The war in Gaza was triggered by attacks by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.
Palestinian territories:
The threat of an Israeli invasion of Gaza’s southernmost town of Rafah remained on Sunday, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to provide “safe passage” for displaced civilians there.
Netanyahu reiterated his intention to expand Israel’s military campaign against Hamas to Rafah in an interview broadcast on Sunday.
While the international community is alarmed by the possibility of a massacre in a place that is home to more than half of the Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million people, Netanyahu told ABC News: “We will do it.”
“We will allow civilians to leave while providing safe passage,” he said, according to published excerpts of the interview.
However, it is unclear where the large numbers of people crowded at Egypt’s border and sheltering in makeshift tents can go.
When asked, Netanyahu said only that they were “working on detailed plans.”
As Israeli forces advance steadily south, Rafah has become the last major population center in the Gaza Strip that the army has yet to enter, even though it comes under near-daily air strikes.
“They say Rafah is safe, but that’s not the case. Everything is being targeted,” Palestinian Mohammed Saidam said after an Israeli attack destroyed a police vehicle in the city on Saturday.
Israel’s prime minister claimed there would be no “victory” against Hamas without clearing Rafah’s forces and on Friday he directed the army to prepare for the operation. His announcement drew unanimous attention from world leaders and aid groups.
“The people of Gaza cannot disappear into thin air,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Berbock wrote on social media platform X, adding that an Israeli attack on Rafah would be a “humanitarian disaster in the making.”
Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry warned on Saturday that “attacking and targeting” Rafah would have very serious consequences and called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council, while British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said he was “confident” about future offensives. Deeply concerned.”
“The immediate priority must be an immediate halt to the fighting so that aid can be delivered and the hostages rescued,” he wrote.
– U.S. rebuke gets sharper –
The war in Gaza was triggered by an unprecedented attack on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on October 7, which killed about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israel has vowed to eliminate Hamas and launched a large-scale military offensive in Gaza. The region’s health ministry said the offensive has killed at least 28,064 people, mostly women and children.
Israel said the militants also held 250 hostages, 132 of whom were still in Gaza, but 29 were presumed dead.
Netanyahu announced plans for a ground operation in Rafah just days after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel to pursue a ceasefire and hostage prisoner exchange.
Netanyahu rejects truce offer after Hamas makes “bizarre demands”.
But Israel’s plans to target Rafah have been roundly condemned by key ally and military backer Washington, with the US State Department warning that such an operation risks “catastrophe” if not planned properly.
U.S. President Joe Biden delivered unusually sharp criticism on Thursday, saying Israel’s retaliatory actions “went too far.”
Gaza’s Hamas ruler warned on Saturday that a full-scale Israeli invasion of Rafah could cause “tens of thousands” of casualties.
The office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the move “threatens the security and peace of the region and the world” and “blatantly violates all red lines.”
The health ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory said on Sunday that overnight bombings across Gaza, including Rafah, killed 94 people.
The Israeli military said two “senior Hamas personnel” were killed in an attack on Rafah on Saturday.
It was part of a wider bombardment that killed at least 25 people in the city, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
– UNRWA under pressure –
In northern Gaza City, the Israeli military claimed its forces had discovered a Hamas tunnel beneath the evacuated headquarters of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz called on the committee’s chairman, Philippe Lazzarini, to resign.
Lazzarini said the agency has not operated at the facility since staff evacuated the facility on Oct. 12 under instructions from Israeli forces.
He was already under pressure to call for an independent investigation into the latest allegations after Israel claimed 12 UNRWA staff were involved in a Hamas attack on 7 October.
On Thursday, the Israeli military brought several journalists, including an AFP photographer, to the compound and tunnels.
Under international law, UN premises are considered “inviolable” and immune from “search, requisition, confiscation, expropriation and any other form of interference.”
Hamas has repeatedly denied Israeli accusations that it digs a network of tunnels under schools, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure as cover for its activities.
On Sunday, Israeli government spokesman Elon Levy called UNRWA a “Hamas front.”
– Public outrage –
The war, now in its fifth month, has fueled public anger in Israel.
Protesters took to the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday night, demanding the release of hostages, Netanyahu’s resignation and new elections.
“It’s clear that Netanyahu is dragging out the war and he doesn’t know what he’s going to do the next day,” said Israeli protester Gil Gordon.
The war has far-reaching consequences far beyond Israel and the Gaza Strip, with violence by Iran-backed allies of Hamas surging across the Middle East.
A senior Hamas official survived an Israeli assassination attempt in Lebanon but two others, including a Hezbollah member, were killed in the attack, Palestinian and Lebanese security sources told AFP.
In Syria, an Israeli strike near Damascus killed three people, a war monitor said, adding that the targeted neighborhood was the villas of senior military and civilian officials.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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