Israeli army takes ‘operational control’ of Palestinian side of Rafah border crossing

Israeli forces are carrying out a ‘sweep operation’ in the areas of eastern Rafah

Istanbul, Turkey - The Israeli army on Tuesday said that its forces have seized control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

In a statement, the Israeli army said its 401st armoured brigade took ‘operational control’ of the Rafah crossing from the Palestinian side. Israeli forces are conducting a ‘sweep operation’ in the areas of eastern Rafah it seized, it added, claiming to kill 20 Palestinian gunmen.

The spokesman of the Palestinian border crossing authority confirmed earlier that the border was closed from the Palestinian side. Video footage shared by Israeli media outlets, including the Times of Israel, showed an Israeli tank at the Rafah crossing.

Following the Palestinian Hamas group announcement of accepting a Qatari-egyptian proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza, Israel’s war cabinet decided to push ahead with an operation in Rafah in order to apply what it said ‘military pressure on Hamas with the goal of making progress on freeing the hostages and the other war aims’.

The Israeli army issued immediate evacuation orders early on Monday for Palestinians in the eastern neighbourhoods of Rafah and called on them to move to the town of Al-mawasi in southern Gaza. Rafah is home to more than 1.5mn displaced Palestinians who have taken refuge from the war launched by Israel following the October 7 attack by Hamas that killed nearly 1,200 people.

‘A dangerous escalation’

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday condemned the Israeli military control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing, describing the move as ‘a dangerous escalation’. In a statement, the ministry strongly condemned ‘the Israeli military operations in the Palestinian Rafah city, and what resulted of an Israeli control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing’.

The statement considered the Israeli military operations in Rafah ‘a dangerous escalation that threatens the lives of more than one million Palestinians who primarily rely on the crossing which is considered as the main lifeline to the Gaza Strip’.

Egypt called on Israel to practice ‘maximum restraint’ and for the international parties to intervene ‘to defuse the current crisis’.

‘No safe zones in Gaza’

Meanwhile, the EU foreign policy chief on Tuesday voiced his concern over the situation in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip city, saying the Israeli military offensive will again cause a lot of civilian casualties. “The Rafah offensive has started again, in spite of all the requests of the international community, the US, the European Union member states, everybody asking (Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu not to attack,” Josep Borrell said at the doorstep of the Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels.

Expressing his concerns, he said this is going to cause again a lot of civilian casualties, whatever they say. There are 600,000 children in Gaza, Borrell said, noting that they will be pushed to the ‘so-called safe zones’, but he stressed that there are ‘no safe zones in Gaza’.

When he touched on the situation on the ground, Borrell said the UN has the capacity to evaluate the situation there, criticising Israel’s attacks on journalists and the closure of Al Jazeera channel’s offices. “Sooner or later, the International Criminal Court (ICC) will have to say something,” said Borrell, reacting to the statements about the ICC if the court will issue Israel arrest warrants.

‘I fully condemn any kind of intimidation to the International Criminal Court. Enough is enough, threatening the International Criminal Court … fully rejectable,’ he noted.