IThis 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 shoot”, said Tarek Bahloul, a resident on a deserted street in Rafah: “Every minute we hear a rocket and we don’t know where it will land.”
“If they enter Rafah, I will not deliver to them the weapons that have always been used (…) against cities”
Joe Biden
The Israeli military announced it had carried out airstrikes on around 25 targets in Zeitoun, southeast of Gaza City, with the aim of dismantling Hamas’ military infrastructure, including sniper posts. The area was hit by strikes throughout the night and several people could be trapped under the rubble, according to an AFP correspondent.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is threatening to launch a ground offensive on Rafah, where according to Israel the last battalions of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas are hiding, but where there are also 1.4 million Palestinians, the majority displaced by the war. .
“Civilians have been killed in Gaza due to” of American bombs, President Joe Biden admitted in an interview with CNN, during which he for the first time set conditions for military aid to Israel, a close ally of the United States. “If they enter Rafah, I will not deliver to them the weapons that have always been used (…) against cities”, declared Biden while the Israeli army said it was preparing an offensive “limited” in Rafah, causing the UN to fear a “bloodbath”.
Reacting to these comments, Israel’s ambassador to the UN told Israeli public radio on Thursday that this threat was “difficult to hear and very disappointing”.
A senior US official confirmed on condition of anonymity the suspension last week of a transfer to Israel “1,800 2,000-pound (907 kg) bombs and 1,700 500-pound (226 kg) bombs”, used during the war.
Earlier this week, the Israeli army took control of the border crossing with Egypt, cutting off the main gateway for humanitarian aid convoys to the besieged Palestinian territory. The other crossing point near Rafah, Kerem Shalom on the Israeli side, closed on Sunday after shootings claimed by Hamas, was targeted on Wednesday by rocket fire shortly after its reopening, according to the army.
Israeli soldiers continued their “targeted operations” on the Gaza side of the crossing point, in eastern Rafah, based on reports of “terrorists operating in the area”.
“Even areas presented as safe by the Israeli army are bombed”
Mouhanad Ahmad Qishta, in Rafah
“We are very afraid. The occupation army continues to indiscriminately fire shells on neighborhoods in eastern Rafah, in addition to intensifying airstrikes”, told AFP a resident of the city, Mouhanad Ahmad Qishta. “Even areas presented as safe by the Israeli army are bombed“, he added.
The closure of crossing points and military operations in Rafah raise fears of a worsening of the humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territory.
Only Wednesday remainedthree days of fuel” to hospitals in southern Gaza, “which means they might stop working soon”, warned the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
A British emergency doctor, James Smith, on mission to southern Gaza, described a health situation “catastrophic” and a smell of sewage “omnipresent” in hospitals, many of which have been ravaged by fighting and strikes.
This war broke out on October 7 when Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza carried out an attack against Israel, unprecedented in the country’s history, which left more than 1,170 dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP report. established from official Israeli data.
More than 250 people have been kidnapped and 128 remain captive in Gaza, of whom 36 are believed to have died, according to the army. In response, the Israeli army launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip which has left 34,904 dead so far, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.
Regarding the mediation talks in Cairo, the media Al-Qahera Newsclose to Egyptian intelligence, reported a “convergence” of views on certain points.
In Jerusalem, Benjamin Netanyahu met with CIA Director William Burns on Wednesday to discuss a possible “break” in military operations in the south of the Gaza Strip in exchange for the release of hostages, according to an Israeli official.
On Monday, a few hours before the deployment of Israeli troops in Rafah, Hamas gave the green light to a proposal presented by the mediators.
Israel responded that this proposal was “far from his demands” and repeated his opposition to a definitive ceasefire as long as Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007 and which he considers a terrorist organization along with the United States and the European Union, is not defeated .
