Tanks reach the center of Rafah as attacks increase and Israel’s isolation grows | Israel-Gaza War

Tanks entered the center of Rafah on Tuesday as Israel’s global isolation deepened, three European countries formally recognized a Palestinian state and the UN Security Council convened an emergency meeting to discuss the situation in Gaza.

During the night, Israeli forces again attacked the Tel al-Sultan area. At least 45 people were killed in an airstrike and massive fire in an area full of refugee tents on Sunday.

The latest attack killed 21 people, more than half of them women, Gaza authorities said. At least one bomb hit about 300 meters from the site of the weekend attack.

Growing international outrage over Israel’s advance in Rafah, including an order from the UN’s top court to halt the offensive, and sharp criticism from the United States, Israel’s main ally, following Sunday’s attack, apparently had no impact on the country’s military plans.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the attack a “tragic mistake” on Sunday, but said the operation would continue. An Israeli military spokesman later said the airstrike was not the cause of the fire.

Admiral Daniel Hagari said jets used small bombs to kill two Hamas commanders in buildings about 180 meters from the tents where the fire broke out.

“Our ammunition alone could not have started a fire of this magnitude,” he said, adding that the military was investigating whether the “unexpected and unintentional” fire was caused by secondary explosions in an alleged ammunition depot near tents.

About a million Palestinians have fled Rafah since the beginning of May, but hundreds of thousands are still seeking shelter there, the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, said on Tuesday.

“They have fled without a safe place to go and amid bombings, lack of food and water, mountains of garbage and unsuitable living conditions,” UNRWA said in a post on X. “Day by day, it is becoming almost impossible to provide assistance and protection.”

For months, Israel urged Palestinian civilians to seek shelter in Rafah while heavy fighting leveled much of the rest of the Gaza Strip. Now they are being urged again to withdraw as Israeli troops advance into the last area not yet affected by ground operations.

Since capturing the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, Israeli ground troops had spent most of May exploring the outskirts of the city and advancing only into the eastern areas.

But on Tuesday, tanks were spotted near the al-Awda mosque, a landmark in central Rafah, Reuters reported, citing witnesses. They also advanced into western neighborhoods and took up positions on Zurub hill after heavy shelling.

Not all Palestinians seeking shelter there are able to move. Some have concluded that moving would be more dangerous because fighting continues in much of Gaza and shelter, food, water and sanitation are scarce elsewhere.

The military operation has brought most aid to Gaza to a halt. The Rafah and Kerem Shalom border crossings were the main entry points for food, fuel and medical supplies during the first seven months of the war. But in the more than three weeks from May 6 to 28, only 216 trucks carrying aid reached Gaza, according to UN figures.

That is an average of less than ten per day, although Israel, the US and the UN had agreed on the pre-war figure of at least 500 trucks per day.

Some supplies had reached northern Gaza via a US-built floating pier. But on Tuesday, the Pentagon said part of the $320 million shipment had broken off in heavy seas, rendering the pier inoperable for at least a week while repairs were carried out.

The World Food Programme (WFP), the UN food agency, and the UNRWA provide the majority of food aid for Gaza.

The UN Security Council is scheduled to hold an emergency meeting on Tuesday to discuss the Israeli campaign in Rafah. The US government called on Israel on Monday to “take all possible precautions to protect the civilian population.”

More than 36,000 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, have been killed in the Israeli offensive in Gaza, according to local health authorities. The offensive began after Hamas launched cross-border attacks on October 7 that killed about 1,200 people and took 250 hostage.

On Tuesday, Spain, Ireland and Norway officially recognised the state of Palestine, saying the move would support efforts to find a lasting solution to the decades-long conflict. But Israel fiercely attacked their decision and last week recalled ambassadors from Madrid, Dublin and Oslo in response.

Spain’s socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Tuesday that the “historic” decision was “taken with a single objective: to contribute to the achievement of peace between Israelis and Palestinians” and was directed “against no one, least of all against Israel”.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a statement on X that Sánchez’s actions made him “complicit … in war crimes.”

More than 140 countries already recognize a Palestinian state, but none of the major Western powers have done so. The move by the European trio could increase pressure in neighboring capitals and even in Washington.

When the formal recognition of Oslo came into force, Norway’s Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide spoke of a significant moment after decades of Norwegian support for a two-state solution to the regional conflict.

“Norway has been one of the strongest supporters of a Palestinian state for more than 30 years. Today is a milestone in relations between Norway and Palestine,” he said.

Sanchez said a “viable” Palestinian state would consist of the West Bank and Gaza Strip connected by a corridor, with East Jerusalem as the capital and the Palestinian Authority as the legitimate government.

He said that while it was not Spain’s job to determine the borders of another country, Spain’s position was in line with that of the UN Security Council and the EU: “Therefore, we will not recognise any changes to the 1967 borders that have not been agreed by the parties.”

In Ireland, the Palestinian flag was raised over Parliament and the government announced that the Palestinian representation in Dublin would be upgraded to an embassy and that Ireland would also upgrade its representation in Ramallah in the West Bank to an embassy.