Foreign Press Association pushes Israel for immediate access to Gaza
The association for foreign correspondents covering Israel and Palestine is “alarmed” that six months into the war on Gaza, Israeli authorities have yet to allow international journalists into the besieged coastal enclave independently.
The lack of access raises “questions about what Israel does not want international journalists to see”, the association said in a statement.
56 bodies found in Khan Younis after Israeli withdrawal
Ambulance workers have recovered at least 56 bodies from Khan Younis after Israeli forces withdrew from the southern Gaza city, our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are reporting.
The city, which had been subject to months of intense Israeli bombardments and fighting, still has the smell of death in the air as bodies are dug out of the rubble, returning residents told the Agence France-Presse news agency.
Israel buying 40,000 tents for Rafah evacuation: Report
An Israeli official has told The Associated Press that Israel is buying 40,000 tents to prepare for the evacuation of Palestinians from Rafah. The Israeli official, speaking to the news agency on the condition of anonymity because the official was not authorised to speak to the media, said the tents were part of preparations for an anticipated operation in the southern Gaza city.
Israel has previously said it has a plan to evacuate civilians ahead of its Rafah offensive, and the Defence Ministry published a tender seeking a supplier of tents earlier in the day. Israel claims Rafah is Hamas’s last stronghold and says it will send ground troops into the city.
But the international community, including the US, opposes the offensive, saying it would be disastrous for the more than one million displaced Palestinian civilians sheltering there.
US has not been briefed on a date for Israel’s Rafah invasion, State Dept says
The US has not been briefed on a date for Israel’s invasion of Rafah, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller says, after Netanyahu said that a date has been set. Miller told reporters at a regular news briefing that Washington does not want to see a full scale invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s last refuge for displaced Palestinians, in any event.
“We have made clear to Israel that we think a full-scale military invasion of Rafah would have an enormously harmful effect on those civilians and that it would ultimately hurt Israel security,” Miller told reporters.
