Gaza live: Biden moves ahead with military aid for Israel as it launches ground assaults on Rafah

National security advisor Jake Sullivan plans to travel to Saudi Arabia and Israel this weekend, according to the Axios news outlet.

The White House is allegedly trying to dissuade Israel from launching a broad military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which is sheltering more than one million Palestinians fleeing from the Israeli onslaught and now have nowhere to go.

Earlier this month it was reported that the Biden administration and Saudi Arabia are seeking to finalise an agreement for US security guarantees and civilian nuclear assistance, even as an Israel-Saudi normalisation deal envisioned as part of a Middle East “grand bargain” remains elusive.

“We’re very close to reaching an agreement” on the US-Saudi portion of the package, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on 2 May.

Palestinians are marking 75 years since the Nakba (also known as the Catastrophe), the name given to the expulsion of more than 750,000 people from their homes and land in the lead up to the establishment of Israel.

Many of those Palestinians now live in camps in the occupied West Bank, or in exile in surrounding Arab countries or in a blockaded Gaza. To understand the current situation, we need to acknowledge the Nakba of 1948.

In a previous article for Middle East Eye, I wrote about my journey co-presenting the BBC documentary, The Holy Land and Us, on this turbulent period in Palestinian history. 

From a young age, I had been told that my grandparents had fled their village in fear in 1948. 

Read more: The Nakba on screen: Five must watch films about the expulsion of Palestinians in 1948

The US State Department said that the 50 aid trucks which entered Gaza on Sunday were not “not nearly enough”, and says it believes more can be done to help US citizens leave the besieged coastal enclave, AFP reported on Tuesday.

“We’ve seen 50 trucks enter Gaza on May 12. This is not nearly enough,” US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said of aid the entering since Israel seized the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip on 7 May.

In a visit to California, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell strongly criticised Israel’s war on Gaza, saying that Palestinians were “dying and starving and suffering in unimaginable proportions” and that it was a “man-made disaster”.

“I see a certain fatigue from the US side to continue engaging in looking for a solution,” Borrell said in a speech on Monday at Stanford University, which was publicly released on Tuesday.

“We are trying to push with the Arab people in order to build together, the Arabs and Europeans, to make this two-state solution a reality,” he added.

Aryeh Neier, co-founder of Human Rights Watch and former skeptic of genocide charges against Israel, said in an article for the New York Review of Books: “I am now persuaded that Israel is engaged in genocide against Palestinians in Gaza”.

The article, titled ‘Is Israel Committing Genocide?’ will go to print next month and was published online early.

The student union at Trinity College Cambridge in England, the University of Cambridge's wealthiest constituent college, has passed a motion calling on Trinity to divest from all companies "complicit and profiting" from Israel's war on Gaza, Middle East Eye has learnt. 

On Saturday 11 May, the Trinity College Student Union (TCSU) unanimously passed a motion which called on the college "to divest from all companies complicit in and profiting off the war in Gaza that has created an unprecedented humanitarian crisis".

MEE revealed on Sunday, that according to the student union, Trinity's college council, which administers the college, voted to divest from all arms companies. But the college decided to keep it a secret after an activist defaced a portrait inside Trinity of Lord Arthur Balfour.

Read more: Trinity College Cambridge student union passes motion to divest from war on Gaza

Egypt’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that Israel was responsible for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and that Israel’s military operations around Rafah were the main reason aid had been prevented from entering the enclave.

The swift rebuke followed comments by Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who looked to hold Egypt responsible for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, suggesting that Egypt closed the Rafah crossing.

“The world places the responsibility for the humanitarian situation on Israel, but the key to preventing a humanitarian crisis in Gaza is now in the hands of our Egyptian friends,” the foreign minister said.

More than two-thirds of British people want a ceasefire in Gaza, according to a survey by the pollster YouGov earlier this week.

Researchers found 69 percent of respondents wanted a ceasefire and an end to Israel’s military campaign, while just 13 percent wanted it to continue.

The figures represent a 10 percent increase in those wanting an end to the conflict compared to November, 2023 - a month after the war started. Meanwhile, support for the war has come down from 20 percent during the same period.

British people were also significantly more likely to sympathise with the Palestinian side compared to the Israelis.

Read more: Poll finds 69 percent of British public want end to war in Gaza

More than 100 artists have pulled out of this year’s Great Escape Festival in solidarity with Palestine, with Massive Attack also speaking out in support of the boycott.

The Great Escape is sponsored by Barclays, a UK headquartered bank with investments in companies that supply arms to Israel.

The sponsorship has resulted in widespread controversy.

“We will not be appearing at The Great Escape festival this year. This is a targeted approach of a cultural boycott, considering Barclays sponsorship,” said the Lambrini Girls, one of the acts that pulled out.

“Barclays provide financial services of over £1BN pounds to companies supplying military technology and weapons to the IDF, perpetuating the horrors unfolding in Gaza,” they added.

Another artist to pull out, Alfie Templeman, went on X to say: “I am no longer performing at The Great Escape festival this year due to their ongoing partnership with Barclays, who are actively funding the Israeli military and therefore being complicit in genocide. My morals cannot and will not align with the amalgamation of entertainment and human suffering."

In a post on X, Unrwa communications officer Louise Wateridge said large parts of Rafah had now become a "ghost town".

"Families have moved as far west as possible, now reaching the shore and along the beach," she said.

"It's hard to believe there were over 1 million people sheltering here just a week ago," Wateridge added.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz looked to hold Egypt responsible for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza on Tuesday, suggesting that Egypt closed the Rafah crossing.

"Yesterday, I spoke with UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron and German Foreign Minister Baerbock about the need to persuade Egypt to reopen the Rafah crossing to allow the continued delivery of international humanitarian aid to Gaza. Today, I will discuss the matter with Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani," Katz wrote on X.

"The world places the responsibility for the humanitarian situation on Israel, but the key to preventing a humanitarian crisis in Gaza is now in the hands of our Egyptian friends," the foreign minister added.

"Hamas will not control the Rafah crossing - this is a security necessity on which we will not compromise," Katz said.

Israel has been widely blamed by the United Nations and international human rights organisations for blocking and preventing the free flow of humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip.

Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has called for a "return to Gaza now" at a rally in southern Israel advocating the re-settlement of the Gaza Strip and the expulsion of Palestinian residents.

Speaking at the rally in the southern town of Sderot on Israel's independence day, attended by thousands of Israelis, the minister said that the reconstruction of settlements in Gaza was the only solution to the current conflict.

"What you are doing here is the real solution. We can sit in the cabinet and press for action in Rafah, not compromise on ending the war, demand that targeted countermeasures be taken, but in order to end the problem, so that the problem does not return, we need two things that must be done: one - return to Gaza Now!" he told the crowd.

"Returning to our holy land. To encourage the residents to leave! This is the truth! This is the only way."

Norway is set to roughly quadruple the amount of aid it is giving to Palestinians this year, according to the revised budget presented on Tuesday.

The government's proposed 1 billion kroner ($92.5 million) in aid comes as international agencies warn of mounting hunger in the Gaza Strip.

"The urgent need of aid in Gaza is enormous after seven months of war," Norway's Minister of International Development, Anne Beathe Tvinnereim, said in a statement.

"The food situation in particular is critical and there is a risk of famine," she added.

She described the looming famine as "an entirely man-made crisis."

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has publicly defended the statistics given by Gaza's health ministry over the numbers killed by Israel's assault on the enclave.

WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said there was “nothing wrong” with the ministry's figures at a Geneva press briefing on Tuesday, despite recent reports in Israeli media outlets casting doubt on the numbers.

“The fact we now have 25,000 identified people is a step forward,” he said, referring to the breakdown of the more than 35,000 killed in Gaza published by the ministry last week.

The breakdown suggested that half of those killed since 7 October were women and children, which Israeli observers claimed suggested the figures had been revised, something the UN has dismissed.

Three rockets fired from Gaza were intercepted by Israeli air defences over Sderot in southern Israel, according to the city's municipality.

the rocket fire comes as Israeli right-wing activists are holding an Independence Day march calling for the re-establishment of settlements in the Gaza Stip.