‘Targeted raids’ as Israel orders tanks into Rafah

Rafah was subject to heavy shelling early on Thursday, and Israeli was also striking ‘Hamas positions’ further north in the centre of the Gaza Strip.

Israeli soldiers on the ground in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Picture: Israel Army via AFP

Israel shelled Rafah on Thursday, defying international objections by sending in tanks and conducting “targeted raids” in the border city, which is home to Hamas’s last remaining battalions but is also crowded with displaced civilians.

Rafah was subject to heavy shelling early on Thursday, and the Israeli military later said it was also striking “Hamas positions” further north in the centre of the Gaza Strip.

In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Joe Biden warned he would stop US weapons supplies to Israel if it pushed ahead with its long-threatened Rafah ground offensive.

On Tuesday, Israel forces seized Rafah’s border crossing into Egypt, which has served as the main entry point for aid into besieged Gaza.

The White House condemned the interruption to humanitarian deliveries, and the Secretary of Defence later confirmed Washington had paused, for the time being, a shipment of heavy bombs to Israel after it failed to address concerns over its Rafah ground incursion.

The US, along with Egypt and Qatar, has been heavily involved in talks under way in Cairo aimed at brokering a ceasefire in the seven-month war.

The Israeli military said on Wednesday it was reopening ­another aid crossing into Gaza, Kerem Shalom, as well as the Erez crossing. But the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said the Kerem Shalom crossing, which Israel shut after a rocket ­attack killed four soldiers on Sunday, remained closed.

Late on Wednesday, the army said a soldier was lightly wounded when Kerem Shalom was again targeted by rockets.

The heavy shelling in Rafah overnight into Thursday followed a day of what the Israeli military said were “targeted raids on the Gazan side of Rafah crossing”, in the city’s east.

An army statement later said that Hamas naval commander Mohammed Ahmed Ali was killed in an airstrike “in the past day”. Hamas did not immediately comment.

An Israeli army armoured excavator during operations in Rafah. Israeli Army via AFP

Civilian life in Rafah “has completely ceased”, said displaced Gazan Marwan al-Masri, 35, noting “the streets are empty” in the western part of the city. “We are living in Rafah in extreme fear and endless anxiety,” said Muhanad Ahmad Qishta, 29. “Places the Israeli army claims to be safe are also being bombed,” he said.

An emergency doctor working in Rafah and nearby Khan Younis said that with humanitarian ­access compromised, the health situation was “catastrophic”.

“The smell of sewage is rife everywhere,” said the doctor, James Smith. “It’s been getting worse over the course of the last couple of days.”

Palestinian civil defence evacuate a wounded man from a house destroyed by the Israeli bombardment of Rafah this week. Picture: AFP

World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said hospitals in southern Gaza had only “three days of fuel left” because of the border closures. “Without fuel all humanitarian operations will stop.”

The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than about 1200 people, mostly civilians. Israel in response vowed to crush Hamas and launched a military offensive that has killed at least 34,844 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Militants also took about 250 hostages. Israel estimates 128 of them remain in Gaza, including 36 who officials say are dead.

An Israeli mobile artillery unit fires into the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. Picture: AFP

Talks involving Qatari, US and Hamas delegations aimed at cementing a long-stalled ceasefire deal were ongoing on Wednesday in Cairo, said Al-Qahera News, which is linked to Egyptian intelligence. It noted that there were “points of contention” during the discussions, but also ­reported some “convergence” without elaborating.

A senior Hamas official said the latest round of negotiations would be “decisive”. Hamas ­“insists on the rightful demands of its people”, the official said.

In Jerusalem, CIA director Bill Burns met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the “possibility of Israel pausing the operation in Rafah in ­exchange for hostage releases”, an Israeli official said, also on condition of anonymity.

The Hamas official had previously warned the Cairo talks would be Israel’s “last chance” to free the hostages.

Mediator Qatar also appealed “for urgent international action to prevent Rafah from being ­invaded and a crime of genocide being committed”.

AFP