Netanyahu: Israel will enter Rafah with or without Gaza hostage deal

Israel will carry out an operation against Hamas in the southern Gaza city of Rafah regardless of whether or not a ceasefire and hostage release deal is reached, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday.

"The idea that we will stop the war before achieving all its objectives is out of the question," Netanyahu said, according to a statement from his office.

Israel is waiting for Hamas to respond to proposals for a halt to the fighting in Gaza and a return of Israeli hostages before sending a team to Cairo to continue talks, according to a person close to Netanyahu.

Pressure has been building for an agreement to stop the war as it nears the end of its seventh month.

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Expectations that an agreement could be in sight have grown in recent days following a renewed push led by Egypt to revive stalled negotiations between Israel and Hamas.

But so far, there has been little sign of agreement on the most fundamental difference between the two sides – the Hamas demand that any deal must ensure a withdrawal of troops and a permanent end to the Israeli operation in Gaza.

"We can't tell our people the occupation will stay or the fight will resume after Israel regains its prisoners," said a Palestinian official from a group allied with Hamas. "Our people want this aggression to end."

For Netanyahu, any move is likely to be affected by divisions in his own cabinet between ministers pressing to bring home at least some of the 133 Israeli hostages left in Gaza, and hardliners insisting on the long-promised assault on remaining Hamas formations in the southern city of Rafah.

Russia says U.S. is being hypocritical over ICC and Israel

Russia said on Tuesday that the United States was being hypocritical by opposing the International Criminal Court's (ICC) investigation of Israel but supporting the court's warrant for the arrest of President Vladimir Putin.

The ICC - which can charge individuals with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide - is investigating Hamas's October 7 cross-border attack and Israel's devastating military assault on Hamas-ruled Gaza, now in its seventh month.

White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said on Monday the United States did not support the ICC's investigation of Israel and did not believe that the court had jurisdiction. U.S. President Joe Biden said last year that the ICC decision to issue an arrest warrant for Putin was justified. 

"Washington fully supported, if not stimulated, the issuance of ICC warrants against the Russian leadership," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a post on Telegram.

But "the American political system does not recognize the legitimacy of this structure in relation to itself and its satellites," Zakharova said, adding that such a position was intellectually "absurd."

Israel is not a member of the ICC, while the Palestinian territories were admitted as a member state in 2015. Netanyahu said on Friday that any ICC decisions would not affect Israel's actions but would set a dangerous precedent.

France shares more proposals with Israel over southern Lebanon

French officials shared on Tuesday proposals made to Lebanese authorities to defuse tensions between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said as Paris attempts to work as an intermediary between the sides.

Israel and Hezbollah have been engaged in escalating daily cross-border strikes over the past six months - in parallel with the war in Gaza - raising fears of a wider regional conflict. Since October thousands of people on both sides of the border have been displaced.

"A number of proposals that we made to the Lebanese side have been shared (with you)," Sejourne said ahead of a meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz in Jerusalem. "We have a relationship with Lebanon, 20,000 citizens there and the war in 2006 was particularly dramatic for them."

France has historical ties with Lebanon, a large expatriate population in the country and some 700 troops as part of the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon.

Sejourne was in Lebanon on Sunday where he met officials including politicians close to Hezbollah. He said the basis of the proposals was to ensure UN resolution 1701 was implemented. Hezbollah has said it will not enter any concrete discussion until there is a ceasefire in Gaza.

Sejourne presented this year a written proposal to both sides that included Hezbollah's elite unit pulling back 10 kilometers from the Israeli border and Israel halting strikes in southern Lebanon. 

China says Hamas and Fatah express political will for reconciliation

Rival Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah have expressed the political will to seek reconciliation through dialogue at unity talks in Beijing, China's foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

The two factions have failed to heal political disputes since Hamas fighters expelled Fatah from the Gaza Strip in a short war in 2007, and their talks took place against the backdrop of Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza.

"The Palestinian National Liberation Movement and Islamic Resistance Group representatives arrived in Beijing a few days ago for in-depth and candid dialogue," Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a regular briefing.

"They agreed to continue the course of talks to achieve the realization of Palestinian solidarity and unity at an early date."

Lin said both sides had thanked Beijing for its efforts to "promote Palestinian internal unity and reached an agreement on further dialogue."

Gaza ministry says 34,535 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes since October 7

More than 34,535 Palestinians have been killed and 77,704 wounded in the Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip since October 7 last year, the Gaza health ministry said. Israeli military strikes across Gaza in the past 24 hours killed 47 people and wounded 61, it said.

The Gaza Civil Emergency Service estimated that the bodies of a further 10,000 Palestinians were under the rubble of hundreds of destroyed buildings. It said those figures had not been included in the updated health ministry death toll, which only registers bodies that are taken to hospitals.

"In light of the lack of heavy equipment, efforts to search for the bodies of the martyrs will remain insufficient and will not be enough to recover the bodies of thousands of them," it said.

The accumulation of bodies under the rubble has begun to cause the spread of diseases, it said, as summer approaches and the temperature rises.

UNRWA chief: Gaza supplies better but not enough to reverse trend towards famine

Food and other humanitarian aid supplies to Gaza have improved in April, but there is still far from enough to reverse the trend towards famine, said the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

"It is true that there have been more supply entering during the month of April, but this is still far from enough to reverse the negative trend," said Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA commissioner general, at a news conference in Geneva, describing a race against the clock to roll back hunger and famine.

He said that only a handful of countries still have a block on their funds to UNRWA following Israeli accusations that members of its staff took part in the October 7 Hamas attacks. The agency has also raised $115 million in private funding, he said.

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