Middle East updates: Israel marks muted Memorial Day

Israeli protesters blocked aid trucks headed for Gaza.

Four protesters, including a minor, were arrested at the protest at the Tarqumiya checkpoint in the occupied West Bank.

A video published on social media showed the protesters throwing supplies from the trucks onto the ground.

"The aid that the State of Israel transfers goes directly into the hands of Hamas," the Order 9 group that organized the protests said in a statement.

Last week, four people were arrested in southern Israel after a similar protest.

The US State Department said it was aware of the reports and had raised it with Israeli officials.

"It is our strong view that aid in Gaza cannot and must not be interfered with," State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said at a press briefing. "We have raised this with Israel and we expect them to take appropriate action."

Israel has faced international pressure to increase the flow of aid into the Gaza Strip, which international organizations have warned is facing a severe humanitarian crisis.

The United Nations' agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said nearly 360,000 people have fled the southern Gazan city of Rafah since the Israeli army issued the first evacuation orders a week ago.

"There’s nowhere to go. There’s NO safety without a cease-fire," the UNRWA said on social media.

The UNRWA added that additional bombardment and evacuation orders in the north of the Gaza Strip have contributed to further displacement of Palestinians.

The Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday that continued Israeli military operations in Gaza, and especially in the city of Rafah, could have "grave security risks."

In a phone call, Shoukry stressed to Blinken the importance of recommencing aid deliveries to Gaza after Israel seized the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing, the Egyptian foreign ministry said in a statement.

Blinken also held a phone call with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in which Blinken reiterated the US's opposition to a major ground offensive in Rafah, "where over 1 million people have taken shelter," a US State Department spokesman said.

According to Gallant's office, the two discussed "developments in Gaza, including [Israeli] operations across the strip in the face of terror hotspots, and the precise operation in the Rafah area against remaining Hamas battalions, while securing the [Rafah border] crossing."

On Sunday, Blinken told US broadcaster NBC that Washington had not seen any credible Israeli plan to protect civilians in Rafah and that "we also haven't seen a plan for what happens the day after this war in Gaza ends."

He added: "Israel is on the trajectory, potentially, to inherit an insurgency with many armed Hamas left or, if it leaves, a vacuum filled by chaos, filled by anarchy and probably refilled by Hamas. We've already seen Hamas returning to zones which Israel has liberated in the north, even in Khan Younis."

Egypt has issued its strongest objection yet to the Rafah offensive, saying it intends to formally join South Africa's case at the International Court of Justice alleging Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

"The announcement of the intervention in this case comes in light of the expansion in scope and scale of Israeli violations against civilians in Gaza," said Egypt's Foreign Ministry on Sunday.

There were no details about what the intervention at the top UN court would entail, although Egypt has in the past presented arguments in the case.

The Reuters news agency, citing Egyptian security sources, said officials had relayed to Israel that they blamed its actions for strained bilateral relations and the breakdown of cease-fire talks among delegations from Hamas, Israel, the US, Egypt and Qatar. The talks were being held in Cairo.

Israeli tanks under heavy cover from air and ground have pushed further into the town of Jabalia in northern Gaza, according to residents and the Hamas militant Islamist group. 

Jabalia is home to the largest of Gaza's eight refugee camps. Residents said tank shells were landing in the center of the camp and that clusters of houses had been destroyed in airstrikes. 

Camp residents and medics said several people had been killed and wounded in a series of airstrikes on the camp overnight.

Medical personnel said they had not been able to send teams to bombed areas because of the intense bombardment. 

Fighting has resumed in the north of Gaza, months after Israel said it had dismantled the Hamas command structure there. 

As well as Jabalia, Gaza City's Zeitoun neighborhood has also been a focus of battles.

More Palestinians have been leaving the city where they sought refuge in the Gaza Strip, as Israeli forces pushed deeper into the southern city of Rafah.

Israel has warned civilians there to go to what it calls an "expanded humanitarian area" in Al-Mawasi, further north and on the coast.

Rafah is considered Hamas' last stronghold, although Israeli troops have said they are still fighting the group, listed as a terror organization, in several countries.

Some 300,000 of the more than 1 million civilians sheltering in the city have already fled after the evacuation order from Israel, which has said it needs to invade to dismantle Hamas and seek to return scores of hostages taken from Israel in the October 7 attacks.

United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk has said he does not believe that a full-scale invasion of Rafah could be reconciled with international humanitarian law.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has repeated his opposition to a major offensive in Rafah. He told US broadcaster CBS that Israel would "be left holding the bag on an enduring insurgency" without an exit from Gaza and with no postwar governance plan.

Israel is marking its Memorial Day, the annual commemoration in honor of fallen soldiers and civilian victims of attacks.

The period of reflection began on Sunday as sirens sounded across Israel at 8 p.m. local time (1700 GMT/UTC) to mark the start of Memorial Day.

The commemoration opened with an official ceremony on Sunday, with smaller events planned at military cemeteries across the country on Monday. 

"Tonight, we have no peace, and there is no silence," Israeli President Isaac Herzog said at a ceremony at Jerusalem's Western Wall, the holiest site for Jews to pray.

In a Memorial Day speech, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue fighting until victory.

The solemnity ends with the fanfare of Independence Day, starting on Monday evening. The juxtaposition of the two days is intended to highlight the link between Israel's costly wars and its founding in 1948, as well as its subsequent survival.

The year, Memorial Day comes with memories of the October 7 attacks by Hamas in southern Israel still strong. 

The attacks killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, with Islamist militants taking another 250 hostage. Hamas, listed as a terrorist organization in the United States and European Union, as well as by other governments, still hold about 100 captives and the remains of more than 30 people who have been reported dead.

On Sunday, Gaza's Hamas-controlled Health Ministry said the death toll among Palestinians in Gaza from Israel's bombardment and offensive had risen above 35,000.

Palestinians look upon the creation of Israel as the "Nakba," or catastrophe, marking a time when hundreds of thousands of people were expelled from their homes.

rc/rm (Reuters, AFP, dpa, AP)