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May 9, 2024 – 1:44 p.m.
(Keystone-ATS) The Israeli army bombarded the Gaza Strip on Thursday, as the United States threatened for the first time to stop arms transfers to Israel in the event of a major offensive in the crowded town of Rafah, near the border. Egyptian.
It is the harshest warning from the United States, a close ally of Israel and its main arms supplier, regarding the conduct of its war triggered on October 7 by a bloody attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Israeli soil.
This warning comes in the middle of mediation in Cairo where indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas via Qatar, Egypt and the United States resumed on Wednesday to try to reach a compromise on a truce and avoid an assault in Rafah .
On the ground, an AFP team reported numerous artillery fire Thursday in Rafah, at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip. “Tanks and jets are shooting,” said Tarek Bahloul, a resident on a deserted street in Rafah.
