(Rafah) The Israeli army bombarded the Gaza Strip on Thursday, as the United States threatened for the first time to stop arms transfers to Israel in the event of a major offensive in the crowded town of Rafah, near from the Egyptian border.
Shortly after midnight, an AFP team reported numerous artillery fire in Rafah, at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army announced strikes against “Hamas positions” in the center of the Palestinian territory ravaged by seven months of war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is threatening to launch a ground offensive on Rafah, where according to Israel the last battalions of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas are hiding, but where there are also 1.4 million Palestinians, the majority displaced by the war. .
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The Israeli army announced strikes against “Hamas positions” in the center of the Palestinian territory ravaged by seven months of war.
“Civilians were killed in Gaza because” of American bombs, President Joe Biden admitted in an interview with CNN, during which he for the first time set conditions for military aid to Israel, a close ally the United States.
“If they enter Rafah, I will not deliver to them the weapons that have always been used […] against cities,” declared Mr. Biden while the Israeli army said it was preparing a “limited” offensive in Rafah, causing the UN to fear a “bloodbath”.
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US President Joe Biden
Reacting to these comments, Israel’s ambassador to the UN told Israeli public radio on Thursday that the threat was “difficult to hear and very disappointing.”
A senior US official confirmed on condition of anonymity the suspension last week of a transfer to Israel of “1,800 2,000-pound (907 kg) bombs and 1,700 500-pound (226 kg) bombs” used during the war. .
Earlier this week, the Israeli army deployed tanks into Rafah and took control of the border crossing with Egypt, cutting off the main gateway for humanitarian aid convoys to the besieged Palestinian territory.
The other crossing point near Rafah, Kerem Shalom on the Israeli side, closed on Sunday after shootings claimed by Hamas, was targeted on Wednesday by rocket fire shortly after its reopening, according to the army.
“Uninterrupted” shots
Israeli soldiers continued their “targeted operations” on Wednesday on the Gaza side of the crossing point, in eastern Rafah, based on reports of “terrorists operating in the area.”
“There is continuous and indiscriminate Israeli artillery fire on eastern and central Rafah, which has caused many deaths and injuries and is targeting the upper floors of residential buildings,” he told AFP. Ahmed Radwan, a Civil Defense official in Gaza.
“We are very afraid. The occupying army continues to indiscriminately fire shells on neighborhoods in eastern Rafah, in addition to an intensification of airstrikes,” city resident Mouhanad Ahmad told AFP. Qishta. “Even areas presented as safe by the Israeli army are bombarded,” he added.
The closure of crossing points and military operations in Rafah raise fears of a worsening of the humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territory.
Hospitals in southern Gaza had only “three days of fuel” left on Wednesday, “which means they could soon stop functioning,” warned World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
A British emergency doctor, James Smith, on a mission to southern Gaza, described a “catastrophic” health situation and an “omnipresent” smell of sewage in hospitals, several of which have been ravaged by fighting and strikes.
This war broke out on October 7 when Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza carried out an attack against Israel, unprecedented in the country’s history, which left more than 1,170 dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP report. established from official Israeli data.
More than 250 people have been kidnapped and 128 remain captive in Gaza, of whom 36 are believed to have died, according to the army. In response, the Israeli army launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip which has killed 34,844 people so far, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.
“Convergence” of views
In Cairo, indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas, via mediator countries (Qatar, Egypt and the United States), resumed on Wednesday to try to reach a compromise on a truce and avoid an assault in Rafah. The media Al-Qahera Newsclose to Egyptian intelligence, reported a “convergence” of views on certain points.
In Jerusalem, Benjamin Netanyahu met Wednesday with CIA Director William Burns to discuss a possible “pause” in military operations in the south of the Gaza Strip in exchange for the release of hostages, according to an Israeli official .
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
On Monday, a few hours before the deployment of Israeli troops in Rafah, Hamas gave the green light to a proposal presented by the mediators.
Israel responded that this proposal was “far from its demands” and repeated its opposition to a definitive ceasefire as long as Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007 and which it considers a terrorist organization along with the States. -United and the European Union, would not be defeated.