Israel first focused its air and ground offensive mainly on Gaza City and the entire northern half of the strip; It then advanced towards the center of the enclave and more recently on the city of Khan Younis – although bombs have fallen throughout Gaza, including areas that the army had designated as safe. The war that has lasted for more than four months has forced more than half of the 2.3 million Gazans to seek refuge in the Rafah governorate, in the extreme south of the enclave. But the Israeli government does not hide its plans to extend its military operations towards the city bordering Egypt, while intensifying the bombing of it.
The last bombs fell early Friday, hours after U.S. officials and humanitarian organizations warned Israel not to expand its ground offensive in Gaza to the southern city. Airstrikes on Thursday and Friday hit two residential buildings in Rafah, while other locations were bombed in central Gaza, including a daycare center converted into a shelter for displaced Palestinians. Twenty-two people died, according to AP journalists who saw the bodies arrive at hospitals.
The president of the United States, Joe Biden, assured on Thursday that Israel’s conduct in the war, initiated by the Hamas attack on October 7, is “exaggerated”, the harshest criticism of the United States to date to its ally and an expression of concern over the rising number of civilian deaths in Gaza. Nearly 28,000 people, about two-thirds of whom are women and children, have been killed by the Israeli offensive, according to the Health Ministry of the Hamas government in Gaza.
Israel’s stated intentions to expand its ground offensive to Rafah also provoked an unusual public reaction in Washington. “We have yet to see any evidence of serious planning for such an operation,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said Thursday. Going forward with such an offensive now, “without planning and without thinking about an area where a million people can take refuge, would be a disaster,” said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. An Israeli ground offensive in Rafah “is not something we would support,” he added.
The statements from Washington highlighted the growing friction between the United States and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who sent a message of “total victory” in the war this week, at a time when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken , was in Israel to press for a ceasefire agreement in exchange for the release of dozens of hostages held by Hamas.
Humanitarian aid agencies also warned Israel about the prospect of an offensive in Rafah. “We need to keep the last remaining hospitals, shelters, markets and water systems in Gaza functioning,” said Catherine Russell, director of the United Nations children’s agency, Unicef. “Without them, hunger and disease will skyrocket and claim more children’s lives.”
With the war now in its fifth month, Israeli ground forces are still massing in the town of Khan Younis, just north of Rafah, but Netanyahu has repeatedly said Rafah will be next, causing panic among hundreds of thousands of displaced people. Netanyahu’s words have also alarmed Egypt, which has said any ground operation in the Rafah area or mass displacement across the border would undermine its 40-year peace treaty with Israel. The largely sealed Gaza-Egypt border is also the main entry point for humanitarian aid.
