A bipartisan group of senior US senators said they plan to help Israel against the International Criminal Court of Justice.

“We will continue to work in a bipartisan manner to strenuously object to the ICC’s actions against our ally, Israel, and take appropriate steps to help Israel and protect American personnel from future ICC action,” a joint statement said by Republican and Democratic senators said.

The letter was signed by Democratic Senator Ben Cardin, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Senator Jim Risch, the top Republican on the committee.

The letter was also notably signed by Democrats Richard Blumenthal and Jeanne Shaheen who have criticised the conduct of Israel's war on Gaza.

Israel said it seized the broadcasting equipment of the Associated Press (AP) because it was filming the location of Israeli soldiers and had refused to cut off Al Jazeera from their content.

Israel said that the AP was “focusing on the activities of IDF soldiers and their location” from a house in Sderot, Israel.

“Even though the inspectors of the Ministry of Communications warned them that they were breaking the law and that they should cut off Al Jazeera from receiving their content and not transfer a broadcast to Al Jazeera, they continued to do so,” Israel’s communications ministry said in a statement. 

US Democratic Senator Tim Kaine slammed the Biden administration’s decision to say that Israel was providing “sufficient cooperation” on providing humanitarian aid to Gaza, as part of a National Security Memorandum review in May.

Kaine said that the decision hurts the “the credibility of the administration".

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken defended the State Department’s decision. 

Israel is conducting a deadly raid on the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, according to Arabic media reports.

Israel’s offensive has killed at least 7 Palestinians, according to Arabic media reports.

Video footage posted on social media showed scores of bulldozers on roads leading to Jenin.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that the Biden administration is willing to work with Congress to respond to the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s call for arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.

Blinken told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the ICC prosecutors made “a profoundly wrong-headed” decision calling for arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant.

Members of Congress, particularly in the Republican Party, have called on the US to sanction members of the ICC.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan “a rogue prosecutor who’s out to demonize the one and only Jewish state”.

In an interview with MSNBC, Netanyahu said Khan’s call for arrest warrants for him and Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant is “totally absurd. It’s a travesty of justice”.

He took aim at the crux of Khan’s allegation that evidence suggests Netanyahu has committed war crimes by using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza.

Netanyahu argued that Israel’s approval of Qatar sending aid to Hamas-governed Gaza before 7 October showed Israel had worked to prevent a humanitarian crisis.

“The whole thing of a deliberate starvation policy is ridiculous. It’s put forward by a guy who doesn’t check his facts. He’s receiving it from the UNRWA and other anti-Israeli agencies and from Palestinian sources," Netanyahu said. 

The head of the World Health Organisation said that Israel’s assault on Rafah and Gaza blockade are “being felt” across the besieged enclave.

“At a time when the people of Gaza are facing starvation, we urge Israel to lift the blockade and to let aid through,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Tuesday.

He said the WHO had pre-positioned some supplies in warehouses and hospitals but without more aid coming into Gaza, the WHO cannot sustain its support for hospitals and the population.

The WHO and its partners have managed to deliver small amounts of fuel to hospitals in recent days, but Ghebreyesus said it “falls far short of the 50-to-60 thousand litres of fuel that are needed each day for health operations”.

Only 7 out of 24 health centres in Gaza managed by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) are operational, the agency said on Tuesday.

“In the last ten days they have not received any medical supplies due to Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossing closures/disruptions,” Unrwa said on social media platform X.

Unrwa said earlier on Tuesday that due to lack of supplies and insecurity, it had suspended food distribution in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid has denounced the seizure of a camera and broadcasting equipment belonging to The Associated Press (AP) as an “act of madness”.

"This is not Al Jazeera, this is an American media outlet that has won 53 Pulitzer Prizes,” Lapid said on social media platform X.

“This government behaves as if it has decided to make sure at all costs that Israel will be swayed all over the world. They went crazy," he said. 

The Israeli government shut down one of the AP’s live feeds in the southern town of Sderot on Tuesday afternoon, saying the US media broadcaster had run afoul of the law because the Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera was one of the “thousands” of clients who used their footage.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said on Tuesday that, due to lack of supplies and insecurity, food distribution in the southern Gaza city of Rafah has been suspended.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), the agency added that only 7 out of 24 Unrwa health centres were operational.

"In the last ten days they have not received any medical supplies due to Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossing closures/disruptions," said the agency.

Israeli forces have continued besieging the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza and fired shells at the gates of the emergency department.

Wafa news agency reports cited Hossam Abu Sfiya, the director of the hospital in Jabalia refugee camp, saying the hospital was currently being evacuated of wounded, patients and medical staff.

Israeli forces have besieged the hospital since 19 May.

Associated Press has criticised the Israeli government after one of the news agency's live feeds was forcibly shut down and their equipment confiscated in southern Israel.

In a statement, AP said the interference was due to an "abusive use by the Israeli government of the country’s new foreign broadcaster law", which was passed in April primarily as a means of shutting down Al-Jazeera.

They said they had run afoul of the law because the Qatari broadcaster was one of the "thousands" of clients who used their footage.

"We urge the Israeli authorities to return our equipment and enable us to reinstate our live feed immediately so we can continue to provide this important visual journalism to thousands of media outlets around the world," said AP.

According to the news agency, officials from the Communications Ministry arrived at the AP location in the southern town of Sderot on Tuesday afternoon and seized the equipment.

They also handed them a piece of paper, signed by Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, alleging it was violating the foreign broadcaster law.

Hundreds of social media users have taken to the internet to apologise to prominent human rights lawyer Amal Clooney after learning that she is advising the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor seeking arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders.

For months, Clooney, a British barrister of Lebanese and Palestinian descent, drew widespread criticism from commentators on social media who accused her of silence over Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza.

That changed on Monday after ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said he had filed an application for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and Mohammed Deif.

It soon emerged that Amal Clooney had played a role in the case.

Clooney co-authored a column with five other international lawyers in the Financial Times, which revealed that Khan “asked us to advise whether there was sufficient evidence to lay charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity".

Read more: Critics humbled as Amal Clooney's role in Israel-Hamas ICC arrest warrant request revealed

Israel's far-right security minister has said he wants to move to Gaza after the end of the war and once the enclave has been resettled by Israel.

Speaking to Israeli TV, Itamar Ben Gvir said that Israel would have full control of the Gaza Strip after the fighting had ended and that it would be re-populated with Jewish settlements throughout the territory.

He added that they would encourage "voluntary migration" of the Palestinian residents of the enclave.

Germany has said the International Criminal Court (ICC) decision to seek arrest warrants for the leaders of Hamas was logical but added that no comparison could be made with the Israeli leadership.

A German government spokesperson remarked that "the accusations of the chief prosecutor are serious and must be substantiated", but he expressed hope that Israel's "democratic system" would be taken into account when deliberating the warrants.