Pressure mounts on Israel for Gaza ceasefire
PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES (AFP) – Israel faced growing international pressure yesterday to agree to a ceasefire with Hamas, as it prepared for an incursion into the southern Gaza city Rafah where more than a million Palestinians are trapped.
US Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns was due in Cairo on Tuesday for a new round of talks on a Qatari-brokered ceasefire proposal that would temporarily halt fighting in exchange for Hamas freeing hostages.
His planned visit comes after Washington and the United Nations warned Israel against carrying out a ground offensive into Rafah without a plan to protect civilians, who say they have nowhere left to go.
“Wherever we go there’s bombing, martyrs and wounded,” said Iman Dergham, a displaced Palestinian woman.
After White House talks with Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Monday, US President Joe Biden said civilians in Rafah “need to be protected.”
“Many people there have been displaced – displaced multiple times, fleeing the violence to the north, and now they’re packed into Rafah – exposed and vulnerable,” he said.
King Abdullah pushed for a full ceasefire to end the four-month-old war.
“We cannot afford an Israeli attack on Rafah. It is certain to produce another humanitarian disaster,” he said. “We need a lasting ceasefire now.”
China urged Israel to “stop its military operation as soon as possible... in order to prevent a more serious humanitarian disaster in the Rafah area.”
After rejecting Hamas’ terms for a truce last week, Israel conducted a predawn raid in Rafah on Monday that freed two hostages and killed around 100 people.
Netanyahu hailed the operation that freed Fernando Simon Marman, 60, and Luis Har, 70, as “perfect,” while the Palestinian foreign ministry said the deaths of dozens of Gazans amounted to a “massacre.”