The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) has expressed concern over the Israeli military’s ongoing control of the Rafah crossing, which has been closed for five consecutive days. This closure has hindered the delivery of humanitarian and medical assistance to Palestinians amid ongoing hostilities and has prevented the injured from seeking treatment abroad. The situation is leading to a potential humanitarian disaster and escalating famine across the encircled region.
In their statement, the movement assigns full responsibility to the Israeli forces and urges the international community, along with the United Nations and related agencies, to urgently intervene to avert this humanitarian crisis. This includes escalating efforts to halt the intensified offensive on Rafah, compelling the withdrawal of forces from the crossing, ensuring its reopening, and guaranteeing unimpeded access to essential relief and medical supplies.
Hamas said: “The occupation’s announcement of the start of a military operation in Jabalia and its warning to evacuate the area confirms the insistence of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to continue the war of extermination,” calling on the international community and the UN to put pressure to stop the aggression and provide urgent protection for civilians.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that more than 520 bodies were found in seven mass graves in the Strip, including 80 bodies in three mass graves in the courtyard of the Shifa Medical Complex.
It said in a statement on Saturday that a virtual examination of the bodies exhumed from the mass graves showed that the largest number belonged to patients who were deprived of health care.
The ministry indicated that the Israeli occupation committed four massacres during the past 24 hours, killing 28 and wounding 69.
It reported that the death toll of the Israeli aggression had risen to 34,971 deaths and 78,641 injured since 7 October 2023. It also warned that several victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, and ambulance and civil defence crews cannot reach them.
In a related context, the Israeli occupation army announced that approximately 300,000 people were displaced from the eastern neighbourhoods of the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, since it issued orders to evacuate them on 6 May when it began ground operations.
The Israeli army said in a statement: “So far, approximately 300,000 people have been displaced to the humanitarian zone in Al-Mawasi,” northwest of Rafah, which is crowded with about 1.4 million Palestinians, the majority of whom have been displaced from other areas since the outbreak of the war.
In another context, the spokesperson for the Al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Ubaida, announced that the Israeli prisoner, Nadav Bublabel (51 years old), who held British citizenship, died as a result of wounds he sustained after the occupation aircraft targeted his place of detention more than a month ago with the prisoner Judy Feinstein, explaining that the prisoner’s “health condition deteriorated and he died because he did not receive intensive medical care in care centres due to the enemy’s destruction of hospitals in the Gaza Strip and their out of service.”
On the ground, the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of Hamas, announced the destruction of an Israeli troop carrier with an Al-Yassin 105 shell in the vicinity of the Rafah crossing in the southern Gaza Strip.
Moreover, the Al-Quds Brigades, the military arm of the Islamic Jihad movement, also announced the bombardment of Israeli occupation soldiers and vehicles penetrating the Al-Zaytoun neighbourhood, south of Gaza City, with mortar shells.
