Gaza live: Israel's closing of Al Jazeera 'dark day for democracy'

Medics and first responders in Gaza said 16 people were killed in Israeli air strikes in the southern city of Rafah on Sunday, hours after Hamas rockets had killed three Israeli soldiers earlier in the day. 

"The toll of martyrs in Rafah reached 16," emergency first responders told AFP, adding that seven people from one family and nine from another were killed. 

Medical sources confirmed two strikes they said took place at two different locations around the city. 

Good evening, Middle East Eye readers.

Our live coverage of Israel's war on Gaza will shortly be closing for the evening.

Here are the day's major developments:

• New figures released by the Palestinian health ministry on Sunday showed the death toll in Gaza had risen to 34,683 Palestinians. Alongside the dead, the ministry said that Israeli strikes had injured 78,018 Palestinians since 7 October. 
   
• Israel's cabinet on Sunday voted to shut down Al Jazeera's operations in Israel. The closure followed months of Israeli incitement against the Qatar-based broadcaster, one of the last remaining international media networks reporting on Israel's war on Gaza from the ground.
   
• The move to close Al Jazeera was met with widespread condemnation, with the Foreign Press Association calling it a "dark day for the media" and a "dark day for democracy", Hamas saying it was a "blatant violation of press freedom", and the United Nations Human Rights Office saying "a free and independent media is essential to ensuring transparency and accountability". 
   
• Al Jazeera said in a statement: "Israel's suppression of free press to cover up its crimes by killing and arresting journalists has not deterred us from performing our duty."
   
• Senior Palestinian Authority officials have requested from mediators that Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti be excluded from a potential prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hamas, a source has told Middle East Eye.
   
• A top UN official on Sunday accused Israel of continuing to deny the United Nations humanitarian access in the Gaza Strip, where the UN food chief warned a "full-blown famine" had taken hold in the north of the enclave.
   
• The armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas claimed responsibility on Sunday for an attack on the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza that Israel said killed three of its soldiers and wounded a dozen others.
   
• An Israeli strike targeting a house in Rafah in Southern Gaza killed nine Palestinians, Gaza health officials said.
   
• Civil defence workers and a security source told Reuters that an Israeli airstrike killed four civilians in a house in a border village in southern Lebanon.
   
• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ruled out ending the war on Gaza and said he was willing to pause the fighting for the return of captives held by Hamas.
   
• A Hamas delegation has left Cairo after two days of talks with mediators over a Gaza ceasefire deal, with the head of the CIA travelling to Doha for emergency talks with Qatar's prime minister, with Gaza talks 'near to collapse', according to an official briefed on the talks.
   
• Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant accused Hamas on Sunday of showing signs it was not serious about reaching a ceasefire, and said that if so Israel would launch military actions in Rafah and other parts of the Gaza Strip "in the very near future".
   
• The United States has put on hold an ammunition shipment intended for Israel last week, Axios reported on Sunday.

An Israeli strike targeting a house in Rafah in Southern Gaza killed nine Palestinians, Gaza health officials said on Monday.

The armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas claimed responsibility on Sunday for an attack on the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza that Israel said killed three of its soldiers and wounded a dozen others.

Israel's military said 10 projectiles were launched from Rafah in southern Gaza towards the area of the crossing, which it said was now closed to aid trucks going into the coastal enclave. Other crossings remain open.

Hamas' armed wing said it fired rockets at an Israeli army base by the crossing, but did not confirm where it fired them from. Hamas media quoted a source close to the group as saying the commercial crossing was not the target.

More than a million Palestinians are sheltering in Rafah, near the border with Egypt.

Shortly after the Hamas attack, an Israeli air strike hit a house in Rafah killing three people and wounding several, Palestinian medics said.

Reporting by Reuters

A top UN official on Sunday accused Israel of continuing to deny the United Nations humanitarian access in the Gaza Strip, where the UN food chief warned a "full-blown famine" had taken hold in the north of the enclave of 2.3 million people.

While not a formal famine declaration, World Food Programme Executive Director Cindy McCain said - in an NBC News interview broadcast on Sunday - that based on the "horror" on the ground: "There is famine, full-blown famine, in the north, and it's moving its way south."

The head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa), Philippe Lazzarini, on Sunday accused Israel of continuing to deny the United Nations aid access in Gaza as it tried to avert famine.

"Only in the past two weeks, we have recorded 10 incidents involving shooting at convoys, arrests of UN staff including bullying, stripping them naked, threats with arms & long delays at checkpoints forcing convoys to move during the dark or abort," Lazzarini posted on X (formerly Twitter).

The Foreign Press Association (FPA) on Sunday condemned Israel's decision to close down Al Jazeera, calling it a 'dark day for the media' and a 'dark day for democracy'.

The closure followed months of Israeli incitement against the Qatar-based broadcaster, one of the last remaining international media networks reporting on Israel's war on Gaza from the ground. 

"With this decision, Israel joins a dubious club of authoritarian governments to ban the station," the FPA wrote in a statement.

"And the government may not be done. The prime minister has the authority to target other foreign media that he deems to be 'acting against the state'.

"We urge the government to reverse this harmful step and uphold its commitment to freedom of the press - including outlets whose coverage it may not like.

"This is a dark day for the media. This is a dark day for democracy."

The United States has put on hold an ammunition shipment intended for Israel last week, Axios reported on Sunday.

Citing two Israeli officials, the news website said the move "raised serious concerns inside the Israeli government" and sent them "scrambling to understand why the shipment was held". 

This is the first time the US has taken such a step since the Israeli war on Gaza started. 

The White House declined to comment while the Israeli Prime Minister's Office didn't immediately respond to questions, according to Axios. 

The head of the US's Central Intelligence Agency, William Burns, is travelling to Doha for emergency talks with Qatar's Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, with Gaza talks 'near to collapse', an official briefed on the talks has told Reuters.

"Burns is on his way to Doha for an emergency meeting with the Qatari prime minister aimed at exerting maximum pressure on Israel and Hamas to continue negotiating," the source added.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in telephone talks to reach a deal in negotiations with Palestinian group Hamas on a ceasefire in the Gaza war.

"The president encouraged Prime Minister Netanyahu to successfully complete these negotiations which could lead to the release of hostages, the protection of civilians through a ceasefire and regional de-escalation," the French presidency said in a statement.

Reported by AFP

A Hamas delegation has left Cairo after two days of talks with mediators over a Gaza ceasefire deal, the group said in a statement. 

The delegation will return to Doha to discuss the latest developments in the negotiations with the group's leadership. 

A source familiar with ongoing negotiations in Cairo said senior Palestinian leaders called on mediators to not include Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti in a potential prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hamas. 

The source told Middle East Eye that the request was made by Majid Faraj, director of Palestinian General Intelligence, and Hussein al-Sheikh the secretary-general of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation's executive committee. 

According to the source, the United States, one of three mediators involved in the indirect Gaza ceasefire negotiations, had reportedly agreed to remove Barghouti's name from any potential lists Hamas is expected to present.

The source added that senior PA leaders feared Barghouti's release would threaten the leadership of PA President Mahmoud Abbas. 

READ MORE: Palestinian Authority officials oppose release of Marwan Barghouti, source says

The United Nations Human Rights Office criticised Israel's decision to close Al Jazeera after the Israeli government voted to ban the news agency on Sunday. 

"We regret cabinet decision to close Al Jazeera in Israel. A free & independent media is essential to ensuring transparency & accountability," UN Human Rights Office said in a statement. 

"Now, even more so given tight restrictions on reporting from Gaza. Freedom of expression is a key human right. We urge government to overturn ban."

Israeli soldiers who recently returned from fighting in the Gaza Strip joined the raid on Al Jazeera's offices in Jerusalem on Sunday. 

Commenting on a photo of the soldiers outside the Al Jazeera offices, Shlomo Karhi, the Israeli minister of communications who led the effort to ban Al Jazeera, said on X: "Respect to our heroic warriors. No one can hurt you."

In an earlier post, Karhi said that inspectors from the Ministry of Communications, backed by police, raided the Al Jazeera offices in Jerusalem and confiscated the channel's equipment. 

Israeli police have raided the offices of Al Jazeera in Jerusalem and confiscated equipment, according to Israeli media. 

Footage posted online showed Israeli officers inside the rooms used by the Qatar-based network at Ambassador Hotel in Jerusalem.

Hamas condemned the Israeli decision to shut down Al Jazeera in its territory calling it a "blatant violation of press freedom".

In a press release, the Palestinian group said the move was repressive and retaliatory against Al Jazeera for its role in exposing Israeli crimes in Gaza. 

The closure "reveals the falsehood of the occupying entity's claim of freedom of the press" and "constitutes a grave violation and suppression of freedoms", Hamas said. 

"We strongly condemn this decision, and call on international rights and press institutions to condemn it and to take punitive measures against the Zionist entity, including cancelling its membership in international press institutions," it added.