Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday rejected US President Joe Biden’s call to cancel a planned ground attack on Rafah, the last refuge in Gaza for more than a million displaced people, where Israel says militants are hiding. Hamas.
Netanyahu told Israeli lawmakers on Tuesday that he had made it “very clear” to the US president “that we are determined to complete the elimination of these battalions in Rafah, and there is no way to do that except by attacking the ground.”
The two leaders spoke by phone on Monday. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington believed attacking Rafah would be a “mistake” and that Israel could achieve its military objectives by other means.
U.S. and Israeli officials are likely to meet early next week in Washington to discuss Israel’s military operation in Rafah, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday, citing the Biden administration’s deep concern. over reports of an imminent famine in Gaza.
Jean-Pierre said Biden had asked Netanyahu to send a team of military, intelligence and humanitarian officials to Washington for in-depth discussions in the coming days.
Washington has launched a new diplomatic initiative to achieve a ceasefire in the almost six-month war to free Israeli hostages and bring food aid to avoid famine in the Palestinian enclave.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has announced a new trip to the Middle East in which he will meet with senior leaders from Egypt and Saudi Arabia to “discuss the appropriate architecture for lasting peace.” Unusually, Blinken did not mention a stopover in Israel itself, and the Israeli Foreign Ministry said it had not received any notification to prepare for one.
Late Tuesday, an Israeli airstrike on a major roundabout killed 30 people from groups that local clans had formed to secure the entry of aid trucks into Gaza City, said Hamas media, which denounced the attack. as an effort to “sow chaos and anarchy in security matters.”
In the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, an Israeli airstrike targeting a three-story residential building killed at least 15 people, with some believed to be trapped under rubble, Palestinian health officials said.
In Rafah, stunned survivors walked among the ruins of a house on Tuesday morning, one of several buildings hit by overnight Israeli airstrikes that killed 14 people in the city, where more than half of the 2.3 Millions of Gazans have been forced to take refuge from Israeli attacks.
In the morgue of a nearby hospital, a group of relatives cried next to the bodies lying on the cobblestones. A woman removed a small blood-stained shroud to reveal the face of a small child, rocking him back and forth in her arms.
“There is support from the United States, European support and support from all over the world for Israel, they support it with weapons and planes,” said one of the mourners, Ibrahim Hasouna. “They make fun of us and send four or five airdrops (of aid) just to save face,” he added.
The death toll from Israel’s war on Gaza, which began after the Hamas attack on October 7 in which some 1,200 Israelis died, is almost 32,000, according to Palestinian health officials, and thousands more are feared to be dead. find under the rubble.
The international hunger monitor IPC, on which the United Nations is based, said on Monday that food shortages in Gaza had already far exceeded famine levels, and that Gazans would soon starve at a similar rate. that of famine without a ceasefire.
Israel, which initially allowed aid in only through two checkpoints in the southern tip of Gaza, denies responsibility for famine in the enclave and says it is already opening new routes by land, sea and air.
The Israeli government says the UN and other aid agencies should do more to bring in food and distribute it. The UN has responded that this is impossible without better access and security, which it says are Israel’s responsibility.
“The extent of Israel’s continued restrictions on aid entry into Gaza, coupled with the manner in which it continues to conduct hostilities, may amount to the use of starvation as a method of war, which is a war crime,” the statement said. UN.
Meanwhile, talks to discuss a possible ceasefire resumed this week in Qatar after Israel rejected a Hamas counterproposal last week. An Israeli delegation led by the country’s spy chief traveled to Qatar on Monday, although an Israeli official said Israel believed any deal would take at least two weeks to finalize.
Both sides have been discussing a six-week truce during which some 40 Israeli hostages would be freed in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian detainees and humanitarian aid would be rushed to the Gaza Strip.
But both sides have yet to narrow differences over what would happen after the truce: Israel says it will negotiate only a temporary pause in fighting and Hamas says it will negotiate only a temporary pause in fighting and will not release hostages without a broader plan to end the war.
A Palestinian official close to the mediation talks told Reuters that the new round in Qatar was expected to be “very tough”, accusing Israel of deliberate stalemate.
