Live Middle East: Israeli authorities raid Al Jazeera office again

5:25 PM

Israeli authorities raid Al Jazeera office again

Israeli authorities have raided an office of the Arab news channel Al Jazeera in the Israeli city of Nazereth. Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi says he ordered this.

Last Sunday, the Israeli cabinet unanimously approved banning Al Jazeera from Israel. This means that the channel will no longer be allowed to broadcast in Israel and that offices will be closed. The same day, authorities raided an office in occupied East Jerusalem, seizing broadcasting equipment.

Al Jazeera has been a thorn in Israel’s side for some time. The channel reports extremely critically about the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. According to Israel, Al Jazeera is an extension of Hamas, something that is denied by the news channel. Partly because of the rules that Israel has imposed on Israeli media regarding their reporting on the war, the country has fallen to place 101 (out of 180) on the international press freedom index in 2024.

Thom Canters

Also read here: Banning of Al Jazeera means new dent in Israel’s image as a democracy

15:17

Ship with relief supplies for Gaza Strip left Cyprus port

The first ship carrying relief supplies for the Gaza Strip has left the Cypriot port city of Larnaca. The goods are to be unloaded at the floating pier that was completed yesterday. Weather permitting, the pier will be towed to the Gaza Strip in the coming days.

The floating pier, built by the United States, should contribute to the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. Goods can be loaded onto trucks from the pier. Ultimately, two million meals and two million bottles of water should enter the Gaza Strip via the pier every day. It is not clear when that will be the case.

The US government emphasizes that the sea route is not a replacement for the delivery of emergency aid over land, but a supplement. “The best way is through the land routes and we want those open,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh previously said.

Daan de Vries

Also read: US completes floating pier off Gaza coast; Commissioning to provide emergency aid will take some time

14:59

Healthcare in Gaza Strip under heavy pressure due to Israeli action in Rafah

Healthcare in the Gaza Strip is under heavy pressure due to the Israeli action in Rafah, Reuters news agency reports. Rafah’s main hospital has been closed and a maternity hospital has stopped accepting new patients since yesterday. The supply of medicines and other relief supplies has also largely come to a standstill because Israel has seized the border crossing at Rafah.

This closure also threatens to lead to a shortage of fuel for the generators that supply the hospitals with electricity. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director of the World Health Organization, https://twitter.com/DrTedros/status/1788194015931707403 that fuel will run out in a few days. Seriously ill or seriously injured patients can no longer be transferred to hospitals in Egypt due to the closure of the border crossing.

The situation is also dire in Deir al-Balah, in the center of the Gaza Strip. “There is no more medical aid coming in,” Reuters quotes a Jordanian surgeon working in Deir al-Balah. His hospital is also overcrowded, also because health care in the north of the Gaza Strip has come to a standstill. ‘There are not enough beds for the patients. Patients lie on the floor at the reception,” said the surgeon.

Daan de Vries

13:52

UNRWA estimates that around 80 thousand Palestinians have left Rafah

About 80,000 Palestinians have left the city of Rafah in recent days, estimates UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. “The burden on these families is unbearable. Nowhere is safe,” writes UNRWA https://twitter.com/UNRWA/status/1788458756927377486. Israel launched a military operation in eastern Rafah earlier this week. Israel also captured the border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip south of Rafah.

There are more than a million Palestinians in Rafah, many of them refugees from other parts of the Gaza Strip. The Israeli government has been threatening for months with an attack on Rafah, which Israel claims is Hamas’s last stronghold in the Gaza Strip. Aid agencies and the United Nations fear that such an attack would lead to a humanitarian disaster.

The United States and the Netherlands, among others, have called on Israel not to attack Rafah. US President Joe Biden is even threatening to halt the supply of certain weapons to Israel in an attempt to prevent the attack. It is the first time that an American president has used arms support for Israel as a means of diplomatic pressure.

Daan de Vries

Read more about the American pressure on Israel here: Biden threatens to stop deliveries of some weapons if Israel invades Rafah

09:08

Houthi fighters claim attacks on three cargo ships

Houthi fighters in Yemen have claimed rocket attacks in recent days on three cargo ships in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. According to the US, the ships were not hit. The attacks took place on Tuesday.

The Houthis say two Panamanian-flagged container ships, the MSC Diego and the MSC Gina, were targeted with missiles. The third attack, on a ship in the Indian Ocean, has not yet been confirmed by the US, which is working with allies to repel the Houthi shelling.

The Houthis, who control large parts of Yemen, have been shelling maritime cargo traffic in the region since the Israeli invasion of Gaza. They are also trying to hit the Israeli port city of Eilat with cruise missiles, drones and ballistic missiles in solidarity with the Palestinians. However, attacks have decreased in recent weeks. The US and UK have bombed military bases and missiles in Yemen in recent months to stop Houthi shelling.

Steven Ramdharie

08:34

UN Ambassador Israel criticizes Biden threat

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan has criticized US President Joe Biden’s threat to halt certain arms deliveries if Israel invades the city of Rafah. Biden said in an interview with CNN on Wednesday that the US would no longer supply bombs and artillery shells so far used by the Israeli army in attacks on Gaza cities.

“A difficult and very disappointing comment,” Erdan told Israeli broadcaster Kan. According to the ambassador, Biden’s statements, who for the first time threatens to stop certain offensive weapons, only encourage Israel’s enemies.

Erdan: ‘Of course any pressure on Israel is interpreted by our enemies as something that gives them hope. There are many Jewish Americans who voted for the president and for the Democratic Party, and they will now hesitate.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who spoke to Biden by phone on Monday, has not yet responded. Opposition leader Yair Lapid blamed Netanyahu and his cabinet for the US change of course. According to Lapid, Biden’s threat is a result of “the Israeli government’s failed approach.”

Steven Ramdharie

01:17

Biden: no more American weapons for Israel if Rafah attack continues

The United States will no longer supply Israel with weapons if it continues the siege of the city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip. President Joe Biden said this in an interview on Wednesday evening (local time). CNN.

It is the first time since October 7, when Hamas attacked Israel, that the American president has threatened ally Israel with a halt to arms deliveries. Last week it became known that the US had stopped a supply of ammunition to Israel.

“I have made it clear that if they invade Rafah, which has not happened yet, I will not supply the weapons that were initially intended for that purpose,” Biden said. Heavy Israeli bombardments have been taking place on Rafah for days.

Bombs supplied by the US have caused civilian deaths in the Gaza Strip, Biden said. “Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a result of those bombs and other ways they’re attacking population centers,” Biden countered CNNreferring to the arms supply that was previously stopped.

11:59 PM, Yesterday

Welcome to this live blog

This was the most important news of Wednesday, May 8:

• The United States has postponed a delivery of ammunition to Israel due to the planned Israeli offensive in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin confirmed this. The delivery delay has been known since Tuesday, but Austin on Wednesday became the first representative of the US government to explicitly link that delay to Rafah.

• Israel has reopened the Kerem Shalom border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel for the delivery of humanitarian aid. Kerem Shalom is the most important border crossing after Rafah for the delivery of food, medicine and other goods to Gaza. The Rafah border crossing has been closed since the Israeli military took it over on Tuesday.

• The construction of the temporary pier off the coast of the Gaza Strip has been completed. The temporary port is intended for the delivery of humanitarian aid to people in the Gaza Strip, but due to bad weather conditions the pier cannot yet be installed and put into use. It is not yet clear when that will happen.

Read Wednesday’s full live blog here.