The Israel warned that his army will launch an attack on Rafah if the Israeli hostages held by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip are not released until Ramadan beginscontinuing to defy international calls not to move to protect the approximately 1.4 million Palestinians who have taken refuge there.
While any remaining hopes of a truce are fading, some in the international community are deeply concerned about the consequences of a large-scale ground operation in Rafah, which has turned into a sprawling IDP camp, on the closed border with Egypt.
“If by Ramadan the hostages are not home, fighting will continue everywhere, including the Rafah area,” said Benny Gantz, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's wartime government and former chief of Israel's national defense general staff.
“Hamas has a choice. (Its members) can surrender, release the hostages, and the civilians in Gaza will be able to celebrate Ramadan,” he added during a speech at a conference of presidents of major American Jewish organizations in Jerusalem.
Ramadan, a holy month for Muslims, is expected to begin around Sunday, March 10.
During Hamas's unprecedented attack on southern Israel by members of its military arm on October 7, approximately 250 people were kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip. According to Israeli sources, more than 130 Israeli hostages remain in their hands — although a military spokesman recently said at least 31 of them are believed to be dead.
The attack killed more than 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data.
“Reduce” civilian casualties
Since then, relentless shelling and retaliatory ground operations by Israel, whose leadership has vowed to “annihilate” Hamas – which the US and EU label a “terrorist” organization – have killed at least 28,985 people in the Strip of Gaza, the vast majority of them women and children, according to the most recent account of the victims, which was made public yesterday Sunday by the Health Ministry of Hamas.
Strong concerns have been expressed internationally, and by the US, Israel's main ally, about the prospect of an attack on Rafah, which the Netanyahu government is adamant about launching.
“Anyone who wants to stop us from conducting business in Rafah is actually telling us to lose the war. We are not going to give in to this demand,” the Israeli prime minister said yesterday Saturday, before repeating yesterday Sunday that his goal is “total victory” over Hamas.
According to Mr. Gantz, the attack will be carried out in coordination and in the context of dialogue with the US and Egyptian governments, “the American and Egyptian partners”, while “facilitating the urgent evacuation of civilians” in order to reduce “as much as possible possible' the number of victims in their ranks.
To date, Israel has not officially given any details about where the civilians will go, or how.
French and Egyptian presidents Emmanuel Macron and Abdel Fattah al-Sisi expressed their “strong opposition” to the attack and “any forced displacement” of civilians on Egyptian soil, Paris said Sunday.
Rafah and Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, a few kilometers apart, as well as other sectors of the small Palestinian enclave, were intensively bombarded by the Israeli army, killing at least 127 people within 24 hours, the Israeli military announced yesterday. Hamas Health Ministry.
In Khan Younis, the hometown of Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Shinuwar, the alleged mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack, Nasser Hospital “is no longer operational, following a week-long siege followed by an ongoing raid,” he said via X (of former Twitter) the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Seven patients, including a newborn, have died since Friday due to power outages, according to the Hamas Health Ministry. While “70 members of the medical staff, including intensivists”, were arrested.
Israeli special forces stormed the hospital on Thursday, with staff justifying the operation by citing intelligence information that hostages were being held there. He spoke of the arrests of around 100 “suspects” and the confiscation of weapons and ammunition.
A spokesman for the Israeli army, Richard Hecht, assured that diesel and oxygen were delivered to enable the health facility to function.
Source: News Beast
With 6 years of experience, I bring to the table captivating and informative writing in the world news category. My expertise covers a range of industries, including tourism, technology, forex and stocks. From brief social media posts to in-depth articles, I am dedicated to creating compelling content for various platforms.
