Gaza pounded as fears of push into Rafah grow
PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: Israel pressed its blistering assault in the Gaza Strip on Saturday as fears grew of a push into Rafah, the southern Gazan city teeming with civilians uprooted by the nearly four-month war.
A constant barrage of airstrikes and tank fire rocked Khan Younis during the night, an Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalist said of southern Gaza’s main city that has been the current focus of the Israeli offensive.
The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said more than 100 people were killed across the Palestinian territory overnight, mostly women and children. The Israeli army said its forces killed “dozens of terrorists” in northern and central Gaza over the past 24 hours.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by the fierce fighting have fled to Rafah since the war broke out, with their tents cramming spaces along streets and in parks.
The city that had been home to 200,000 people now hosts more than half of Gaza’s 2.4 million population, the World Health Organization said on Friday.
Witnesses in Rafah said 12 people were killed in an airstrike on a house owned by the Hijazi family.
“They bombed without any warning,” said 45-year-old Bilal Jad, a neighbor whose house was damaged in the attack. “There’s no safe place anywhere. The airstrikes are everywhere.”
Civilians who fled to Rafah have been pushed up against the border with Egypt, trying to avoid parts of the city exposed to the fighting in nearby Khan Younis.
One of them, Abdulkarim Misbah, said he fled his home in Jabalia refugee camp in the north and reached Khan Younis, only to be uprooted once more.
“We escaped last week from death in Khan Younis without bringing anything with us,” the 32-year-old said.
‘Pressure cooker of despair’
The United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it was deeply concerned about the escalation of hostilities in Khan Younis, which has pushed more and more people southward.
“Rafah is a pressure cooker of despair, and we fear for what comes next,” OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke said.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned on Thursday that the military was set to train its sights on Rafah.
“We are achieving our missions in Khan Younis, and we will also reach Rafah and eliminate terror elements that threaten us,” he said in a video message his ministry sent to journalists.
The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’ unprecedented October 7 attacks on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
The Islamist militants also seized about 250 hostages, and Israel says 132 remain in Gaza, including at least 27 believed to have been killed.
Vowing to crush Hamas, Israel launched a massive military offensive that has killed at least 27,131 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, said the Health Ministry there.
The fighting has devastated the narrow coastal strip, while an Israeli siege has resulted in dire shortages of food, water, fuel and medicines.
New push for truce
Image analysis released on Friday by the UN Institute for Training and Research, based on footage collected on January 6 and 7, showed “approximately 30 percent” of Gaza’s structures had been affected by the war.
The soaring civilian death toll in Gaza, as well as fears among Israelis over the fate of the hostages, have fueled calls for a ceasefire.
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to the Middle East yet again in the coming days to press a new proposal involving the release of Israeli hostages in return for a pause in the fighting, the State Department said.
Blinken will visit proposal mediators Qatar and Egypt, as well as Israel, the occupied West Bank and Saudi Arabia starting on Sunday, it added.
The trip — his fifth since the war broke out — comes after Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said there were hopes of “good news” about a fresh pause to the fighting “in the next couple of weeks.”
Ansari said a truce proposal thrashed out in France’s capital Paris had “been approved by the Israeli side” and received a “positive” initial response from Hamas as well.
But a source close to Hamas told AFP: “There is no agreement on the framework of the agreement yet — the factions have important observations — and the Qatari statement is rushed and not true.”