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Israel Strikes Eastern Rafah as Ceasefire Talks End With No Deal
Israeli soldiers walk near a tank, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, near the Israel-Gaza Border, in southern Israel, May 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israeli forces targeted areas of Rafah on Thursday, Palestinian residents said, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed US President Joe Biden’s threat to withhold weapons from Israel if it launches a major offensive in the southern Gaza city.
A senior Israeli official said late on Thursday that the latest round of indirect negotiations in Cairo to halt hostilities in Gaza had ended and Israel would proceed with its operation in Rafah and other parts of the Gaza Strip as planned.
Israel has submitted to mediators its reservations about a Hamas proposal for a hostage release deal, the official said.
“If we must, we shall fight with our fingernails,” Netanyahu said in a video statement. “But we have much more than our fingernails.”
In Gaza, Palestinian terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad said their fighters fired anti-tank rockets and mortars at Israeli tanks massed on the eastern outskirts of the city, Hamas’ last stronghold in Gaza.
Israel says battalions of Hamas terrorists are hiding in Rafah, where the population has been swelled by hundreds of thousands of Gazans seeking refuge amid the conflict.
In the United States, the White House repeated its hope that Israel would not launch a full operation in Rafah, saying it did not believe that would advance Israel‘s aim of defeating Hamas.
“Smashing into Rafah, in [President Biden’s] view, will not advance that objective,” spokesperson John Kirby said.
Kirby said Hamas had been pressured significantly by Israel and there were better options to hunt down what remains of the group’s leadership than an operation with significant risk to civilians.
Hamas started the ongoing war with its Oct. 7 invasion of southern Israel, where the terrorists murdered 1,200 people and abducted 252 others as hostages. Israel responded with a military campaign in neighboring Gaza, the Palestinian enclave ruled by Hamas, aimed at freeing the hostages and destroying the terror group. Some 128 hostages remain in Gaza and 36 have been declared dead, according to the latest Israeli figures.
Biden on Wednesday issued his starkest warning yet against a full ground invasion in Rafah, telling CNN that: “I made it clear that if they go into Rafah … I’m not supplying the weapons.”
Israel‘s ambassador to the United States said the decision to withhold weapons from Israel over Rafah sends the “wrong message” to Hamas and the country’s foes.
“It puts us in a corner because we have to deal with Rafah one way or the other,” Ambassador Michael Herzog told a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace webinar.
The Israeli military has the munitions it requires for operations in Rafah and other planned operations, chief armed forces spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said.
Israeli armed forces have already killed 50 Palestinian gunmen in east Rafah and uncovered several tunnels, Hagari said. Hamas had no immediate comment.
TALKS END
In Cairo, delegations from Hamas, Israel, the US, Egypt, and Qatar had been meeting since Tuesday. The talks in Egypt’s capital made some headway but no deal was reached, according to two Egyptian security sources.
Izzat El-Risheq, a member of Hamas’ political office in Qatar, said the Hamas delegation had left Cairo, having reaffirmed its approval of the mediators’ ceasefire proposal. The plan entails the release of Israeli hostages held captive in Gaza and a number of Palestinians jailed by Israel.
Hamas blames Israel for the lack of agreement, and its Al-Aqsa TV’s Telegram account said the group would not make any concessions beyond those in the proposal it had accepted.
Israel has said it is open to a truce, but has rejected demands for an end to the war.
US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Washington continued to engage with Israel on amendments to a ceasefire proposal, adding work to finalize the text of an agreement was “incredibly difficult.”
The post Israel Strikes Eastern Rafah as Ceasefire Talks End With No Deal first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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250 Hezbollah Terrorists Including 21 Commanders Eliminated in Ground Op
DF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
i24 News – The Israeli military eliminated 250 Hezbollah terrorists including 21 commanders in four days of ground combat, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Friday.
IDF soldiers operating in southern Lebanon have uncovered vast caches of weapons and munitions in civilian residences, showing how central embedding within civilian population is to Hezbollah’s mode of warfare.
Meanwhile, heavy strikes targeting the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahieh in southern Beirut were ongoing, Lebanese media reported.
The post 250 Hezbollah Terrorists Including 21 Commanders Eliminated in Ground Op first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Airstrikes Launched on Several Parts of Yemen, Houthi Al Masirah TV says
Illustrative. Hodeidah, Yemen, July 20, 2024. Houthi Military Media/Handout via REUTERS
Airstrikes were launched on Friday at several parts of Yemen including its capital Sanaa and Hodeidah airport, Al Masirah TV, the main television news outlet run by the Houthi movement controlling much of Yemen, and residents said.
Strikes also targeted the south of Dhamar city and the southeast of al-Bayda province, the channel added.
Residents said that the attack on al-Bayda province targeted several Houthi military outposts.
Al Masirah TV reported that the strikes had been carried out by the United States and British forces, but a British government source said Britain was not involved.
Iran-aligned Houthi militants have launched attacks on international shipping near Yemen since last November in solidarity with Palestinians in Israel‘s war with Hamas.
The attacks have drawn US and British retaliatory strikes and disrupted global trade as ship owners reroute vessels away from the Red Sea and Suez Canal to sail the longer route around the southern tip of Africa.
Following the airstrikes, a Houthi spokesman called the attack “a desperate attempt,” adding that “Yemen will not be deterred by these attacks and will continue its steadfastness in confronting the enemies.”
The post Airstrikes Launched on Several Parts of Yemen, Houthi Al Masirah TV says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Kills Hamas Commander in Tulkarem
Illustrative. Israeli troops during counterterrorism activity in Tulkarem, northwestern Samaria, September 2024. Photo: IDF.
JNS.org – An Israeli Air Force fighter jet conducted a rare strike in Tulkarem in the West Bank on Thursday night, targeting top Hamas terrorist Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi.
The Palestinian Authority reported at least 18 fatalities in the strike, with a local security source telling Agence France-Presse it was the deadliest in Judea and Samaria since the Second Intifada.
Ayyth Radwan, the head of Islamic Jihad’s Tulkarem branch, was also reportedly killed.
Oufi was planning a terrorist attack “in the immediate time frame,” according to the Israel Defense Forces, and directed the thwarted car bombing last month near Ateret in the Binyamin region of Samaria.
There were no casualties in the incident, which Israel Ganz, the head of the Binyamin Regional Council, called a “great miracle.”
The IDF said Oufi was involved in smuggling weapons to terrorists who perpetrated several recent attacks against Israelis, including some that resulted in injuries to civilians.
He also “worked to establish terrorist networks on behalf of Hamas and assisted terror operatives in the area to carry out significant shooting and explosive attacks,” added the military.
The post IDF Kills Hamas Commander in Tulkarem first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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