Israel and Hamas at war, day 134 | Avoiding Rafah operation would mean ‘losing the war’, Israel says

The Israeli army must carry out its operation in the town of Rafah, where around 1.4 million Palestinians are crowded in southern Gaza, otherwise it will “lose the war” against Hamas, the first declared on Saturday evening. Israeli Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

After offensives in the city of Gaza, then in that of Khan Younes, Israel is preparing to enter Rafah, the last major city in the Gaza Strip, which raises serious fears for the fate of the civilian population there, in vast majority of Palestinians displaced by the fighting in the rest of the territory.

US President Joe Biden, whose country is Israel’s primary supporter, recalled on Friday that an operation in Rafah “should not take place without a credible plan” to protect civilians. French President Emmanuel Macron warned that an operation in Rafah would lead to “an unprecedented humanitarian disaster”.

“Anyone who wants to stop us from carrying out an operation in Rafah is effectively telling us to lose the war. I’m not going to give in to that,” Netanyahu said at a news conference in Jerusalem.

He also affirmed that the Israeli army would carry out its operation in Rafah even if there was an agreement with the Palestinian Islamist movement for the release of hostages still held in the Gaza Strip.

Complex negotiations about a truce in the fighting, the release of hostages held in Gaza and Palestinian prisoners imprisoned by Israel, are continuing through the mediating countries, Egypt, Qatar and the United States.

Hamas insists on a “total ceasefire” and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip. Benyamin Netanyahu refuses these demands at this stage, citing a possible pause in the fighting accompanied by the release of the hostages, but not the end of hostilities.

“Even if we reach an agreement on the hostages, we will enter Rafah,” he said Saturday evening in Jerusalem.

In Tel Aviv, thousands of Israelis demonstrated against the Netanyahu government, urging them to come to an agreement with Hamas in order to free the hostages, according to an AFP journalist on site. “The hostages have been in Gaza for more than 100 days, if they die, the government will have their blood on its hands,” protesters chanted.

A truce agreement in November allowed the release of 105 hostages out of some 250 kidnapped by Hamas during its unprecedented attack on Israeli territory on October 7. According to Israel, 130 hostages are still being held in Gaza, of whom 30 are believed to have died.

Bloody Israeli raids

Dozens of Palestinians were killed in new nighttime Israeli bombardments on the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli army said on Saturday it had arrested 100 people in a hospital stormed by its soldiers.

Fears are intensifying for at least 120 patients and five medical teams trapped without water, food and electricity at the Nasser hospital in Khan Younes, the main city in the south of the Gaza Strip, said the movement’s health ministry. Islamist Hamas.

The international community is also concerned about a possible ground offensive by the Israeli army in the town of Rafah, further south, where according to the UN 1.4 million people, most of them displaced, are crowded together against the closed border with Egypt.

Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, triggered by an unprecedented bloody attack on October 7 by this movement on Israeli soil, the Israeli army has constantly bombarded the small territory: entire neighborhoods razed, 1.7 million of the 2.4 million displaced inhabitants and a catastrophic humanitarian crisis according to the UN.

During the night, new Israeli bombings left around a hundred dead in Gaza, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health which reports daily dozens of Palestinian deaths in the Palestinian territory.

Witnesses reported explosions in Rafah where at least two houses were targeted by strikes.

On October 7, Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza launched an attack in southern Israel during which more than 1,160 people were killed, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data.

Israel has vowed to annihilate Hamas, classified as a “terrorist group” by the United States and the European Union and which took power in Gaza in 2007. In retaliation, it launched a major offensive in Gaza which cost the lives of 28,858 people, the vast majority civilians, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.

According to Israel, 130 hostages are still held in Gaza, 30 of whom are believed to have died, out of around 250 people kidnapped on October 7.

“Risks for newborns”

For weeks, the army has been concentrating its operations in Khan Younes, the hometown of Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahia Sinouar, the alleged mastermind of the October 7 attack. The fighting between Israeli soldiers and Hamas fighters is the most violent in this city transformed into a field of ruins.

At Nasser hospital, six patients, including a child, have died since Friday due to power cuts which caused the cessation of oxygen distribution, according to the Hamas ministry. “Newborns risk dying in the coming hours,” he said.

According to the army, troops entered the hospital on Thursday based on “credible intelligence” that people kidnapped on October 7 are being held there and that the bodies of some of them may be there. -Still be.

On Saturday, she announced that she had arrested 100 people in the hospital suspected of “terrorist activities”, and that she had discovered shells, grenades and other weapons belonging, according to her, to Hamas.

Doctors described an untenable situation at the hospital, one of eleven remaining open out of 36 in the Gaza Strip before the war, which is “barely functional” according to the World Health Organization. “More damage to the hospital means more lives lost. »

Doctors Without Borders announced that its employees had “had to flee, leaving the sick behind.” “The situation was chaotic, catastrophic,” according to Christopher Lockyear, MSF secretary general.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights denounced a raid which “appears to be part of a trend by Israeli forces to attack essential infrastructure that saves lives, including hospitals, in Gaza”.

After a 38-year occupation, Israel unilaterally withdrew in 2005 from this territory on which it imposed an air, maritime and land blockade from 2007 before a total siege from October 9, 2023.

” To starve ”

Despite international pressure to try to dissuade Israel from launching an offensive in Rafah, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week that his army would carry out a “powerful” operation.

According to Wall Street Journalciting Egyptian officials, Egypt is building a safe zone surrounded by a wall near the border with Gaza to accommodate Palestinians in the event of an assault in Rafah.

Negotiations involving Egyptian, American and Qatari mediators to obtain a truce with an exchange between Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners took place this week in Cairo, but nothing has filtered out on their progress.

The day after US President Joe Biden’s call for a “temporary ceasefire”, Hamas leader Ismaïl Haniyeh repeated on Saturday that his movement demanded a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza in particular.

According to a senior source within Hamas, the movement threatened to suspend its participation in the negotiations if the necessary aid was not delivered to the northern Gaza Strip.

As more aid arrived in Rafah on Saturday, the UN warned that residents of the Palestinian territory risked starvation.

“We are not going to die from the bombs, but from hunger,” thunders Mohammed Nassar, 50, from Jabaliya, in northern Gaza.