Israel-Rafah LATEST: 'Night of horror' airstrikes kill dozens of Palestinians in Gaza

US Sen. Lindsey Graham on Wednesday slammed the top United Nations court, calling it “a joke” and its chief justice “a raving antisemite.”

Graham made the comments in a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, on the senator’s fifth visit to Israel since the Israel-Hamas war began in October.

Graham’s remarks came days after the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that Israel must halt its offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah immediately.

Israeli Knesset passed a bill in preliminary reading to declare UNRWA a terror group.

It added the bill is "not expected to progress further".

Three soldiers have been killed in Rafah, the Israeli military said Wednesday. Israeli media reported that the soldiers were killed when a booby trap exploded Tuesday, and three other soldiers were wounded.

The military says at least 290 soldiers have been killed since the ground operation in Gaza began in October.

Israeli bombardments and ground offensives in Gaza have killed more than 36,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez met with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa and leading officials from several Middle Eastern countries in Madrid on Wednesday after Spain, Ireland and Norway recognised a Palestinian state.

The diplomatic move by the three western European nations on Tuesday was slammed by Israel and will have little immediate impact on its grinding war in Gaza, but it was a victory for the Palestinians and could encourage other Western powers to follow suit.

Mustafa was joined by Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, and the foreign ministers for Turkey and Jordan, members of the group called the Foreign Ministerial Committee of Arabic and Islamic countries for Gaza. They also met with Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares.

More than 140 countries recognise a Palestinian state — more than two-thirds of the United Nations.

Israeli National Security Advisor Hanegbi predicted "the fighting in Gaza will continue for at least another seven months."

Kiryn Lanning, the International Rescue Committee's (IRC) Team Lead in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), said: "These incidents reaffirm our repeated warnings that no place and nobody is safe in Gaza... The targeting of so-called safe zones, densely populated with displaced civilians, is a violation of International Humanitarian Law and completely unjustifiable. There must be accountability for these actions to ensure that such tragedies do not continue to occur."

UNRWA says its health centre in Jenin Camp, West Bank was "ransacked" during IDF operation last week.

Most of Gaza’s hospitals are no longer functioning. Rafah’s Kuwait Hospital shut down Monday after a strike near its entrance killed two health workers.

A spokesperson for the World Health Organisation said the casualties from Sunday’s strike and fire “absolutely overwhelmed” field hospitals in the area, which were already running short on supplies to treat severe burns.

“That requires intensive care, that requires electricity, that requires high-level medical services,” Dr. Margaret Harris told reporters in Geneva. “Increasingly, we are struggling to even have the high-level skilled doctors and nurses because they’ve been displaced.”

The US-built temporary pier that has been taking humanitarian aid to starving Palestinians for less than two weeks will be removed from the coast of Gaza to be repaired after getting damaged in rough seas and weather, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

Over the next two days, the pier will be pulled from the beach and sent to the southern Israeli city of Ashdod, where US Central Command will repair it, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters. She said the fixes will take “at least over a week” and then the pier will need to be anchored back into the beach in Gaza.

“From when it was operational, it was working, and we just had sort of an unfortunate confluence of weather storms that made it inoperable for a bit,” Singh said. “Hopefully just a little over a week, we should be back up and running.”

Netanyahu has vowed to press ahead in Rafah, saying Israeli forces must enter the city to dismantle Hamas and return hostages taken on October 7.

In its investigation of Sunday’s deadly strike and fire, the Israeli military released satellite photos of what it said was a Hamas rocket launch position about 40 meters (yards) from an area of sheds that was targeted. In the photo, the alleged launcher itself did not appear to have been struck.

He said Israeli warplanes used the smallest bombs possible — two munitions with 17-kilogram (37-pound) warheads. “Our munition alone could not have ignited a fire of this size,” he said.

The United States and other allies of Israel have warned against a full-fledged offensive in the city, with the Biden administration saying this would cross a “red line” and refusing to provide offensive arms for such an undertaking.

On Tuesday, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller gave no indication the administration sees Israel as crossing any of the red lines for Rafah, saying the offensive is still on a “far different” scale than assaults on other population centres in Gaza.

The International Court of Justice ordered Israel to halt its Rafah offensive last week as part of South Africa's case accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.

Abdel-Rahman Abu Ismail, a Palestinian from Gaza City who has been sheltering in Tel al-Sultan since December, said "it was a night of horror".

He said he heard "constant sounds: of explosions overnight and into Tuesday, with fighter jets and drones flying above.

He said it reminded him of the Israeli invasion of his neighbourhood of Shijaiyah in Gaza City, where Israel launched a heavy bombing campaign before sending in ground forces in late 2023. “We saw this before,” he said.

Israel's assault on Rafah, launched May 6, spurred more than 1 million people to flee the city, the UN agency helping Palestinian refugees said Tuesday. Most were already displaced multiple times in the nearly eight-month war between Israel and Hamas. Families are now scattered across makeshift tent camps and other war-ravaged areas.

The strikes over the past few days have hit areas west of Rafah, where the military had not ordered civilians to evacuate. Israeli ground troops and tanks have been operating in eastern Rafah, in central parts of the city, and along the Gaza-Egypt border.

Good morning from London. I’m Alessandra Scotto di Santolo, I’ll be bringing you all the latest developments on the Israel-Gaza war. Please feel free to get in touch with me as I work if you have a story or tips to share! Your thoughts are always welcome.

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