Israel has said it will begin an assault on Rafah if Hamas does not release the remaining hostages it holds in Gaza by the beginning of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan – expected to be on 10 March. It comes as the EU became the latest to warn that such an offensive would create a humanitarian disaster.

Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet, said: “The world must know, and Hamas leaders must know: if by Ramadan our hostages are not home, the fighting will continue everywhere, to include the Rafah area.”

Israel’s military said it had struck Khan Younis on Monday, where it has focused its war on Hamas in recent weeks. An assault on Rafah – the last refuge for Palestinians in Gaza – would mean pushing further south. Health officials in Hamas-run Gaza say that more than 29,000 people have been killed by an Israeli aerial bombardment, ground operations and a blockade that was started in response to a bloody Hamas attack inside Israel that killed around 1,200 people and saw 250 more taken hostage.

Up to 1.5 million of Gaza's population of 2.3m are now sheltering in Rafah, a city on the southern edge of the enclave. Many have fled other areas of Gaza as Israeli forces have moved south.

“An attack on Rafah would be absolutely catastrophic ... it would be unconscionable,” Ireland’s Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said before a meeting with foreign ministers from the 27 EU member states in Brussels.

After the talks ended, the bloc’s top diplomat Josep Borrell said 26 of the EU’s 27 countries agreed to a statement warning against any attack on Rafah and calling for “an immediate humanitarian pause that would lead to a sustainable ceasefire, to the unconditional release of hostages, and to the provision of humanitarian assistance”.

Mr Borrell did not name the country that did not agree to the text but diplomats told Reuters that Hungary blocked a similar statement a few days ago.

Mr Borrell said it would be impossible to prevent civilian deaths given the sheer numbers currently in Rafah. “We have to continue putting pressure on Israel to make them understand that there are so many people in the streets of Rafah, it will be impossible to avoid civilian casualties,” he said. A number of nations, including Israel’s staunchest ally the US, have warned against a military offensive inside Rafah, with Palestinians having no other place to turn.

Also on Monday, the Israeli military released footage which it said showed Israeli woman Shiri Bibas and her two small children being moved by Palestinian militants in Gaza shortly after the family was kidnapped in southern Israel in the Hamas attack on 7 October.

The security camera footage showed what appeared to be a young woman carrying a child on her shoulder as she was wrapped in a long, light-coloured covering in the yard of a building and transferred into a car. The army said the footage was recovered a few days ago and came from Khan Younis. It said the images showed Shiri Bibas as well as her sons Ariel, who was aged four when he was kidnapped, and Kfir, the youngest hostage seized, who was nine months old at the time.

“The footage shows the terrorists wrapping Shiri and her babies in a sheet, trying to hide them,” chief military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told a news briefing, adding that the footage came from the day of their abduction.

“From the information available to us, we are concerned for the wellbeing of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir,” he said.

The Bibas family released a statement calling for their immediate release. “We desperately call on all decision makers in Israel and worldwide involved in negotiations: Bring them home immediately,” the family said.

It comes as 14 patients were evacuated from the last major hospital in southern Gaza, Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, which has been raided by Israeli troops. The UN agency the World Health Organisation (WHO) said over the weekend that the hospital had ceased to function following an Israeli raid. Israel’s military denies that its raid has forced the hospital offline.

“There are still more than 180 patients and 15 doctors and nurses inside Nasser,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus later said in a post on Twitter/X.

“The hospital is still experiencing an acute shortage of food, basic medical supplies, and oxygen. There is no tap water and no electricity, except a back-up generator maintaining some lifesaving machines,” he said, urging Israel to allow safe and sustained access to Nasser to continue lifesaving efforts.

Meanwhile, at the UN’s top court in The Hague, a week of hearings started on a request from the UN General Assembly for a non-binding opinion on the legality of Israel’s occupation of lands sought for a possible Palestinian state. The request was made to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2022.

Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem – areas which the Palestinians want for a state – in a 1967 war and has since built settlements in the occupied West Bank and steadily expanded them.

Palestinian representatives asked judges to declare Israel’s occupation illegal. “We call on you to confirm that Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is illegal,” Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian representative to the United Nations, said.

“A finding from this distinguished court ... would contribute to bringing [occupation] to an immediate end, paving a way to a just and lasting peace,” he said. “A future in which no Palestinians and no Israelis are killed. A future in which two states live side by side in peace and security.”

The ICJ’s 15-judge panel has been asked to review Israel’s “occupation, settlement and annexation ... including measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and from its adoption of related discriminatory legislation and measures.”

Israel is not attending the hearings but sent a five-page written statement published by the court in which it said an advisory opinion would be “harmful” to attempts to resolve the conflict because the questions posed by the UN General Assembly were prejudiced.

The judges are expected to take months to issue an opinion.

White House warns Israel: Rafah fight would be a disaster

Palestinian crowds struggle to buy bread from a bakery in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Sunday, Feb. 18, 2024. International aid agencies say Gaza is suffering from shortages of food, medicine and other basic supplies as a result of the war between Israel and Hamas.

The White House continues to warn Israel against expanding its offensive into Rafah, the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip.

National Security spokesperson John Kirby said Tuesday that if Israel’s military doesn’t properly account for the safety of Palestinian refugees there, “an operation in Rafah would be a disaster.”

The war began when Hamas-led militants rampaged into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostage. About a fourth of some 130 captives still being held are believed to be dead. Israel has laid waste to much of the Palestinian territory in response. Gaza’s health ministry estimates more than 29,000 Palestinians have been killed.

More than half of the territory’s 2.3 million people have sought refuge in Rafah, many crowding into sprawling tent camps and overflowing U.N. shelters near the Egyptian border.

Top Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was in Cairo on Tuesday as the U.S., Egypt and Qatar try to mediate another cease-fire so that aid can flow and hostages can be released, but there were no expectations of a breakthrough.

Here's the latest:

QATAR SAYS HAMAS IS DELIVERING MEDICATION TO ISRAELI HOSTAGES

The Qatari Foreign Ministry said Hamas has started delivering medication for the approximately 100 hostages held in Gaza, a month after the medications arrived in Gaza.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Dr. Majed Al-Ansari said Tuesday evening that Hamas confirmed they had begun to deliver the medications to the hostages in exchange for medicines and humanitarian aid for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

France and Qatar mediated a deal in January for the shipment of medicine for dozens of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. The deal was the first agreement between Israel and the militant group since a weeklong cease-fire in November, but there was no evidence that the medications had arrived.

France said it took months to organize the shipment of the medicines. Qatar, which has long served as a mediator with Hamas, helped broker the deal that will provide three months’ worth of medication for chronic illnesses for 45 of the hostages, as well as other medicine and vitamins.

UN WORLD FOOD PROGRAM SUSPENDS AID IN NORTHERN GAZA

The United Nations’ World Food Program announced a pause in food and aid deliveries to northern Gaza on Tuesday after its drivers faced gunfire and violence from desperate residents swarming the trucks.

The convoys “faced complete chaos and violence due to the collapse of civil order,” according to a statement from the program. WFP had attempted to resume aid deliveries in northern Gaza after a three-week pause following an Israeli strike on an aid convoy.

In a rare public criticism of Israel, a top U.S. envoy, David Satterfield, said this week that its targeted killings of Gaza police commanders guarding truck convoys have made it “virtually impossible” to distribute the goods safely.

The WFP said 1 in 6 children under age 2 are acutely malnourished and people are dying of hunger-related causes.

“In these past two days our teams witnessed unprecedented levels of desperation,” the WFP said.

Hamas’ government media office described the WFP decision as a “death sentence” for hundreds of thousands of people in northern Gaza. It called on all UN agencies to return and avert “catastrophic consequences of the famine” there.

HOUTHI REBEL STRIKES ON RED SEA SHIPPING COSTING US MILLIONS

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels are still able to launch attacks in a crucial Red Sea corridor despite a month of U.S.-led airstrikes.

The rebels claimed more attacks Tuesday night after seriously damaging a ship and apparently downing an American drone worth tens of millions of dollars in recent days. The U.S. shot down 10 bomb-carrying Houthi drones, as well as a cruise missile heading toward a U.S. destroyer over the last day, Central Command said Tuesday. The U.S. military also targeted a Houthi surface-to-air missile launcher and a drone prior to its launch.

The Houthi have said they aim to prevent Israeli ships from navigating the Red Sea until Israel ends its war in the Gaza Strip, even though few of the ships targeted have any direct links to Israel. Their guerrilla-style attacks show the difficulty of suppressing asymmetrical warfare, and the U.S.-led campaign to protect the shipping route has boosted the rebels’ standing in the Arab world.

So far, no U.S. sailor or pilot has been wounded, but the U.S. continues to lose drones worth tens of millions of dollars and fire off million-dollar cruise missiles to counter the Houthis, who are using far-cheaper weapons that experts believe largely have been supplied by Iran.

Based off U.S. military’s statements, American and allied forces have destroyed at least 73 missiles before they were launched, as well as 17 drones, 13 bomb-laden drone boats and one underwater explosive drone, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Those figures don’t include the initial Jan. 11 joint U.S.-U.K. strikes that began the monthlong campaign. The American military also has shot down dozens of missiles and drones already airborne as well since November.

BRITAIN'S PRINCE WILLIAM LAMENTS ‘SHEER SCALE OF HUMAN SUFFERING’

LONDON — Prince William, the heir to the British throne, called Tuesday for an end to fighting in the Gaza Strip as soon as possible, lamenting the “terrible human cost” since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel and the “desperate need for increased humanitarian support for Gaza.”

William stopped short of calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza as the House of Commons prepares for a vote on that issue on Wednesday. The message, written in white on a black background, was placed under William’s cypher on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Sometimes it is only when faced with the sheer scale of human suffering that the importance of permanent peace is brought home,’’ William said.

William used careful language focused on universal humanity rather than taking sides. The prince plans to meet with aid workers active in the region and, separately, join a discussion at a synagogue with young people of different faiths who are fighting antisemitism.

“Even in the darkest hour, we must not succumb to the counsel of despair,″ William said. “I continue to cling to the hope that a brighter future can be found and I refuse to give up on that.”

US VETOES ARAB-BACKED UN CEASE-FIRE RESOLUTION

The U.S. vetoed an Arab-backed U.N. resolution Tuesday demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war in the embattled Gaza Strip.

The vote in the Security Council reflected wide global support for ending the more than four-month war that started with Hamas’ surprise invasion of southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and saw 250 others taken hostage. Israel's military response has killed more than 29,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority are women and children.

It was the third U.S. veto of a Security Council resolution demanding a cease-fire in Gaza.

In a surprise move ahead of the vote, the U.S. circulated a rival U.N. Security Council resolution that would support a temporary cease-fire in Gaza linked to the release of all hostages, and call for the lifting of all restrictions on the delivery of humanitarian aid. Both of these actions “would help to create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities,” the draft resolution obtained by the AP says.

U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood told several reporters Monday that the Arab-backed resolution is not “an effective mechanism for trying to do the three things that we want to see happen — which is get hostages out, more aid in, and a lengthy pause to this conflict.”

UN AID AGENCY SAYS ISRAEL HASN'T SHOWN EVIDENCE ITS WORKERS JOINED RAMPAGE

JERUSALEM — The head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees says the United Nations still has not received any evidence from Israel supporting its claims that 12 of the agency’s employees participated in the Oct. 7 rampage that sparked the war.

Israel released a document last month identifying the 12 workers along with the allegations against them and accusing some of participating in kidnappings. But it has released little of the evidence collected against the workers.

The allegations prompted key donors, including the U.S., to suspend funding to the main provider of aid in Gaza.

Philippe Lazzarini, the director of UNRWA, has dismissed the 10 surviving workers; the agency says the other two were killed in fighting. The U.N. has also opened two investigations. But in a podcast Tuesday, Lazzarini said Israel still has not presented formal evidence to the U.N.

“The UN has never, never, ever received any written dossier, despite our repeated call for cooperation from the Israeli authorities,” he said, asking that anyone with evidence share it with the investigation team.

Israel has long accused UNRWA of tolerating Hamas activities in and around U.N. facilities and in some cases even cooperating with the militant group. Lazzarini has denied this and says his agency has safeguards to discipline any employee who violates the U.N. ideals of neutrality.

UNICEF SAYS 1 IN 6 CHILDREN ARE ACUTELY MALNOURISHED IN NORTHERN GAZA

One in six children are acutely malnourished in the isolated and largely devastated northern Gaza, according to a UNICEF study, while Israel has vowed to expand its five-month offensive against Hamas to the enclave’s southernmost city of Rafah.

The report by the Global Nutrition Cluster says more than 90% of children under 5 in Gaza eat two or fewer food groups a day, known as severe food poverty. A similar percentage are affected by infectious diseases, with 70% experiencing diarrhea in the last two weeks. More than 80% of homes lack clean and safe water, with the average household having 1 liter (1 quart) per person per day.

The U.N. Security Council is set to vote on a U.N. resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire Tuesday, but the U.S. said it would veto it because it’s trying to arrange a deal on its own that would bring a truce and the release of hostages held by Hamas.

The number of Palestinians killed during the war in Gaza has risen to 29,195, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not distinguish between civilian and combatant casualties in its count. A quarter of Gaza’s residents are starving. About 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and around 250 abducted in Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7 that sparked the war.

WHO SAYS 32 CRITICAL PATIENTS TRANSFERRED FROM SOUTHERN GAZA

GENEVA — The World Health Organization says 32 patients in critical condition have been transferred from Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza to the European Gaza Hospital to the north and field hospitals over the last two days.

The U.N. health agency said Tuesday that four Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulances carried out the transfers after Nasser became “non-functional” following a weeklong siege and a military raid on the complex on Wednesday.

“Nasser Hospital has no electricity or running water, and medical waste and garbage are creating a breeding ground for disease,” WHO said in a statement. Some 130 sick and injured patients and at least 15 doctors and nurses remain inside the hospital.

WHO reiterated its call that medical personnel, patients, health infrastructure and civilians should be protected and that hospitals must not be militarized or attacked.

“The dismantling and degradation of the Nasser Medical Complex is a massive blow to Gaza’s health system,” WHO said. “Facilities in the south are already operating well beyond maximum capacity and are barely able to receive more patients.

LEBANESE WAREHOUSE HIT IN ISRAELI STRIKE BURNS FOR THE SECOND DAY

GHAZIEH, Lebanon — Firefighters in southern Lebanon were still battling a diesel fuel fire in a warehouse that was destroyed by Israeli jets.

The Israeli military’s Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee said the attack Monday targeted a weapons warehouse belonging to the militant group Hezbollah.

The strike that wounded 14 people was one of the largest near a major Lebanese city since clashes between the Israeli military and Hezbollah along the Lebanese-Israeli border erupted after the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7.

Mohamad Khalifa, the owner of the warehouse, denied that the facility belonged to Hezbollah.

“This is a company registered for 11 years that works with electricity generators, open from morning until night, receiving customers all day,” he told the AP. “There is nothing hidden here. The claim that this has weapons is a lie.”