‘Intense’ fighting in Rafah ‘about to end’: Benjamin Netanyahu

The Israeli Prime Minister has increased speculation of an attack on Hezbollah as Defence Minister Yoav Gallant heads to Washington for ‘critical’ talks on the Gaza war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared the heavy fighting in Rafah is over. Picture: AFP.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared the Israeli military’s intense fighting against Hamas militants in the southern Gaza city of Rafah is nearly over and the Israeli military would target Hezbollah next.

“The intense phase of the fighting against Hamas is about to end. It’s about to end. It doesn’t mean that the war is about to end, but the war in its intense phase is about to end in Rafah,” Netanyahu said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 14 network.

Once the IDF completes its intense fighting in Rafah, “we will face north,” he added, increasing speculation that Jerusalem is preparing for an all-out war with Hezbollah.

He spoke as Defence Minister Yoav Gallant headed to Washington for talks on the Gaza war amid surging cross-border tensions with Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement.

The visit, which Gallant said would include meetings that are “critical to this war”, comes after a series of public statements by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu concerning military aid which have added strains to ties with the White House.

Netanyahu has accused Israel’s close ally and biggest military supplier the United States of freezing some arms and ammunition deliveries. On Sunday he told his cabinet they had dropped off sharply “about four months ago”.

With the exception of one shipment of heavy 2,000-pound bombs that Washington acknowledged was put under review, US officials have strongly rejected the claims made by Netanyahu about the arms.

“I hope and believe that this issue will be resolved in the near future,” said Netanyahu, who has faced growing pressure from Israeli demonstrators demanding a deal to free hostages still held in Gaza.

US President Joe Biden has been at odds with Israel’s veteran right-wing leader over the surging civilian death toll in the Gaza Strip during more than eight months of war triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel.

As he prepared to depart for Washington, Gallant said: “Our ties with the United States are more important than ever”.

Israeli forces again bombed Gaza on Sunday, with medics and the civil defence agency in the Hamas-ruled territory reporting deadly strikes on Gaza City, in the north.

Tensions have also flared on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon whose Iran-backed Hezbollah movement has traded daily cross-border fire with the army, heightening fears of all-out war, particularly over the past two weeks.

Gallant said he would “discuss developments in Gaza and Lebanon”, adding that “we are prepared for any action that may be required in Gaza, Lebanon and in additional areas”.

In Gaza, Israeli forces kept striking targets and battling Hamas, the Islamist militant group Israel has vowed to destroy over its October 7 attack, in a war that has devastated much of the coastal territory.

United States officials have raised doubts over Israel’s goal of completely eliminating Hamas.

In Gaza City, medics at Al-Ahli hospital told AFP that at least five people were killed in an Israeli air strike on a facility of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

The Israeli military said its jets struck militants who “operated from within buildings that previously served as an UNRWA headquarters” There was no immediate comment from UNRWA, whose facilities have come under attack before.

Since the war began, several UNRWA buildings have been turned into shelters for displaced Palestinians.

A military statement said Israeli warplanes had struck “dozens of terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip” over the previous 24 hours.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah said it had targeted military positions in northern Israel with attack drones, after an Israeli strike in eastern Lebanon killed the commander of another armed group, Jamaa Islamiya.

Israel’s military said one of its soldiers “was severely wounded” as a result of a drone strike.

Last Tuesday the military announced that a plan for a Lebanon offensive had been “approved and validated”.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah responded with threats that no part of Israel would be spared in the event of a full-scale war.

AFP