Israel army says encircled district in Rafah, S.Gaza

AFP | Jerusalem

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Israel’s military pressed ground operations across the Gaza Strip yesterday, encircling part of Rafah city near Egypt almost a week into a renewed assault on the Palestinian territory.

Deployment of Israeli troops in parts of Gaza, despite calls to revive a January truce with Hamas militants, comes alongside a deadly flare-up in Lebanon and missiles fired from Yemen.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said yesterday that the war triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel has killed at least 50,021 people in the territory. AFP was unable to independently verify the figure. Gaza’s civil defence agency said separately, citing its own records, that the death toll had topped 50,000 people.

Hamas’s attack on Israel resulted in 1,218 deaths, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures.

Israeli troops have “in recent hours” encircled Tal al-Sultan in Rafah, the military said in a statement, adding its objective was to “dismantle terrorist infrastructure and eliminate” militants there. Earlier on Sunday, Israel had warned residents of the area to evacuate.

Rafah, in southern Gaza, had already been the target of a major Israeli offensive about a year ago. At a charity kitchen in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza’s main city just north of Rafah, 19-year-old Iman al-Bardawil said many displaced Palestinians are struggling to “afford food and drink” during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

“I’m here to get rice for the children, but it’s gone,” said Saed Abu al-Jidyan, who like Bardawil had fled his home in northern Gaza.

“The crossings are closed, and my salary has been suspended since the beginning of the war,” he said. “There is no food in Gaza.”

With fuel unable to enter the territory, AFP images showed Gazans collecting books from the bombed-out Islamic University in Gaza City to use for cooking fires.

Three weeks ago Israel blocked the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza and cut electricity in a bid to force Hamas to accept the Israeli terms for an extension of the ceasefire and release the 58 hostages still held by Hamas.