Israel-Gaza war live: Israel’s use of heavy bombs raises ‘serious concerns’ under laws of war | Israel-Gaza war

Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian armed group that has fought alongside Hamas, said its militants were battling troops amid Israeli shelling of western Rafah, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

According to AFP, witnesses reported seeing Israeli military vehicles enter the city’s Saudi neighbourhood, followed by night-time gun battles.

AFP reports that parts of central Gaza also saw fighting overnight, with witnesses reporting artillery shelling and heavy gunfire in Gaza City’s Zeitun neighbourhood.

A Syrian army officer was killed on Wednesday in an Israeli airstrike in the country’s south, the Syrian state news agency Sana reported, citing a military source.

“The Israeli enemy carried out an aggression using drones against two military positions of our armed forces in the provinces of Quneitra and Daraa,” Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports, citing the Syrian news agency. Sana adds that the attack resulted in the death of the officer and material damage.

Israel rarely comments on individual strikes in Syria.

According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), the US news website Axios and Israeli media said that Washington has cancelled a high-level meeting with Israeli officials on Iran after Benjamin Netanyahu’s comments about the US withholding weapons (see 09.06 BST).

Netanyahu is due to address the US Congress next month.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) report that there have been Israeli airstrikes and clashes between troops and Palestinian militants in Gaza on Wednesday.

Witnesses and the civil defence agency in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip reported Israeli bombardment in western Rafah, where medics said drone strikes and shelling killed at least seven people.

According to AFP, the Israeli military has announced a daily humanitarian “pause” in fighting on a key road in eastern Rafah, but a UN spokesperson said days later that “this has yet to translate into more aid reaching people in need”.

The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt has been shut since Israeli troops seized its Palestinian side in early May, while nearby Kerem Shalom on the Israeli border “is operating with limited functionality, including because of fighting in the area”, said UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq.

He told reporters that in recent weeks, there had been “an improvement” in aid reaching northern Gaza “but a drastic deterioration in the south”.

“Basic commodities are available in markets in southern and central Gaza. But … it’s unaffordable for many people,” Haq said, reports AFP.

At least 17 killed in Gaza refugee camps after latest Israeli strikes, say medics

Lorenzo Tondo

A series of Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday have resulted in the deaths of at least 17 Palestinians in two of the Gaza Strip’s historic refugee camps, as tanks advanced further into the southern city of Rafah, according to reports from residents and medics.

Nuseirat and Bureij are home to families and descendants of people who fled to Gaza in the 1948 war around the creation of Israel.

Civilians in Rafah described intense bombardments by tanks and planes across various areas in the city, which sheltered more than 1 million people before May. Most of the population has fled northwards since the Israeli forces’ incursion into the city.

“Rafah is being bombed without any intervention from the world. The occupation [Israel] is acting freely here,” a Rafah resident and father of six told Reuters via a chat app.

According to media reports, Israeli tanks were operating inside the Tel al-Sultan, al-Izba, and Zurub areas in Rafah’s west, as well as Shaboura at the heart of the city. They also continued to occupy the eastern neighbourhoods and outskirts as well as the border with Egypt and the vital Rafah border crossing.

The resident said: “There are Israeli forces in most areas. There is heavy resistance too and they are making them pay dearly but the occupation is not ethical and they are destroying the city and the refugee camp.”

Footage of the aftermath of the Israeli strikes in Deir al-Balah shows Palestinians sifting through the wreckage of homes in search of bodies, clearing debris from damaged apartment buildings, and mourning the loss of their loved ones.

Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 37,396 Palestinians and injured 85,523 since 7 October, Gaza’s health ministry said on Wednesday.

A total of 24 Palestinians have been killed and 71 have been injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry said in a statement, according to Reuters.

The Agence France-Presse news agency have more on the report by the United Nations human rights office (OHCHR) (see 09.53 BST).

In a report published on Wednesday, the OHCHR provided details on six Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, which it said were emblematic of a concerning pattern, involving the suspected use of up to 2,000-pound bombs on residential buildings, a school, refugee camps and a market.

The rights office said it had verified 218 deaths in those attacks, but said it had information indicating the number of fatalities “could be much higher”.

The OHCHR report concludes that the series of Israeli strikes, exemplified by the six attacks carried out between 9 October and 2 December, suggested that Israel’s military had “repeatedly violated fundamental principles of the laws of war”, the statement said.

AFP reports that among the attacks listed were the strikes on Ash Shujaiyeh neighbourhood, in Gaza City on 2 December last year. It caused destruction across an approximate diagonal span of 130 metres, destroying 15 buildings and damaging at least 14 others, it said.

The extent of the damage and the craters visible and seen on satellite imagery indicated that around nine 2,000-pound GBU-31 bombs were used, said the OHCHR, adding that it had received information that at least 60 people were killed.

GBU-31s, along with 1,000-pound GBU-32s and 250-pound GBU-39s “are mostly used to penetrate through several floors of concrete and can completely collapse tall structures,” UN rights office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence told reporters.

Israeli forces may have repeatedly violated fundamental principles of the laws of war and failed to distinguish between civilians and fighters in their Gaza Strip military campaign, the United Nations human rights office (OHCHR) said on Wednesday.

Reuters reports that in a report assessing six Israeli attacks that caused a high number of casualties and destruction of civilian infrastructure, the OHCHR said Israeli forces “may have systematically violated the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precautions in attack.”

“The requirement to select means and methods of warfare that avoid or at the very least minimise to every extent civilian harm appears to have been consistently violated in Israel’s bombing campaign,” said UN high commissioner for human rights Volker Türk.

Israel’s permanent mission to the UN in Geneva characterised the analysis as “factually, legally, and methodologically flawed.”

“Since the OHCHR has, at best, a partial factual picture, any attempt to reach legal conclusions is inherently flawed,” the Israeli diplomatic mission said.

According to Reuters, the OHCHR report details six incidents that took place between 7 October and 2 December, in which the UN human rights office was able to assess the kinds of weapons, the means and the methods used in these attacks.

“We felt that it was important to get this report out now, especially because in the case of some of these attacks, some eight months have passed, and we are yet to see credible and transparent investigations,” said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for OHCHR.

“We call first on the Israeli authorities to take steps to ensure that proper investigations, transparent investigations are held.” She added that, in the absence of transparent investigations, there would be “a need for international action in this regard as well.”

Last week the UN human rights office said the killing of civilians during an Israeli operation to free four hostages could amount to war crimes, but so might Palestinian militants’ holding of captives in densely populated areas.

Israeli foreign minister says decision on all-out war against Hezbollah is near

Peter Beaumont

The Israeli foreign minister, Israel Katz, has said a decision on an all-out war with Hezbollah was coming soon, as Israel generals announced late on Tuesday that they had signed off planning for an offensive into Lebanon.

The escalating rhetoric came after the release of video footage from a Hezbollah surveillance drone’s overflight of the northern city of Haifa, which included images of sensitive sites and civilian neighbourhoods.

The broadcast of the footage was widely interpreted as a thinly veiled threat against Haifa and comes as cross-border exchanges continue between the two sides. Last week northern Israel was hit by the heaviest Hezbollah barrage of the war after the Israeli killing of a senior Hezbollah commander.

After threats by the Hezbollah chief, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, to damage Haifa’s ports that are operated by Chinese and Indian companies, Katz said in a post on X: “We are getting very close to the moment of deciding on changing the rules of the game against Hezbollah and Lebanon.”

“In an all-out war, Hezbollah will be destroyed and Lebanon will be severely beaten,” he added.

Israel’s military later said “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon were approved and validated, and decisions were taken on the continuation of increasing the readiness of troops in the field”.

Europe has a duty to host children hurt and traumatised by war in Gaza for as long as the conflict continues, Greek foreign minister George Gerapetritis told Reuters on Wednesday.

The news agency reports that Gerapetritis is seeking partners in what he hopes would be a project to temporarily bring the children to the EU, and said he discussed the idea with Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Mustafa this week.

“We need to face this tragedy very clearly,” Gerapetritis said. “Europe should be open to injured people from [Gaza] but also to children who are now facing famine or other sorts of dangers.”

Greece was elected as a member of the UN security council for 2025-2026 earlier this month, and Gerapetritis believes the country’s historical ties with the Arab world give it credibility to act as a peace broker.

Reuters reports that Gerapetritis did not say how many people could be hosted by Greece or the EU but said that the issue was under discussion with Palestinian authorities.

It added that Gerapetritis had stressed that the initiative was not linked to regular migration, which has become politically sensitive in Europe and strongly opposed by a resurgent right.

“This is an obvious call of humanitarian assistance. We’re not talking here about economic migrants or other types of irregular migration,” he said, days after far-right parties surged in European parliamentary elections.

Greece condemned the 7 October attack by Hamas militants against Israel but has called for a halt to Israel’s ground and air assault on Gaza that Palestinian authorities say has killed more than 35,000 people and flattened whole cities.

The World Health Organization says many in Gaza face famine-like conditions and more than 8,000 children under five years old are suffering with acute malnutrition. In addition, the psychological impact of the war on children is “tremendous”, said Gerapetritis.

Gerapetritis told Reuters that he had talked to Palestinian and Israeli prime ministers this week about ways to seal peace and reconstruct Gaza.

“We shouldn’t wait … for the war to stop in order to start discussing it,” he said. “It is going to be a giant project and we have to develop it as early as possible,” he said.

A Gaza ceasefire would also help reduce attacks on ships by Houthi militants in the Red Sea which has affected Greece’s shipping sector.

“I am relatively optimistic that alongside the ceasefire that we’re hoping to achieve in the very near future, the situation also in the Red Sea will become much better,” Gerapetritis told Reuters.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday claimed the US is withholding weapons and implied this was slowing Israel’s offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, reports the Associated Press (AP).

Netanyahu, in a short video, spoke directly to the camera in English as he lobbed sharp criticisms at US president Joe Biden over “bottlenecks” in arms transfers.

“It’s inconceivable that in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel,” Netanyahu said, adding, “Give us the tools and we’ll finish the job a lot faster.”

Netanyahu also claimed that the US secretary of state Antony Blinken, in a recent visit to Israel, said he was working around the clock to end the delays.

However, Blinken said Tuesday the only pause was related to a delayed delivering of certain heavy bombs since May over concerns about Israel’s killing of civilians in Gaza.

“We, as you know, are continuing to review one shipment that president Biden has talked about with regard to 2,000-pound bombs because of our concerns about their use in a densely populated area like Rafah,” Blinken said during a state department news conference. “That remains under review. But everything else is moving as it normally would.”

According to the AP, Netanyahu did not elaborate on what weapons were being held back, and the Israeli military declined to respond to a request for comment. Ophir Falk, a foreign policy adviser to Netanyahu, deferred questions on details to the US. government, reports the AP.

Responding to Netanyahu’s claim on Tuesday, the White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “We generally do not know what he’s talking about. We just don’t.”

She added that the US is having “constructive discussions” with Israel about the paused shipment of heavy bombs and that it’s the only transfer being delayed.

A bulk carrier sank days after an attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels which was believed to have killed one mariner on board, authorities said early on Wednesday. It is the second ship sunk in the rebels’ campaign, says the Associated Press (AP).

The Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned-and-operated Tutor sank in the Red Sea, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre (UKMTO) said in a warning to sailors in the region.

“Military authorities report maritime debris and oil sighted in the last reported location,” the UKMTO said. “The vessel is believed to have sunk.”

The Houthis, quoting foreign reports in media outlets they control, acknowledged the sinking. The US military did not acknowledge the sinking, nor did it respond to requests for comment, reports the AP.

The Tutor came under attack about a week ago by a bomb-carrying Houthi drone boat in the Red Sea. John Kirby, a White House national security spokesperson, said on Monday that the attack killed “a crew member who hailed from the Philippines.” The Philippines has yet to acknowledge the death, but the man who had been aboard the Tutor has been missing for over a week in the Red Sea, which faces intense summertime heat.

In March, the Belize-flagged Rubymar, carring a load of fertiliser, sank in the Red Sea after taking on water for days after a rebel attack.

The sinking of the Tutor in the Red Sea marks what appears to be a new escalation by the Iranian-backed Houthis in their campaign targeting shipping through the vital maritime corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

The Houthis have maintained their attacks target ships linked to Israel, the US or the UK. However, many of the ships they have attacked have little or no connection to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

It has gone 10.30am in Gaza and Tel Aviv. This is our latest live blog on the Israel-Gaza war and the wider Middle East crisis.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that the US is withholding weapons and implied that it is slowing Israel’s offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

Netanyahu, in a short video on Tuesday, said it was “inconceivable that in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel,” adding: “Give us the tools and we’ll finish the job a lot faster.”

Netanyahu also claimed US secretary of state Antony Blinken, in a recent visit to Israel, said he was working around the clock to end the delays.

However, Blinken responded by saying the only pause was related to certain heavy bombs that have been delayed since May over concerns about Israel’s killing of civilians in Gaza.

More on that in a moment, first here is a summary of the latest developments:

• The Israeli foreign minister, Israel Katz, has said a decision on an all-out war with Hezbollah was coming soon, as Israel generals announced late on Tuesday that they had signed off planning for an offensive into Lebanon. The escalating rhetoric came after the release of video footage from a Hezbollah surveillance drone’s overflight of the northern city of Haifa, which included images of sensitive sites and civilian neighbourhoods.

• US envoy Amos Hochstein said on Tuesday that Washington was seeking to avoid “a greater war” following an escalation in fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli military along Lebanon’s southern frontier in recent weeks. Hochstein described the situation along the border as “serious”

• Lebanon’s prime minister Najib Mikati said his nation did not seek “escalation”, but cautioned that there should be an end to “the ongoing violations of Lebanese sovereignty and the acts of systematic killing and destruction committed by Israel”. On Monday an Israeli spokesperson said they would secure the return of displaced Israelis to their homes “militarily or diplomatically”.

• The UN says it has been unable to distribute aid entering Gaza from the Israel-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing because of lawlessness and panic among hungry people in the area, despite Israel’s daytime pause in military activity. “Fighting is not the only reason for being unable to pick up aid … The lack of any police or rule of law in the area makes it very dangerous to move goods there,” spokesperson Farhan Haq said.

• A series of Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday resulted in the deaths of at least 17 Palestinians in two of the Gaza Strip’s historic refugee camps, as tanks advanced further into the southern city of Rafah, according to reports from residents and medics.

• The UN human rights chief on Tuesday warned that the rights situation in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, was drastically deteriorating, while there had been “unconscionable death and suffering” in Gaza. Volker Türk, UN high commissioner for human rights, said as of 15 June, 528 Palestinians, 133 of them children, had been killed by Israeli security forces or settlers since October, in some cases raising “serious concerns of unlawful killings”

• The conflict in Gaza has created unprecedented soil, water and air pollution in the region, a UN report said on Tuesday. Israel’s official social media account accused the UN, under the leadership of secretary-general António Guterres, of becoming “a tool for Hamas propaganda”.