Gaza live: Israeli air strikes kill dozens in Nuseirat refugee camp

Dozens of settlers have set fire to cars and tyres in the occupied West Bank village of Yatma, according to two security sources.

Videos showing the fires are circling across social media.

Breaking | Israeli settlers attack the town of Yatma south of Nablus, setting fire to Palestinian properties. pic.twitter.com/AZREV4ldNK

— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) May 19, 2024

An Israeli soldier injured in Gaza on 15 May has been killed, the Israeli military has said.

The military said the 24-year-old soldier was a company commander in the Paratroopers Brigade’s 202nd Battalion.

This brings the death toll of soldiers killed in the Israeli military ground offensive in Gaza to 283.

US President Joe Biden called for an "immediate ceasefire" while delivering the commencement address at Morehouse College, a historically Black, male-only institution in Atlanta.

“It’s a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, that’s why I’ve called for an immediate ceasefire," Biden said to applause.

"I know it angers and frustrates many of you including in my family," he said.

While Biden received applause and cheers, his speech also spurred some students to turn their backs to Biden as his backing of Israel in its war with Hamas riles college graduations across the country.

Biden was largely uninterrupted by protests that have shut down graduations elsewhere, although in addition to students who turned their chairs around to turn their backs to him, one graduate appeared to hold up a Palestinian flag briefly and an audience member stood and turned their back with their fist raised.

Biden also made remarks more typical of traditional commencement addresses, saying: Education "makes you free. And a Morehouse education makes you fearless."

Nearly 800,000 Palestinians have fled the southern Gaza city of Rafah, the UN said, as Israeli planes and tanks pounded areas across the besieged strip on Sunday.

The United Nations said there has been a massive movement of people since Israel launched its military operation in Rafah on 6 May.

Philippe Lazzarini of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said on Saturday that Palestinians were fleeing to areas without water supplies or adequate sanitation.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who had sought Rafah as one of their few remaining places of refuge are now forced once again to relocate.

"The claim that people in Gaza can move to 'safe' or 'humanitarian' zones is false. Each time, it puts the lives of civilians at serious risk. Gaza does not have any safe zones.   No place is safe.   No one is safe," Lazzarini wrote on X.

Read more: 'No place is safe' in Gaza, as 800,000 Palestinians flee Rafah

Israeli forces have killed at least 35,456 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since 7 October, the Palestinian health ministry said on Sunday.

At least 79,476 others have been wounded in the enclave since the war began, the ministry added.

Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian man on Sunday at a military checkpoint southeast of occupied East Jerusalem, according to Wafa news agency.

Sources told Wafa that troops opened fire on Rami Taqatqa, 44, who is from the town of Beit Fajjar in Bethlehem, as he was passing through the checkpoint.

Ambulances were reportedly prevented by Israeli forces from reaching him to provide medical assistance. His body was later handed to the Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance crews.

Following the killing, Israeli forces sealed off entrances to the neighbouring Palestinian towns of Al-Eizariya, Abu Dis and Al-Sawahreh.

Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi has said that Amman demanded an international investigation into what it said were "many war crimes" committed during Israel's war on Gaza.

In remarks made on Sunday during a press conference with the head of Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Safadi said those responsible for documented crimes should be brought to justice.

Negotiations between England's University of Cambridge and the organisers of the Cambridge student encampment for Gaza are set to begin this coming week, according to Cambridge for Palestine, the main student organising group.

The encampment began on 6 May when around 100 students gathered on the lawn outside King's College, one of Cambridge's constituent colleges. They erected tents and demanded the university commit to divesting from companies involved in Israel's war on Gaza. 

Cambridge for Palestine told MEE that they are demanding that the university discloses all its relationships with companies and institutions "complicit in the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine".

They said they want the university to end all such relationships, support Palestinian students and academics, and commit to protecting academic freedom. 

Read more: Cambridge University to negotiate divestment from Israel with student protesters

Israeli forces fired artillery and and dropped bombs on several areas of the Gaza Strip overnight and on Sunday morning. 

An air strike around dawn on Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed at least 31 people, according to Wafa news agency. Several others were wounded.

Two Palestinian civilians were killed by Israeli shelling on homes in Khan Younis, while artillery fire also targeted eastern Rafah in the south.

Elsewhere, Israeli shelling targeted al-Awda hospital in Jabalia, northern Gaza. 

Rescue teams said on Sunday that over 300 homes had been destroyed by Israeli forces since a renewed ground offensive targeted Jabalia refugee camp earlier this week.

They said that many bodies and wounded people remained trapped under the rubble in the camp, due to an Israeli siege and non-stop attacks preventing emergency teams reaching them. 

The director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza said that several wounded people succumbed to their injuries over the weekend due to a lack of equipment at the facility. 

Israeli forces arrested at least nine Palestinians, including two children, during overnight raids in the occupied West Bank, according to Wafa news agency.

The arrests took place in Nablus, Bethlehem and Ramallah. In the latter province, journalist Mahmoud Adel Barakat was amongst those detained.

In Nablus, two children were arrested from the villages of Burin and Madama after their family homes were raided by Israeli forces.

Two Israeli soldiers were killed during fighting in southern Gaza, the Israeli military said on Sunday.

In recent weeks, Israel has focused its military offensive in the southern part of Gaza, including the city of Rafah, where it says Hamas brigades are holed up.

Dear MEE readers, 

The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said Saturday that 800,000 people had been "forced to flee" Gaza's far-southern city of Rafah since Israel intensified bombing there this month.

"Nearly half of the population of Rafah or 800,000 people are on the road having been forced to flee since the Israeli forces started the military operation in the area on 6 May", Unrwa chief Philippe Lazzarini said in a lengthy post on social media site X.

"The claim that people in Gaza can move to 'safe' or 'humanitarian' zones is false. Each time, it puts the lives of civilians at serious risk. Gaza does not have any safe zones. No place is safe. No one is safe," he said. 

Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz, meanwhile, criticised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's handling of the war in Gaza, demanding during a televised speech that the premier commit to an agreed vision for the end of the war that would include stipulating who might rule the territory after. 

Other updates from Saturday include:

• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres underscored the need for a two-state solution with "Israel and Palestine living side-by-side in peace and security", while calling the war on Gaza "an open wound that threatens to infect the entire region".

• The Israeli army says troops retrieved the body of Ron Benjamin, who was captured during the 7 October offensive by Hamas. Benjamin and the other three captives that were recently recovered were all killed on the day they were taken, according to the Israeli military. 

• Two top Biden administration officials held indirect talks with Iranian counterparts this week in an effort to avoid escalating regional attacks, according to an Axios report.

• Israeli police have responded with water cannons against anti-government protesters in Tel Aviv.

Israeli police have responded with water cannons against anti-government protesters in Tel Aviv. 

The demonstrators, who have held daily-to-weekly protests since 7 October, are largely calling for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step down amid the far-right leader's handling of the war in Gaza and failure to prioritise the release of those captured in the Hamas movement's attack more than seven months ago. 

Two top Biden administration officials held indirect talks with Iranian counterparts this week in an effort to avoid escalating regional attacks, according to an Axios report.

The talks, involving President Joe Biden's Middle East adviser Brett McGurk and acting US envoy to Iran Abram Paley, marked the first known round of discussions between the US and Iran since January.

The conversations follow Iran's retaliatory attack on Israel that came several weeks after Israel bombed Iran's consulate. 

In Tehran, state media quoted Iran's United Nations mission as confirming the talks, saying they were an "ongoing process".

"These talks were neither the first nor the last," the mission said in a statement.

The Israeli army says troops retrieved the body of Ron Benjamin, who was captured during the 7 October offensive by Hamas. 

Military spokesman Rear-Admiral Daniel Hagari said Benjamin’s body was found during the same operation that saw troops recover the remains of three other captives, which was announced on Friday.

The bodies of the other captives were also recovered in a tunnel in Gaza, according to the Israeli military. Hagari said Benjamin and the other three captives had been killed on the day they were taken.