Israeli tanks push into Gaza's Rafah, as displaced civilians flee again

[May 14, 2024]  By Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO (Reuters) -Israeli tanks forged deeper into eastern Rafah on Tuesday, reaching some residential districts of the southern border city where more than a million people had been sheltering after being displaced in seven months of war.

Israel's international allies and aid groups have repeatedly urged against a ground incursion into refugee-packed Rafah, warning of a potential humanitarian catastrophe.

Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said Israel's operations in Rafah have set back efforts at trying to reach a ceasefire in talks that are being mediated by Qatar and Egypt, although negotiations would continue.

Israel has vowed to press on into Rafah even without the support of allies, saying its operation is necessary to root out four remaining Hamas battalions holed up in the city.

"The tanks advanced this morning west of Salahuddin Road into the Brzail and Jneina neighborhoods. They are in the streets inside the built-up area and there are clashes," one resident told Reuters via a chat app.

Video on social media showed one tank on George Street in Al-Jneina neighborhood. Reuters could not verify the video.

Hamas's armed wing said it had destroyed an Israeli troop carrier with an Al-Yassin 105 missile in the eastern Al-Salam neighborhood, killing some crew members and wounding others.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) declined to comment on the report.

In a round-up of its activities, the IDF said its forces had eliminated "several armed terrorist" cells in close-quarter fighting on the Gazan side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. In the east of the city, it said it had also destroyed militant cells and a launch post from where missiles were being fired at IDF troops.

'NOWHERE IS SAFE', UNRWA SAYS

Israel issued evacuation orders for people to move from parts of eastern Rafah a week ago, with a second round of orders extending to further zones on Saturday.

They are moving to empty tracts of land, including Al-Mawasi, a sandy strip bordering the coast that Israel has designated as a humanitarian area. Aid agencies have warned the zone lacks sanitary and other facilities to host an influx of displaced people.

UNRWA, the main United Nations aid agency in Gaza, estimates some 450,000 people have fled Rafah since May 6.

"People face constant exhaustion, hunger and fear. Nowhere is safe," the agency posted on X.

The war has pushed much of Gaza's population to the brink of famine, the U.N. says, and has devastated its medical facilities, where hospitals, if working at all, are running short of fuel to power generators and other essential supplies.

James Smith, a British emergency room doctor volunteering in hospitals in southern Gaza, said that he had been told by a World Health Organization official that some emergency fuel had made it into the strip.

An Israeli military Apache helicopter fires missiles towards Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, as seen from southern Israel, May 14, 2024. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

"Health is still being prioritized over other essential services, so when health looks a bit better it generally means other essential services are struggling," he told Reuters via a WhatsApp voice note. "It's a zero-sum game."

However, major hospitals, including Al-Aqsa, should have enough fuel for six days if it was managed frugally, he said.

FIERCE GUNBATTLES

Fighting across the strip has intensified in recent days, including in the north, with the Israeli military heading back into areas where it had claimed to have dismantled Hamas months ago. Israel says the operations are to prevent Hamas, which controls Gaza, from rebuilding it military capacities.

The Palestinian death toll in the war has now surpassed 35,000, according to Gaza health officials, whose figures do not differentiate between civilians and fighters. It said that 82 Palestinians were killed in the past 24 hours, the highest death toll in a single day in many weeks.

Israel launched its operation in Gaza following the devastating attack on Oct. 7 by Hamas-led gunmen who rampaged through Israeli communities around the enclave, killing around 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Gun battles between Israeli forces and Palestinian gunmen were the fiercest in months, according to residents, both in the north and south of the densely populated enclave of 2.3 million people.

In the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City in the north, bulldozers demolished clusters of houses to make a new road for tanks to roll through into the eastern suburb.

In northern Gaza's Jabalia, a sprawling refugee camp built for displaced Palestinians 75 years ago, residents said Israeli forces were trying to reach as deep as the camp's local market under heavy tank shelling.

The IDF said it had killed dozens of Hamas fighters in Jabalia and dismantled a network of explosives, while in Zeitoun it located tunnel shafts and destroyed several rocket launchers.

With fighting intensifying, Qatar's Sheikh Mohammed said ceasefire talks were at a stalemate.

"There is one party that wants to end the war and then talk about the hostages and there is another party who wants the hostages and wants to continue the war. As long as there is not any commonality between those two things it won't get us to a result," Sheikh Mohammed said.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo, Clauda Tanios in Dubai, Maggie Fick in London; Writing by Sharon Singleton; Editing by Alex Richardson)

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