Israel’s offensive against the city of Rafah, which is overcrowded with refugees, is apparently getting closer. However, due to international pressure, the army is changing its tactics. The news at a glance.
According to a media report, Israel wants to carry out its announced ground offensive on the city of Rafah in the south of the sealed-off Gaza Strip in stages. As the Wall Street Journal reported, citing Egyptian officials and former Israeli officers, Israel changed its initial plans for a full-scale attack on the city on the border with Egypt, currently crowded with hundreds of thousands of Palestinian internally displaced people, under pressure from the United States and other countries.
Instead, the number of civilian casualties should be limited by taking a step-by-step approach, it said. Israel’s military does not comment on its operational plans. However, a few days ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced “further painful blows” against the Islamist Hamas. “And this will happen shortly,” he said.
The UN humanitarian coordinator in Gaza, Sigrid Kaag, warned of an attack on Rafah. “Such an action would worsen an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe, with consequences for people who are already displaced and enduring great hardship and suffering,” the Dutchwoman told the UN Security Council in New York. “The United Nations’ ability to deliver aid would be restricted.”
Protests in Israel after Hamas hostage video
Meanwhile, protests broke out in Israel after Hamas released a hostage video. Hundreds of people gathered in Jerusalem near Prime Minister Netanyahu’s residence to demonstrate for the release of hostages held in Gaza, several media outlets reported.
There were clashes with the police. Protesters set fires, set off fireworks, overturned trash cans and blocked traffic, officials said. Four people were arrested, it said. In the video previously released by Hamas, a 24-year-old man can be seen making serious accusations against the Israeli government.
The man says she failed to protect Israeli citizens and let them down. Those like him who were kidnapped from Israel to the Gaza Strip in the Hamas massacre on October 7th are in an “underground hell” without food, water and medical treatment. According to Israeli media, his forearm was torn off when the terrorists threw grenades into his hiding place.
He is reportedly a dual Israeli and American citizen. It was initially unclear under what circumstances the video was made and whether the man spoke under pressure or threats. The video recording was also not dated; the Hamas massacre was 201 days ago on Wednesday.
Israel advances plans for Rafah offensive
Until a few weeks ago, Israel assumed that almost 100 of the approximately 130 remaining hostages were still alive. But there are now fears that significantly more of them could already be dead. Meanwhile, according to media reports, Israel is pushing ahead with its plans for an offensive in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza to destroy the last remaining Hamas battalions there.
There are also suspected hostages in Hamas tunnels under Rafah. Allies such as the United States have repeatedly warned against a large-scale ground offensive in Rafah out of concern for the approximately 1.5 million people who are seeking shelter in the city from the fighting in the rest of the Gaza Strip. The city is considered the only one in the sealed-off coastal strip that is still comparatively intact.
According to information from the Wall Street Journal, Israel’s army is now planning to evacuate the affected parts of the city before each attack, before the military moves on to new areas. The operations would also likely be more targeted than previous attacks in Gaza. Coordination with Egypt is also planned to secure the border between Egypt and Gaza, it said.
The news portal “Axios”, citing Israeli officials, reported that senior Israeli intelligence and military officials met in Cairo, among others, with the Egyptian intelligence chief to discuss Israel’s planned deployment of its army in Rafah.
Egypt is not in talks with Israel about the offensive
The evening before, the chairman of the Egyptian state information service SIS, Diaa Raschwan, had declared that there were no discussions with Israel about its possible military offensive in Rafah. Egypt firmly rejects plans for such an offensive and has made this position clear several times.
An offensive in Rafah would lead to “massacres, massive loss of life and widespread destruction,” Rashwan said. According to an earlier report in the Wall Street Journal, Egypt has even threatened to terminate its peace treaty with Israel if there is an influx of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip across the border.
Report: Israeli army not responsible for mass grave
Meanwhile, reports continue to cause a stir about a mass grave discovered near the Nasser Hospital in the long-contested city of Khan Yunis, in which the Hamas-controlled civil defense says it has now uncovered 324 bodies.
Contrary to Hamas’ claims, it was not created by the Israeli army, the Jerusalem Post reported, citing analyzes of images. The mass grave already existed before Israeli soldiers took action against Hamas on the ground there. This was revealed by the evaluation of satellite images and film material by unnamed independent analysts, it said.
Claims spread by Hamas and Arab media that Israeli soldiers buried the bodies of Palestinians to “hide” them were false, the newspaper wrote. The information cannot be independently verified. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, was horrified by the reports of the discovery of mass graves near clinics in Gaza and called for an independent investigation into the background to the deaths.
According to Türk’s office, which cited civil defense information, some of the bodies had their hands tied. “We don’t know whether they were buried alive or executed. Most of the bodies have decomposed,” CNN quoted the head of civil defense in Khan Yunis as saying.