Israel-Gaza updates: 300,000 have fled Rafah, UN agency says

Thirty people, including six children and eight women, have been killed and 146 others were injured in Rafah on Tuesday, a spokesperson for Al Kuwaiti hospital in Rafah told ABC News.

People in at least six neighborhoods have started evacuating in eastern Rafah.

"With more than 1.5 million civilians crowded into this sliver of land, an Israeli military escalation threatens to turn Rafah into a graveyard. We are calling for an immediate and sustained ceasefire to prevent more civilian deaths and injuries in Gaza and enable the urgent scale-up of humanitarian aid. The survival of civilians in Gaza depends on it," Avril Benoît, executive director of Doctors Without Borders USA.

Aid groups, including the International Rescue Committee, have called on Israel to halt its ground incursion in Rafah and across Gaza, warning that civilians have no place to go.

"The dire warnings of aid groups have materialized: Israeli forces have launched a ground incursion into eastern Rafah and have taken control of the Palestinian side of the border crossing. Over a million civilians are now in imminent danger and aid flow through the Rafah crossing has halted with no aid trucks entering since May 5," said Bob Kitchen, IRC vice president of emergencies.

"Already, dozens of civilians are reported to have been killed in overnight Israeli airstrikes on Rafah City, while hundreds of thousands more remain at grave risk from the threat of further conflict and a lack of access to life-saving assistance. It is unconscionable to target such a densely populated area, leaving 1.3 million people with no safe haven," Kitchen said.

-ABC News' Ellie Kaufman and Will Gretsky

The White House expects the Kerem Shalom crossing to reopen on Wednesday, but are working to move up that timeline to get vital humanitarian assistance into northern Gaza even sooner.

“Israel has committed to reopening the Kerem Shalom,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told ABC News. “We've been told that that's going to happen tomorrow. We are working to move that up.”

“Fuel deliveries through Rafah should also commence tomorrow. That's what we've been told. And we believe Rafah border crossing should also be quickly reopened for the movement of humanitarian assistance. We are insisting that there should be no disruptions of humanitarian assistance flows," Jean-Pierre said.

Jean-Pierre would not say if the U.S. still expects the Israelis to alert them when they do plan to go ahead with a full-scale operation in Rafah, but reiterated that they do not support the IDF carrying that out.

"We do not want to see a major operation happening in Rafah. We want to see a plan, a comprehensive plan, on how Israel plans to protect the 1.5, more than 1 million civilians that are currently seeking refuge in Rafah," Jean-Pierre said.

-ABC News' Mary Bruce and Justin Gomez

Lior Rudaeff, 61, an Israeli hostage taken by Hamas, has been declared dead, after being killed in the Oct. 7 attack, the Hostage Release Center said.

Rudaeff volunteered as an ambulance driver. He was married to his wife, Yaffa, for 38 years and had four children: Noam, Nadav, Bar and Ben.

"The Israeli government has a profound moral duty to pursue every avenue in the current negotiations to bring Lior home. He deserves a dignified burial in his homeland, alongside the 38 other hostages brutally murdered. The government must also secure the swift return of all living hostages, so they can begin the long road to healing and recovery," a spokesperson for the Hostage Families Forum said in a statement Tuesday.

The bodies of 38 hostages who have been declared dead continue to be held by Hamas.

-ABC News' Will Gretsky

The White House is watching the situation that is playing out in Rafah "very, very closely," but arguing that based on what Isarel has told them, this is not equivalent to the full-scale invasion the U.S. has been warning Israel against undertaking, U.S. National Security Council Coordinator John Kirby told reporters Tuesday.

"We've been told by our Israeli counterparts this operation last night was limited and designed to cut off from Hamas' ability to smuggle weapons and funds into Gaza. Our views on Rafah remain the same. We've repeatedly and consistently expressed those views about a major operation in Rafah in densely populated areas that would give higher risk to civilians and civilian casualties," Kirby said.

"President Biden made that very clear yesterday when he spoke to Prime Minister Netanyahu as I said yesterday, and we're going to be monitoring this situation very closely to see how it unfolds," Kirby said.

Kirby was also asked if he believes that Isarel was abiding by international law, given the two main arteries to get aid into Gaza have been choked off. Kirby sidestepped the questions, underscoring the U.S. desire to get more aid into Gaza and Biden's explicit ask of Netanyahu to make sure that happens during their call Monday.

-ABC News' Molly Nagle