Battles rage in Rafah after US says Gaza truce still possible

AFP | Gaza

The Daily Tribune - www.newsofbahrain.com

Israeli helicopters struck Gaza’s Rafah yesterday, residents said, with Hamas reporting street battles in the southern city after top US diplomat Antony Blinken said a truce was still possible.

But the war raged on, and tensions soared on Israel’s northern border with more attacks by Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah forces targeting military positions. Israel, which has traded near-daily fire with Hamas ally Hezbollah since the start of the Gaza war, said it would respond “with force”.

Israeli ground forces have been operating in Rafah since early May, despite widespread alarm over the fate of Palestinian civilians there, including in a ruling by the International Court of Justice later that month.

Western areas of Rafah came under heavy fire yesterday from the air, sea, and land, residents said. “There was very intense fire from warplanes, Apaches (helicopters), and quadcopters, in addition to Israeli artillery and military battleships, all of which were striking the area west of Rafah,” one told AFP. Hamas said its fighters were battling Israeli troops on the streets in the city, near the besieged Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt.

The Gaza war began after Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures. The gunmen also seized 251 hostages. Of these, 116 remain in Gaza although the army says 41 are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has left at least 37,232 people dead in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry. The latest toll includes at least 30 more deaths over the previous day, it said.

Ceasefire push

Efforts to reach a truce stalled when Israel began ground operations in Rafah, but US President Joe Biden in late May launched a new effort to secure a deal. On Monday the UN Security Council adopted a US-drafted resolution supporting the plan.

Blinken, in Doha on Wednesday to promote Biden’s ceasefire roadmap, said Washington would work with regional partners to “close the deal”. Hamas responded to mediators Qatar and Egypt late Tuesday. Blinken said some of its proposed amendments “are workable and some are not”.

Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan said the group sought “a permanent ceasefire and complete withdrawal” of Israeli troops from Gaza, demands repeatedly rejected by Israel. The plan includes a six-week ceasefire, a hostage-prisoner exchange and Gaza reconstruction. It would be the first truce since a week-long November pause in fighting saw hostages freed and Palestinians released from Israeli jails.