Airstrikes hit a southern Gaza border metropolis crowded with civilians on Thursday, a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced a cease-fire proposal by Hamas and signaled that the Israeli navy was getting ready to maneuver into the realm.
The strikes on two homes in Rafah killed and injured a number of folks, based on Palestinian information retailers, and heightened fears among the many a couple of million Palestinians who’ve sought refuge within the metropolis as Israel’s military has repeatedly warned that it plans to push farther south in its floor invasion.
“There is no such thing as a place for the folks to run to,” stated Fathi Abu Snema, a 45-year-old father of 5 who has been residing in a United Nations-run college in Rafah for practically 4 months. “Everybody from all different elements of Gaza ended up in Rafah. I don’t know the place to go.”
The strikes got here a day after Mr. Netanyahu rejected a Hamas proposal that known as for Israel to withdraw from Gaza, abide by a long-term cease-fire and free Palestinians held in Israeli jails in change for the discharge of remaining Israelis who had been kidnapped through the Hamas-led Oct. 7 assault.
Mr. Netanyahu stated that Hamas’s calls for had been “ludicrous” and that accepting them would solely invite additional assaults on Israel. Asserting that there was “no answer in addition to whole victory,” he stated the navy had been ordered to arrange to maneuver into Rafah, on Egypt’s border, which he known as considered one of “Hamas’s final remaining strongholds.”
At a information convention in Washington on Thursday, Vedant Patel, a State Division spokesman, raised issues in regards to the prospect of an Israeli navy incursion into Rafah. “We have now but to see any proof of great planning for such an operation,” he stated.
Mr. Patel stated that to “conduct such an operation proper now, with no planning and little thought” could be “a catastrophe.”
Because the United Nations additionally warned of devastating penalties from an enlargement of Israel’s navy offensive, Israeli leaders and Hamas officers stated on Thursday that they had been nonetheless open to additional negotiations to cease the preventing.
“There’s settlement amongst members of the governing coalition, and notably amongst particular person members of the federal government, that we do need to get the hostages again and to make a deal,” Miki Zohar, an Israeli authorities minister, stated in a radio interview on Thursday morning.
“However not at any worth,” Mr. Zohar stated. “Stopping the struggle, for instance, they received’t comply with.”
Hamas stated in a press release {that a} delegation led by considered one of its senior officers, Khalil al-Hayya, had arrived in Cairo on Thursday to take part in cease-fire talks with mediators.
Israeli officers have stated that they weren’t ready to just accept one other provide that requires the withdrawal of their forces from Gaza and leaves Hamas in energy.
“The whole withdrawal of Israeli forces and an finish of this struggle is, in fact, not an choice,” an Israeli authorities spokesman, Eylon Levy, stated on Thursday. “Hamas was calling for full capitulation that may depart it free and emboldened to perpetrate one other bloodbath.”
Even so, Israeli leaders concluded that there was nonetheless room for dialogue if the proposal that Hamas provided this week was within the nature of a gap bid, based on two authorities officers who spoke on the situation of anonymity to debate a delicate matter.
Nadav Shtrauchler, a political analyst who was as soon as Mr. Netanyahu’s media strategist, stated that despite the fact that the prime minister had spurned the provide, he left a gap.
“The door has been closed, however the window continues to be open — not for that deal, which he couldn’t settle for, however for a distinct deal,” Mr. Shtrauchler stated.
Help teams and the United Nations have repeatedly warned that an advance on Rafah could be devastating as a result of the town is now residence to greater than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, lots of whom reside in ramshackle tents after transferring a number of occasions seeking security.
The Israeli navy made no formal announcement in regards to the strikes on Thursday and declined to touch upon whether or not they signaled the beginning of a floor offensive, saying it doesn’t talk about “operational exercise.”
A navy offensive in Rafah “would exponentially improve what’s already a humanitarian nightmare, with untold regional penalties,” the U.N. secretary basic, António Guterres, informed the Normal Meeting on Wednesday.
Gaza’s well being ministry stated that greater than 100 folks had been killed within the territory over the earlier 24 hours. Greater than 27,000 folks have been killed in Gaza through the four-month struggle, well being authorities there say. Round 1,200 folks had been killed within the Hamas-led assault on Oct. 7, the Israelis say.
The Norwegian Refugee Council, an support company, warned {that a} full-scale Israeli navy assault on Rafah and the encircling space would result in extra civilian deaths and danger halting the trickle of humanitarian support that’s coming into Rafah from Egypt.
“An enlargement of hostilities may flip Rafah right into a zone of bloodshed and destruction that individuals received’t be capable of escape,” stated Angelita Caredda, the Center East and North Africa regional director, stated. “Circumstances in Rafah are already dire.”
Some Israeli and American officers have questioned how shut Israel is to attaining its aim of defeating Hamas.
U.S. intelligence officers informed Congress this week that Israel had degraded Hamas’s preventing capabilities however that it was not near eliminating the group, American officers stated. That evaluation appeared to contradict Mr. Netanyahu’s assertion on Wednesday that victory was “inside attain.”
Reporting was contributed by Abu Bakr Bashir, Julian E. Barnes and Edward Wong.
