Hamas accepts Qatar-Egypt cease-fire proposal, Israeli official describes move as 'ruse': Day 213 of the Gaza war

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We will continue our coverage of the conflict tomorrow morning.

The Israeli army this evening reiterated its call for residents of the eastern districts of Rafah to evacuate the area, as a prelude to a "ground operation," AFP reports. The call comes despite Hamas announcing that it had accepted a cease-fire proposal submitted by Egypt and Qatar.

"We are asking residents this evening to evacuate the specific areas we have designated," Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari told a brief press briefing, adding that the "start of the evacuation of the population from the eastern neighborhoods of Rafah" was "in preparation for a ground operation in the area."

"Throughout the day, the air force also struck more than 50 terrorist targets in the Rafah area," he added.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has called on the international community to pressure Israel to commit to a proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza mediated by Egypt and Qatar after Hamas had accepted it, Reuters reports, citing the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.

The United States will discuss Hamas' response to a cease-fire proposal with allies in the Middle East in the coming hours, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters, Reuters reports.

An Israeli official earlier told the news agency that no cease-fire agreement had been reached despite the Palestinian militant group Hamas saying it had accepted a proposal from Egyptian and Qatari mediators.

The United States says it opposes Israel's closure of Al Jazeera, saying it should be allowed to operate despite any concerns about its coverage, AFP reports.

"We think Al Jazeera ought to be able to operate in Israel, operate in other countries in the region," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said, adding that the United States was "quite concerned" about the Israeli move.

Image: Palestinians react after Hamas accepts a cease-fire proposal from Egypt and Qatar, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on May 6, 2024. in this screengrab taken from video. (Credit: Reuters TV via Reuters)

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has welcomed the decision by Hamas to accept a cease-fire in Gaza, adding that he hopes Israel will do the same, Reuters reports.

Speaking after a cabinet meeting, Erdogan called on Western countries to increase pressure on Israel's leadership to accept the cease-fire.

"We welcome the statement by Hamas that they accepted the cease-fire with our suggestion. Now, Israel must take the same step," he said. 

The cease-fire proposal Hamas has agreed to entails a cease-fire, reconstruction of Gaza, return of the displaced and a prisoner swap deal, Hamas official Taher Al-Nono tells Reuters.

⚡ Hamas has approved a "softened" Egyptian proposal that is "not acceptable" to Israel, Reuters is reporting, citing an Israeli official.

Reportedly speaking on condition of anonymity, the official told Reuters that the version of an Egyptian proposal Hamas accepted includes "far-reaching" conclusions Israel could not accept.

“This would appear to be a ruse intended to make Israel look like the side refusing a deal," the news agency quotes the official as saying. 

A senior Hamas official has told AFP that Israel must decide whether it accepts or "obstructs" a truce in Gaza after the Palestinian group announced it had accepted mediators' latest proposal.

"After Hamas agreed to the mediators' proposal for a cease-fire, the ball is now in the court of Israeli occupation, whether it will agree to the cease-fire agreement or obstruct it," AFP quotes the official, who reportedly spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak publicly about the negotiations, as saying.

The "massive evacuation" of part of Rafah's population ordered by Israel is "impossible" to do "safely," warned the UN secretary-general's spokesman, adding that the UN is not taking part in "any non-voluntary evacuation."

"Today's evacuation orders for eastern Rafah will simply increase the suffering of civilians. They have been ordered to move to al-Mawasi, which is already overcrowded and lacks security and basic humanitarian services. A mass evacuation on this scale is impossible to do safely," Stéphane Dujarric told the press.

⚡️ Hamas has informed Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdelrahmane Al Thani and Egyptian Intelligence Minister Abbas Kamel that they have accepted a proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza put forward by their two countries, the Palestinian movement said in a statement.

Hezbollah claims it has struck Israeli army infrastructure at the Hadeb Yarine site, opposite the Lebanese village of Dhaira.

Saudi Arabia has warned Israel against targeting Rafah as part of its "bloody and systematic" campaign to storm all areas of Gaza, Reuters reports, citing the Saudi Foreign Ministry.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has described as "inhumane" the evacuation order given by Israel to the inhabitants of the eastern city of Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip.

"This is inhumane. It is contrary to the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law and international human rights law," Volker Türk said in a statement.

Egypt has warned of "the dangers of an Israeli military operation in Rafah," according to a Foreign Ministry statement quoted by AFP.

Egypt is calling on Israel to "show maximum restraint and avoid further escalation, at a very critical time," the statement continues.

Truce talks are ongoing in the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, in which Cairo is one of three mediators, along with Qatar and the United States.

French police today intervened in front of Sciences Po in Paris to dislodge Gaza activists who had set up tents, just as students at the prestigious French university were sitting their exams, AFP reports.

According to the Préfecture de Police, "80 people had set up on the public highway in front of Sciences Po Paris, so the police intervened at the Prefect's request," and "all the people were removed calmly."

Image: French policemen in front of the entrance to Sciences Po in Paris on May 3, 2024. (Credit: Illustrative photo Miguel Medina/AFP)

⚡️ US President Joe Biden reiterated to Benjamin Netanyahu his opposition to a ground offensive at Rafah, AFP reports, citing the White House. For his part, the Israeli Prime Minister promised to keep a key crossing point in Gaza open. ➡️ More details here.

Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels claim they have exposed a "spy" network aiding the United States and Israel and arrested suspected members of it, AFP reports.

AFP cites footage from the Houthi-run Saba news agency showing the detained men and describing them as "spies recruited to collect information and monitor sites operated by the Yemeni (Houthi) armed forces on Yemen's western coast for the benefit of the American and Israeli enemy." ➡️ More details here.

Graphic by Guilhem DORANDEU

Here is the latest from south Lebanon:

* The Israeli air force targeted the locality of Srebbine (Bint Jbeil) with several missiles, residents told our correspondent. A house was targeted, and ambulances are on their way to the scene. No injuries have yet been reported.

* A house in the locality of Aita al-Shaab (Bint Jbeil) was also targeted by Israeli aircraft, according to local residents.

Students from the University of Amsterdam (UvA) have set up an encampment on the university campus, calling for the university to sever all ties with Israel because of its military offensive in Gaza. Photos published by Dutch media show a dozen tents on a lawn between university buildings and several dozen students, some wearing kuffiyehs. The police are on the scene.

Hamas has warned Israel that its preparations for a ground offensive on Rafah do not take into account the fate of hostages held in the Gaza Strip and threaten hundreds of thousands of civilians in the besieged Palestinian territory.

Hamas said in a statement that Israel was preparing to launch its offensive "without taking into consideration the humanitarian catastrophe underway in the Gaza Strip or the fate of the captives," who have been held there since their abduction on Oct. 7 in southern Israel.

Columbia University in New York, the epicenter of the anti-war protest movement in the Gaza Strip, has announced that it will "forgo" its large-scale graduation ceremony on May 15 in favor of "smaller-scale" events.

The institution, where activists and students were dislodged on April 30 by New York police, said in a statement that it was canceling "the university's grand ceremony scheduled for May 15."

US President Joe Biden will hold talks with Netanyahu today about Rafah, the White House says, according to AFP.

"We have made our views on a major ground invasion of Rafah clear to the Israeli government, and the president will speak to the prime minister today," said a spokesman for the US National Security Council.

The presidency of the Palestinian Authority has called on the US to prevent the invasion of Rafah by the Israeli army, which this morning called on the inhabitants of several districts of the southern Gazan city to evacuate.

"We call on the US administration to intervene to prevent this massacre, which we warn will have dangerous repercussions," said the Palestinian presidency, quoted by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, adding that it was stepping up "intensive" discussions with its international partners on the subject.

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell has condemned Israel's order for Palestinians living in eastern Rafah to flee the southern Gazan city ahead of an expected ground assault.

"Israel's evacuation orders to civilians in Rafah portend the worst: more war and famine. It is unacceptable. Israel must renounce to a ground offensive," Borrell wrote in English on X, formerly Twitter.

"The EU, with the International Community, can and must act to prevent such scenario," he added.

Israel has targeted the area around Naqoura (Sour) with several shells, according to local residents who spoke to our correspondent.

Some 600,000 children crammed into Rafah are threatened with "another imminent catastrophe," Unicef warns, calling for them not to be "forcibly displaced" following Israel's calls for evacuation of the city as its army prepares for a major offensive there.

UN experts have condemned in a statement the "unacceptable" violence against women and children in Gaza since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, including alleged sexual violence and enforced disappearances.

"We are appalled that women are the target of such vicious, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks by Israel, which apparently spares no effort to destroy their lives and deprive them of their fundamental human rights," said the seven Special Rapporteurs.

These experts — including UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese, who has been banned from entering Israel — are mandated by the UN Human Rights Council but do not speak on its behalf.

⚡ The Israeli army has stepped up its shelling of two Rafah neighborhoods, which it ordered its residents to evacuate early this morning, Gaza's Palestinian Civil Defense tells AFP.

The Israeli air and artillery bombardments "have been going on since last night and have intensified since this morning," explained Ahmed Redwan, a spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defense, adding that two of the neighborhoods targeted — al-Shuka and al-Salam — were among those that the Israeli army had asked residents to evacuate.

Gaza casualty toll update: 34,735 people have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, according to the latest numbers released by the Health Ministry in the enclave.

In the last 24 hours, at least 52 more deaths were recorded, according to the ministry.

(Credit: South Lebanon Water Establishment)

The South Lebanon Water Board called on consumers whose homes are supplied by the Nabeh al-Tasseh station, located on the hills of the Jezzine district in the area hit several times this morning by Israel, to refrain from drinking running water or using it for cooking.

In a statement, the Water Authority said the strike had caused damage to “electrical reactors, pumps and a cistern.” “Bad smells were released at the site [after the strike]. In order to preserve the health of citizens and as a precautionary measure ... we advise residents to refrain from drinking this water or using it to prepare food, pending the completion of laboratory tests," the text stated.

The Israeli army raised to four the number of soldiers killed the previous day by rockets fired by the armed wing of Hamas around Kerem Shalom, the main crossing point for humanitarian aid from Israel to the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army initially announced on Sunday that three soldiers had been killed and twelve wounded, “three of them seriously,” adding that 14 rockets had been fired from east of Rafah, a town in the south of the Gaza Strip. It did not specify on Monday whether the fourth soldier killed was among those initially counted as wounded.

According to the army, the soldiers hit were guarding heavy machinery, tanks and bulldozers, parked in the area of the Kerem Shalom site.

An update on the situation in southern Lebanon:

- Israeli artillery targeted the outskirts of Wadi Slouqi and Markaba (Marjayoun), according to local residents.

- A fighter jet repeatedly bombed an area between Louaizeh, Jarjouaa and Sojod, in the Jezzine district. Eight missiles struck the valleys and hills of this region. The Israeli army confirmed in a statement that its fighter jets had hit “15 military structures and terror infrastructure located in a military compound belonging to Hezbollah's Radwan Force" in the area.

- Israeli artillery strafed Adaisseh and Kfar Kila (Marjayoun), from Metulla.

- Incendiary balloons were launched at Khiam (Marjayoun). Incendiary or thermal balloons are balloons that contain gas and an explosive and are released with the intention that the wind will carry the bomb to its target. The Lebanese army warned about their use in early January, stating in a press release that these weapons “fall dangerously close to residential areas and between houses without exploding. “

- At around 12.30 p.m., Hezbollah claimed responsibility for an “aerial attack” using “booby-trapped drones” against Israeli soldiers mobilized in the south of Metulla. “Vehicles were destroyed”, said the party in a statement, before claiming casualties.

The Israeli army said it had “sighted a drone from Lebanon over the town of Metulla after the sirens went off in northern Israel.”

(Photo courtesy of Sarah Abdallah)

The aftermath of an Israeli strike on a building in Sefri, close to Baalbeck, in the Bekaa, that injured three. 

Joe Biden's administration suspended shipments of US munitions to Israel last week, two Israeli officials told Axios on condition of anonymity. This is the first time that Washington has suspended such a delivery to the Israeli army, the news provider said, amid fears that an assault could be launched on Rafah, a major city in the south of the Gaza Strip, where over a million Palestinians have taken refuge. 

A man handling media equipment after an Israeli police raid on an Al Jazeera office at the Ambassador Hotel in East Jerusalem, May 6, 2024. (Credit: Jamal Awad/Reuters)

Israeli police raided al-Jazeera's premises in East Jerusalem this morning to seize its equipment, according to journalists from the Qatari channel. The raid follows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's announcement yesterday that he would halt the channel's broadcasts on Israeli channels, as well as access to its website. The Qatari channel condemned the closure order and said it would use all available legal channels in response.

Hezbollah announced that it had retaliated to the Israeli strike on the Bekaa by launching “dozens of Katyusha rockets” at 9 a.m. at the headquarters of the Israeli army's 210th Golan Division in Nafah. Nafah is some thirty kilometers from the Lebanese border town of Kfar Shouba. 

A resident of Rafah told AFP that some people received voice messages on their phones inviting them to leave and SMS messages with a map showing them where to go. In its statement, the Israeli army said it had “expanded the humanitarian zone in al-Mawasi,” around ten kilometers from Rafah, where “field hospitals, tents and a growing volume of food, water, medicine and other supplies” have been set up.

According to the Israeli army, the evacuation of eastern Rafah concerns “around 100,000 people.”

In Lebanon, an Israeli strike around 4 a.m. destroyed an uninhabited house in Sefri, in the Bekaa, a few kilometers from Baalbeck. The strike left three people injured, according to a local source quoted by L'Orient Today's correspondent in the Bekaa.

The Baalbeck region has been hit several times by Israeli aircraft since the clashes between Hezbollah and Israel began on Oct. 8.

In the morning, the Israeli army also reported having intercepted an “enemy drone flying towards Israel.”

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a nebulous group of fighters from pro-Iranian armed groups, had previously announced on Telegram that it had targeted the port of Eilat, on the southern tip of Israeli territory, which in February had been the target of intercepted ballistic missiles from Yemeni Houthi rebels.  

During the night, the Israeli army continued to strike Palestinian territory, killing 16 members of two families in and around Rafah.

Rescue workers reported nine deaths in the Al Attar family and seven in the Kechta family. A hospital source confirmed the death toll from the two Israeli strikes on Sunday evening “in the Yebna refugee camp in Rafah and in the vicinity of Al Salam.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned “world leaders that no pressure, no decision by an international body will prevent Israel from defending itself.”

“If Israel must stand alone, Israel will stand alone,” insisted the Israeli prime minister, while denouncing the “terrible volcano of anti-Semitism” which he said was surging around the world against Israel.

After a stopover in Cairo, according to US media reports, CIA head William Burns is expected later today in Qatar, the main mediating country, according to a source close to the negotiations.

“In the absence of progress” at the Cairo talks, Burns is due to have an “emergency meeting with the Prime Minister” of the emirate, Sheikh Mohammad bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, “to discuss ways to get the talks back on track”, according to this source.

The Israeli army's announcement comes at a time when efforts to reach a truce in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas are hampered by the inflexibility of both sides, a stalemate which international mediators are due to attempt to break on Monday at an “emergency meeting” in Qatar after seven months of war.

A Hamas official said yesterday that the movement would “under no circumstances accept an agreement that does not explicitly provide for an end to the war.”

The Hamas delegation in Cairo, which left for Doha last night for consultations, according to an official of the Islamist movement, is due to return to Egypt tomorrow “to complete the negotiations,” said a media outlet close to Egyptian intelligence, Al-Qahera News.

The Israeli army called on Gazans living in the eastern part of the city of Rafah, against which Israel has for months been hammering its intention to carry out a major military offensive, to move to “humanitarian zones,” reports AFP.

“The army is encouraging residents of eastern Rafah to move to the expanded humanitarian zones,” it said in a statement. According to the UN, some 1.2 million inhabitants, most of them forced there by the fighting, are crammed into Rafah, a town on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army insists, however, that the “temporary” evacuation of eastern Rafah is an “operation of limited scope.”

Good morning!

Thank you for joining us for our live coverage of the ongoing war in Gaza and its regional and global impacts.