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As Israel appears to begin its long-feared assault on Rafah in the Gaza Strip, the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has warned that the consequences for the hundreds of thousands sheltering there could be dire.
Speaking to the press, Borrell described the blockage of a ceasefire deal that was first accepted by Hamas before being shunned by Israel as "sad news".
"Hamas accepted, Israel rejected, and the land offensive against Rafah has started again," Borrell said, "in spite of all the requests of the international community, the US, the European Union member states, everybody asking Netanyahu not to attack Rafah. In spite of these warning and these requests, the attack started yesterday night."
Israel appears to be pushing towards a full-blown offensive in Rafah despite ever more serious warnings from even its top international allies, including the US. It confirmed overnight that its forces had taken "operational control" of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
The Israeli military previously warned civilians to evacuate to the city in the south of the Gaza Strip ahead of its offensive in the north, but even areas that were declared safe have seen devastating airstrikes and land attacks by Israeli forces.
IDF strikes targets in Rafah despite Hamas accepting ceasefire proposal As Israel's Rafah ground offensive looms, EU leaders make last-ditch calls for restraint
Some 1.4 million people are now effectively trapped in Rafah with little to no chance of escape.
The obstruction of food and medical aid, along with the destruction of medical facilities, has exacerbated the humanitarian impact of the offensive, which Israel claims is necessary for the destruction of Hamas as a fighting force.
"I am afraid that this is going to cause again a lot of casualties, civilian casualties," Borrell told the assembled journalists. "Whatever they say, there are 600,000 children in Gaza. They will be pushed to the so-called 'safe zones'. There are no safe zones in Gaza."
"And the ministers will discuss about how to increase our support. But on the next Council [of the EU], the political dimension of this crisis will be once again taken into consideration."
Help on the way
Borrell also said that he hoped to see the full resumption of European financial support to UNRWA, the foremost UN agency helping displaced Palestinians, after many backers halted their payments to it over reports a handful of its staff were involved in Hamas' 7 October massacre last year.
A recent UN-commissioned review led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna found that the organisation has robust processes to enforce staff neutrality and displays "a more developed approach to neutrality than other similar UN or NGO entities".
"Now the Colonna report is there, I don't see any reason for not starting again the payments, the full payments, to UNRWA," Borrell said.
"UNRWA is a critical institution for the support to hundreds of thousands, to millions, of people, and the idea of cutting funding to UNRWA has no basis."
EU to continue funding UNRWA as it probes alleged staff involvement in Oct 7 attacks The UNRWA case reveals a much larger problem with humanitarian aid
Borrell declined to discuss the possibility of the EU imposing sanctions in response to a full-blown offensive but did not hold back from warning about the likely consequences.
"I cannot anticipate the humanitarian losses that this will create," he said. "It is clear they will continue the war, will produce a greater humanitarian crisis, which is bigger than what it is already. Let’s see how we can try to mitigate the consequences of this situation."
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Polish prosecutors have ended an investigation into human skeletons found at a site where German dictator Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders spent time during World War II because their advanced decay made it impossible to determine the cause of death, a spokesperson said Monday.
The remains were found on 24 February at Wolf's Lair, which served as Hitler's main headquarters for the Eastern Front between 1941-44, when Poland was occupied by Germany. The discovery sparked interest in the identity of those found, yet further investigation failed due to the conditions of the remains and the passage of time.
The spokesman for the prosecutor's office in the nearby town of K？trzyn, Daniel Brodowski, said police officers secured the remains after they were found by a local group, Latebra, which searches for historical objects.
A forensic medical expert examined them under the supervision of the prosecutor's office, which was trying to determine if manslaughter had occurred. Brodowski said in a statement that the investigation was discontinued in late March due to a lack of evidence that a crime had been committed.
"The expert stated that the preserved bone remains were of human origin and came from at least four people, three of whom were most likely middle-aged men, and the fourth was a child several years of age whose sex cannot be determined," Brodowski wrote.
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Hidden in deep woods, the compound consisted of about 200 Nazi bunkers and military barracks. At its peak, some 2,000 people lived there, including food tasters meant to prevent Hitler from being poisoned.
Notably, the Wolf's Lair was the site of the failed assassination attempt on Hitler by Colonel Claus Stauffenberg and others on 20 July 1944, known as Operation Valkyrie. The site is now a tourist attraction.
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The UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi is in Iran seeking tougher checks on the country's nuclear programme.
The IAEA faces increasing difficulty in monitoring the Islamic Republic's rapidly advancing nuclear programme, exacerbated by tensions across the wider Middle East over the Israel-Hamas war.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi on the purpose of his Iran trip
Grossi has already warned that Tehran has enough uranium enriched to near-weapons-grade levels to make "several" nuclear bombs.
He has acknowledged the agency can't guarantee that none of Iran's centrifuges may have been peeled away for secret enrichment.
But the head of Iran's atomic energy organisation said that cooperation with the IAEA and adherence to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty "tops the policies and strategy of the Islamic Republic."
"22 per cent of IAEA inspections are done in Iran. This amount of inspections has never been done in any country throughout history," said Mohammad Eslami.
But in keeping with officials who have always maintained Iran's nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes, added that Tehran "will expand nuclear technology with determination."
But Iran has limited the IAEA's ability to conduct proper checks on its nuclear activities and the UN agency faces several challenges from Tehran's failure to explain uranium traces found at undeclared sites to barring almost all the IAEA's top enrichment experts.
Landmark deal
The landmark nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was signed by Iran, mostly Western countries, and the European Union in 2015.
That agreement saw Iran receive sanctions relief in return for placing limits on its nuclear activities, particularly the degree to which it enriches uranium.
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi speaks during his meeting with Iran's Foreign Minister in Tehran, May 6, 2024 AP/Copyright 2024 The AP. All rights reserved
But the deal was derailed in 2018 when then-president Donald Trump withdrew the United States from it, slamming it as "the worst deal in history".
The White House then slapped a raft of new sanctions back on Iran, adopting a 'maximum pressure' campaign in a bid to force the country to limit its nuclear activities.
That campaign had the opposite effect, driving Iran further from its JCPOA commitments. Iran has since started exceeding agreed-upon limits of enriched uranium and developed new centrifuges.