The image denotes obstinacy and humiliation. Israeli tanks, with large flags, occupy the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, the only entrance and exit from Gaza that Israel did not control. Some soldiers replace the Palestinian insignia with those of the Hebrew State; others record how armored vehicles crush posters welcoming the enclave.
It is the staging of the first hours of Israel’s ground advance on eastern Rafah, an incursion that threatens the already restricted delivery of humanitarian aid and further strains the rope of negotiations for a ceasefire .
The incursion of the tanks took place under a rain of Israeli bombs on the night of Monday to Tuesday, and almost immediately after the Government of Benjamin Netanyahu rejected as insufficient an Egyptian-Qatari truce proposal, accepted by Hamas. In this way, the Palestinians of Rafah went from celebrations for the response of the Islamist group to terror for the explosions in the dark.
After the most intense discharge of the attacks, the Gazians tried to measure the extent of the damage and went out to remove debris in search of survivors. According to hospital records, at least 23 people – including six women and five children – died in the night Israeli bombardments, some crushed by the concrete.
The Kuwaiti hospital was overwhelmed by the number of wounded, especially after Rafah’s main sanatorium, Al-Najjar, was forced to evacuate because it is in the area threatened by Israel.
Muhammad Abu Amra told the Associated Press that an Israeli attack tore through his home as they slept, killing his wife, three brothers and niece: “We saw fire devouring us. The house was a disaster.” At the same time, and without ever being out of danger from the bombs, thousands of Gazans continued their exodus from the east of Rafah, where around 100,000 residents and those displaced multiple times were forced to “evacuate” by order of the ‘ army
The spokesman for the UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs, Jens Laerke, denounced that these transfer orders do not comply with international law, because they do not give enough time to prepare an evacuation or facilitate a safe route to a protected area with access to help “[ Rafah] is full of unexploded ordnance and huge bombs on the street. It’s not safe,” he criticized from Geneva, adding that “panic and despair” have taken hold of the population.
United Nations agencies claim that the strip has now been virtually cut off from aid because Israel keeps the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings closed. The first is a vital step for aid trucks and the only way out of Gaza for the sick, wounded and their companions. Yesterday 140 Palestinians authorized to cross to Egypt were able to do so through the Israeli dam. It is also a passage for volunteers from foreign missions, and for Gazans who pay huge sums of money to intermediaries to migrate irregularly.
Under the vague claim that this border crossing “was being used for terrorist purposes” and without providing evidence, the Israeli military blocked access to all fuel for trucks and generators, Laerke explained. so he left reserves of “about a day”: “If fuel does not arrive for an extended period, it would be a very effective way to bring the humanitarian operation to its grave.”
In addition, the World Food Program claims that it has between one and four days of supplies for the southern and central areas of Gaza. Likewise, Kerem Shalom has remained closed since Sunday, after a Hamas attack on a military base in the area killed four soldiers. Therefore, Erez, in the north, is the only passage enabled only for some supplies – which do not include fuel -, which are impossible to reach Rafah because they have to cross active combat zones. James Elder, spokesman for Unicef, warned that “Erez simply will not be enough” and that “if Rafah closes for an extended period of time, it is difficult to see how starvation can be avoided”. They were warnings that recalled the beginnings of the Israeli invasion of Gaza, which began after the attacks by Hamas on October 7, and which enters its eighth month without a plan to end the suffering of civilians. The only relief, a cease-fire agreement, continues in a we shall see. In his first message since the entry of troops into Rafah, Netanyahu repeated that the proposal accepted by Hamas on Monday was “very far from Israel’s vital demands” and intended to “sabotage the entry of our forces” into the south of Gaza.
However, The New York Times reported that, according to two officials with knowledge of the talks, the text had minor changes from the framework that had previously been agreed between Israel, the US, Egypt and Qatar. The new offer included three truce phases of 42 days each, at the end of which all living and dead Israeli hostages would be released, in exchange for an unspecified number of Palestinian prisoners, including bodies held by Israel.
The text also maintained that the two sides had to agree on a pact for a “sustainable calm” during the second stage, a euphemism to avoid mentioning a permanent ceasefire, which Israel does not want to accept. But the definition also lends itself to different interpretations: Hamas sees it as the end of the war and Israel does not. In this counterpoint, Israeli officials leaked to the press that the current raid in Rafah is not the feared large-scale invasion and aims to pressure Hamas.
A view that is not shared by the group or Egypt, who believe that entering the overpopulated extreme south harms the talks. Dialogues that, despite all this, Cairo resumed yesterday Tuesday with delegations from Qatar, the EU and Hamas. Israel sent a team of mid-ranking officials promising that diplomatic flights will only travel when there is progress in the direction Netanyahu wants.
