Middle East crisis live: Israeli tanks push deeper into Rafah as Qatar PM warns ceasefire talks heading ‘backwards’ | Israel-Gaza war

One of ActionAid’s partners in Rafah has paused humanitarian operations there, with the charity warning that aid operations could grind to a “complete halt” as aid workers face an “unprecedented” level of danger making their jobs become “impossible”.

The charity says that aid workers in Rafah are “experiencing the same inhumane living conditions as the rest of the population” and that “virtually no aid” has entered Gaza in recent days despite the deepening humanitarian crisis across the enclave.

One of ActionAid’s partners in Gaza, Wefaq, which is based in Rafah, has had to pause its operations after most of its staff were displaced from their homes, the charity said.

Israeli offensives have intensified in Gaza with witnesses reporting helicopter strikes and street battles in Rafah as hundreds of thousands of people flee intense fighting across the city.

It added that a hotline, supported by ActionAid, is still offering support for women and girls experiencing violence, but that the electricity and communication networks it depends on will stop running without sufficient fuel.

ActionAid says the Rafah crossing must be opened “immediately” and the Israeli offensive of the southern city should stop so that urgent supplies of food, fuel and medicine can be delivered safely to Palestinian people in desperate need.

Ziad Issa, head of humanitarian policy at ActionAid UK, said:

Due to fuel shortages and severe security constraints, our aid delivery services in Rafah are temporarily paused. Our partners have received multiple evacuation orders in the past few days, and the ongoing bombardment on Rafah is making it impossible for them to distribute aid safely within Rafah.

The obligation of conflicting parties is not only to ensure that aid gets through the borders but also to reach people inside Gaza.

The UK government must leverage its influence with Israel to protect civilians and aid workers in Gaza and facilitate the work of humanitarian organisations to deliver aid safely.

You can read the full press release here.

Patrick Wintour

The UK’s Middle East minister, Lord Ahmad, said Israel is leaving its allies “very challenged” in assessing whether it is breaking international humanitarian law and its obligations under the Geneva conventions.

He admitted no aid, including fuel, has gone over the Rafah crossing since 6 May and the foreign secretary, David Cameron, would soon be receiving advice on whether UK arms were used in the Israel attacks on British aid workers in January and April.

Israel has admitted the attack in April that killed three UK aid workers was a mistake, and some officers involved have been dismissed.

Speaking to the foreign affairs select committee, Ahmad said he was not sure if Northern Gaza is on the brink of famine or in famine, “but the fact is there is malnutrition, the facilities in hospitals are dire and people are dying because of a lack of medicine support and basic amenities”.

Asked why there is a famine he replied directly: “the answer to that is due to the restrictions placed on aid getting through the borders”.

He added Israel “needs to recognise that as the occupying power under the Geneva Convention it has direct responsibilities and they need to ensure the food, the medicines, the support, the humanitarian aid needs to get in, and get in now”.

He indicated Cameron would be making a fresh legal assessment shortly, adding he believed he had made his views clear to the select committee. Israel, he said, “has the capacity to go in a much more measured and structured way”.

Pressed whether in practice “Israel’s activities has demonstrated a commitment to respect for IHL”, he said: “What is very clear to me, the challenges are intense and immense on IHL. I think Israel is really leaving many of its partners, including ourselves, pretty challenged on where we are currently on the issue of IHL, and how they are fulfilling their obligations.”

He said UK government judgment currently is Israel is not using food as a weapon of war, but added aid, food and medicines are not getting through. He said: “I am very clear on this that the fuel is needed to run the hospitals.”

He said officials were looking intensely on the prosecution of war. He said: “Our own assessment is that the operation in Rafah compared to what happened in Gaza City or Khan Younis has not been not on the same scale as those operations.”

But he then admitted: “There is no plan. Israel has not shown us a credible plan. You get a leaflet in the morning that says you must move by the afternoon. It is a pretty stark choice.”

He also acknowledged that the principles surrounding UK’s obligations about arms export licences applies whether the UK is exporting 1 % or 90 % of arms to Israel.

Asked about Israeli attacks on Medical Aid for Palestine in January and World Central Kitchen in April, Ahmad said “we need answers on this”.

He added more advice on whether UK licensed weapons used in the WCK attack would be going to the foreign secretary shortly.

The foreign secretary sends a recommendation to the business secretary who is responsible for the ultimate decision.

The Biden administration has assessed that Israel has amassed enough troops on the edge of Rafah to move forward with a full-scale incursion on the southern Gazan city over the coming days, CNN reported.

The two senior administration officials also told the outlet that US officials are unsure if Israel has made a final decision to carry out the full-scale invasion, which would be in defiance of Joe Biden’s warnings if it went ahead.

One of the officials also said that Israel has not made sufficient preparations – such as over food supplies, hygiene and shelter – ahead of its plans for evacuating Palestinians living in Rafah.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has said Israel lacked a “credible plan” to protect the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Rafah and warned an Israeli attack could create an insurgency by failing to kill all Hamas fighters in the southern Gaza city.

For the past week, the Israeli military has intensified bombardment and other operations in Rafah while ordering the population to evacuate from parts of the city, though residents say there is nowhere else safe left to go.

Fighting in Rafah has made it impossible for aid groups to access the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel. Officials estimate that as many as 500,000 people have already fled.

The US, which has provided crucial military and diplomatic support for Israel’s war on Gaza, has expressed growing impatience with Israel, saying it won’t supply offensive arms for a full-scale Rafah assault.

Here are the quotes from Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, about Israel’s offensive in Rafah reversing the progress in ceasefire talks.

He told the Qatar Economic Forum:

Especially in the past few weeks, we have seen some momentum building but unfortunately things didn’t move in the right direction and right now we are on a status of almost a stalemate.

Of course, what happened with Rafah has set us backward.

“There is no clarity how to stop the war from the Israeli side. I don’t think that they are considering this as an option … even when we are talking about the deal and leading to a potential ceasefire,” sheikh Mohammed added.

Israeli politicians were indicating “by their statements that they will remain there, they will continue the war. And there is no clarity on what Gaza will look like after this”, he said.

Talks over a ceasefire in Gaza have reached a stalemate because of Israel’s operation in Rafah, Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, has said at an economic forum in Doha.

Sheikh Mohammed, whose country has mediated heavily between Hamas and Israel in trying to bring about a truce, said Qatar will continue its role. We will hopefully be able to bring you some quotes from the Qatari prime minister shortly.

Officials estimate that as many as 500,000 people have fled Rafah since being told to evacuate by the IDF before their first attacks around and in the city a week ago.

The Israeli offensive in Rafah, which borders Egypt, has closed a main crossing point for aid, something humanitarian groups say has worsened an already dire situation. There is widespread concern about how many civilians will be killed in the invasion.

Recent, indirect talks in Cairo on a ceasefire and hostage release deal were unsuccessful, with both the Israeli and Hamas delegations leaving.

Izzat El-Risheq, a member of Hamas’ political office in Qatar, said the Hamas delegation had approved an Egyptian-Qatari proposal that included the release of Israeli hostages held captive in Gaza and a number of Palestinians jailed by Israel.

Hamas has blamed Israel for the lack of agreement, and its Al-Aqsa TV’s Telegram account said the group would not make any concessions beyond those in the proposal it had accepted. Israel has said it is open to a truce, but has rejected demands for an end to the war.

Israeli tanks pushed deeper into eastern Rafah on Tuesday morning, entering the neighbourhoods of al-Jneina, al-Salam and al-Brazil, residents said.

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

Officials estimate that as many as 500,000 people have fled Rafah since being told to evacuate by the Israel Defense Forces before their first attacks around and in the city a week ago.

The Israeli military has ordered the evacuation of the eastern third of the city, which is packed with over a million Palestinian people taking refuge, according to estimates.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, is the last stronghold of Hamas.

Al-Mawasi, in the “extended humanitarian zone” designated by Israel as a destination for those told to evacuate Rafah and elsewhere, has limited sanitation, minimal water supplies and inadequate food, displaced people there have said.

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.

The Biden administration does not see it likely or possible that Israel will achieve “total victory” in defeating Hamas in Gaza, US deputy secretary of state Kurt Campbell has said.

While US officials have urged Israel to help devise a clear plan for the governance postwar Gaza, Campbell’s comments are the clearest to date from a top US official effectively admitting that Israel’s current military strategy won’t bring the result that it is aiming for.

“In some respects, we are struggling over what the theory of victory is,” Campbell said at a Nato youth summit in Miami on Monday. “Sometimes when we listen closely to Israeli leaders, they talk about mostly the idea of … a sweeping victory on the battlefield, total victory,” he said.

“I don’t think we believe that that is likely or possible and that this looks a lot like situations that we found ourselves in after 9/11, where, after civilian populations had been moved and lots of violence that … the insurrections continue.”

In other developments:

• Residents said Israeli tanks pushed further into Jabaliya in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday, with tank shells landing at the centre of the city’s refugee camp and airstrikes destroying clusters of houses. Palestinian health officials said on Monday they had recovered at least 20 bodies of Palestinian people killed in overnight Israeli airstrikes on Jabaliya, while dozens of people were reported injured. Israeli forces fired on ambulances trying to reach injured people as air raids hit crowded residential areas within the sprawling refugee camp, Al Jazeera Arabic reported.

• In the far south of the devastated territory on Monday, witnesses reported helicopter strikes and street battles in Rafah as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) consolidated their hold on neighbourhoods east of the strategic Salah al-Din road, which bisects the city. An unknown number of people were killed in an airstrike on a house in the Brazil neighbourhood.

• Rafah residents received more evacuation orders through phone calls and text messages on Monday, causing more desperate people to start packing and leave, witnesses told Agence France-Presse (AFP). Up to 500,000 Palestinians have fled Rafah in the past week after Israeli warnings to evacuate before an imminent military assault. With the evacuation order and arrival of fighting, hospitals swiftly shut and meagre aid supplies vanished. Residents say they have no idea where they will go now, or how they will get there.

• The White House has condemned an attack on an aid convoy heading to Gaza by Israeli settlers who threw packages of food into the road and set fire to the vehicles. Video of the incident on Monday at Tarqumiya checkpoint, west of Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, showed settlers blocking the trucks and throwing boxes of much-needed supplies on the ground.

• US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the Biden administration does not view the killings of Palestinians in Gaza by Israel in the war as genocide. “We do not believe what is happening in Gaza is a genocide. We have been firmly on record rejecting that proposition,” Sullivan told reporters at the White House.

• At least 35,173 Palestinians have been killed and 79,061 injured by Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October, according to the enclave’s health ministry. Reuters reported the new figures from a ministry statement on Tuesday. There have been 82 Palestinians killed and 234 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry statement added.

• A foreign UN security staff member was killed on Monday when a UN-marked vehicle travelling to a hospital in Rafah was struck – the first international UN fatality in the Gaza war, a UN spokesperson said, bringing the total death toll of UN personnel to about 190.