Israel yesterday carried out fresh strikes in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where its forces are battling Hamas militants, after the UN Security Council met to discuss a deadly attack that sparked a global outcry.
Despite mounting concern over the civilian toll of its war on Hamas, Israel has shown no sign of changing course and international efforts aimed at securing a ceasefire remain stalled.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists in Rafah reported new strikes early yesterday, hours after witnesses and a Palestinian security source said Israeli tanks had penetrated the heart of the city.
Photo: Reuters
“People are currently inside their homes, because anyone who moves is being shot at by Israeli drones,” resident Abdel Khatib said.
US President Joe Biden has warned Israel against launching a major military operation in Rafah, but his administration on Tuesday said that Israel had not yet crossed its red lines.
“We have not seen them smash into Rafah,” US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
A civil defense official in Hamas-run Gaza said an Israeli strike on a displacement camp west of Rafah on Tuesday killed at least 21 people, after a similar strike over the weekend sparked global outrage and prompted the emergency UN Security Council session.
Israel’s army rejected allegations that it had carried out Tuesday’s strike in a designated humanitarian area.
“The [Israeli army] did not strike in the humanitarian area in al-Mawasi,” the army said in a statement, referring to an area that had been designated for displaced people of Rafah to shelter.
On Sunday, an Israeli strike outside Rafah ignited an inferno in a displacement camp, torching makeshift shelters and killing 45 people, Palestinian officials said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the strike a “tragic accident,” while the army said it had targeted a Hamas compound and killed two senior members of the group.
The military later said that the weapons it had used “could not” have caused the deadly camp blaze.
“Our munition alone could not have ignited a fire of this size,” Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said ahead of Tuesday’s emergency UN session on the strike.
Algeria, which called the urgent meeting, said it had presented a draft resolution to UN Security Council members calling for an end to Israel’s offensive in Rafah and an “immediate ceasefire,” said a draft text seen by AFP.
The UN Security Council was scheduled to discuss the war again yesterday.
Gaza civil defense agency official Mohammad al-Mughayyir on Tuesday said that 21 people were killed in an “occupation strike targeting the tents of displaced people” in west Rafah.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza gave the same toll and said that 64 people were wounded, 10 seriously.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon said it had suspended aid deliveries into Gaza by the sea after its temporary pier was damaged by bad weather.
The WHO said Israel’s military offensive in Rafah was already taking a dire health toll in southern Gaza, and if it continues, “substantial” increases in deaths could be expected.
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