Tel Aviv. The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, pledged this Tuesday to launch an incursion on Rafah, the city in southern Gaza where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are taking refuge from a war that has lasted seven months.
Netanyahu noted that Israel will enter Rafah to destroy the Hamas battalions present there “with or without an agreement.” Israel and Hamas are negotiating a ceasefire agreement to free the hostages and bring some relief to Palestinians in the besieged enclave.
“The idea that we will stop the war before achieving all its objectives is misplaced. “We will enter Rafah and eliminate the Hamas battalions there — with or without a deal — to achieve total victory,” Netanyahu said during a meeting with relatives of captives held by insurgents in Gaza, according to a statement from his office. .
The Israeli leader has pledged to achieve “total victory” in the war and has faced pressure from his nationalist government partners to launch an offensive on Rafah, which Israel says is the last major stronghold of the Palestinian insurgent group.
The international community, including Israel’s main ally, the United States, has raised the alarm about the fate of civilians if the army invades the area.
Netanyahu has repeatedly refused to stop the war in exchange for the return of the hostages and says the operation in Rafah is crucial to destroying the insurgents after their Oct. 7 incursion into southern Israel. His government could be threatened if he agrees to a pact because the most conservative members of the executive have demanded an attack on the city.
Earlier in the day, Egyptian state satellite television Al-Qahera News reported that Hamas officials left Cairo after holding talks with Egyptian officials about a new ceasefire proposal in Gaza.
The network, which has close ties to Egyptian security agencies, said the Hamas delegation would return to Egypt’s capital with a written response to the ceasefire proposal, but did not offer dates.
On Monday, the delegation led by Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Palestinian insurgent group official, held talks with Egyptian officials focused on the country’s proposed ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Together with Qatar and the United States, Egypt acts as a mediator between Israel and Hamas to achieve a truce after almost seven months of war. In recent weeks, Cairo has stepped up its mediation efforts in an attempt to prevent an Israeli offensive on Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city on the border with Egypt, where more than half of the besieged enclave’s population takes refuge. .
The terms of the proposal have not been made public. But Israeli media said Israel has softened its stance and is now asking for the release of 33 hostages — up from an initial 40 — in exchange for the release of some 900 Palestinians held in its jails. Hamas is believed to have around 100 Israelis captive in Gaza and the remains of at least 30 more.
For its part, the Gaza Ministry of Health said in its daily report on Tuesday that the territory’s hospitals received 47 bodies in the last 24 hours, in addition to 61 wounded.
The war in Gaza began after the unprecedented Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel in which insurgents killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 more hostage.
The subsequent Israeli air and ground campaign in the Strip has claimed the lives of at least 34,536 Palestinians, mostly women and minors, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, whose count does not differentiate between civilian victims and combatants. At least 77,704 more people have been injured, he added.
The Israeli army claims its troops have killed about 13,000 insurgents since October, but has offered no evidence to support its claim.
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– 2024-05-05 14:20:26
