Connect with us

RSS

Israel Says It Is Poised to Move on Rafah

FILE PHOTO: Smoke rises following Israeli strikes, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Islamist terror group Hamas, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip April 22, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mahdy Zourob/File Photo

Israel’s military is poised to evacuate Palestinian civilians from Rafah and assault Hamas hold-outs in the southern Gaza Strip city, a senior Israeli defense official said on Wednesday, despite international warnings of humanitarian catastrophe.

A spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government said Israel was “moving ahead” with a ground operation, but gave no timeline.

The defense official said Israel’s Defense Ministry had bought 40,000 tents, each with the capacity for 10 to 12 people, to house Palestinians relocated from Rafah in advance of an assault.

Video circulating online appeared to show rows of square white tents going up in Khan Younis, a city some 3 miles from Rafah. Reuters could not verify the video but reviewed images from satellite company Maxar Technologies which showed tent camps on Khan Younis land that had been vacant weeks ago.

An Israeli government source said Netanyahu’s war cabinet planned to meet in the coming two weeks to authorize civilian evacuations, expected to take around a month.

The defense official, who requested anonymity, told Reuters that the military could go into action immediately but was awaiting a green light from Netanyahu.

Rafah, which abuts the Egyptian border, is sheltering more than a million Palestinians who fled the half-year-old Israeli offensive through the rest of Gaza, and say the prospect of fleeing yet again is terrifying.

“I have to make a decision whether to leave Rafah because my mother and I are afraid an invasion could happen suddenly and we won’t get time to escape,” said Aya, 30, who has been living temporarily in the city with her family in a school.

She said that some families recently moved to a refugee camp in coastal Al-Mawasi, but their tents caught fire when tank shells landed nearby. “Where do we go?”

HITTING HARD

Israel, which launched its war to annihilate Hamas after the Islamist group’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israeli towns, says Rafah is home to four Hamas combat battalions reinforced by thousands of retreating fighters, and it must defeat them to achieve victory.

“Hamas was hit hard in the northern sector. It was also hit hard in the center of the Strip. And soon it will be hit hard in Rafah, too,” Brigadier-General Itzik Cohen, commander of Israel’s 162nd Division operating in Gaza, told Kan public TV.

But Israel’s closest ally Washington has called on it to set aside plans for an assault, and says Israel can combat Hamas fighters there by other means.

“We could not support a Rafah ground operation without an appropriate, credible, executable humanitarian plan precisely because of the complications for delivery of assistance,” David Satterfield, U.S. special envoy for Middle East humanitarian issued, told reporters on Tuesday.

“We continue discussions with Israel on what we believe are alternate ways of addressing a challenge which we recognize, which is Hamas military present in Rafah.”

Egypt says it will not allow Gazans to be pushed across the border onto its territory. Cairo had warned Israel against moving on Rafah, which “would lead to massive human massacres, losses (and) widespread destruction,” its State Information Service said.

Israel has withdrawn most of its ground troops from southern Gaza this month but kept up air strikes and conducted raids into areas its troops abandoned. Efforts by the United States, Egypt and Qatar to broker an extended ceasefire in time to head off an assault on Rafah have so far failed.

Hamas killed 1,200 people and abducted 253 on Oct 7. Of those hostages, 129 remain in Gaza, Israeli officials say. More than 260 Israeli troops have been killed in ground fighting since Oct 20, the military says.

H. A. Hellyer, a senior associate fellow in international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute, said he expected the assault on Rafah “sooner rather than later” because Netanyahu is under pressure to meet his stated objectives of rescuing hostages and killing all the Hamas leaders.

“The invasion of Rafah is unavoidable because of the way he has framed all of this,” he said. But it will not be possible for everyone to leave the city, so “if he sends the military into Rafah, there are going to be a lot of casualties.”

The post Israel Says It Is Poised to Move on Rafah first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading
Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

RSS

Israel Receives Shipment of Heavy Bombs Cleared by Trump

US President Donald Trump looks on as he signs an executive order in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, US, Jan. 31, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Israel has received a shipment of heavy MK-84 bombs from the United States, after US President Donald Trump lifted a block imposed on the export of the munitions by the administration of predecessor Joe Biden, the defense ministry said on Sunday.

The MK-84 is an unguided 2,000 pound bomb, which can rip through thick concrete and metal, creating a wide blast radius.

The Biden administration declined to clear them for export to Israel out of concern about the impact on densely populated areas of the Gaza Strip.

The Biden administration sent thousands of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel after the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian Hamas terrorists from Gaza but later held up one of the shipments. The hold was lifted by Trump last month.

“The munitions shipment that arrived in Israel tonight, released by the Trump Administration, represents a significant asset for the Air Force and the IDF and serves as further evidence of the strong alliance between Israel and the United States,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said late on Saturday.

The shipment arrived after days of concern about whether a fragile ceasefire in Gaza agreed last month would hold, after both sides accused each other of violating the terms of the deal to halt fighting to allow the exchange of hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli jails.

Washington has announced assistance for Israel worth billions of dollars since the war began.

The post Israel Receives Shipment of Heavy Bombs Cleared by Trump first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

US Mideast Envoy Says Phase Two Gaza Talks to Continue This Week

US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy-designate Steve Witkoff gives a speech at the inaugural parade inside Capital One Arena on the inauguration day of Trump’s second presidential term, in Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria

US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said on Sunday that talks on phase two of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Palestinian terrorists Hamas would continue this week “at a location to be determined” to figure out how to reach a successful conclusion.

He told Fox News that he had “very productive and constructive” calls on Sunday with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and Egypt’s director of intelligence.

Witkoff said they spoke about “the sequencing of phase two, setting forth positions on both sides, so we can understand… where we are today, and then continuing talks this week at a location to be determined so that we can figure out how we get to the end of phase two successfully.”

The post US Mideast Envoy Says Phase Two Gaza Talks to Continue This Week first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

Arab States to Reveal 5-Year Plan to Rebuild Gaza: No Hamas or Relocation

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi attends the Arab summit in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, May 31, 2019. Photo: REUTERS/Hamad l Mohammed/File Photo.

i24 NewsArab countries will unveil their plan for the reconstruction of Gaza on February 27 in Cairo. This initiative, developed by the Palestinians and handed over to the Egyptians for implementation, will be presented to the leaders of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. The plan provides for reconstruction over three to five years, without the displacement of the Palestinian population and without Hamas control. The funding, estimated at several hundred million dollars, will come from Gulf countries. The work will be carried out by Egyptian companies, representing a significant source of income for Egypt, which is strongly opposed to any migration of Palestinians out of Gaza. The workforce will consist mainly of local Palestinians.

“The goal is to marginalize Hamas so that it understands that it has lost control of Gaza, and to completely eliminate the terrorist organization’s grip on the population and the territory within 5 years from the start of reconstruction,” a source involved in the plan said.

An independent “Palestinian administration,” separate from the Palestinian Authority but relying on it, will oversee the reconstruction. This power structure is designed to get the approval of Israel and the United States, who refuse direct management by the Palestinian Authority.

Arab countries fear a resurgence of fighting by Israel, which could, in their view, favor US President Donald Trump’s plan to move Palestinians to neighboring countries. The former US president said he wanted to see Jordan, Egypt, and other Arab countries welcome more displaced people from Gaza, so that the war-torn area can be “cleaned up.”

According to analyzed satellite images, approximately 65% of the buildings in Gaza have been destroyed during the war. Experts estimate that reconstruction could take more than a decade and cost several hundred billion dollars.

The post Arab States to Reveal 5-Year Plan to Rebuild Gaza: No Hamas or Relocation first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

Copyright © 2017 - 2023 Jewish Post & News