All posts tagged "Rafah"

Since Biden spoke at the White House on Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted Israel will pursue the war, which now nears its ninth month, until it has destroyed Hamas and freed the captives.

Palestinian militant group Hamas, meanwhile, has said it "views positively" what Biden described as an Israeli proposal.

Netanyahu, a hawkish political veteran leading a fragile right-wing coalition government, is under intense domestic pressure from two sides....

Israeli troops have advanced deeper into Rafah, eyewitnesses in Gaza's overcrowded southernmost city said on Tuesday. Israeli tanks were said to have moved from the east of the city into neighbourhoods further west including the al-Janina district. The Israeli army did not initially comment on the reports. Israel's allies, including its main backer the United States, have been warning Israel for weeks against a ground offensive into Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had been sheltering from fighting elsewhere in the coastal strip. Almost 450,000 people have left the city since Isra......

The Israeli army has called on people in Rafah to leave further areas of the city, increasing concerns about an expansion of its military operation in the southernmost city of the Gaza Strip. Families are packing their belongings all over the city, a United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) employee wrote on X. "The streets are much emptier." At the beginning of the week, Israel launched a deployment of ground troops in the eastern outskirts of Rafah in order to expand the fight against the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement. Some 150,000 Gazans h......

There was criticism in Israel on Thursday for US President Joe Biden's threat of an arms freeze in the event of a further advance in Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip. Far-right Israeli Police Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote on X on Thursday that the Palestinian Islamist Hamas loves Biden. To make his message clear, he placed a heart emoji between the words "Hamas" and "Biden." Israeli opposition politicians criticized Ben-Gvir for endangering Israel with such statements. However, Ben-Gvir is not a member of the war cabinet and is therefore not directly involved in key decisions in the Gaza ......

Washington (AFP) - President Joe Biden said Wednesday he would stop US weapons supplies to Israel if it attacks Rafah in southern Gaza, his most direct warning to date over the prosecution of the war against Hamas. In an interview with CNN Biden deplored the fact that civilians had been killed by the dropping of US bombs on the Palestinian territory. His warning came after the US last week halted a shipment of huge American bombs to Israel as it appeared ready to proceed with a major attack on Rafah, which is packed with Palestinians displaced by the war. "If they go into Rafah, I'm not supply......

A few hours after the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement announced that it would agree to the mediators' proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza, the Israeli army attacked targets in the east of the city of Rafah late on Monday evening. According to an army spokesman, the targets were Hamas facilities. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war Cabinet had previously decided to continue the military operation in Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip in order to increase the military pressure on Hamas and achieve Israel's war aims. "While the Hamas proposal is far from meeting Israel's core demands, Isra......