GAZA: Israeli helicopters struck Gaza’s southern city of Rafah on Thursday after top US diplomat Antony Blinken said a truce deal between Israel and Hamas was still possible. The health ministry in Gaza said that at least 37,232 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in ongoing Israeli bombardment in the territory since October 7 last year, AFP reported.
Israeli ground forces have been operating in Rafah, near the Egyptian border, since early May, despite widespread international alarm over the fate of displaced Palestinian people crowded in the city.
Residents said that western areas of Rafah city came under heavy Israeli fire from the air, sea and land. “There was very intense fire from warplanes, Apaches (helicopters) and quadcopters, in addition to Israeli artillery and military battleships, all of which were striking the area west of Rafah,” a witness told AFP.
The top world court, the International Court of Justice, in May, issued a binding ruling for Israel to halt any military operation in Rafah and elsewhere that could bring about “the physical destruction” of the Palestinians.
Efforts to reach a ceasefire stalled when Israel began ground operations in Gaza’s Rafah, but US President Joe Biden in late May launched a new effort to secure a deal.
On Monday the UN Security Council adopted a US-drafted resolution supporting the ceasefire plan.
Blinken, in Doha on Wednesday for the last stop of a tour to promote President Biden’s ceasefire roadmap, said the United States would work with regional partners to “close the deal”.
Hamas responded to mediators Qatar and Egypt late Tuesday. Blinken said some of its proposed amendments “are workable and some are not”.
A senior Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, said the Palestinian group sought “a permanent ceasefire and complete withdrawal” of Israeli troops from Gaza.
The proposed plan includes a six-week initial ceasefire, a hostage-prisoner exchange and Gaza’s reconstruction.
It would be the first truce since a week-long November pause in fighting that saw hostages freed and Palestinians released from Israeli jails.
Blinken said Israel was behind the plan, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to formally endorse it. Blinken expressed hopes that the existing gaps could be closed. “We have to see… over the course of the coming days whether those gaps are bridgeable,” he said.
In a statement early Thursday, Hamas urged Blinken to put “direct pressure” on Israel. “He continues to talk about Israel’s agreement of the latest (ceasefire) proposal, but we have not heard any Israeli official speak out on this,” the Palestinian group said.
A UN investigation concluded Wednesday that Israel had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza attack.
The independent Commission of Inquiry’s report is the first in-depth investigation by UN experts into Gaza’s bloodiest-ever Israeli attack.
The war has led to widespread destruction of Palestinians’ homes and other infrastructure, with hospitals out of service and the UN warning of famine.
The World Health Organization said more than 8,000 children aged younger than five have been treated for acute malnutrition in Gaza, where only two stabilization centres for severely malnourished patients currently operate.
“Despite reports of increased delivery of food, there is currently no evidence that those who need it most are receiving sufficient quantity and quality of food,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Along with the fighting in Rafah, overnight strikes and shelling were also reported on Thursday elsewhere in the coastal territory.
Gaza’s civil defense agency said three bodies were recovered from a home in Nuseirat, central Gaza, after an Israeli strike.
