RAFAH – Israel battled Hamas in Gaza yesterday, including in far-southern Rafah, despite US warnings against a full-scale invasion of the crowded city and of the threat of post-war “anarchy” across the Palestinian territory. Clashes also raged in northern and central areas of the besieged Gaza Strip, AFP correspondents and witnesses said, as Israel prepared to mark a sombre Independence Day, beginning Monday night, more than seven months into the war sparked by Hamas’s 7 October attack.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a Memorial Day event that “our war of independence is not over yet. It continues even today … We are determined to win this struggle.” AFP correspondents reported helicopter strikes and heavy artillery shelling in the east of Rafah, as well as battles in northern Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp and Gaza City’s Zeitun neighbourhood.
Israel last week defied international warnings, including from its top ally Washington, and sent tanks and soldiers into the east of Rafah, a city on the Egyptian border where some 1.4 million Palestinians had sought shelter. This has sparked an exodus of nearly 360 000 people from Rafah so far, said the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, which warned that “no place is safe” in the largely devastated territory.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday that Washington had not seen any credible Israeli plan to protect civilians in Rafah, and that “we also haven’t seen a plan for what happens the day after this war in Gaza ends”.
“Israel’s on the trajectory, potentially, to inherit an insurgency with many armed Hamas left or, if it leaves, a vacuum filled by chaos, filled by anarchy and probably refilled by Hamas,” he told NBC.
Fighting has raged in northern Gaza where — months after Israel declared Hamas’s command structure had been dismantled – an Israeli army spokesman said there were “attempts by Hamas to rebuild its military capabilities”.
Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, also said that its militants were engaged in ground battles in Rafah and Jabalia. A strike overnight on a house in Rafah killed at least four people, said the city’s Kuwaiti hospital which had received the bodies.
Rafah residents yesterday received more evacuation orders through phone calls and text messages, sending yet more people to start packing and leave their homes,
witnesses said.
While Israel has vowed to destroy remaining Hamas forces in Rafah, the New York Times cited unnamed US officials as saying that both US and Israeli intelligence suggested the group’s leader Yahya Sinwar was not hiding there. Sinwar — who has not been seen since the 7 October attack which Israel says he orchestrated — “most likely never left the tunnel network” under southern Gaza’s main city Khan Yunis, the Times said.
Amid the fighting, Egyptian, Qatari and American mediation efforts towards a truce appeared to have stalled. UN chief Antonio Guterres urged on Sunday “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostages, and an immediate
surge in humanitarian aid” into Gaza. –
Nampa/AFP