Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians continue to flee Rafahin the southern part of the Gaza Strip, where a large-scale Israeli ground attack is threatenedwith the Israeli prime minister declaring that “a humanitarian catastrophe” had been avoided.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniya, for his part, said yesterday that the Palestinian Islamist movement, which seized power in the Gaza Strip in 2007 and which Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to wipe out, “will remain,” and that it, along with the remaining factions, will take decisions “on the post-war governance of Gaza”.
Ismail Haniya added that the future of indirect ceasefire negotiations is uncertain because Israel “insists on holding the Rafah crossing and expanding its offensive” into the Palestinian enclave.
He made the remarks during a speech broadcast live on television after more than seven months of war, on the day Palestinians remember the Nakba, the “Catastrophe,” as they describe the forced mass exodus of the Arab population after the establishment of the state. of Israel in 1948.
Many of the enclave’s residents, who are threatened with famine and have already been repeatedly forcibly displaced since the war broke out between the Israeli army and Hamas, have once again taken to the streets in search of refuge, even though “there is no safe place in Gaza”. , as the UN notes.
THE Benjamin Netanyahu insists he has been declaring for months now that he is determined to order a large-scale ground attack on Rafah, on the Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt, where he says the “last” ranks of Hamas’ military wing are holed up.
Expressing concern for the fate of the civilian population, the US, like other capitals, emphasizes that it opposes such an operation in the city, which has turned into a vast camp for displaced people.
“Disagreement” with Washington
Mr. Netanyahu assures that his country’s armed forces prevented the “humanitarian disaster” in Rafah, after “some half a million” Palestinians were “hastily removed from the battle zone”.
The Israeli armed forces have been conducting operations in eastern sectors of the city since May 7.
“76 years after the Nakba, Palestinians continue to be forcibly displaced. In the Gaza Strip, 600,000 people left Rafah after military operations intensified,” the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) underlined.
The American president Joe Biden threatened last week to restrict military aid to Israel, the US’s main ally in the Middle East, over concerns about the civilian population in Rafah. However, the US government notified Congress yesterday that it will proceed with the delivery of a package of military equipment worth approximately one billion dollars, which will include, in particular, shells for tank guns, to the Israeli armed forces.
In an interview he gave to the American television network CNBC, the Israeli prime minister acknowledged that there is a “disagreement” with the Biden administration regarding Rafa. “But we have to do what we have to do,” he insisted.
THE European Union for its part, it called on Israel to “immediately stop” operations in Rafah, warning that otherwise it would put bilateral relations to a “severe test”.
The war in the Gaza Strip is a new Nakba, Gazaios said as he left.
“The Nakba we are living (…) is the worst of all. Much harsher than 1948,” said Mohammed al-Fara, 42, who has already been forced to take his family from their home in Khan Younis (south) to escape shelling and fighting. Much of this city was reduced to ruins.
In the Nakba, approximately 760,000 Arabs in Palestine were forced into exile and sought refuge in neighboring countries or in what gradually became the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
“Intensive” battles
AFP journalists and eyewitnesses spoke of airstrikes, artillery strikes and fighting in Rafah, Jabalia (north) and Zaitouna suburb of Gaza City.
Hamas spoke of clashes with Israeli troops in Jabalia. The Israeli armed forces confirmed that “intense” fighting was taking place there, assuring that they had killed “a large number of terrorists”.
Hostilities also continued in “specific areas” in eastern Rafah, where the Israeli armed forces said they were conducting an operation against a “training center” of the military wing of Hamas, a movement designated a terrorist organization by Israel, the US and the EU.
The war was sparked by an unprecedented raid launched on October 7 by Hamas’ military arm based in the Gaza Strip into southern areas of Israeli territory, killing more than 1,170 people, most of them civilians, according to a French tally. Agency based on official data. Another 250-plus people were kidnapped and taken to the Palestinian enclave, where 128 remain, but at least 36 of them are believed to be dead, according to the Israeli military.
Although Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu says he does not want to talk about the future of the Gaza Strip “before Hamas is destroyed”, his government’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallad has stressed that he opposes the idea of Israel exercising military or political “control” after end the war and added that he prefers a Palestinian alternative to Hamas.
Waiting for help
After Israeli army units entered sectors of Rafah with tanks on May 7 and overran the Palestinian side of the border crossing with Egypt, critical for humanitarian aid deliveries, the flow stopped.
Fuel is no longer imported, absolutely necessary to operate basic infrastructure and also to move vehicles with humanitarian aid. Israel and Egypt blame each other and vice versa. Aid has also been blocked in Kerem Shalom, the main transit point for aid from Israel.
The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres demanded yesterday via X that the crossing at Rafa be “immediately reopened”. In vain.
Britain announced yesterday that it had sailed from Cyprus with over a hundred tons of humanitarian aid for Gaza, where it will be unloaded at the artificial port built by the US military and expected to be “operational” within “days”, according to the Pentagon.
“Hundreds of tons” of aid will arrive in the enclave after it opens, assured Brad Cooper, an officer serving at the US military’s joint command center in charge of the Middle East (CENTCOM).
Source: RES-MPE
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