Israel-Gaza war live: Fresh strikes reported on Rafah as US says Israel’s actions do not cross red line

Harry Davies is an investigations correspondent at the Guardian.

The former head of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, allegedly threatened a chief prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) in a series of secret meetings in which he tried to pressure her into abandoning a war crimes investigation, the Guardian can reveal.

Yossi Cohen’s covert contacts with the ICC’s then prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, took place in the years leading up to her decision to open a formal investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in occupied Palestinian territories.

That investigation, launched in 2021, culminated last week when Bensouda’s successor, Karim Khan, announced that he was seeking an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over the country’s conduct in its war in Gaza.

The prosecutor’s decision to apply to the ICC’s pre-trial chamber for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, alongside three Hamas leaders, is an outcome Israel’s military and political establishment has long feared.

Cohen’s personal involvement in the operation against the ICC took place when he was the director of the Mossad. His activities were authorised at a high level and justified on the basis the court posed a threat of prosecutions against military personnel, according to a senior Israeli official.

You can read the full piece here:

The Biden administration has said recent Israeli operations and attacks in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah do not constitute a major ground operation that crosses any US red lines, and that it is also closely monitoring a probe into Sunday’s deadly strike on a tent camp it called “tragic”.

Speaking after Israeli tanks were seen near al-Awda mosque, a landmark in central Rafah, national security council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that the US was not turning a “blind eye” to the plight of Palestinian civilians.

“The Israelis have said this is a tragic mistake,” Kirby said, referring to the airstrike and fire in an area crowded with refugee tents that Gaza health authorities said killed at least 45 people on Sunday.

Asked if there was anything the White House had seen from Sunday – through to the ongoing ground operations this week – that would prompt a US withdrawal of more military assistance, Kirby said “I believe that’s what I’ve been saying here”.

“We’ve also said we don’t want to see a major ground operation in Rafah that would really make it hard for the Israelis to go after Hamas without causing extensive damage and potentially a large number of deaths. We have not seen that yet,” he said, stating that Israel’s operations on Tuesday were mostly in a corridor on the outskirts of Rafah.

You can read the full piece here:

It has gone 9.30am in Gaza and Tel Aviv, welcome to our latest live blog on the Israel-Gaza war and the wider Middle East crisis.

Israel has carried out fresh strikes in Rafah on Wednesday, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

AFP journalists in Rafah reported new strikes early Wednesday, hours after witnesses and a Palestinian security source said Israeli tanks had penetrated the heart of the city.

“People are currently inside their homes because anyone who moves is being shot at by Israeli drones,” resident Abdel Khatib told AFP.

It comes as the White House says Israel’s operation in Rafah has not crossed a US red line.

“We have not seen them smash into Rafah,” said the US national security council spokesperson, John Kirby.

Meanwhile, Algeria has presented a draft resolution to UN security council members calling for an end to Israel’s offensive in Rafah and an “immediate ceasefire,” according to draft text seen by several news agencies.

The UN security council is scheduled to discuss the war again on Wednesday, but it is not clear when a vote on the resolution will take place.

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

• Israeli tanks reached the middle of Rafah on Tuesday, Reuters reported, citing witnesses. They also pushed towards western neighbourhoods, taking positions on the Zurub hilltop, after heavy bombardment. Not all Palestinians sheltering there are able to move, and some have decided there is greater danger in moving given fighting continues across much of Gaza and there is little shelter, food, water or sanitation elsewhere. The Israeli military said its forces continued to operate in the Rafah area, without commenting on reported advances into the city centre.

• Israel’s military has denied striking a tent camp west of Rafah on Tuesday after Gaza health authorities said Israeli tank shelling had killed at least 21 people there, in an area Israel has designated a civilian evacuation zone, Reuters reports. Two days after an Israeli airstrike on another camp stirred global condemnation, Gaza emergency services said four tank shells on Tuesday hit a cluster of tents in al-Mawasi, a coastal strip Israel designated as an expanded humanitarian zone where it advised civilians in Rafah to go for safety.

• An investigation by the Guardian has revealed how the former head of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, allegedly threatened a chief prosecutor of the international criminal court in a series of secret meetings in which he tried to pressure her into abandoning a war crimes investigation. The investigation, with the Israeli-based magazines +972 and Local Call, can also reveal how Israel has run an almost decade-long secret “war” against the court. The country deployed its intelligence agencies to surveil, hack, pressure, smear and allegedly threaten senior ICC staff in an effort to derail the court’s inquiries.

• US aid efforts for Gaza have suffered a setback after the temporary pier built by the military broke apart in heavy seas, the Pentagon said on Tuesday. The $320m pier was intended to provide a crucial supply line for aid deliveries by sea to reach starving Palestinians and alleviate a humanitarian catastrophe. Now the effort is on hold for at least a week.

• Ireland, Spain and Norway have all formally recognised a Palestinian state. The joint decision by two European Union countries plus Norway, a nation with a strong diplomatic tradition in peacemaking, may generate momentum for the recognition of a Palestinian state by other EU countries and could spur further steps at the United Nations, which would deepen Israel’s international isolation.

• Denmark’s parliament on Tuesday voted down a bill to recognise a Palestinian state, after the Danish foreign minister previously said the necessary preconditions for an independent country were lacking.

• Nikki Haley, the failed Republican presidential nominee, signed Israeli artillery shells with the inscription “Finish Them!” on a Memorial Day visit to Israel. The former South Carolina governor’s graphic display of support came on a trip to Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where she was accompanied by Danny Danon, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN and a noted hawkish member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party in the Knesset.