Israel-Hamas war: Israeli army claims ‘operational control’ of Rafah border crossing
Israel has sent tanks into Gaza’s city of Rafah and closed the humanitarian crossing amid international outcry. Warning: Graphic
World
Don't miss out on the headlines from World. Followed categories will be added to My News.
The United Nations said on Tuesday that Israel had denied the UN access to the now-closed Rafah crossing - the key entry point for humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.
Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA, said the inability to get fuel into the besieged Palestinian territory through the crossing risked shutting down aid operations.
The Rafah border crossing with Egypt “is currently under IDF control and we have been told there will be no crossings of personnel or goods in or out for the time being”, Laerke told a briefing in Geneva.
“We currently do not have any physical presence at the Rafah crossing, as our access to go to that area for co-ordination purposes has been denied by COGAT,” he said, referring to the Israeli agency that oversees supplies into the Palestinian territories.
The Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza from Israel has been closed since Sunday following rocket attacks.
“The two main arteries for getting aid into Gaza are currently choked off,” said Laerke.
He said that with Rafah closed, no fuel would come in as it is “the only entry point for fuel” and without that, operations were “in jeopardy.”
“If no fuel comes in for a prolonged period of time, it would be a very effective way of putting the humanitarian operation in its grave.”
James Elder, spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, said every warning and every story of children being killed and wounded had been ignored.
“Our worst fear — Gazans’ nightmare — appears to be a reality,” he told the Geneva briefing.
As for the Rafah crossing, “it’s hard to see if that closes for an extended period how aid agencies avert famine across the Gaza Strip”, he said.
Elder recounted the story of a boy named Mustafa, who had gone out to get some parsley, but was “shot in the head and killed, in the ‘safe zone’ of Al-Mawasi: the zone where children and families from Rafah are now supposed to flee to”.
“Parties to this conflict continue to utterly disregard the lives and protection of children and civilians.
“This is the last chance for this to change. Aid must flow. Hostages must be freed. Rafah must not be invaded. And children must no longer be killed.”
Israeli military spokesman Nadav Shoshani said that prior to the operation sending tanks into Rafah, the IDF encouraged residents to “temporarily evacuate to the expanded humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi”.
There, “the IDF has facilitated the building of field hospitals, tents, and an increase in water, food, and medical supplies”, he added.
International organisations were also encouraged to evacuate, “and have done so”, he added.
Germany warned on Tuesday against a “major offensive” in Rafah and called for crossings into the territory to be reopened.
“I warn against a major offensive on Rafah,” said Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on X, formerly Twitter.
“A million people cannot simply vanish into thin air. They need protection. They need more humanitarian aid urgently … the Rafah and Kerem Shalom border crossings must immediately be reopened.”
Gaza’s bloodiest-ever war began following Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel has conducted a retaliatory offensive that has killed more than 34,700 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
FOLLOW UPDATES BELOW:
ISRAEL SENDS TANKS INTO GAZA, SEIZES KEY CROSSING
The Israeli army said it took “operational control” of the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt on Tuesday and that troops were scanning the area. Tanks have been sent into Rafah.
“Last night, IDF (army) troops managed to establish operational control of the Gazan side of (Rafah) crossing,” the main entry point for aid deliveries to the besieged territory, the military said in a briefing.
“Right now at the moment what’s happening, we have operational control over the Gazan side of Rafah crossing, and we have special forces scanning the area to find additional terror infrastructure or terrorists,” the military said. “The operation is not over yet. It’s ongoing.”
The military said ground troops were carrying out an operation in eastern Rafah.
“Overnight, IDF ground troops began a precise counter-terrorism operation based on IDF and ISA (the Israeli Security Agency, Shin Bet) intelligence to eliminate Hamas terrorists and dismantle Hamas terrorist infrastructure within specific areas of eastern Rafah,” the statement said.
In the briefing it said troops were engaged in a “very targeted operation and a very limited scope against very specific targets” in eastern Rafah.
On Monday, Israel ordered residents of eastern Rafah to evacuate and move to a “humanitarian zone” northwest of the city, a day after rocket fire by militants killed four soldiers and wounded several more at the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and the Palestinian territory.
The military said that since the start of its operation in eastern Rafah, it had killed 20 militants.
It released video footage showing a tank rolling through the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing.
An Israeli flag is seen in the area, while drone footage showed several tanks. “A vast amount of the organisation and the people in the area within (which) we gave the evacuation notice yesterday (Monday) moved to a safer zone,” the military said.
Hamas’s armed wing said it fired rockets at Israeli troops on Tuesday at the key Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza, already closed after previous rocket fire over the weekend.
The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, which claimed a rocket attack on the crossing on Sunday that killed four Israeli soldiers, said in a statement that it had “targeted the gathering of enemy forces” at Kerem Shalom in the latest attack.
International alarm has been steadily building about the consequences of an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah.
An Israeli incursion into the city would be “intolerable”, UN chief Antonio Guterres said Monday, calling on Israel and Hamas “to go an extra mile” to reach a ceasefire deal.
Egypt’s foreign ministry warned of “grave humanitarian risks” for the more than one million civilians sheltering in Rafah and urged Israel to “exercise the utmost restraint”.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Tuesday that at least 34,789 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory as the war between Israel and Hamas entered its eighth month.
The tally includes at least 54 deaths in the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 78,204 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war broke out when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7.
IDF SAYS ROCKETS LAUNCHED FROM RAFAH
The Israeli army said the latest rockets fired at the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza Tuesday were launched from the Rafah area where troops were engaged in a ground operation.
“Following the sirens that sounded in the Kerem Shalom area, four mortar shell launches were fired from the area of Rafah toward Israeli territory,” the military said in a statement, adding that no casualties or damage were reported.
Hamas’s armed wing said earlier it had fired rockets at Israeli troops at Kerem Shalom, after claiming rocket launches at the crossing on Sunday that killed four Israeli soldiers.
UN ‘DENIED ACCESS’ TO RAFAH CROSSING
The United Nations has had its access to the closed Rafah crossing into southern Gaza denied by the Israeli authorities, a spokesman for the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA said Tuesday.
“We currently do not have any physical presence at the Rafah crossing as our access … has been denied by COGAT,” Jens Laerke told a press conference in Geneva, referring to the Israeli agency that oversees supplies into the Palestinian territories.
CHINA URGES ISRAEL TO STOP RAFAH ATTACKS
China on Tuesday urged Israel to “stop attacking Rafah”, after the Israeli army said it took “operational control” of the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt.
“China … strongly calls on Israel to heed the overwhelming demands of the international community, stop attacking Rafah, and do everything it can to avoid a more serious humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said.
Israel carried out strikes on the Gazan city of Rafah overnight as it sought to put “pressure” on Hamas ahead of talks in Egypt on Tuesday aimed at sealing a truce proposal endorsed by the militants.
ISRAEL HITS RAFAH AFTER HAMAS ACCEPTS TRUCE DEAL
Israel’s government said it will send a delegation of mediators to discuss a Gaza truce proposal accepted by Hamas, which it called “far from Israel’s demands”.
“Even though the Hamas proposal is far from Israel’s essential demands, Israel will send a working-level delegation to the mediators,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement after a war cabinet meeting.
“The war cabinet has unanimously decided that Israel is continuing the operation in Rafah to exert military pressure on Hamas in order to advance the release of our hostages and the other objectives of the war,” the statement also said.
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh announced the decision to accept the deal with Qatar’s prime minister and Egypt’s intelligence chief, as Israeli warplanes launched intense strikes on Rafah.
Crowds cheered and fired in the air in the streets of Rafah on Monday local time after Hamas said it approved the ceasefire proposal, an AFP correspondent said.
People were crying tears of happiness, chanting “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest”) and shooting in the air in celebration of the news, the correspondent said.
Close Israel ally the United States said it was “reviewing” the Hamas response.
Hamas member Khalil al-Hayya told the Qatar-based Al Jazeera channel the proposal agreed to by Hamas includes a three-phased truce.
He said it includes a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the return of Palestinians displaced by the war and a hostage-prisoner exchange, with the goal of a “permanent ceasefire”.
The head of the United Nations called for Israel and Hamas to “go the extra mile needed” to seal a truce and “stop the present suffering” in their devastating war in the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s military meanwhile reiterated an earlier call for residents of east Rafah to evacuate as it prepares for a “ground operation” in the southern Gaza city.
Renewing the call for people to leave, Israel’s military spokesman Daniel Hagari said Israeli “aircraft targeted more than 50 terror targets in the Rafah area” on Monday local time.
In response, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad said its militants launched rockets from Gaza towards southern Israel.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also said he was “deeply concerned” by indications showing a large-scale Israeli military operation in the crowded southern Gaza city of Rafah may be “imminent,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement earlier.
Mr Dujarric condemned Israel’s evacuation order, saying it would be “impossible to carry out safely”, and the world body’s human rights chief Volker Turk called it “inhumane”.
Gaza’s bloodiest-ever war began following Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures. Militants also seized some 250 hostages.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,683 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
RAFAH OFFENSIVE ‘WON’T BE A PICNIC’: HAMAS
Hamas warned Israel an invasion of Rafah “will not be a picnic” after Israel began calling Palestianins to evacuate parts of southern Gaza city.
“We confirm that any military offensive in Rafah will not be a picnic to the fascist occupation army,” the terror group said in a statement.
“Our brave resistance on top of them, the Qassam Brigades, is fully prepared to defend our people and defeat this enemy.”
AT LEAST FIVE DEAD IN RAFAH STRIKES
Israeli strikes left at least five people dead in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, a local hospital said early Tuesday. The city’s Kuwaiti hospital said it had received “five martyrs and several injured” after Israeli strikes overnight. The area is currently the site of intense Israeli military strike activity, according to witnesses and Palestinian security sources.
QATAR SENDING DELEGATION TO CAIRO
Qatar will send a delegation to Cairo on Tuesday local time with a view to securing a truce agreement between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the country’s foreign ministry said.
“The Qatari delegation will head to Cairo on Tuesday morning to resume indirect negotiations between the two parties,” the ministry said in a statement, with the “hope that the talks will culminate in reaching an agreement for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
JORDAN KING ASKS BIDEN TO STOP RAFAH ‘MASSACRE’
Jordanian King Abdullah II asked President Joe Biden in talks om Monday local time to intervene to stop a “new massacre” in Rafah, the southern Gaza city where Israel has threatened an assault.
“His Majesty warned that the Israeli attack on Rafah, where 1.4 million Palestinians are internally displaced as a result of the war on Gaza, threatens to lead to a new massacre,” a Jordanian statement said.
ISRAEL TARGETING HOMES IN RAFAH’
Gaza civil defence and aid officials early Monday local time said that Israeli jets struck two areas in eastern Rafah.
“The areas targeted by the Israeli occupation are near the perimeter of Gaza International Airport, the Al-Shuka area, the Abu Halawa area, the Salaheddin street area and the Salam neighbourhood,” Gaza civil defence agency spokesman Ahmed Ridwan told AFP.
Another aid official confirmed the strikes.
The Israeli military did not offer an immediate comment, but on Sunday local time it ordered residents of Al-Shuka and Al-Salam to evacuate and move to a humanitarian area.
The Red Crescent Society told AFP that the bombing was targeting eastern areas of Rafah.
“It is clear that it is targeting homes, but we have not received any communications or information about the presence of victims in the targeted areas,” said Osama al-Kahlut.
Eastern Rafah resident Yaqub al-Sheikh Salama, 30, said the bombing was intense in Al-Salam, Al-Shuka, and other areas.
“There are massive explosions and terrifying sounds of aerial and artillery bombardments,” Salam told AFP.
“Children and women are scared and don’t know where to go,” he said.
One resident, Abdul Rahman Abu Jazar, 36, said the area his family was told to seek refuge in “does not have enough room for us to make tents” because it is already full of displaced people. “Where we can go?” he asked AFP.
EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell on Monday condemned Israel’s order for Palestinians living in eastern Rafah to flee the southern Gazan city ahead of an expected ground assault.
“Israel’s evacuation orders to civilians in Rafah portend the worst: more war and famine. It is unacceptable. Israel must renounce to a ground offensive,” Borrell wrote in English on X.
The UN called the evacuation order “inhumane”.
BIDEN WARNED NETANYAHU ON RAFAH
Joe Biden, seeking to push a Gaza ceasefire, warned Benjamin Netanyahu against invading Rafah on Monday local time.
The US president told the Israeli PM in April that invading Rafah would be a “mistake,” and Secretary of State Antony Blinken told him last week in Jerusalem that there should be no offensive due to the safety of some 1.2 million civilians sheltering there.
“The president reiterated his clear position on Rafah,” the White House said in a brief readout of the call.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said afterwards that the United States has not yet “seen a humanitarian plan that is credible and that is implementable.”
“We believe a military operation in Rafah right now would dramatically increase the suffering of the Palestinian people (and) would lead to an increase in loss of civilian life,” Mr Miller told reporters.
ISRAEL SAYS IT EVACUATED 100,000 IN RAFAH
The Israeli army said it was evacuating about 100,000 people from eastern Rafah on Monday local time, ahead of an expected ground assault in the southern city of Gaza.
“The estimate is around 100,000 people,” a military spokesman told journalists when asked how many people were being evacuated.
About 1.2 million people are currently sheltering in Rafah, according to the World Health Organisation, most having fled there from elsewhere in Gaza during the seven-month war between Israel and Hamas Palestinian militants.
The evacuation “is part of our plans to dismantle Hamas … we had a violent reminder of their presence and their operational abilities in Rafah yesterday,” the military spokesman said.
“This is an evacuation plan to get people out of harm’s way.”
On Sunday, three Israeli soldiers were killed and a dozen wounded, the army said, when a barrage of rockets was fired towards the Kerem Shalom border crossing between Israel and Gaza.
The army said the rockets were fired from an area adjacent to Rafah. The soldiers were hit while guarding heavy machinery, tanks and bulldozers stationed in the area.
Rain fell on Monday local time as the army air-dropped leaflets advising about the evacuation, an AFP correspondent said.
HAMAS ACCUSES ISRAEL OF ‘SABOTAGE’
A Hamas official said the group’s delegation for Gaza truce talks in Cairo was leaving for “consultations” in Qatar, after public disagreement with Israel intensified over demands to end their seven-month war.
Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “surrendering” to a demand to end the war would amount to defeat.
The Qatar-based political chief of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, countered by accusing Mr Netanyahu of sabotaging the talks.
The Hamas official, who requested anonymity to discuss the negotiations, told AFP that “the meeting with the Egyptian intelligence minister has ended and the Hamas delegation is leaving for Doha for further consultations”.
PROTESTERS DEMAND RELEASE OF HOSTAGES
Thousands of Israelis rallied in Tel Aviv late on Saturday demanding a deal to free the remaining hostages.
They waved Israeli flags and placards calling on the government to “Bring them Home!” Israel says 128 hostages remain in Gaza, with 35 of them presumed dead.
CIA director Bill Burns meanwhile was headed to Doha for “emergency” talks on mediation efforts with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, a source with knowledge of the discussions told AFP.
ISRAEL BANS GAZA WAR COVERAGE
Qatar-based network Al Jazeera condemned as “criminal” a move by the Israeli government to ban the broadcaster from operating over its coverage of the Gaza war.
“We condemn and denounce this criminal act by Israel that violates the human right to access information,” Al Jazeera said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter, in Arabic on Sunday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government had decided unanimously to close the channel.
Al Jazeera has been the focus of months of criticism by Netanyahu and his government in the latest round of a long-running feud that began well before Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.
Hamas slammed the decision to shut down Al Jazeera in the country as a “blatant violation of press freedom” and an effort to hide the “truth” of the Gaza war.
The Palestinian militant group, whose unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 sparked the war in Gaza, said in a statement the decision to close the Qatar-based news channel was “a repressive and retaliatory measure against the professional role of Al Jazeera in exposing the crimes and violations” in Gaza, and “represents the culmination of the declared war against journalists … aimed at concealing the truth”.
FIGHTING CONTINUES
Intense explosions and heavy gunfire has continued from clashes between Palestinian militants and the Israeli forces in the Gaza City area of the territory’s north.
An AFP correspondent and witnesses on Sunday reported shelling and gunfire in the Gaza City area, helicopter fire in central and southern Gaza, and a missile strike on a house in the Rafah area.
Israel’s military said Sunday air strikes over the past day killed several militants including three in central Gaza who had participated in the October attack.
The prospect of a Rafah invasion, threatened for three months alongside stop-start truce talks, has sparked intensifying global alarm.
Gaza’s Civil Defence agency and hospitals reported several more deaths from strikes in Gaza’s north, centre, and in Rafah.
The United Nations says more than 70 per cent of Gaza’s residential buildings have been completely or partly destroyed, and rebuilding will require an effort unseen since World War II.
Hezbollah said on Sunday it launched dozens of rockets at northern Israel in retaliation for a strike on south Lebanon that a local official and state media said killed several people.
CEASEFIRE IS A ‘NO BRAINER’
Accepting a ceasefire deal with Israel should be a “no-brainer” for Hamas, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said late Friday.
“The reality in this moment is the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas,” Blinken said.
INVASION WOULD BE A CATASTROPHE
The World Health Organisation says 1.2 million people, half of Gaza’s population, have sought refuge in Rafah. Aid groups say an invasion would only add to an existing humanitarian catastrophe.
On Friday WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed deep concern “that a full-scale military operation in Rafah, Gaza, could lead to a bloodbath.” Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, said a military operation in Rafah could “strike a disastrous blow” to agencies struggling to provide aid.
PROGRESS IN NEGOTIATIONS
Al-Qahera News, linked to Egyptian intelligence services, quoted an unnamed high-ranking source as saying “there is significant progress in the negotiations” and that the Egyptian mediators have “reached an agreed-upon formula on most points of contention”.
The senior Hamas official told AFP that the movement “looks with an open mind to changes in the occupation’s (Israel’s) position and the American position, but there are issues that must be addressed.” On Friday senior Hamas official Hossam Badran had accused Netanyahu of trying to undermine the latest proposal with his threats to keep fighting with or without a deal.
Badran said Netanyahu’s insistence on attacking Rafah was calculated to “thwart any possibility of concluding an agreement”.
PROTESTS CONTINUE AROUND THE WORLD
Protesters in Israel have also accused Benjamin Netanyahu of seeking to prolong the war. The prime minister, on trial for corruption charges he denies, leads a coalition which includes religious and ultranationalist parties.
Demonstrators have regularly taken to Israeli streets demanding the government reach a deal to bring home the hostages.
In their October attack the militants seized hostages, of whom 128 remain in Gaza, including 35 who the military says are dead.
Pro-Palestinian protests that have taken place across US universities for weeks were more muted Friday after a series of clashes with police, mass arrests and a stern White House directive to restore order.
Similar demonstrations have spread to campuses in Britain, France, Mexico, Australia, Canada and elsewhere.
BIDEN UNDER PRESSURE
United States President Joe Biden is also under pressure from within his own Democratic Party. A letter signed by 88 Democratic members of the House of Representatives expressed serious concern over Israel’s “deliberate withholding” of aid and urged Biden to consider halting arms sales unless Israel’s conduct changes.
Washington has already exerted pressure, and Israel has allowed increased aid deliveries. Israel said the Erez crossing in north Gaza has reopened for aid entry, and assistance has arrived via the Israeli port of Ashdod.
Food availability has improved “a little bit” but the famine threat has not gone away, said Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO representative in the Palestinian territories. He stressed that the war had “destroyed” local production of fruit, vegetables and fish.
WEDDING IN THE FACE OF WAR
Despite the daily struggle to survive, dozens of Palestinians on Friday gathered under decorative lights on the sand in Khan Yunis city near Rafah for a mass wedding. The grooms, one of them on crutches, wore matching dark suits over white shirts.
The war remained close.
Israel’s military said its fighter jets struck a munitions launch site in the Khan Yunis area on Friday after a projectile was fired towards Israel. Air strikes hit other launchers in southern and central Gaza, and naval fire supported ground troops in the territory’s centre, the military said.
More Coverage
Originally published as Israel-Hamas war: Israeli army claims ‘operational control’ of Rafah border crossing
Read related topics:Israel Conflict
Join the conversation
Grave escalation the world feared
The deployment of Kim Jong-un’s troops has added fuel to the growing fire in recent weeks. Now there are claims Vladimir Putin has put them to use.
Read more
‘Get WWIII going’: Huge Russia escalation
Months ago, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin identified a glaring “red line” for the West. Joe Biden has decided to cross it.
Read more