The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed that the Israeli military is in the center of Rafah, in a statement this Friday (31), despite international concern about the military operation in the city south of Gaza.
The IDF statement confirms what eyewitnesses told the CNN earlier this week when tanks were spotted in central Rafah for the first time since entering the city earlier this month.
According to the statement, “IDF troops in central Rafah located rocket launchers, terrorist tunnel shafts and Hamas weapons. Troops also dismantled a Hamas weapons depot in the area.”
On Wednesday (29), the Israeli military claimed to have established “operational control” over the Philadelphia Corridor, a 14-kilometer buffer zone on the Palestinian side of the border between Egypt and Gaza.
Access to cell phone services in Rafah was interrupted on Thursday (30) due to the ongoing Israeli offensive, Palestinian telecommunications company Jawwal said in a statement.
Israel's attack on Rafah in early May marked a new phase in the war against Hamas in Gaza.
According to health authorities in the region, the conflict killed more than 36,000 Palestinians, displaced the majority of the strip's population and triggered a humanitarian catastrophe that worries international agencies.
Over the weekend, Israel launched an airstrike on a refugee camp in the city, killing dozens of people and creating global discontent. The attack also took down two Hamas leaders, Israel said.
Images obtained by CNN they showed the camp in flames, with dozens of men, women and children trying to find cover for the night attack. Burnt bodies, including children, could be seen being pulled from the wreckage by rescue teams.
“The word tragic doesn’t even begin to describe it,” US Vice President Kamala Harris said of the incident on Tuesday (28). However, Harris and President Joe Biden have not said whether the attack crossed the red line for U.S. support.
Biden said in an interview with CNN at the beginning of May that it would not allow certain American weapons to be used in the Rafah offensive.
The confirmation of the presence of Israeli forces in the center of Rafah came as the Israeli government said it had ended operations in eastern Jabalia, in the north of the Gaza Strip.
The military said in a statement that its troops destroyed more than 10 kilometers of tunnels and weapons production sites in Operation Jabalia, which began earlier this month and involved what the forces described as “intense combat and close-range encounters with fighters.”
The statement also said that the bodies of seven hostages were recovered during the operation. “The hostages were killed on October 7 and their remains were taken to Gaza,” he said.
Mahmoud Basal, civil defense spokesman in Gaza, told CNN this Friday (31) that Jabalia was a “disaster area” after the presence of Israel, with “entire residential squares” decimated.
“Unfortunately, the Jabalia camp is not suitable for life,” Basal said.
“There are no water wells, schools or hospitals, all completely destroyed. There is nothing that allows citizens to live in this area, and there are a large number of martyrs and houses that have been razed to the ground with citizens inside them, and we cannot recover the bodies from under the rubble,” he added.
Israel resumed fighting in northern Gaza earlier this month, despite saying it had destroyed Hamas' command structure in the area in January.
The renewed fighting shows the challenges Israel faces in achieving its goal of destroying Hamas, with a senior security official warning this month that the war could last until next year.
CNN's Ibrahim Dahman, Lucas Lilieholm, Kevin Liptak and Samantha Waldenberg contributed to the report.
Source: CNN Brasil
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