Biden says Israeli occupation of Gaza would be ‘a mistake’ – as foreign nationals at border hope to escape
A crossing between Gaza and Egypt has remained closed despite diplomatic efforts to open it and let in humanitarian aid.
The Rafah border had been expected to open hours ago to allow foreign passport holders to leave and aid to be brought in the besieged Palestinian enclave, where the humanitarian situation is worsening.
But the border, where lorries carrying the aid have been waiting for days, remained closed as Israel kept up its strikes in retaliation for the shock attack launched by the Hamas militant group on 7 October.
Israel-Gaza latest: Hospital power running out ‘within 24 hours’
The Israeli military is expected to launch a ground offensive in the coming days.
On Monday it said 199 hostages were being held in Hamas-ruled Gaza – a higher figure than previously estimated.
In a speech to his cabinet, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority in the occupied territory of the West Bank, Mohammad Shtayyeh, said: “We are people of a civilisation, we are not animals like they are painting us and our people will not surrender.
Speaking from his base in Ramallah he added: “We are appealing to the prime minister of Israel to stop the aggression.
“Our people will not migrate and will not leave their land.”
Other key developments include:
• Hamas denies Israel’s claim it has resumed water supplies to Gaza
• Israel evacuates 28 towns on Lebanese border after clashes with Hezbollah fighters appear to have escalated
• US secretary of state Antony Blinken returns to Israel after completing six-country tour
• The UN is warning fuel at all hospitals across the Gaza Strip will only last for another 24 hours
• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows to “demolish Hamas” during an expanded emergency cabinet meeting
• The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) says it has killed a commander of the Hamas militant group in an airstrike
• Sunak urges Netanyahu to ‘minimise impact on civilians’
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Palestinian PM: ‘We are not animals’
The Palestinian prime minister’s comments come after US President Joe Biden said in an interview that Hamas should be eliminated, but warned it would be a mistake for Israel to occupy Gaza, calling instead for a “two-state solution”.
The US president said Israel has “to go after Hamas” but said he would not support Israeli occupation.
“I think it’d be a big mistake,” he said.
A two-state solution would involve the creation of an independent nation next to Israel for five million Palestinians who live in Gaza and the West Bank.
“What happened in Gaza, in my view, is Hamas and the extreme elements of Hamas don’t represent all the Palestinian people,” Mr Biden said in an interview on CBS News’ 60 Minutes programme.
He added: “Going in but taking out the extremists, the Hezbollah is up north but Hamas down south. It is a necessary requirement.”
The president also warned Iran not to escalate the situation after the country’s foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, said “significant damages” would be inflicted upon America if the war expanded.
A building destroyed in Israeli airstrikes in Rafah, Gaza Strip
Pic:AP
Missing people believed to be buried under Gaza rubble
Gaza’s health ministry has said 2,750 Palestinians have been killed and another 9,700 have been wounded in Israeli attacks.
The figure is 80 more than the ministry’s previous update, when it said a quarter of those who died were children.
At least 1,000 people are missing and believed to be under rubble, according to the Palestinian civil defence team.
In Israel, more than 1,400 people have been killed – the vast majority in the series of attacks carried out by Hamas on 7 October.
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Israel and Hamas deny reports of truce
On Saturday, the deadline passed for up to 1.1 million people in the Gaza Strip to be offered safe passage south of the Wadi Gaza river by the IDF.
The Israeli military said some 600,000 Gazans had left the northern half of the territory, ahead of what is expected to be an all-out offensive by land, sea and air.
The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt was expected to open today from 9am local time (7am UK time), allowing aid deliveries and the evacuation of foreign national Palestinians, according to Sky News’ US partner NBC.
Kamel Khatib, the Embassy of Palestine representative for the Rafah border, told NBC that foreign nationals were expected to fly to Cairo from Al Arish airport, 30 miles from Rafah, and then on to their final destinations.
Dozens of foreign nationals have massed at the Rafah border after news spread that an agreement was reached to allow foreigners to exit Gaza via the crossing – but they were left stranded as it remained closed.
But after the deadline had expired and the border remained closed, Israel denied a humanitarian truce to allow foreigners out was under way.
Israel has evacuated 28 towns along the Lebanese border
Hamas official Izzat El Reshiq has also said there was no truth to reports the border would open or a truce had been agreed.
It comes after Israel targeted Rafah with strikes on Sunday evening, with explosions seen across the border city during the attacks.
William Schomburg, the head of the sub-delegation for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza, has said civilians in the territory lack the food, electricity and water needed to meet their basic needs.
He added: “Hospitals are rapidly running out of supplies and are facing increasingly difficult conditions under which they need to function.”
Speaking as the Rafah border remains closed, Mr Schomburg said: “The International Committee of the Red Cross, the ICRC, stands ready to meet the needs of Gazan communities. However, in order for us to be able to do this, we need safety, security, and supplies.”
Israel ambassador denies there is a humanitarian crisis
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US was working with Egypt, Israel and the United Nations to get assistance through the border.
Until now, a blockade had prevented fuel, food and water from entering Gaza and hundreds of tonnes of aid has also been stockpiling in Egypt, waiting for confirmation of its safe delivery into the area.
Smoke billows from buildings in Rafah after Israel airstrikes. Pic: AP
But Mr Netanyahu said he had agreed with President Biden to resume water supply to parts of southern Gaza.
When asked by CBS if he wanted to see a humanitarian corridor that allows Gazans out of the area safely, President Biden replied “yes”.
He added that he thought Israel would “act under the rules of war” and he was “confident” innocent people in Gaza would be able to access medicine, food and water.
It comes after the United Nations humanitarian office warned on Monday that reserves of fuel at all hospitals across the Gaza Strip were expected to last only around 24 hours more, placing “the lives of thousands of patients at risk”.
Meanwhile, Israel’s ambassador to the UK has told Sky News there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Tzipi Hotovely said: “Israel is in charge of the safety of Israelis, Hamas is in charge of the safety of the Palestinians.
“This is the time that Hamas need to pay the price.”
She argued Hamas was now preventing its own people from evacuating, and that Palestinians had been given the chance to leave by Israel.
“When America started this fight against ISIS together with coalition forces, over 100,000 civilians got caught in the crossfire. Israel is trying to prevent that,” she added.
She said Israel was “better than any other army in the world” and had been alerting civilians in advance.
This is the moment the government finally woke up to the enormity of the threat faced by the UK and the inability of its hollowed-out armed forces to cope.
But make no mistake, today’s decision to increase military spending is not just about increasing the number of troops, warships and fighter jets or even ensuring they can use the latest drones, satellites or artificial intelligence breakthroughs.
This is an emergency that requires the entire nation to take responsibility for – or at least an interest in – the defence of the nation and the importance of being able to deter threats.
Politics latest: PM makes defence commitment
Sir Keir Starmer signalled this fundamental shift in priorities when he told parliament: “We must change our national security posture because a generational challenge requires a generational response that will demand some extremely difficult and painful choices.”
He continued: “And through those choices, as hard as they are, we must also seek unity. A whole society effort that will reach into the lives, the industries, and the homes of the British people.”
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Starmer announces defence spending hike
Such a proposal is not something new.
The UK has a long history of being prepared for war.
The entirety of the Cold War era was framed around ensuring the UK had enough troops and reservists to fight a sustained conflict, supported by a vast industrial base to produce weapons and a society that was intrinsically resilient, with the ability to sustain itself with emergency food rations, power supplies and an understanding of the need to be prepared to respond in an emergency.
Back then, the threat was war – maybe even nuclear annihilation – with the Soviet Union.
Today the threat is just as stark but also far more complex.
Russia is the immediate danger. But China poses a long-term challenge, while Iran and North Korea are also menacing adversaries.
Most fundamentally though is the change in the UK’s ability to rely squarely on its strongest ally, the United States.
Donald Trump, with his resentment of shouldering the responsibility for European security, has made clear the rest of the transatlantic NATO alliance must take much more of the share of defending themselves.
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‘The world is becoming more dangerous’
He has also signalled that he may not even be willing to deploy America’s powerful military to defend every single member state – singling out those who pay far too little on their defences.
He has a point when it comes to Europe freeloading on the might of the United States for too long.
But the suggestion that European allies can no longer automatically rely on their American partner to come to their aid is enough to call into question the value of Article 5 of the NATO Alliance, which states an attack on one is an attack on all.
When it comes to deterring foes, there must be no such uncertainty between friends.
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File pic: PA
It is why countries across Europe are being urged by the new head of NATO to rapidly ramp up defence spending and adopt what NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has called a “war mindset”.
The UK, who along with France are the only two NATO powers in Europe to possess nuclear weapons, has a bigger responsibility than most to heed that call.
Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014 was not a sufficient enough alarm bell.
Eve Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale war in Ukraine in 2022 failed to shake the UK and most of the rest of Europe from their slumber.
Instead, it seems the return of Donald Trump to the White House, with all the unpredictability that he brings, is the final shock that has stunned the UK into action.
Of course, defence insiders know that increasing spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 is not soon enough.
But this – coupled with Sir Keir’s language about the need for a “generational response” – is a landmark moment.
The beginning of the correction of a strategic mistake made by Labour and Conservative governments over years to take a “holiday from history” and fail to find credible, capable armed forces and ensure society understands the importance of defence and the ability to deter.
An unknown disease has killed more than 50 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to doctors.
The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Africa office said the first outbreak was discovered in the town of Boloko, in the northwest of the country.
It is reported that three children ate a bat and died following haemorrhagic fever symptoms.
The interval between the onset of symptoms and death has been 48 hours in the majority of cases.
“That’s what’s really worrying,” Serge Ngalebato, medical director of Bikoro Hospital, a regional monitoring centre, told the news agency, The Associated Press.
An outbreak was reported in Boloko in January followed by more cases in Bomate in February
The outbreak began on 21 January and 419 cases have been recorded including 53 deaths.
There was a second outbreak of the mystery illness in the town of Bomate on 9 February.
Samples from 13 cases have been sent for testing to the National Institute for Biomedical Research in the DRC’s capital, Kinshasa, the WHO said.
All samples have been negative for Ebola or other common haemorrhagic fever diseases like Marburg. Some tested positive for malaria.
Last year, another mystery flu-like illness which killed dozens of people in another part of Congo was considered likely to be malaria.
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Scientists have had concerns for a long time about diseases jumping from animals to humans in places where wild animals are eaten.
The number of these types of outbreaks in Africa has surged by more than 60% in the last decade, the WHO said in 2022.
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