Hamas warned on Sunday that an Israeli military offensive against Rafah, the town in the southern Gaza Strip where hundreds of thousands of civilians are sheltering, would dash hopes of the release of hostages held in the Palestinian territory.
US President Joe Biden, whose country is Israel’s main ally, urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “guarantee the security” of the population while several countries warned of a “humanitarian catastrophe” in the event of a assault on the overpopulated city.
Rafah has become the last refuge for 1.4 million Palestinians, according to the UN, stuck against the closed border with Egypt, the vast majority displaced having fled the war which has raged for four months between Israel and the Islamist movement. .
Fighting continued on Sunday a few kilometers to the north, in the largely destroyed town of Khan Younes, where the Israeli army was tracking down Hamas fighters.
AFP correspondents heard explosions and saw plumes of black smoke rising into the sky.
PHOTO SAID KHATIB, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A photo taken from Rafah shows smoke rising above Khan Yunis after an Israeli bombardment on February 11.
The army said it was continuing its “targeted operations in the west” of the city. It broadcast images showing soldiers on foot and tanks advancing in the ruins of Khan Younes, where gunfire echoed.
“Last bastion”
“Victory is within reach. We are going to do it. We are going to take the last terrorist battalions of Hamas and Rafah, which is the last bastion,” Benjamin Netanyahu, who ordered the army to prepare an offensive on the city, declared on the ABC News channel.
Israel will provide “safe passage for the civilian population so that they can leave” the city, he added, without specifying where civilians could take refuge.
During a visit to a military base in the south of the country on Sunday, the prime minister said Israel wanted to “achieve the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip.” “This requires our control […] in terms of security throughout the region west of Jordan, including the Gaza Strip,” he said.
“I don’t know where we will go” in the event of an offensive on Rafah, testified Farah Muhammad, who fled Gaza City, in the north of the territory.
“There is no place to escape anymore. I have no money to go to the center, the roads are dangerous and death is everywhere,” says this 39-year-old mother, who has lost all contact with her husband for a month.
PHOTO BY MOHAMMED ABED, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Clothes are hung to dry on a rubble-strewn street following Israeli bombing in Rafah on February 11.
“Any attack […] on the city of Rafah would torpedo the ongoing negotiations on an exchange between the hostages and Palestinians detained by Israel, a Hamas official told AFP on Sunday.
“Humanitarian disaster”
The war was sparked on October 7 by an unprecedented attack carried out by Hamas commandos in southern Israel, which left more than 1,160 dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
In retaliation, Israel vowed to “destroy” Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007, which it considers a terrorist organization, as do the United States and the European Union in particular. The Israeli army launched an offensive which left 28,176 people dead in Gaza, the vast majority of them civilians, according to the Islamist movement’s Ministry of Health.
Hamas said on Sunday that nearly a hundred bodies had been discovered in two neighborhoods of Gaza City after the withdrawal of Israeli troops, “most of whom were martyred by the bullets of Israeli snipers.”
Around 250 people were kidnapped in Israel on October 7 and taken to Gaza. A week-long truce in November allowed the release of 105 hostages and 240 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. According to Israel, 132 hostages are still being held in Gaza, of whom 29 are believed to have died.
Hamas’ military wing said Sunday that two hostages had died and eight others had been seriously injured in bombings over the past four days.
Negotiations, mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States, are underway to reach a new, longer truce and new trade.
Faced with the prospect of a major offensive, international pressure is increasing as the United States raises its tone towards Israel.
The United Arab Emirates expressed “deep concern” over the “serious humanitarian repercussions” of an Israeli assault. Qatar “strongly condemned” Israel’s threats.
In Rabat, thousands of Moroccans marched in support of the Palestinian people.
For the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, an offensive in Rafah would cause “an indescribable humanitarian catastrophe”.
The ambulances targeted
Around 1.7 million people, according to the UN, out of a total of 2.4 million inhabitants, have fled their homes since October 7 in the devastated territory, besieged by Israel and plunged into a major humanitarian crisis. . Many of them were displaced several times, fleeing further south as the fighting spread.
Rafah, which has become a gigantic encampment, is the last urban center where the army has not yet penetrated and the main entry point for humanitarian aid, insufficient to meet the needs of the population threatened in the middle of winter by famine. and epidemics.
PHOTO MOHAMMED ABED, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A displaced Palestinian woman uses a makeshift oven to prepare a meal on the street of Rafah on February 11.
A representative of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Hossam al-Sharqawi, said on Sunday that “every day, paramedics are killed or injured” in Gaza.
“Ambulances have become a target. This madness must stop. Enough is enough,” he said. He said he had “never seen this level of devastation and suffering in 35 years of humanitarian missions around the world”.