikes on Mais Al Jabal and Naqura, where it said Israel fired near Hizbollah-affiliated rescue personnel and wounded a civilian.

The fighting has killed at least 425 people in Lebanon, mostly militants but also including 82 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

Israel says 14 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed on its side of the border.

The violence has raised fears of all-out conflict between Hizbollah and Israel, which went to war in 2006.