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

The International Court of Justice will hold hearings on Thursday and Friday to discuss new emergency measures sought by South Africa over Israel's attacks on Rafah during the war in Gaza, the tribunal said on Monday.

The hearings will deal with South Africa's request to the court to order more emergency measures against Israel over its attacks on Rafah as part of its ongoing case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.

Al Jazeera Arabic reports that Israeli strikes on a house and a school in Nuseirat killed 20 Palestinians.

Gaza's civil defence spokesperson said that hundreds of lives are at risk as their crews struggle to carry out rescue efforts due to the shortage of fuel and heavy equipment.

Rescue workers are struggling to reach people trapped under the rubble as Israeli forces "continue to target and destroy the heavy equipment that helps us recover the victims," he said.

Speaking at a press conference outside al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, he added fuel shortage may bring operations to a "total halt".

"As we speak, hundreds of victims remain buried under the rubble and our teams are not able to recover them. These numbers are continuing to rise."

At least 69 civil defence members have been killed in the war, and the crews were able to carry out 37,500 "humanitarian missions", the spokesperson said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and partners are opening a field hospital in southern Gaza to meet what is described as an "overwhelming" demand for health services since Israeli forces started their operations in Rafah last week.

"People in Gaza are struggling to access the medical care they urgently need due, in part, to the overwhelming demands for health services and the reduced number of functioning health facilities," the ICRC said.

Several health clinics have suspended activities and medical personnel at the Kuwaiti hospital in Rafah received an evacuation order from the Israeli army on Monday.

"Medical staff are faced with people arriving with severe injuries, increasing communicable diseases which could lead to potential outbreaks, and complications related to chronic diseases untreated that should have been treated days earlier," the organisation added.

Only a third of Gaza’s 36 hospitals and 30 percent of primary healthcare centres are functional in some capacity, according to the WHO.

Israeli Housing and Construction Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf, head of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, released a video in which he expressed his support for an Israeli Independence Day march calling for the re-establishment of settlements in Gaza.

"It is very important to identify with this march and afterwards to take part in the mass gathering in Sderot," he said.

Thousands of people are expecting to take part in the march that will leave from Sderot in southern Israel, including far-right MK Limor Son Har-Melech.

Unrwa, the UN's Palestinian refugee agency, estimates that nearly 450,000 people have fled Rafah since Israeli forces started their wider operations in the area on 6 May.

"People face constant exhaustion, hunger and fear," the agency said on X. "Nowhere is safe. An immediate ceasefire is the only hope."

Speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum, which kicked off in Doha today, Qatar's Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, said that Gaza ceasefire talks are deadlocked and that Israel's operation in Rafah sent things backwards.

He added that Qatar will continue negotiating between Israel and Hamas and that Hamas's office in the Qatari capital will remain open should the war continue.

Israeli tanks are pushing deeper into eastern Rafah, entering the neighbourhoods of al-Jneina, al-Salam and al-Brazil, residents told Reuters.

"The tanks advanced this morning west of Salahuddin road into the Brzail and Jneina neighbourhoods," one resident said. "They are in the streets inside the built-up area and there are clashes."

In its latest report, Human Rights Watch documented at least eight Israeli strikes on aid workers' convoys and premises in Gaza since October, "even though aid groups had provided their coordinates to the Israeli authorities to ensure their protection".

HRW says that Israeli authorities did not issue any advance warnings to any of the aid organisations prior to the strikes, which killed at least 15 people, including two children, and injured 16.

Overall, the UN says that over 250 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war.

"Israel’s allies need to recognise that these attacks that have killed aid workers have happened over and over again, and they need to stop," Belkis Wille, associate director at HRW, said.

Gaza's health ministry said that 82 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on the enclave in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 35,173 killed since 7 October.

Additionally, 79,061 people have been wounded since the start of the war.

Good morning Middle East Eye readers,

Here are the latest updates:

• Israeli strikes on a residential building in Nuseirat killed 14 people.
• Around 20 percent of Gaza's population has been displaced in the past week due to intensified Israeli operations, the UN says
• Israel says the UN employee killed in Rafah was killed in an "active combat zone"
• A CNN report said the US believes Israel has enough troops next to Rafah to launch a full ground operation soon, but senior US officials are unsure if it has made the decision to carry it out

Good evening, Middle East Eye readers.

Our live coverage of Israel's assault on Gaza will shortly be closing for the evening.

Here are the day's key developments:

• Nearly 360,000 Palestinians have fled Rafah: Unrwa
• Israeli interlligence service Shin Bet chief says agency 'could have prevented' 7 October attack
• Aid thrown off trucks at Kerem Shalom crossing
• Hamas says it lost contact with fighters guarding four captives following Israeli attack
• A US army officer has publicly resigned from the Department of Defence in protest against the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza
• ‘We need to end the indiscriminate killing of children’ in Gaza: Unicef
• UN chief condemns Israeli killing of Palestinian staff member in Rafah

Palestinian news agency Wafa says that 14 Palestinians were killed after the Isralei army conducted an air strike on a house in Nuseirat refugee camp.

Wafa reports, Gaza medical sources, that casualties from the strike include dead children and “dozens” of other wounded. The air strike hit a three-story house in the southern part of the camp.

Israeli settlers launched several attacks on humanitarian aid convoys travelling to the Gaza Strip from Jordan through the occupied West Bank, setting trucks on fire.

Earlier on Monday, an Israeli mob on the border with Gaza destroyed humanitarian aid destined for the besieged Gaza Strip.

US national security advisor Jake Sullivan in his daily press briefing addressed the widespread looting of aid convoys en route to Gaza on Monday.

“It is a total outrage that there are people who are attacking and looting these convoys coming from Jordan going to Gaza to deliver humanitarian assistance,” said Sullivan.

Students at Queen Mary University and King’s College London launched surprise encampments on Monday for Gaza as the number of encampments continues to grow.

Early in the afternoon, activists from both campuses set up tents and launched their encampments in support of Palestinians in Gaza.

The encampments come after UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak summoned university leaders to Downing Street to discuss the encampments and concerns around growing anti-Semitism.

During the meeting, Sunak was flanked by UK Education Secretary Gillian Keegan and Jewish leaders from the Union of Jewish Students and the University Jewish Chaplaincy.Earlier this year, MEE revealed that the UJC was hiring chaplains and said it was an essential requirement that they be “pro-active advocates for Israel.”