US President Joe Biden has decided to hold back delivery of high payload munitions to Israel because Washington believes a possible Israeli offensive in the Gaza city of Rafah could put civilians at risk, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday.

Biden said the US is “not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells used” if Israel goes into Rafah, but said the US is still committed to Israel’s defence and would supply defensive weaponry.

Suspension of US bomb shipment to Israel ‘very far from what is required’: Analyst

Israel may ignore Biden threats, play ‘game of geopolitical chicken’ with US instead: Analyst

Israel’s UN ambassador lambasts Biden for withholding weapons over Rafah attack

Yes they are hesitant because of your genocide.

Israeli defence officials voice concern over shift in relations with US: Report

Ben-Gvir posts cryptic message: ‘Hamas loves Biden’

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, seemingly reacting to the post, called the far-right minister a national liability and urged Netanyahu to immediately fire him. “If Netanyahu doesn’t dismiss Ben-Gvir today, he puts every soldier in the [Israeli military] and every citizen in the state of Israel in danger,” Lapid wrote on X.

Foreign minister says Israel to continue war

Israel must continue Rafah operation ‘more vigorously’, says Israeli official

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has said that none of the aid group’s trucks have been permitted to pass through the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) post, despite Israel’s claims that the border crossing into Gaza had been reopened on Wednesday.

“We have no trucks going over. I have heard of no humanitarian trucks over Kerem Shalom,” NRC chief Jan Egeland said in an interview. He added that the NRC has run out of fuel in Gaza, and it does not have the cash to rent a car or truck in order to deliver humanitarian aid.

Israel’s continued closure of the Rafah border crossing is “choking off the entry of life-saving aid into Gaza”, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its latest rapid assessment report.

Up until Israeli tanks took over the Palestinian border crossing on Tuesday, there was a daily average of 48 relief trucks and 166,000 litres of diesel entering Gaza, the UN report notes.

“The continued block on the entry of critical humanitarian items via [the] Rafah Crossing and continued hostilities would have serious consequences on access to food and nutrition services,” the UN report states.

The report also includes an earlier warning from the UN’s children agency, UNICEF, which notes that many of the more than 600,000 children “crammed” into Rafah are already “highly vulnerable and at the edge of survival”, and warns that an Israeli “ground incursion would expose them to catastrophic risks”.

Desperate Palestinian families have been fleeing Rafah in fear of Israeli bombardment, but not everyone is able to leave. “They are bombarding us, threatening us and telling us to leave – but we have nowhere else to go,” Mohammed Oweida, a displaced Palestinian, has told Al Jazeera.

“Personally, I have no one to turn to. My mother is dead and I have no one else. We are just getting by here, and I simply don’t have the ability to pay money and move from one place to another,” he explained.

Oweida had fled to Rafah from Beit Hanoon, in the north of Gaza, about a month and a half into Israel’s war. He said if it wasn’t for his children, he would have simply stayed in the north and died.

“I have my son and two daughters and another son who was killed. He was three months old. He was killed as a result of the smoke caused by the bombardment,” he added, as he took out a piece of paper.

“This is his ID. Look: Khitab, Joury, Mohammed and Zain,” Oweida said, choking back tears. “Zain is gone.”

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has said some 80,000 people have fled Rafah since Israeli tanks and troops pushed into eastern areas of the city on Monday.

Calling for an immediate ceasefire as the latest “forced displacement in the Gaza Strip” unfolds, UNRWA said the toll on the tens of thousands of Palestinians forced to flee multiple times in search of refuge was “unbearable”.

“Nowhere is safe,” the agency added.

An estimated 1.5 million people had packed into Rafah in search of refuge over the last several months of Israel’s war on the territory. The UN and humanitarian aid groups are warning of a “catastrophe” should Israel launch a full ground invasion of the city.

Air strikes have continued to pound the Gaza Strip, mainly concentrated in the central area, the eastern part, as well as where the majority of the attacks have been taking place: in the eastern part of Rafah city.

As of the early hours of yesterday evening, they expanded to the central and western part of Rafah city forcing more people – an estimate of close to 400,000 – to head to the evacuation zone.

Now they are forced to take different routes out of the area all the away to central Gaza.

The vast majority of the people are taking either the coastal road where Israeli gunboats keep firing at them, or Salah al-Din Street – that is a very dangerous area right now given that the entire eastern part of Rafah, Khan Younis and the central area have been targeted repeatedly.

In just one indication of how desperate the situation is, a quarrel developed into a fight between people at a desalination plant. We saw little kids fighting to get in a queue and elderly people appealing to make space for them and be allowed first.

It’s part of the evolving challenges and complexities for people who evacuated from Rafah city all the way to the central area to set up their tents. People described to us the horrible situation they’re facing – there are no facilities, no infrastructure, no basic services available in the locations they’re sheltering.

So the fight broke out. It was quite a desperate situation. People screamed and it got a bit violent. We had to retreat from the area for the sake of our safety and equipment. People are frustrated and the fear is that we are going to see such scenes at every water desalination station as there is an extreme shortage of basic supplies – particularly of water right now – which is the most needed for evacuees.

Sick and wounded Palestinians are dying by the hour as they remain trapped in Gaza without medical care due to Israel’s closure of border crossings, the Health Ministry in the besieged and bombarded territory has said.

“The wounded and sick suffer a slow death because there is no treatment and supplies and there is no possibility for them to travel,” the ministry said, adding that Gaza’s only dialysis centre has now closed.

“We launch an urgent and humanitarian appeal for pressure and urgent action to save the lives of these sick and wounded people, open the crossings, and allow the necessary medical and relief trucks to enter the hospitals,” it added.

Palestinian rescue workers are continuing to uncover bodies buried in mass graves on the grounds of al-Shifa Hospital. “We are removing the decomposing corpses of several martyrs,” Rami Dababesh told Al Jazeera as he took part in the exhumation work.

“They are decomposing and completely unrecognisable,” Dababesh said. “We’re finding headless corpses,” he said. “They have decomposed from the severity of the torture they suffered,” he added.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that protesters blocking Jordanian aid trucks from entering the Gaza Strip have been joined by the mayor of the southern Israeli town of Mitzpe Ramon, Elia Winter.

“Does it look reasonable to you that the State of Israel transfers medicine, food and fuel to terrorists who are abusing our daughters as we speak?” Haaretz quoted Winter as saying.

It also reported that Israeli police detained 25 people who had been protesting since Wednesday.

Four people have been killed and 16 injured as a result of an overnight Israeli bombing of a residential house in the Tal as-Sultan neighbourhood, west of Rafah city, our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic report.

Israeli helicopter gunships have fired missiles towards the Zeitoun neighbourhood, south of Gaza City, where artillery shelling and gunfire from advancing Israeli military vehicles were also reported.

The Sabra neighbourhood, south of Gaza City, was reported to have been hit by sustained Israeli bombardment overnight.

A further 109 Palestinians were killed and 296 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza between Monday and Wednesday afternoon, with many women and children killed in attacks on residential homes in Rafah, according to the UN.

Based on data provided by the territory’s Health Ministry, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said some of the deadliest recent attacks took place in Rafah, including:

• Four children and two women were among nine who died when their house in the Yibna refugee camp – southeast of Rafah – was targeted by Israeli forces.
• Four children and three women were among nine people killed in an Israeli attack on a house located on George Street in eastern Rafah.
• Two children and two women were killed when their house was hit in eastern Rafah’s al-Jnaina neighbourhood.
• A woman and child were killed with at least three others in an Israeli strike on a house in al-Brahma area of western Rafah.
• Five others were killed in two separate attacks on a house and apartments in Rafah’s east and west on Tuesday.
  
  

The air strike targeted a house in Rafah’s al-Jnaina neighbourhood, our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are reporting. At the same time, artillery shelling has continued throughout Rafah’s eastern areas, with a municipal building among those hit.

It was not immediately clear if the latest attacks caused any casualties.

Israel’s military says it is engaged in an active operation in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City, with its ground troops working to “secure” the area and air strikes raining down.

So far, Israeli air strikes have hit 25 targets in Zeitoun, including observation and sniper posts, according to a military statement. The Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that Israeli attacks in Zeitoun have hit at least 10 homes, killing or injuring dozens of people.

Many others are still trapped under rubble and rescuers are unable to reach them due to the continuing Israeli operation, Wafa said.

The number of people killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since the start of the war has risen to 34,904, according to the latest figures by the Health Ministry in the besieged and bombarded territory.

Another 78,514 people have been wounded over the same period, the ministry said.

Israeli bombardment has struck a family home in the Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City, causing casualties, report our colleagues on the ground. Earlier, we reported that Israeli forces were engaged in an active operation in the city’s nearby Zeitoun neighbourhood, where at least 10 homes were struck.

The Israeli military has announced that a soldier has been killed in the northern Israeli community of Malkia. The soldier, a 20-year-old with the Field Intelligence Corps’ 869th Battalion, was killed in a mortar and missile attack carried out on Wednesday by Hezbollah from southern Lebanon.

The Lebanese armed group said on Wednesday that it carried out 12 attacks on various Israeli positions across the border, including buildings housing Israeli troops in the towns of Manara and Shlomi. Two Israeli soldiers were also killed on Monday in a Hezbollah drone attack on an Israeli military position near the northern Israeli town of Metula.

Reuters news agency is reporting that Syrian air defences shot down Israeli missiles fired from the occupied Golan Heights towards the capital Damascus, according to the country’s Defence Ministry.

The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reports that air defence forces shot down Israeli missiles launched from the occupied Golan Heights in northern Israel that were targeting a building on the outskirts of Damascus.

“Our air defence forces intercepted the [Israeli] missiles and shot down some of them,” SANA reports, quoting a military source.

The attack, at about 3:20am local time (00:20 GMT), caused “some material losses”, SANA said.

Since October 7, Israel has intensified years of clandestine attacks on targets in Syria that it claims are linked to Iran.

Houthis say missiles, drones targeted 2 ships in Gulf of Aden

An Israeli drone attack has targeted a vehicle in the southern Lebanese town of Bafliyeh, Lebanon’s an-Nahar media reports. A photograph published in the Lebanese media outlet shows a battered vehicle on the side of the road, with smoke rising around it.

There was no immediate comment from Israeli authorities.

A suspected Israeli drone attack on a vehicle in southern Lebanon has killed two people and wounded a third, a medical source has told Al Jazeera. The Palestinian news agency Wafa and Lebanon’s National News Agency also reported casualties from the attack, which took place near the town of Bafliyeh.

Israeli forces have blown up the home of a man who is alleged to have carried out a February shooting attack at a bus stop in southern Israel, reports the Wafa news agency. The demolition of his eighth-floor apartment, located in Jerusalem’s Shu’fat refugee camp, has left his wife and four children homeless.

The man, 37-year-old Fadi Jamjoum, was fatally shot by an Israeli reservist following the February bus stop attack. Within days, Israeli forces raided Jamjoum’s home and took measurements, preparing to demolish it, according to Wafa.

Israel regularly demolishes the homes of Palestinians accused of attacks on Israel, a policy that rights groups decry as a form of “collective punishment”.

Marine tracking websites show the US-flagged Sagamore has now set sail from Cyprus to carry aid to a pier built by the US off Gaza. US officials have said the vessel will be used to offload supplies onto a floating pier built to expedite aid into the besieged territory.

Students at Trinity College in the Irish capital have ended their protest and will dismantle their Gaza solidarity encampment after their demands to divest from Israel were met by the university’s leadership.

In a statement posted on its website, Trinity College Dublin said that “an agreement was reached” after “successful talks between” the university’s senior management and the protesters.

Laszlo Molnarfi, president of the university’s student union and organiser of the protests, said the university’s statement was a “testament to grassroots student-staff power”.

“There are decades where nothing happens and weeks where decades happen. 5 days is all it took for @tcddublin to commit to fully divesting from Israel,” he said on social media.

The university said it “will complete a divestment from investments in Israeli companies that have activities in the occupied Palestinian Territory and appear on the UN blacklist in this regard”.

Germany minister criticises educators who supported pro-Palestinian protests

_{A pro-Palestinian activist is carried away by police at the campus of the Free University of Berlin on May 7}

Police bulldoze camp to break up pro-Palestine Amsterdam protest

We have verified videos posted online showing Granada University students demonstrating in front of the institution’s presidency at the Royal Hospital of the city in southern Spain, in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

The protesters are demanding their university divest from Israel as they chant slogans in support of Palestinians.

Israel Hayom, a Hebrew language Israeli newspaper, also reported today that the University of Barcelona is expected to cut ties with Israel after student protests.

Pro-Palestinian student protests have taken place across Spain this week with more than 2,000 lecturers having come out in support of the rallies.


_{A student of the University of Barcelona wears a Palestinian flag during an encampment in the cloister of the university}

Protesters in Bangladesh’s Dhaka demand end to war

Elite UK universities join pro-Palestine student movement, spooking PM

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/5/9/uk-university-protests