LIVE – Gaza: Israel evacuates 100,000 people in Rafah, before an announced offensive

The German government on Monday called on all parties “not to endanger” discussions on a possible truce in the Gaza Strip which are coming up against the inflexibility of Israel and Hamas. “All parties must make maximum efforts to achieve a situation where the people of Gaza can be supplied with humanitarian goods as best as possible and the hostages can be released,” said a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defense. Foreign Affairs Kathrin Deschauer.

German diplomacy also recalled its numerous warnings against “a predicted humanitarian catastrophe” for the civilian population of Rafah while Israel launched an operation aimed at evacuating tens of thousands of Palestinian families from this city.

The bombing by the armed wing of Hamas around the Kerem Shalom crossing point in Israel has caused “negotiations to bog down” on a proposed truce in Gaza, Egyptian media outlet Al-Qahera News, close to intelligence, said on Monday. .

The Israeli army on Monday increased to four the number of soldiers killed the day before by rockets fired by the armed wing of Hamas around Kerem Shalom, the main crossing point for humanitarian aid from Israel to the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army announced on Sunday that three soldiers had been killed by this fire and twelve wounded “including three seriously”, adding that 14 rockets had been fired from east of Rafah, a town in the south of the Gaza Strip. It did not say Monday whether the fourth soldier who died was among those initially counted as injured.

Hamas indicated on Monday that it intended to continue negotiating a truce in the Gaza Strip, even as Israel asked residents to evacuate certain neighborhoods of Rafah. “After the last round of negotiations in Cairo, the leadership of the movement is carrying out internal consultations and with other groups” Palestinians, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Islamist movement, Abdel Latif Al-Qanou, told AFP. “We will continue negotiations in a positive and open manner to reach an agreement (…) which provides for an unlimited ceasefire.”

The Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah, supported by Iran, announced that it had fired “dozens of rockets” on Monday at an Israeli base located in the Syrian Golan occupied by Israel, in retaliation for an Israeli strike on eastern Lebanon. Hezbollah fighters launched “dozens of Katyusha rockets” targeting “the headquarters of the Golan division (…) at the Nafah base”, the movement declared in a statement, specifying that it was “a response to the enemy’s attack targeting the Bekaa region”. The Lebanese National News Agency (ANI) announced that three people were injured before dawn in an Israeli strike in the east of the country, where Hezbollah has a strong presence.

Israel began Monday evacuating 100,000 people from the east of the town of Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, where the army is preparing a major offensive in its war against Hamas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been announcing for weeks an upcoming offensive on the city, which he presents as the last major bastion of the Islamist movement in the Palestinian territory. “We have started a limited-scale operation to temporarily evacuate people residing in eastern Rafah,” an army spokesperson said on Monday, adding that the number of people affected was “around 100,000 (. ..) immediately”.

The Israeli army called on Gazans present in the east of the town of Rafah, against which Israel has been hammering out for months its intention to carry out a major military offensive, to move to “humanitarian zones”. According to the UN, around 1.2 million inhabitants, the majority pushed there by the fighting, are crowding into Rafah, a town on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip.

“We have started a limited-scale operation to temporarily evacuate people residing in eastern Rafah,” an army spokesperson said at a press briefing, repeating: “This is an operation of limited scale.”

Efforts for a truce in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas are coming up against the inflexibility of both camps, an impasse that international mediators are expected to attempt to resolve on Monday during an “emergency meeting” in Qatar.

Sixteen people from two families were killed yesterday evening in Israeli strikes which targeted two houses in Rafah and its surroundings in the Gaza Strip, AFP learned from rescue workers and a hospital Source. Rescuers reported nine deaths in the “Al Attar family” and seven others in the “Keshta family”. A hospital Source confirmed the toll of the two attacks, specifying that they had taken place “in the camp of refugees from Yebna to Rafah and the surrounding areas of Al Salam”.