Israel-Hamas war: Israeli team in Cairo to assess truce deal

The US military has completed construction of a temporary pier and causeway that will be used to deliver aid to Gaza by sea. However, plans to move it into place have been put on hold due to weather conditions and other logistical challenges.

"As of today, the construction of the two portions of the JLOTS — the floating pier and the Trident pier — are complete and awaiting final movement offshore," Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said, using an acronym for Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, the official name for the pier capability.

Singh says the US hopes to install the pier and causeway later this week, if the weather permits. Now, high winds and swells are making it too dangerous for the US military to install the pier on the Gaza beach.

Meanwhile, humanitarian aid is being loaded onto a large container ship, the Sagamore, in Cyprus, for eventual delivery to Gaza, Singh said.

The US has been told that the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza will reopen on Wednesday, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said.

UN and other international aid agencies said closing the two crossings into southern Gaza, Rafah and Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom, had effectively cut off the enclave from outside aid.

The White House called the closure of border crossings into Gaza "unacceptable."

"The crossings that have been closed need to be reopened, it is unacceptable for them to be closed," Jean-Pierre told a briefing.

German police are evicting pro-Palestinian activists who occupied the main lecture hall at the University of Leipzig.

According to the university, about 50 to 60 people occupied the lecture hall and courtyard of the university's downtown campus on Tuesday afternoon.

The University of Leipzig said on Tuesday it had decided to evict the protesters and informed the police who subsequently began an operation against the protesters.

"We will not tolerate the violent disruption of teaching activities and the seizure of university premises," the university said in a statement, saying that the protest posed a threat to the safety of students and faculty.

The clearance of the Leipzig occupation came hours after German police broke up a pro-Palestinian student protest that took place early Tuesday at Berlin's Freie Universität.

Around 150 activists from the group "Student Coalition Berlin" occupied the university's courtyard with tents on Tuesday morning.

Israel has said its military operation in Rafah will be limited in scope, but Marina Miron — a researcher at the War Studies Department at King's College London — told DW that this is more of a diplomatic statement than an actual description of such an operation.

What Israel is trying to say is that it will try "to avoid collateral damage," Miron said, adding that it will be a very difficult operation given the presence of so many Palestinians, most of whom have nowhere to go.

"What Israel is trying to do now is to get itself into a better bargaining position vis-a-vis Hamas," she said.

Miron added that Israel hopes this limited operation in Rafah could create enough pressure on Hamas by threatening the full-scale operation so that the talks in Cairo go in Israel's favor.

But if talks fail, "Israel will have no other choice but to go into Rafah to reach its own military objectives because rooting out Hamas will require them to take Rafah," Miron said.

US President Joe Biden's administration is holding up shipments of two types of precision bombs to Israel to send a political message, Politico reported, citing a US official.

The US has yet to sign off on a pending sale of Boeing’s Joint Direct Attack Munitions and Small Diameter Bombs, according to the unconfirmed media report.

While the Biden administration has not officially denied the potential sale, a refusal to sign off would block the delivery of the weapons.

If confirmed, this would likely be the first time the US has delayed weapons sales since October 7.

The US government has repeatedly spoken out against Israel's planned offensive in Rafah.

A team of Israeli negotiators has arrived in Cairo for talks on a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of hostages, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday evening.

He said he had instructed the Israeli delegation to "stand firm on the conditions necessary for the release" of Israeli hostages held in Gaza since Hamas's October 7 attack, and on "essential requirements for guaranteeing Israel's security."

The team's goal is to assess whether the Islamist Palestinian group Hamas can be persuaded to change its latest cease-fire offer, a senior Israeli official told Reuters earlier.

"This delegation is made up of mid-level envoys. Were there a credible deal in the offing, the principals would be heading the delegation," the official said.

Hamas said on Monday it had accepted a truce plan proposed by mediators Egypt and Qatar.

The team's arrival in the Egyptian capital came hours after Israeli tanks took control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for crossings into Gaza to be reopened immediately to allow in essential aid, urging Israel to "stop any escalation" after it sent tanks into Rafah.

The Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza from Israel has been closed since Sunday following Hamas rocket attacks that killed four Israeli soldiers. Meanwhile, the UN said Israeli authorities have denied it access to the Rafah crossing which has also been closed.

"Things are moving in the wrong direction. I am disturbed and distressed by the renewed military activity in Rafah by the Israel Defense Forces," Guterres said.

"The closure of both the Rafah and Karem Shalom crossings is especially damaging to an already dire humanitarian situation. They must be re-opened immediately."

"I urge the Government of Israel to stop any escalation, and engage constructively in the ongoing diplomatic talks," Guterres said.

"Make no mistake — a full-scale assault on Rafah will be a human catastrophe."

Germany has warned against a "major offensive" in Rafah after Israel sent tanks into the southern Gazan city. 

Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also called for crossings into the territory to be reopened.

"I warn against a major offensive on Rafah," Baerbock said on X, formerly Twitter. 

"A million people cannot simply vanish into thin air. They need protection. They need more humanitarian aid urgently... the Rafah and Kerem Shalom border crossings must immediately be reopened."

Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the confusion over a cease-fire in Gaza has made the situation for civilians there as desperate as ever.

Hamas said on Monday that it had accepted a truce deal proposal put forward by Egypt and Qatar, but Israel has not committed to the deal and said it would continue its operations in Rafah for the time being.

Laerke said people's hopes had been dashed, plunging them into despair. 

"This morning is one of the darkest in this seven-month-long nightmare," said Laerke. "That's because of yesterday, not least, we all saw the images of families in Gaza celebrating, kids dancing in the streets, when they first believed that, at long last, a ceasefire had been agreed to, and it was coming."

"And then, a few hours later, that was turned on its head, when they learned that, no, there's a false hope, no cease-fire, more war. One can only imagine the soul-crushing disappointment of that."

Laerke said Israel had denied OCHA access to both Rafah and Kerem Shalom, the other main Gaza aid crossing, on the border with Israel, and that there was only "one day of fuel available" inside the besieged territory.

Unless fuel was allowed in, "it would be a very effective way of putting the humanitarian operation in its grave", he warned.

Police were called in to clear a crowd of around 100 people who had occupied an area in front of one of the lecture theaters at Berlin's Freie Universität (FUB) on Tuesday.

They had placed tents and other equipment in the courtyard approaching the building. 

The FUB said in a statement that it had asked police to break up the demonstration with university president Günther Ziegler saying "This form of protest is not focused on dialogue. An occupation of FU Berlin grounds is not acceptable. We are available for an academic dialogue, but not in this manner." 

According to FUB, the protesting students had also tried to gain entry to lecture halls and other classes. 

The university has complained of material damage from earlier protests and has said it plans to press charges in some cases. 

Berlin's state senator for education, Ina Czyborra, on Tuesday, told German news agency DPA — just before news of renewed disruption — that while it was "fundamentally legitimate" to protest against the war, "not in the form of protests we saw three days ago." 

The protests follow increased international attention on the widespread demos at higher education facilities in the US that have intensified in recent weeks.

Development ministers from European Union member states were gathered in Brussels on Tuesday for talks as news of Israel's limited operations in Rafah began to come to light. 

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who was chairing the meeting, said there was "no safe zone in Gaza" for civilians to flee to. He said that the EU and the US had asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to go ahead with an assault. 

"In spite of these warnings and this request, an attack was started yesterday night," Borrell said. "I am afraid that this is going to cause again a lot of casualties, civilian casualties." 

Belgium's Development Minister Caroline Gennez said a larger-scale Israeli assault on Rafah would cross a "red line" and said that if it followed, "sanctions ... have to be on the table" in response. 

"It is very clear that international law is no longer respected in Gaza," she said. 

She called on fellow EU members to agree on a decision to "stop exporting weapons to the Middle East, to Israel and the warfaring countries." 

Jochen Flasbarth, a state secretary from Germany's Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, said "the situation is dramatic and continues to worsen" in Gaza and called the humanitarian situation in the territory "appalling."

Egypt's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday issued a statement criticizing the Israeli military operations on the Palestinian side of its border crossing with Gaza. 

The ministry said the operations constituted a "dangerous escalation threatening the lives of more than a million Palestinians who depend mainly on this crossing as it is the main lifeline of the Gaza Strip."

Cairo warned that the operations could endanger ongoing negotiations, which Egypt is helping to broker, seeking a cease-fire and hostage-release deal.

"The Arab Republic of Egypt calls on the Israeli side to exercise the utmost levels of restraint and to avoid a policy of brinkmanship that has a long-term impact and that would threaten the fate of the strenuous efforts made to reach a sustainable truce inside the Gaza Strip," the Foreign Ministry said. 

It said it would call on international partners to try to intervene and exert what diplomatic influence or pressure they could.

A spokesman for the UN's humanitarian OCHA agency told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday that the group did not have access to the closed Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt.

"We currently do not have any physical presence at the Rafah crossing as our access ... has been denied by COGAT," Jens Laerke said, using the acronym for the Israeli government agency that oversees supplies into the Palestinian territories. 

Israel has said that another border crossing at Kerem Shalom was also closed but that it would reopen once the security situation allows. It described the operation in Rafah as having a "very limited scope."  

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, had on Monday warned that Israel's "evacuation orders for East Rafah will only exacerbate civilians' suffering."

It also noted on Monday the importance of the Rafah crossing for its own operations. 

"Until now, all fuel entering Gaza comes through the Rafah crossing. Any disruption of this fuel supply would halt our humanitarian work," it said.

Daniel Gerlach, editor-in-chief of the German Zenith quarterly magazine focusing on the Middle East, told DW on Tuesday that he believed the most likely sticking point in negotiations would be efforts to "disguise" or otherwise portray what would, in essence, be a "permanent" cease-fire in Gaza in such a way that Israel's government would accept it. 

He said he found it difficult to believe Monday's mixed messages were the result of a diplomatic blunder and that, instead, he suspected a strategy. 

"It's quite difficult to imagine that the CIA Director Bill Burns — who has spent some time now in the Middle East, in Qatar and in Egypt, and who is responsible for negotiating this deal — made a mistake or unclear communication with the Israelis," he said. 

"So I think everyone knows what it comes down to," Gerlach continued. "It's the question if Israel is able and willing to accept — in exchange for the hostages — a permanent ceasefire, whatever they may call it. And I think that's the target of the negotiators."

Gerlach argued this would be difficult for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept because "then he would not reach his goal to eliminate Hamas and he would not satisfy his coalition partners."

"And he would probably have to step down as Prime Minister of Israel."

Meanwhile, he said that for Hamas, the idea of releasing the hostages without an assurance of a permanent cease-fire was not acceptable. 

"Of course, the Hamas leadership knows that for them, the hostages are the only way they can still they can protect literally their lives, and that's the only leverage they have. So they would, of course, not agree to that," he said. 

An offer for a cease-fire in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages had been on the table, awaiting a response from Hamas, for well over a week now amid slow talks in Cairo and elsewhere. 

Germany, the US and others had repeatedly urged Hamas to issue a response, saying only their agreement was lacking.

On Monday, however, as Israel warned its action would soon commence in parts of Rafah, Hamas said it had accepted "a proposal" put forward by Egyptian and Qatari mediators. It did not make it clear whether this was "the" proposal already in play for some time. 

At least according to the Israeli government, it was a different proposal and not one it could accept in its current form. 

Israel said it would probably send a delegation to continue cease-fire talks but also that its operations in Rafah would continue. 

Meanwhile, late on Monday in Tel Aviv, thousands of people took part in what have become regular protests demanding the hostages' immediate return and calling on the Israeli government to reconsider its military actions. 

Around 1,000 people gathered near Israel's military headquarters, chanting slogans like "Deal now!" They marched on towards the home of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, carrying a banner reading: "The blood is on your hands."