Biden vows to cut off arms transfers
Israel shelled Rafah yesterday as US President Joe Biden offered his starkest warning yet over the conduct of its war against Hamas, vowing to cut off arms transfers if an offensive into the southern Gaza city goes ahead.
Israel has defied international objections by sending in tanks and conducting "targeted raids" in the border city, which it says is home to Hamas's last remaining battalions -- but is also crowded with displaced Palestinian civilians.
AFP journalists reported heavy shelling in Rafah early yesterday, and the Israeli military later said it was also striking "Hamas positions" further north in the centre of the Gaza Strip.
In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Biden warned he would stop US weapons supplies to Israel if it pushed ahead with its long-threatened Rafah ground offensive.
"If they go into Rafah, I'm not supplying the weapons that have been used... to deal with the cities," Biden said. "We're not gonna supply the weapons and the artillery shells that have been used."
On Tuesday, Israel forces seized Rafah's border crossing into Egypt, which has served the main entry point for aid into besieged Gaza.
The White House condemned the interruption to humanitarian deliveries at the time, and the secretary of defence later confirmed Washington had paused, for the time being, a shipment of heavy bombs to Israel after it failed to address concerns over its Rafah ground incursion.
"Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs," Biden said in his interview. "It's just wrong."
He insisted, however, that the United States was "not walking away from Israel's
security".
The United States, along with Egypt and Cairo, has been heavily involved in talks currently under way in Cairo aimed at brokering a ceasefire in the seven-month war.
'Extreme fear'
The Israeli military said on Wednesday it was reopening another major aid crossing into Gaza, Kerem Shalom, as well as the Erez crossing.
But the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said the Kerem Shalom crossing -- which Israel shut after a rocket attack killed four soldiers on Sunday -- remained closed.
Late on Wednesday, the army said a soldier was lightly wounded when Kerem Shalom was again targeted by rockets.
The heavy shelling in Rafah overnight into yesterday followed a day of what the Israeli military said were "targeted raids on the Gazan side of Rafah crossing", in the city's east.
An army statement later on Wednesday said that Hamas naval commander Mohammed Ahmed Ali was killed in an air strike "in the past day". Hamas did not immediately comment.
Civilian life in Rafah, meanwhile, "has completely ceased", said displaced Gazan Marwan al-masri, 35, noting "the streets are empty" in the western part of the city.
"We are living in Rafah in extreme fear and endless anxiety," said Muhanad Ahmad Qishta, 29.
"Places the Israeli army claims to be safe are also being bombed," he said.
An emergency doctor working in Rafah and nearby Khan Yunis said that with humanitarian access compromised, the health situation was "catastrophic".
"The smell of sewage is rife everywhere," said the doctor, James Smith. "It's been getting worse over the course of the last couple of days."
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday that hospitals in southern Gaza had only "three days of fuel left" because of the border closures.
"Without fuel all humanitarian operations will stop."
Truce talks
Tnalkds
involving Qatari, US and Hamas delegations aimed at cementing a long-stalled ceasefire deal were ongoing on Wednesday in Cairo, said Al-qahera News, which is linked to Egyptian intelligence.
It noted that there were "points of contention" during the discussions, but also reported some "convergence" without elaborating.
A senior Hamas official said the latest round of negotiations would be "decisive".
Hamas "insists on the rightful demands of its people", the official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak publicly about the negotiations.
In Jerusalem, CIA director Bill Burns met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the "possibility of Israel pausing the operation in Rafah in exchange for hostage releases", an Israeli official said, also on condition of anonymity.
The Hamas official had previously warned the Cairo talks would be Israel's "last chance" to free the hostages still in militants' hands.
Mediator Qatar also appealed "for urgent international action to prevent Rafah from being invaded and a crime of genocide being committed".