The United Arab Emirates has denounced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent remarks about “inviting” the UAE “to participate in civil administration of Gaza”.

In a statement published on the UAE’s Foreign Ministry social media account, the country’s foreign minister said Netanyahu “does not have any legal capacity to take this step”, and the UAE would not be “drawn into any plan aimed at providing cover for the Israeli presence in the Gaza Strip”, which is “under Israeli occupation”.

“The UAE affirms that when a Palestinian government is formed that meets the hopes and aspirations of the brotherly Palestinian people and enjoys integrity, competence and independence, the state [UAE] will be fully prepared to provide all forms of support to that government,” UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed said the statement.

Saul Takahashi, professor of human rights and peace studies at Osaka Jogakuin University in Japan, said the US State Department’s finding that Israel’s use of American weapons in Gaza was “inconsistent” with international humanitarian law was “probably the understatement of the year”.

The State Department’s report, which stopped short of stating that Israel had violated international law in Gaza, was a “bureaucratic, passing the buck exercise” by the US, Takahashi told Al Jazeera. “It’s incontrovertible. Clear as the light of day that Israel has been committing a litany of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide,” Takahashi said.

“But nobody wants to be the one who points to the elephant in the room,” he said. “I think what happened is the bureaucrats have passed the buck on and now its supposedly a political decision. But, really, the buck has got to stop … and Biden has to find his courage and stand up for what’s right,” he added.

“He is very much damaging, if not already decimated, his prospects for re-election in November.”

A member of the Palestinian Civil Defence in northern Gaza has accused Israeli forces of “massacring” civilians in attacks on at least three homes in the Beit Lahiya and Jabalia refugee camp areas.

Director of Civil Defence in the north, Ahmed al-Kahlot, told our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic that rescue crews are still trying to retrieve people from beneath the rubble of the three homes that were destroyed in overnight bombings.

_{Wounded Palestinians are treated at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital after an Israeli attack}

Twenty killed overnight taken to Al-Aqsa Hospital

The bodies of 80 Palestinians have been uncovered in three mass graves at al-Shifa Hospital, bringing the total number of bodies discovered in such graves in different sites throughout Gaza following the withdrawal of Israeli forces to 520, according to the Health Ministry in the besieged and bombarded territory.

There is “hard evidence” that some of the victims were “executed” at point-blank range, with bullet wounds found in their heads and chests, the ministry said.

Earlier this week, Palestinian officials said they had discovered a new mass grave at al-Shifa Hospital, which was sieged by Israeli forces in March, marking the seventh such grave found throughout Gaza since the start of Israel’s war.

Among those found killed in al-Shifa Hospital are four health officials, said Gaza’s Health Ministry in a press statement, bringing the total number of medical staff killed during the war to 492.

In addition, the ministry said Israeli forces have detained 42 medical staff from the hospital, bringing the total number of detained health officials to 310.

The detained medical officials are held in “dire conditions” that threaten their lives, the ministry said, noting the recent death of surgeon Adnan al-Bursh in Israeli custody.

The ministry called on Israel to “immediately release all the medical staff…and to act swiftly to salvage what is left of our medical facility”.

Saheb al-Hams, a hospital director in Rafah, has said that “sadly” the Kuwaiti Specialty Hospital in Rafah city “is now included in the places threatened with evacuation” following Israel’s latest order.

“There is no other place for patients and injured people to go to but this hospital,” al-Hams said in a video message to journalists. The director called for “immediate international protection” for the medical facility.

Palestinians taking shelter in eastern Rafah are fleeing after Israel issued an evacuation order.

The UN estimates more than 100,000 people have now evacuated while the Israeli forces say the figure is about 300,000.

“They called us three times, and the neighbours came and said get out quickly. They sent an evacuation order for the entire area. What should we do here? Do we wait until we all die on top of each other? So we decided to leave, it’s better,” said Hanan al-Satari, a Rafah resident.

Faten Lafi, another resident of the southern Gaza city, said: “We are forcibly leaving after the occupation army threatened us, through recorded calls and in a post published on Facebook. We are leaving because of fear and coercion. We are leaving for the unknown and there are no safe areas at all. All the areas left are unsafe.”

The Israeli military has stated within the past 24 hours that the operation in Rafah is limited.

But what we’re seeing on the ground is more expansion of the military operations, the air strikes and the intense bombing campaign that started to include the central part of the city and the central-southern part of Rafah city close to the Kuwaiti Hospital and near areas where thousands of displaced families had set up their makeshift tents in the streets or inside evacuation zones sheltering from the horror of the war.

These new evacuation orders are sending people to new uncertainties; they don’t know where to go, particularly after the proof that they have that these “safe zones” designated by the Israeli military are not safe after all – people ended up being killed inside these designated zones.

More people have fled Rafah so far but there are still more who are trapped in areas unable to evacuate because of the intensity of the bombing and of the extreme force of the Israeli military.

Islamic Relief has released a statement with the account of a staff member in Gaza while also condemning Israel’s latest evacuation orders that, it said, have created utter “chaos and panic”.



“I feel like this is the end. It feels like we will all be either trapped and killed in Gaza, or we will all be forced out. People have stayed in Rafah thinking it’s safe and hoping that global pressure would stop an invasion. But now we are abandoned by the world and everyone feels betrayed and let down.

“It’s an unimaginable scene, with tens of thousands of people looking for shelter. People are pale and thin, tired and afraid. There are children, women, elderly people and people with disabilities trying to flee in wheelchairs. Injured people have to leave hospital with recent bandages and bloodstains.

“In other parts of Gaza, the few bits of remaining land are now filling up with tents and shacks built of bits of wood and nylon.

“No humanitarian assistance has entered since Israel took over the Rafah crossing and Kerem (Karem) Abu Salem crossing closed. Bakeries have stopped working because they don’t have fuel, so we don’t have bread. We don’t have any water supply as that also depends on fuel deliveries, so yesterday we had to pay $50 just to refill our tank. Cars have stopped, so people coming from Rafah to the Middle Area are either walking or packed into vans carrying hundreds of people.

“Many people in Gaza are already suffering from famine, but now we are entering a new period of unprecedented hardship.”

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees released images of heavily damaged or destroyed schools it runs in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, to where many Palestinians have been forcibly displaced after the Israeli invasion of Rafah.

“The classrooms are torched. Walls are blown out. There is rubble everywhere,” it said, adding there is no real safety or shelter at these schools.

“This situation is unfolding under the world’s watch. Enough is enough.”

Today I visited the morgue of Al-Aqsa Hospital, where the bodies of the killed Palestinians have been taken. The scenes were full of heartbreak.

I’ve been speaking to relatives of those killed away from the camera because they are in a very miserable condition. They told me they were sleeping peacefully when their homes were destroyed – and that they are lucky to have survived.

They said they had been following the orders of the Israeli military, escaping from the north to the middle area, only [for their relatives to be] killed in an area that is supposed to be a “safe zone”.

They are frustrated that they are still not afforded protection, saying they were hit with no prior warning and had done nothing wrong. They said they do not expect any end to the fighting in the foreseeable future.


_{Palestinians react next to the bodies of relatives killed in an Israeli strike, in Deir Al-Balah, Saturday}

Israeli troops are engaging in fierce close-quarters battles in northern Gaza’s Zeitoun neighbourhood, where they have killed several fighters in recent hours and seized weaponry, according to an Israeli military statement.

Israeli forces are also pressing on with operations in Rafah, said the military, where they have also killed fighters and destroyed military sites. Throughout Gaza, Israel’s military has waged strikes on “tens” of targets over the last day, it said, hitting launch sites, observation posts and fighter positions.

There was no immediate comment by Hamas.

Mosab Nasser, chief executive officer at FAJR Scientific, a non-profit US medical organisation, has told Al Jazeera that 17 medical personnel are currently stuck in Rafah after Israel seized the Rafah border crossing.

The group arrived on April 29 on a two-week mission, Nasser said, speaking from the European Gaza Hospital in Rafah.

“We were operating the first week of our mission with no problems and then the military operation started in eastern Rafah. But then it started trickling farther west where our safe house was,” he said.

“This morning we received the evacuation orders from Block 6 in Rafah where our safe house is – it is not longer safe – to evacuate, so we had to interrupt our work at the hospital and go back and pick up our stuff from the unsafe house and bring it back to the European Hospital,” he added.

Nasser said the Israeli military operation was not, as Israel claims, concentrated on eastern Rafah. “What we have experienced is completely otherwise. In fact, bombs were falling in the neighbourhood where we were, within a distance of less than 500 metres [0.3 miles] from the supposedly safe house, which put our physicians and surgeons at risk.”

Students at Harvard University in the US have named the hall after the veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh who was killed two years ago by an Israeli sniper in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin.

Several human rights groups and media organisations found that the Israeli army was responsible for the killing of the Palestinian-American journalist.