Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator
Dozens of Palestinians were killed across Gaza as Israeli warplanes and artillery attacked overnight, following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's order to seize the Rafah border crossing in Gaza.
Israeli warplanes dropped leaflets in eastern Rafah telling people to flee and move to what Israel called a humanitarian zone to the north, as the Israeli military bombarded the area.
Israel has told Gazans to move to a coastal section of Gaza for months. But the UN has said it is neither safe nor equipped to receive them.
Rafah, a city of around 170,000 before the war, has swollen to more than one million as Gazans driven from their homes in other parts of the enclave have taken shelter there. Conditions there are catastrophic, with inadequate shelter, sanitation, medical care, food and fuel.
A hospital in Deir Al Balah in central Gaza said it received 24 bodies, and reports of the heaviest assault are in the central and eastern areas of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, with air strikes in the south and the vicinity of the Rafah crossing.
Netanyahu said the Israeli military would proceed with an assault on Rafah, where it believes Hamas fighters are dug in. Tanks have sealed off eastern Rafah from the south this week, capturing and shutting the only crossing between Gaza and Egypt, a vital route for supplies.
At least seven people were killed in Israeli air strikes on dozens of houses in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip. Israel also bombed the north of the Nuseirat camp and the town of Al Zawaida in the central Gaza Strip.
Biden pauses arms to Israel and orders a report
This week, US President Joe Biden announced that his administration has "held up" at least one shipment of weapons to Israel, saying the US wouldn't transfer certain weapons to Israel if it proceeded with an assault on the city of Rafah's densely populated areas.
Immediately stopping all transfers of arms and military support would be consistent with the US's international and domestic legal obligations.
Since November, Human Rights Watch has called for the suspension of arms transfers to Israel given the real risk that weapons would be used to commit grave abuses. Providing weapons that knowingly and significantly would contribute to unlawful attacks make those providing them complicit in war crimes.
Several of the US's Western allies have already revised their policies of supplying weapons to Israel. In March, Canada announced it would cease future arms exports to Israel, while Italy and Spain also stopped.
Israel's plan for an all-out assault on Rafah has ignited one of the biggest rifts with America.
Biden ordered a report from the State Department and the Department of Defense concerning weapons to Israel.
The State Department report avoids a direct accusation, but raises the prospect that Israel may have violated humanitarian laws by failing to protect civilians in Gaza.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).