U.S. President Joe Biden has no plans to change his Israel policy following a deadly weekend strike on Gaza's Rafah -- but is not turning a "blind eye" to the plight of Palestinian civilians, the White House said Tuesday.

Gazan health authorities said 45 people were killed as a blaze tore through a camp for displaced people following the Sunday strike by Israel.

Israeli shelling and airstrikes killed at least 37 people, most of them sheltering in tents, outside the southern Gaza city of Rafah overnight and on Tuesday — pummeling the same area where strikes triggered a deadly fire days earlier in a camp for displaced Palestinians — according to witnesses, emergency workers and hospital officials.

The tent camp inferno has drawn widespread international outrage, including from some of Israel's closest allies, over the military's expanding offensive into Rafah. And in a sign of Israel's growing isolation on the world stage, Spain, Norway and Ireland formally recognized a Palestinian state on Tuesday.

Israeli tanks penetrated the heart of Rafah on Tuesday despite global outrage over a strike that set ablaze a crowded camp in Gaza's far-southern city, killing 45 people according to Palestinian officials.

The former head of the Mossad, Yossi Cohen, allegedly threatened a chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in a series of secret meetings in which he tried to pressure her into abandoning a war crimes investigation, the Guardian has revealed.

Cohen’s covert contacts with the ICC’s then-prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, took place in the years leading up to her decision to open a formal investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in occupied Palestinian territories.

For the first time in over a decade, 270 Syrians traveled on a direct flight early Tuesday from Damascus to Saudi Arabia for the annual Islamic Hajj pilgrimage, the Syrian Transportation Ministry said.

The development is part of an ongoing thaw in relations between Damascus and Riyadh, which days ago appointed Saudi Arabia's first ambassador to war-torn Syria since severing ties in 2012.

A missile attack damaged a ship Tuesday in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen, with a private security firm saying radio traffic suggested the vessel took on water after being struck.

No group immediately claimed responsibility, but suspicion immediately fell on Yemen's Houthi rebels, who have launched a number of attacks targeting ships over Israel's war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

International donors led by the EU have pledged five billion euros ($5.4 billion) for Syrian refugees, as Brussels insisted they should not be "pushed back" to their war-torn homeland.

An annual gathering hosted by the EU and chaired by its foreign policy chief Josep Borrell saw the European Union commit 2.12 billion euros for 2024 and 2025.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that a "tragic mishap" was made in an Israeli strike in the southern Gaza city of Rafah that set fire to a camp housing displaced Palestinians and, according to local officials, killed at least 45 people.

The strike only added to the surging international criticism Israel has faced over its war with Hamas, with even its closest allies expressing outrage at civilian deaths. Israel insists it adheres to international law even as it faces scrutiny in the world's top courts, one of which last week demanded that it halt the offensive in Rafah.

Spain, Ireland and Norway formally recognized a Palestinian state on Tuesday in a coordinated decision slammed by Israel as a "reward" for Hamas, more than seven months into the devastating Gaza war.

The three European countries believe their initiative has strong symbolic impact that is likely to encourage others to follow suit.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Monday he was "horrified" by deadly Israeli strikes on a camp housing displaced Palestinians in Rafah, adding that the attacks "must stop immediately."