Negotiators Arrive in Cairo as Israel Seizes Rafah Crossing

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What the Israeli military is calling a "limited operation" in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, has already had devastating consequences over the past two days for medical workers and patients across the enclave, doctors and humanitarian aid groups say.

The Israeli military's orders telling roughly 110,000 people to leave eastern Rafah on Monday spread fear throughout Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital, which is within the area where Israel said it would act with "extreme force," Dr. Marwan al-Hams, the hospital's director, said in a phone interview on Tuesday.

Fearing a raid by Israeli forces, like those that have been carried out at hospitals across Gaza, the medical staff at al-Najjar rushed to relocate more than 200 patients. Some patients left in cars secured by their family members, while the seriously wounded were transferred by ambulance to other hospitals in southern Gaza, including the European Hospital in Khan Younis and the International Medical Corps field hospital in Rafah.

But even during the scramble to evacuate the hospital, Israeli airstrikes on Rafah continued. The bodies of 58 people killed in Israeli strikes arrived at the hospital since Sunday, Dr. al-Hams said, adding that the hospital staff had to ask the victims' families to bury the bodies themselves.

"The situation is not dangerous; the situation is catastrophic, catastrophic, catastrophic," he said.

The Israeli military's actions also immediately limited access to more basic health services across Rafah. Project HOPE, a U.S.-based aid group that operates several clinics across Gaza, was forced to shut down a mobile medical unit within the area from which Israel has told people to leave. It had been providing primary care in the eastern part of Rafah and treating upper respiratory tract infections and gastrointestinal illnesses that had been spreading among displaced Palestinians crammed into shelters with little access to clean water and sanitation facilities.

The aid group also had to close another medical clinic elsewhere in Rafah, outside of the evacuation zone, early on Monday because six of its medical workers — including a general practitioner, a gynecologist and nurses — lived inside or immediately adjacent to where the Israeli military said it would begin its operations, said Chessa Latifi, a deputy director of emergency preparedness for Project HOPE.

Many of the medical workers had already been displaced from their homes in Khan Younis and Gaza City and were forced to flee once again with their families, including dozens of children — this time, alongside the patients they had been treating in eastern Rafah.

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At least two delegations of doctors who were trying to enter Gaza on Monday to support struggling hospitals in the northern part of the enclave were forced to turn back as the security situation deteriorated, even before the Israeli military seized control of the Rafah crossing on Tuesday.

One delegation of Jordanian doctors, organized by Project HOPE, was aiming to reach Kamal Adwan Hospital in far northern Gaza to relieve overwhelmed medical staff and deliver badly needed supplies, including anesthetics, surgical sutures and gauze. That delegation was also supposed to deliver the salaries of the aid group's medical workers in Rafah — cash they desperately needed to secure housing and transportation during the chaotic evacuation.

"We've had contingency plans in place for a very long time, especially as it became more and more clear that the offensive in Rafah was going to start," Ms. Latifi said. But "the consequences of what's happening just keep growing," she said.

Another delegation of medical workers, organized by the aid group MedGlobal, was about halfway to Rafah from Cairo on Monday when it began receiving alerts from the World Health Organization's coordination team that the Rafah crossing could soon be shut down.

The doctors tried to continue on their path. But once they were told that the closing of the border crossing was imminent, "most of us realized that what was going to happen was going to be significant," Dr. John Kahler, a co-founder of MedGlobal, said.

The delegation included an anesthesiologist and a midwife who were going to support Al-Awda Hospital, one of the few hospitals still able to provide maternal care for pregnant women. Dr. Kahler himself was intending to go to Kamal Adwan, where his organization opened a nutritional stabilization center for malnourished children over the weekend.

Speaking from Cairo on Tuesday, Dr. Kahler described the difficult decision to disband the delegation. If this was the beginning of the long-threatened ground assault, he said, moving to northern Gaza from Rafah would have been too dangerous, even if the doctors were able to get through the Rafah crossing on Monday.

The level of anxiety is "sky high" among the team members and their Palestinian partners inside Gaza as they wait to see what will happen next, Dr. Kahler said.

"Babies are going to keep being delivered; injuries are going to continue to happen; people are going to continue to die," he added.

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May 7, 2024, 5:34 p.m. ET

As delegations from Israel and Hamas arrived in Cairo for negotiations on a cease-fire and hostage deal, Osama Hamdan, a Hamas representative, reiterated what the group considered its red lines. They include the "complete cessation of aggression, withdrawal from all areas of Gaza and the unconditional return of the displaced," he said at a news conference.

May 7, 2024, 5:02 p.m. ET

Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said the White House had been told that the Kerem Shalom crossing would reopen on Wednesday and that fuel deliveries to Rafah should also commence then. She called Israel's closure of crossings "unacceptable."

May 7, 2024, 4:46 p.m. ET

The Israeli military said several projectiles were fired toward the Kerem Shalom crossing on Tuesday, two days after a rocket strike in the area that Hamas claimed responsibility for and that the military said had killed four Israeli soldiers. That strike on Sunday, which Israel said had been fired from an area near the Rafah crossing, was one of the reasons the military moved to seize the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt.

May 7, 2024, 4:54 p.m. ET

The Israeli military also said it had destroyed a launcher in the Rafah area that was used to fire projectiles into Israel earlier on Tuesday.

May 7, 2024, 4:34 p.m. ET

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Israeli officials said on Tuesday that major gaps remained with Hamas over the latest proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza, as delegations from both sides arrived in Cairo to resume talks.

Hamas said on Monday that it had accepted the terms of a cease-fire proposed by Arab mediators, and U.S. officials said it had minor wording changes from a proposal that Israel and the United States had recently presented to the group.

But Israeli officials disputed that characterization, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying on Tuesday that his war cabinet unanimously believed the proposal Hamas had agreed to was "very far from Israel's core demands."

The text of the revised proposal was circulating in Israeli news media on Tuesday and was confirmed as authentic by a senior Hamas official. A person briefed on the negotiations also described the differences in the two sides' positions. Here are the key ones:

'Sustainable calm'

The most substantive sticking point centers on a key phrase that appears in both the Israeli- and Hamas-approved proposals: a path to "sustainable calm."

In the proposal that Israel approved, and that Egypt conveyed to the Hamas leadership on April 26, the two sides would work toward achieving a "sustainable calm" in Gaza after an initial six-week pause in fighting. That proposal left those two words open to interpretation.

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But in the Hamas-approved proposal, that term is clearly defined as a permanent cessation of hostilities and a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip.

Israel has consistently opposed any deal that explicitly calls for a permanent cease-fire or an end to the war, and has said it would not agree to either until it felt its military offensive had achieved its goals. Ehud Yaari, an Israel-based fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that the Hamas timetable would commit Israel to ending the war while Hamas still holds hostages, leaving Israel without any leverage.

Israel might have been willing to discuss ending the war later on in the process, but it would not commit to doing so from the outset, according to experts.

"If you sign the deal you are committing to all of it," Mr. Yaari said.

Hostage releases

The first phase of a three-phase agreement would be the six-week pause in fighting, during which Israel would exchange hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli jails for 33 of the most vulnerable hostages held in Gaza. Those are all the women, including female soldiers, as well as older men and sick and injured people. Israel had lowered its initial demand for about 40 hostages in that category because it came to believe that only 33 remained alive, out of a total of 132 hostages still being held in Gaza.

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But Hamas informed negotiators on Monday that not all of the 33 who would be freed in the first phase were still living, and that the remains of those who have died would be among the releases — a disclosure that surprised the Israelis.

In addition, Hamas has suggested a framework that would stretch out the hostage release by freeing three on the third day after the pause begins, then three more every seven days after that. An earlier proposal had three hostages being released every three days.

Prolonging the releases, analysts say, would mean that negotiations over the second phase of the deal — getting to a "sustainable calm" — would take place while Hamas held more bargaining chips. And Israelis also fear that committing to this situation would increase the possibility that more of the sickest hostages could die before they are released.

Israeli veto over prisoners

The proposal that Israel agreed to in April allowed it to veto the release of some of the Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences — those expected to be exchanged for Israeli soldiers being held hostage — from a list of 200 names. The proposal approved by Hamas removed any such Israeli right of refusal.

The Israeli government was largely portraying the start of its ground operation in Rafah as a means of putting pressure on the group to soften its negotiating stance. Hamas called the Israeli operation a "dangerous escalation" intended "to disrupt mediation efforts for a cease-fire and the release of prisoners."

Still, as both sides sent delegations to Cairo on Tuesday for cease-fire talks, White House spokesman John F. Kirby said, "there should be no reason why they can't overcome those remaining gaps."

Julian E. Barnes, Adam Rasgon, Gabby Sobelman and Myra Noveck contributed reporting.

May 7, 2024, 4:28 p.m. ET

Israel's seizure of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt was a "dangerous escalation that aims to exacerbate the humanitarian situation," Osama Hamdan, a Hamas representative, said at a news conference on Tuesday. "The Rafah crossing was and will remain an Egyptian-Palestinian crossing without any occupying force," he added.

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May 7, 2024, 4:25 p.m. ET

Lior Rudaeff, a 61-year-old Israeli man who was presumed to be among the hostages in Gaza, was killed on Oct. 7, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement on Tuesday. The group said Hamas was holding Rudaeff's body, but did not provide further details. It called on the Israeli government to recover his body and to "secure the swift return of all living hostages."

May 7, 2024, 4:03 p.m. ET

The United Nations said on Tuesday that the closure of two major border crossings in southern Gaza, and the subsequent lack of fuel entering the enclave, would soon have catastrophic consequences. Andrea De Domenico, who leads the U.N.'s humanitarian agency for Palestinian territories, estimated that the three hospitals in Rafah could be inoperable within a few hours, depriving 1.5 million civilians of health care.

May 7, 2024, 3:48 p.m. ET

Clashes broke out between pro-Palestinian protestors and riot police in Athens on Tuesday. More than 300 people rallied outside the Greek parliament building, according to Reuters, as police fired tear gas to disperse protesters.

May 7, 2024, 2:58 p.m. ET

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Under international pressure to reach a cease-fire agreement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Tuesday dismissed Hamas's latest proposal as an insincere offer and said Israel's military operations would proceed, even as he sent an Israeli delegation to peace talks in Cairo.

On Monday, Hamas's political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, announced the group would accept the terms of a cease-fire proposal backed by Egyptian and Qatari mediators, with some changes. Within hours, Israeli troops and tanks went into the city of Rafah and seized the border crossing with Egypt, shutting down the flow of aid into Rafah.

Mr. Netanyahu on Tuesday suggested Mr. Haniyeh's statement was a public relations move meant to forestall Israel's planned ground offensive in Rafah, which the Israeli government has described as the last bastion controlled by Hamas fighters.

"Hamas's proposal yesterday was meant to torpedo our troops' entry in Rafah," he said in a statement. "That didn't happen." Mr. Netanyahu added that the latest Hamas offer "lies very far from Israel's necessary demands."

Hamas has been demanding that the cease-fire agreement eventually lead to a permanent halt in fighting and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip. Israel has said it wants a temporary cease-fire to allow the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners, but has said it will keep fighting afterward until Hamas is dismantled as a fighting force and no longer controls Gaza.

Roughly half of the enclave's population is crammed into temporary shelter and camps in Rafah. Israel said it has taken over the Rafah crossing, where humanitarian groups say aid is no longer passing through.

Israeli and Hamas officials arrived in Cairo to restart talks, which had hit an impasse on Sunday. The C.I.A. director, William J. Burns, was also expected to attend the talks in Cairo on Tuesday.

May 7, 2024, 2:28 p.m. ET

A Hamas delegation has traveled to Cairo, the militant group said, hours after a mid-level Israeli delegation arrived there for cease-fire talks. The militant group said in a statement that the team — including Khalil al-Hayya, its lead negotiator — aimed to achieve "an end to the aggression on our people." Hamas said on Monday that it had agreed to a cease-fire proposal by Egypt and Qatar, although Israel has said the offer doesn't meet its demands.

May 7, 2024, 2:21 p.m. ET

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Representative Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress, called on the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a day after Israel's military said it was carrying out "targeted strikes" in eastern Rafah.

"I urge the I.C.C. to swiftly issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and senior Israeli officials to finally hold them accountable for this genocide, as is obviously warranted by these well-documented violations of the Genocide Convention under international law," the Michigan Democrat said in a statement on Tuesday.

Ms. Tlaib, an outspoken critic of the war, said, "Netanyahu knows that he will only stay in power as long as the fighting continues" and criticized fellow lawmakers for voting to send more American weapons to Israel for its military campaign against Hamas.

"It is now more apparent than ever that we must end all U.S. military funding for the Israeli apartheid regime," she said, "and demand that President Biden facilitate an immediate, permanent cease-fire that includes a complete withdraw of Israeli forces from Gaza, and the release of all hostages and arbitrarily detained Palestinians."

Ms. Tlaib's call for legal action against Israeli leaders follows earlier reports that the International Criminal Court was preparing to issue arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials — as well as leaders of Hamas — on charges related to the conflict. Mr. Netanyahu said on social media that any intervention by the I.C.C. "would set a dangerous precedent that threatens the soldiers and officials of all democracies fighting savage terrorism and wanton aggression."

A group of U.S. lawmakers, largely Republican, have rushed to support Mr. Netanyahu by threatening retaliation against the court should it issue warrants.

Some Republicans threatened to seek sanctions against members of the court should it move forward with the warrants. "Get your dollars out of the U.S. now and say goodbye to ever visiting America again," Senator Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, said on social media.

At least three Democratic lawmakers are calling on President Biden to intervene should the court act against Israeli leaders.

May 7, 2024, 2:20 p.m. ET

Kirby said the cease-fire talks were at a "delicate stage" but expressed optimism that Israel and Hamas would be able to bridge differences over the latest proposal. "There should be no reason why they can't overcome those remaining gaps," the White House spokesman said.

May 7, 2024, 2:12 p.m. ET

John F. Kirby, a White House spokesman, said on Tuesday that Israel had told the U.S. that its operation in Rafah on Tuesday was "limited" and "designed to cut off Hamas's ability to smuggle weapons into Gaza." Mr. Kirby said that the United States' position against a major invasion of Rafah had not changed and that hostage talks were resuming today in Cairo.

May 7, 2024, 2:00 p.m. ET

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Source: Satellite imagery from Planet Labs

Satellite imagery from Planet Labs shows a sharp drop in aid trucks visible on both the Egypt and Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing between Sunday and Monday, the day the Israeli military ordered an evacuation of nearby areas.

Israel has now closed both Rafah and a second border crossing, Kerem Shalom. The bulk of Gaza's aid during the war has passed through those crossings.

The area on the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing where dozens of trucks were visible on Sunday was nearly empty in Monday's imagery, which was taken after the latest Israeli evacuation order was issued. The road to Gaza on the Egyptian side of the border was also far emptier following the evacuation orders than it was on Sunday.

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May 7, 2024, 12:26 p.m. ET

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Israeli forces' closure of the Rafah border crossing on Tuesday left 46 sick and injured people who were set to receive medical treatment in Egypt trapped in southern Gaza as fighting raged nearby, the Gazan health authorities said.

The patients have a range of serious ailments, including several forms of cancer, the Gaza ministry of health said. One of those patients is Aseel Warsh-Agha, 16, who was supposed to travel to Egypt for surgery to treat third degree burns that have left much of her skin thickly scarred, her uncle said in an interview.

Her family had celebrated on Monday night after Hamas's announcement that it had accepted terms of a cease-fire proposal, said the uncle, Ahmed Warsh-Agha. Israel said it would not accept those terms, and on Tuesday morning the family awoke to the news that Israeli forces had begun an incursion into southern Gaza and seized the Rafah crossing.

"We stayed up late celebrating and talking about the future after this war is over," Mr. Warsh-Agha said. "We had everything ready for her to cross."

Aseel was burned by kitchen grease three years ago and twice traveled to Egypt for surgery, her uncle said. Another operation had been scheduled for last fall, and the family had hoped it would be her last, but it was postponed because of the war. Her family had hoped she would cross into Egypt on Tuesday for the procedure.

During the first week of the war last October, Israeli airstrikes destroyed Aseel's home in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza, and killed more than 30 of her relatives, her uncle said. The family has since been living in a tent in Al-Mawasi, in southern Gaza.

Aseel met the news of the border closure on Tuesday with stoicism, Mr. Warsh-Agha said.

"She already lost so many family members and friends, her family house and her school," he said. He hoped that she would eventually be able to go to Egypt for surgery, but did not know when that would be possible.

May 7, 2024, 11:21 a.m. ET

Johnatan Reiss

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said that Hamas's positive response to a revised cease-fire proposal on Monday "was meant to torpedo our troops' entry in Rafah." "That didn't happen," he said in a statement, calling the Israeli military's control of the Rafah border crossing a "very important step."

May 7, 2024, 11:18 a.m. ET

Israel's defense minister, Yoav Gallant, said he visited troops near Rafah and that the operation there would continue until the last Hamas brigade in the city was destroyed "or until the return of the first hostage to Israel."

May 7, 2024, 11:02 a.m. ET

In countries across Europe, students have staged their own pro-Palestinian sit-ins and protests on the lawns of their universities. And in several instances, the authorities are taking a similar approach to their U.S. counterparts: shutting them down.

At the University of Amsterdam on Tuesday, the police arrested about 125 students who had fortified their protest camp with wooden barricades. And in Berlin, the German police cleared a similar encampment at the city's Free University, which included several hundred pro-Palestinian protesters. Both demonstrations had begun on Monday, days after mass arrests swept through protests at U.S. campuses.

In Amsterdam, university officials said the demonstration had begun peacefully, but devolved into "an unsafe and grim situation" overnight, when fireworks were launched, physical attacks took place and an Israeli flag was burned. The city's public prosecutor and mayor made the decision to deploy the police, university executives said in a statement. "We deeply regret that it had to turn out this way," they said.

Many demands coming out of European universities reflect common cause with protesting students in the United States. Among them: for universities to disclose their investment streams and divest from those that support Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza.

Tent cities, similar to those in America, have appeared in Britain at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, where protesters have declared "liberated zones" on campus; demonstrations have also been held in Bristol, Leeds and Manchester. At France's Sciences Po, one of the country's most elite universities, students occupied a campus building last week and refused to leave. Dozens of them were removed by the police on Friday.

In Ireland, at Trinity College, Dublin, a student encampment prompted the university to close its popular exhibition on the Book of Kells, the medieval illuminated gospel manuscript that is one of the most famous works of its kind, on the eve of a busy tourist season. After talks with student protesters this week, Trinity officials said they would begin the process of divesting from certain companies that operate in the "Occupied Palestinian Territory."

May 7, 2024, 10:58 a.m. ET

Iyad Abuheweila

The Israeli military's evacuation orders for eastern Rafah have prompted most patients, doctors and nurses to evacuate Al Najjar Hospital, according to Dr. Mirwan Al Hams, its director. "The situation is not dangerous; the situation is catastrophic, catastrophic, catastrophic," he said in a phone interview.

May 7, 2024, 10:37 a.m. ET

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The area Israel has designated as a safe zone for Gazans fleeing Rafah is neither safe nor equipped to receive them, United Nations and European officials said Tuesday, while warning that Israel's order to evacuate parts of the city may amount to a war crime.

The Israeli military on Monday dropped leaflets in eastern Rafah that told people to move to what it called a humanitarian zone to the north. That area — which the military said had field hospitals, tents, and supplies — includes Al-Mawasi, a coastal section of Gaza it has advised people to go to for months.

Many Gazans began to leave, fearing that Israel was moving ahead with its long-planned invasion of Rafah. Israel carried out what it said were "targeted" airstrikes overnight and said Tuesday its forces were in control of the Rafah border crossing.

Josep Borrell Fontelles, the European Union's top diplomat, said he feared the military moves would cause "a lot of casualties" and further displacement.

"There are 600,000 children in Gaza," he told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday. "They will be pushed to so-called safe zones. There is no safe zones in Gaza."

António Guterres, the U.N. secretary general, echoed that point in his own remarks to reporters. "Countless more civilian casualties. Countless more families forced to flee yet again — with nowhere safe to go. Because there is no safe place in Gaza," he said.

The area designated by Israel to receive people fleeing Rafah is a coastal strip of land at Al-Mawasi already occupied by a tent camp housing thousands of Palestinians. But even that area has not been truly safe. James Elder, a spokesman for Unicef, the U.N. children's agency, cited the recent death in Al-Mawasi of a 7-year-old Palestinian boy, who was shot in the head as he went out to get food for his family.

Rafah has approximately one toilet for every 850 people and one shower for every 3,500 people, Mr. Elder told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday. In the designated safe zones, he added, conditions were "staggeringly, much worse."

The head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Jan Egeland, said in a statement that the Mawasi area was "already overstretched and devoid of vital services. It lacks the capacity to house the number of people currently seeking refuge in Rafah."

Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the U.N. human rights office told a news briefing in Geneva that there were "strong indications" that the order to evacuate from eastern Rafah violated international humanitarian law. Her comments came a day after Volker Türk, the U.N. human rights chief, warned that forced displacement of civilians is a war crime.

Cassandra Vinograd contributed reporting.

May 7, 2024, 10:03 a.m. ET

Abu Bakr Bashir

Amid concerns about the impact that Israel's closure of the Rafah crossing would have on humanitarian aid, COGAT, the Israeli agency overseeing aid deliveries into Gaza, said that 60 trucks had passed through the Erez crossing from Israel into northern Gaza today.

May 7, 2024, 9:48 a.m. ET

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A Palestinian doctor at a medical center in Rafah said on Tuesday that 27 bodies had been brought there since the start of Israel's incursion, in which ground troops entered the southeast corner of Gaza and took control of the Gazan side of a border crossing with Egypt.

Dr. Suhaib Hems, the head of Kuwait Hospital in Rafah, said that his facility had also received 150 injured people, many of whom suffered from shattered bones, serious head injuries or severe burns.

"The situation is catastrophic in every sense of the word," Dr. Hems said.

The Israeli military said it had killed about 20 people in Rafah, describing the dead as Hamas fighters. It said that "ground troops are continuing to operate against Hamas terrorist operatives and infrastructure in the area of the Rafah crossing." Israel has called the incursion into Rafah — where more than a million people have sought refuge from the war — a limited operation.

It was not clear whether there was an overlap in the number of dead, and the two claims could not be independently confirmed.

Dr. Hem said that his hospital lacked the capacity to properly treat the wounded because of a shortage of equipment and medical staff.

"If the situation persists, we are only days away from complete service shutdown," he said. "The health care system has completely collapsed."

Before the war, he said, about 270 people worked at Kuwait Hospital, but that number had dwindled to just a few dozen. He said the war had left him with a feeling of "helplessness and betrayal and a sense of despair."

According to a statement from the Gazan health ministry on Tuesday, at least 54 people had been killed across the Gaza Strip in the previous 24 hours. It said dozens more were treated for injuries at medical facilities in the territory.

"A number of victims are still under rubble and on the streets and ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them," the ministry said. The circumstances of the deaths could not be confirmed independently.

Israeli forces seized control of the Rafah border crossing during the incursion and shut it down. Wael Abu Omar, a spokesman for the Palestinian side of the crossing, said the closure had prevented 46 injured and sick people from leaving Gaza for treatment in Egypt.

The patients included people with breast cancer, lymphoma and other ailments, the health ministry said.

May 7, 2024, 8:00 a.m. ET

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, the spokesman for the Palestinian Authority, a rival to Hamas, called on the United States to intervene to prevent the conflict and humanitarian crisis from escalating any further.

May 7, 2024, 7:57 a.m. ET

The tit-for-tat strikes between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah that have been going on for months continued along Israel's northern border. The Israeli military said that "a number of suspicious aerial targets" had been launched from Lebanon, and that Israeli forces had also struck targets across the border. Hezbollah confirmed that it had launched a drone attack into Israel.

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May 7, 2024, 6:46 a.m. ET

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With its seizure of the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt on Tuesday, Israel has now closed two key crossings for aid into Gaza, drawing sharp warnings from international agencies and officials who said the moves could exacerbate an already dire humanitarian crisis in the enclave.

Since the start of the war, Israel had limited aid entering the Gaza Strip to the two tightly controlled border crossings: Kerem Shalom and Rafah, which both access the enclave's south.

But Israel closed the Kerem Shalom crossing after a Hamas attack on Sunday killed four soldiers in the area, then mounted an incursion on Tuesday that closed the Rafah crossing along the border with Egypt.

Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the U.N. humanitarian office, said in a news briefing that Israel had "choked off" the two main arteries for getting aid into Gaza. If fuel is not able to enter the enclave for some time, he added, "it would be a very effective way of putting the humanitarian operation in its grave."

The main United Nations agency that helps Palestinians in Gaza said Tuesday that the "catastrophic hunger faced by people especially in northern Gaza will get much worse" if aid shipments through the Rafah border crossing were interrupted.

Egypt's foreign ministry condemned the Rafah operation "in the strongest terms," saying on Tuesday afternoon that Israeli control over the crossing jeopardized humanitarian aid deliveries as well as the ability of Gazans to leave the strip for medical treatment.

"This dangerous escalation threatens the lives of more than a million Palestinians who depend primarily on this crossing, as it is the main lifeline of the Gaza Strip," it said in a statement.

Israel opened the crossing at Kerem Shalom on its border with Gaza in December after pressure from the United States to speed up the flow of humanitarian aid. However, Israeli protesters have regularly gathered at the crossing, trying to block aid convoys from entering the enclave in hope of raising the pressure on Hamas to release the hostages.

Under pressure from the Biden administration after an Israeli airstrike killed seven aid workers, Israel said last month that it would reopen the Erez border crossing into northern Gaza and that shipments bound for the enclave would be accepted at the Israeli port of Ashdod. On May 1, when the Erez crossing first opened, Israel said 30 aid trucks passed through.

Figures from the United Nations show that on Sunday, the most recent day for which data is available, 128 aid trucks entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing and none entered through Rafah. With the closures of those two crossings, it was not immediately clear how much aid was getting through to Gaza through the other avenues on Tuesday. COGAT, the Israeli agency overseeing aid deliveries into Gaza, said on Tuesday that 60 trucks had passed through the Erez crossing.

Israel imposes stringent checks on incoming aid to keep out anything that might help Hamas, which it has pledged to eliminate. Since the start of the war, most of the aid for Gaza has moved through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

Aid groups and foreign diplomats have said the inspections create bottlenecks, and have accused Israel of arbitrarily turning away aid and systematically limiting deliveries. Israel has denied those assertions, blaming the shortages on logistical failures by aid groups, and has recently increased the number of trucks entering the strip.

Nick Cumming-Bruce, Vivian Yee and Matthew Mpoke Bigg contributed reporting.

May 7, 2024, 6:14 a.m. ET

Israeli troops have "choked off" the two main arteries for getting aid into Gaza, the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings, according to Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the U.N. humanitarian office. U.N. staff have been blocked from accessing the Rafah crossing, he said in a news briefing, adding that if fuel is not able to enter the enclave for some time, "it would be a very effective way of putting the humanitarian operation in its grave."

May 7, 2024, 5:40 a.m. ET

A video released by the Israeli military showed some of its vehicles driving inside Gaza along the border wall with Egypt on Tuesday morning. Drone footage in the video showed at least six tanks in the circular lot that serves the Rafah crossing's main building and a mosque.

Another video circulating on social media and verified by The New York Times showed a military vehicle destroying a sign in the area that read "I ❤️ Gaza." Other video footage verified by the Storyful social media news agency shows a military vehicle destroying a separate Gaza sign near the main building.

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May 7, 2024, 5:34 a.m. ET

Egypt's foreign ministry condemned the Israeli operation in Rafah, saying Israeli control over the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt jeopardized humanitarian aid shipments, as well as the ability of Gazans to leave the strip for medical treatment. "This dangerous escalation threatens the lives of more than a million Palestinians who depend primarily on this crossing, as it is the main lifeline of the Gaza Strip," the statement said.

May 7, 2024, 5:27 a.m. ET

The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said it "condemned in the strongest terms" the Israeli military's closure of the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings into Gaza, which are important routes for shipments of food and other aid. "The situation in the east of Rafah Governorate is a true humanitarian catastrophe," it said.

May 7, 2024, 5:18 a.m. ET

Forty-six injured and sick people were not able to leave the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing on Tuesday for treatment abroad after Israel took control of it, according to Wael Abu Omar, a spokesman for the Palestinian side of the crossing. Those who were set to travel have breast cancer, myelofibrosis and lymphoma, among other ailments, the Gaza health ministry said.

May 7, 2024, 5:06 a.m. ET

Josep Borrell Fontelles, the European Union's top diplomat, has again expressed concern about civilian casualties in Rafah. "The land offensive against Rafah has started again, despite all the requests of the international community, the U.S., European Union member states, everybody asking Netanyahu not to attack Rafah," he told reporters in Brussels ahead of a meeting. "I am afraid that this is going to cause again a lot of casualties, civilian casualties, whatever they say."

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May 7, 2024, 4:25 a.m. ET

Rocket warning sirens are sounding in Kerem Shalom near the border with Gaza, according to Israel's military. Hamas rockets killed four Israeli soldiers on Sunday in the area, which has a border crossing that has been a conduit for aid to enter the enclave.

May 7, 2024, 4:28 a.m. ET

The Qassam Brigades, Hamas's armed wing, said it had fired on gatherings of soldiers in the border region between Israel and Gaza.

May 7, 2024, 4:22 a.m. ET

All of the employees of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza left the facility before Israeli forces entered Rafah, Wael Abu Omar, a spokesman for the crossing, told reporters.

May 7, 2024, 4:17 a.m. ET

The main United Nations agency that aids Palestinians in Gaza has warned that "catastrophic hunger faced by people especially in northern Gaza will get much worse" if aid supply routes through the Rafah border crossing, which Israeli forces took control of this morning, are interrupted.

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May 7, 2024, 4:09 a.m. ET

The Qassam Brigades, Hamas's armed wing, said it was firing mortars on Israeli forces east of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza.

May 7, 2024, 3:43 a.m. ET

The Egyptian state-owned television channel Al Qahera reported that the Israeli military had full control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing. Sporadic fighting could be heard, and all humanitarian aid had stopped, according to the channel.

May 7, 2024, 3:42 a.m. ET

Leading Israeli news sites published photographs on Tuesday morning that the military said were not official. The images showed the Israeli flag flying on poles and tanks on the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing. Their dissemination appeared to be directed at the domestic audience as much as the Palestinian public.

May 7, 2024, 3:40 a.m. ET

The Israeli military released photos of its forces operating on the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt on Tuesday, including at least three tanks.

May 7, 2024, 2:23 a.m. ET

Israel's allies, including the United States, have warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to not send the military on a ground assault in Rafah, where nearly a million Gazans are sheltering. The military on Tuesday said that the overnight operation was limited. It was unclear if this was the start of a broader operation.

May 7, 2024, 2:17 a.m. ET

The Israeli military said that the overnight strikes in eastern Rafah, which included air attacks and ground operations, were aimed at destroying Hamas targets. Tanks are now in control of the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing with Egypt, where Israeli officials believe Hamas fired shells from on Sunday, killing Israeli soldiers at the Kerem Shalom border crossing.

May 6, 2024, 9:13 p.m. ET

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The proposal for a hostage-prisoner exchange and cease-fire that Hamas said on Monday that it could accept has minor wording changes from the one that Israel and the United States had presented to the group recently, according to two officials familiar with the revised proposal.

The officials said that the changes were made by Arab mediators in consultation with William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, and that the new version keeps a key phrase, the eventual enactment of a "sustainable calm," wording that all sides had said earlier they could accept.

The two officials said the response from Hamas was a serious one, and that it was now up to Israel to decide whether to enter into an agreement. The proposal, they said, calls for Hamas to free hostages — women, the elderly and those in need of medical treatment — in return for a 42-day cease-fire and the release of a much larger number of Palestinian prisoners. Israel had sought 33 hostages, but it is not clear how many women and elderly are still alive, and the first tranche could end up including remains.

That would be the first of three phases of reciprocal actions from each side. In the second phase, the two sides would work toward reaching a "sustainable calm," which would involve the release of more hostages, the officials said. Both officials acknowledged that the warring parties would likely clash over the definition of "sustainable calm."

One of the officials, in the Middle East, said that Hamas viewed the term as an end to the war, with Israel halting its military actions and withdrawing troops from Gaza. The officials said that Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was expected to push back against that definition.

One official said that the negotiating parties agreed to the term "sustainable calm" weeks ago, after Israel objected to any reference to a "permanent cease-fire." Israeli officials have consistently said they oppose any agreement that explicitly calls for that or for an end to the war.

Mr. Burns has been the main representative for the United States in the negotiations, and he is in the region to work on the proposals and counterproposals. Qatari and Egyptian mediators spoke with him on Monday about the changes that Hamas was ready to accept, the two officials said. Hamas said that Arab mediators had put forward the changes, but one official said that Hamas had suggested them. Mr. Burns is expected to attend the talks in Cairo on Tuesday.

The Israeli prime minister's office said that while the new proposal failed to meet Israel's demands, the country would still send a working-level delegation to talks in hopes of reaching an acceptable deal. A U.S. official said the purpose of the talks in Cairo was to negotiate the amendments proposed by Hamas and talk through remaining issues.

Qatar's Foreign Ministry said that a Qatari delegation would also attend the talks on Tuesday, and expressed "hope that the talks will culminate in reaching an agreement for an immediate and permanent" cease-fire, an exchange of hostages and prisoners, and a "sustainable" flow of aid into all of Gaza.

Israel announced on Monday that its war cabinet had voted unanimously to continue with its military action in Rafah in order to exert pressure on Hamas. That announcement and the start of any offensive in the city could jeopardize the prospects for an agreement. Mr. Netanyahu said last week that he would carry out an offensive in Rafah "with or without" an agreement.

U.S. officials say they oppose any such operation without a proper plan from Israel to mitigate civilian casualties and a humanitarian crisis. One U.S. official said the strikes that the Israeli military carried out in eastern Rafah on Monday appeared to be part of a smaller operation, and not necessarily the opening moves of a larger assault. More than one million Palestinians have sought shelter in Rafah as they fled other parts of Gaza under attack by Israel.

Adam Rasgon contributed reporting from Jerusalem.

May 6, 2024, 7:59 p.m. ET

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Within the course of days, hopes for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip have been raised, dashed and raised again, with no clear explanation.

The confusion was evident on Monday, when Hamas claimed to have accepted the terms of a truce deal even as Israel — a week after making concessions in the hope of an agreement — was ordering civilians in the southern Gazan city of Rafah to evacuate and escalating its airstrikes there. Then on Tuesday, the Israeli military said it had sent tanks into Rafah and taken over the Gaza side of the border crossing with Egypt, halting the flow of aid into the enclave.

Here is a look at the recent dizzying turns of events:

Monday, April 29

Israeli officials, offering a hint of hope for a deal, said that their negotiators had reduced the number of hostages they wanted Hamas to release during the first phase of a truce.

Thursday, May 2

A Hamas leader said that the group would soon send a delegation to Cairo to "complete ongoing discussions" on a cease-fire deal.

Saturday, May 4

With talks underway, a senior Hamas official said in a text message that the group's representatives had arrived in Cairo for the talks, "with great positivity" toward the latest proposal.

Sunday, May 5

The talks — which are held indirectly, through mediators — hit an impasse, and Hamas said its delegation had left Cairo. An Israeli official described the negotiations as in "crisis."

Late in the day, Hamas launched rockets at a border crossing between Gaza and Israel, killing four Israeli soldiers. Israel stepped up its attacks in Gaza.

Monday, May 6

Hamas said it accepted the terms of a cease-fire — not as laid out in Israel's proposal, but drawn from one put forth by Egypt and Qatar. The announcement came hours after Israel had ordered people to evacuate from some areas in Rafah, a sign that its forces might be close to launching a long-anticipated invasion of the crowded city. Then, the Israeli military said it was carrying out "targeted strikes" in eastern Rafah.

Late in the day, in keeping with a week of contradictory signals, the Israeli prime minister's office said that Hamas's latest cease-fire proposal was unsatisfactory. But it said would send a working-level delegation back to the talks in Cairo anyway.

Tuesday, May 7

Israeli tanks crossed into Rafah and established control over the Gaza side of the border crossing with Egypt in what it called a limited operation aimed at destroying Hamas targets used to attack Israeli soldiers. Analysts said it was unclear whether the Israeli action in Rafah would ratchet up the pressure on Hamas negotiators to make a deal, or would sabotage the talks.

May 6, 2024, 3:18 p.m. ET

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With negotiations for a hostage release and cease-fire facing new uncertainty, and Israel's military calling on Monday for tens of thousands of Palestinians to evacuate part of Rafah, Hamas's last bastion in southern Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has made a risky gambit. He seems to have opted for an invasion of the city, ignoring the urgings of international allies, in what many Israelis view as a bid for his political survival.

To move into Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians have taken refuge in recent months, would be to defy warnings of the inevitable suffering it would cause the civilian population. The Biden administration has urged restraint.

But analysts say it would also be a necessary step toward the total victory over Hamas that Mr. Netanyahu has pledged — however elusive that may prove — and would mollify the hard-liners in the government coalition that keeps him in power.

Critics had accused Mr. Netanyahu of scuttling the latest round of hostage talks, which appeared to have stalled over the weekend. The two sides were mainly stuck over Hamas's demand that Israel commit to a permanent cease-fire as part of any deal, according to Israeli and Hamas officials, and over Mr. Netanyahu's insistence on a Rafah invasion and willingness to commit to only a temporary pause in the seven-month war.

Negotiators were hoping to make some progress by allowing for a degree of ambiguity, at least in the early stages of a phased deal. But Mr. Netanyahu made it patently clear over the weekend, in a series of statements, that he was not willing to give up on Rafah or commit to an end to the war, and on Monday, when Hamas said it would agree to a plan set out by Egypt and Qatar, Israeli forces stepped up their strikes on the city.

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One Israeli official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said on Sunday that Mr. Netanyahu's statements about Rafah and the continuation of the war had compelled Hamas to harden its demands. At the same time, a Hamas rocket attack launched from near the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt on Sunday, which killed four soldiers in Israel, showed that Hamas was still capable of mounting damaging attacks from its last redoubt.

Pushing back against the accusations, Mr. Netanyahu's office issued a statement on Monday calling the claims that he, and not Hamas, had torpedoed the deal "an absolute lie and willful deception of the public."

On the contrary, the statement said, Hamas had not "moved a millimeter from its extreme demands, which no Israeli government could accept."

By Monday evening, when Hamas announced that there was a truce plan it could agree to, Israeli analysts were crediting the military's moves in Rafah with having pressured Hamas into seeking a deal.

But the meaning of going into Rafah is also open to interpretation. The Israeli military portrayed Monday's call for a "temporary" evacuation of eastern Rafah as "limited in scope," suggesting that it is not a precursor to an imminent invasion of the whole city.

That raised questions about Israel's ability to destroy the last four Hamas battalions that it says are in Rafah and must be defeated.

Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul-general in New York, said of Mr. Netanyahu after seven months of war: "He's out of options."

"We are not going to see Hamas raise a white flag," Mr. Pinkas said. Yet Mr. Netanyahu, he added, "has turned Rafah into some kind of Stalingrad."

Adam Rasgon contributed reporting.

May 6, 2024, 3:07 p.m. ET

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Israel's decision to send tanks into Rafah in southern Gaza overnight has thrown the prospect of a cease-fire into doubt again, just as word that Hamas would accept something close to a U.S.-Israeli truce proposal raised hopes for a deal after months of little progress in talks.

Two officials familiar with a revised cease-fire proposal offered by Hamas said on Monday that it was serious, and that it was up to Israel to decide whether to embrace it. The proposed agreement would establish a cease-fire during which hostages taken on Oct. 7 would be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners.

The incursion on Tuesday followed days of uncertainty, including questions about the state of talks, a rocket launch by Hamas militants on Sunday that killed four Israeli soldiers and an order by Israel for over 100,000 people to evacuate from some areas in Rafah.

It was a defiant move for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who has been under global pressure to step back from a vow to attack the city, which is packed with people seeking safety. President Biden has urged Mr. Netanyahu not to launch a large-scale operation there, and he repeated that warning on Monday.

Israel's insistence that the incursion was limited could reflect a desire to limit global criticism, but Mr. Netanyahu also faces domestic pressure to take Rafah, which Israeli military commanders say is Hamas's last stronghold.

Here is a look at the state of play in the cease-fire talks:

What are the latest developments?

In what appeared to be a sharp reversal, Hamas said on Monday it could largely accept a proposal for a hostage-prisoner exchange and cease-fire offered by Israel and the United States. The officials said Hamas was asking for minor wording changes.

The Israel-U.S. proposal called for the group to free hostages in return for a six-week cease-fire and the release of a much larger number of Palestinian prisoners. Those hostages would be women, older people and those in need of medical treatment.

Israel had sought 33 hostages, but it is not clear how many women and elderly are still alive, and the first group could end up including bodies.

The prime minister's office said that the new proposal failed to meet Israel's demands, but that the country had sent a working-level delegation to talks in Cairo on Tuesday in hopes of reaching a deal. Hamas officials and Qatar also sent delegations.

Late on Monday, Mr. Netanyahu's office said in a statement that the war cabinet had decided unanimously to "continue with its action in Rafah in order to exert military pressure on Hamas." That was followed by the military's push into eastern Rafah overnight.

What are the main sticking points?

At issue is the eventual enactment of a "sustainable calm." The revised Hamas proposal keeps that phrase, wording that all sides had said earlier they could accept.

But the two sides are stuck on a fundamental question: Will this cease-fire be a temporary pause to allow an exchange of hostages for prisoners, or a long-term end to the fighting that would leave Hamas in power?

Israel insists on a temporary cease-fire, saying it will keep fighting afterward to end Hamas's rule in Gaza. Hamas demands a permanent cease-fire and vows to retain control.

In November, the two sides agreed to a truce that lasted a week, during which 105 hostages were exchanged for 240 Palestinian prisoners in Israel. But Hamas has conditioned the release of further hostages on an Israeli commitment to end the war.

To get past this hurdle, mediators have come up with a three-stage cease-fire. During the first phase, up to 33 of the remaining hostages would be freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. But Hamas informed negotiators on Monday that not all of them are still living and that the remains of those who have died would be among the initial releases, according to two people familiar with the talks.

More would be released during the second phase, during which Israel would release more prisoners and commit to a sustained end to the fighting, officials familiar with the talks said.

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But Israeli leaders have also vowed to conduct a major military operation in Rafah against Hamas's forces they believe to be fortified there. Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly said Israel would invade Rafah with or without a cease-fire deal.

What would happen after the war?

Hamas wants Israel to withdraw its forces after the war, but Israel says it must retain security control over Gaza. Israel withdrew its forces from Gaza after previous conflicts with Hamas in 2009 and 2014, but this time, Israeli leaders say it's not so simple.

The country's leaders have pledged to do whatever it takes to ensure that something like the Oct. 7 assault can never happen again, and they say that means maintaining the Israeli military's freedom to operate in Gaza.

Israeli forces have also demolished many buildings inside Gaza's border area to create a buffer zone with Israel, prompting international criticism.

In public, at least, Hamas has rejected the idea of a long-term Israeli military presence in the Palestinian enclave. In March, a senior Hamas official, Ghazi Hamad, said the group was willing to accept a phased Israeli retreat as part of a prospective cease-fire deal, as long as Israel committed to ultimately withdrawing entirely from the Gaza Strip.

What pressure is Mr. Netanyahu under?

Mr. Netanyahu says he is committed to bringing home the hostages held in Gaza, but his political survival depends on far-right allies in his governing coalition who oppose the recent cease-fire proposals.

Two of those allies — the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, and the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir — denounced the version supported by Israel and the U.S., saying it amounted to a Hamas victory. They have called for Israeli forces to conduct a ground operation in Rafah.

Mr. Netanyahu's coalition holds 64 of the 120 seats in Israel's parliament, meaning any defections could endanger his premiership and pave the way for elections.

Yair Lapid, the leader of Israel's parliamentary opposition, has said he would back Mr. Netanyahu in order to pass a deal that brings hostages home to Israel. But that would leave Mr. Netanyahu totally dependent on some of his harshest critics in the opposition — a political alliance unlikely to last long.

May 6, 2024, 1:30 p.m. ET

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Israel stepped up attacks on Monday in the southern city of Rafah hours after Hamas said it would accept the terms of a cease-fire plan drawn from a proposal by Egyptian and Qatari mediators.

The Israeli prime minister's office said that while the new proposal failed to meet Israel's demands, the country would still send a working-level delegation to talks in hopes of reaching an acceptable deal. Qatar also said that it would send a delegation for the talks, in Cairo.

As Israeli forces carried out strikes in eastern Rafah, the prime minister's office said that the war cabinet had decided unanimously that Israel would continue with its military actions in the city to exert pressure on Hamas. The decision, the office said, sought to advance all of Israel's war aims, including freeing hostages.

Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas official, said in an interview with Al Jazeera that the proposal Hamas was willing to accept included three phases, of 42 days each, and stressed that its main goal was a permanent cease-fire.

Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas's political wing, first described Hamas's new position in a post on the group's Telegram channel at 7:36 p.m. in Israel. His statement came hours after Israel had ordered people in part of Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, to evacuate before a promised offensive there, and a day after Hamas fired rockets near the Kerem Shalom crossing in the border region between Israel and southern Gaza, killing four soldiers.

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Mr. Haniyeh said he had told the Qatari prime minister and the chief of Egypt's General Intelligence Service that Hamas had accepted "their proposal." There was no immediate comment from Egypt.

Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, confirmed that Hamas had "issued a response" and that the United States was reviewing it with partners in the region.

Hamas negotiators had left Cairo on Sunday after talks hit an impasse and they failed to reach an agreement with mediators on Israel's most recent offer.

The main stumbling block in the indirect negotiations mediated by Qatar and Egypt has been the length of the cease-fire. Hamas has demanded a permanent cease-fire, which would in effect end the seven-month war, while Israel wants a temporary halt in fighting that would allow for the exchange of hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners.

Mr. al-Hayya, who has been leading Hamas delegations at in-person talks in Cairo, said the new offer also included a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the return of displaced people to their homes and a "real and serious" swap of hostages for Palestinian prisoners.

In its most recent proposal, Israel made some concessions, including agreeing to the return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza and reducing the number of hostages it would accept being freed in the initial phase of an agreement.

The Israeli military's chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said at a news briefing on Monday evening: "We examine each response and reply in a very serious matter, and maximize every opportunity in the negotiations to secure the release of the hostages as a core mission." But he said that at the same time, Israeli forces would "continue operating" in Gaza.

The Israeli military ordered the evacuation of over 100,000 Palestinians from parts of Rafah on Monday morning. Israeli leaders have vowed for months to invade the city in order to root out Hamas forces there, prompting international concern for the safety of the 1.4 million people sheltering there.

Michael Crowley and Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting.