The Israeli military said on Tuesday it had taken operational control of the Rafah crossing on the Gaza Strip side of the border with Egypt, New York Times reports.
Troops discovered three tunnel mines in the area and about 20 Hamas fighters were killed in the operation, the military said in a statement, describing the overnight operation in Rafah as a “very precise” counter-terrorism operation.
A military official, speaking on condition of anonymity in accordance with army regulations, said the operation was “very limited in scope” against specific targets in specific areas of eastern Rafah, within the zone the military had set aside for evacuation on Monday.
Wael Abu Omar, a spokesman for the Hamas-run Gaza administration, confirmed that the Israeli army controls the Rafah border crossing.
On Monday, Israel warned 110,000 displaced people living in the area to move to the Al-Mawasi area on the Gaza coast and launched airstrikes against what it described as Hamas targets. Locals reported that Israeli warplanes also struck homes, killing at least 12 people.
A military official said Tuesday that many residents of the neighbourhood had moved to a safer area.
Israel’s allies, including the US, have warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to send the military on a ground offensive in Rafah, which shelters nearly a million Gazans. The military said Tuesday that the overnight operation was limited. It is not yet known whether it was the start of a wider operation.
Hamas said Monday it accepted the terms of the cease-fire – not as outlined in the Israeli proposal, but taken from a proposal put forward by Egypt and Qatar.
The announcement came after Israel ordered people to evacuate parts of Rafah, a sign that Israeli forces may be close to launching a long-awaited incursion into the refugee-crowded city. Late last night, the Israeli military said it was carrying out “pinpoint strikes” in eastern Rafah.
The strikes may prove to be an attempt to increase pressure on Hamas negotiators. Late in the evening, in keeping with a week of conflicting signals, Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office said Hamas’s latest ceasefire proposal was unsatisfactory. It was then reported that a working-level delegation would still return to Cairo for talks.
UN agencies and aid groups have warned of the devastating consequences of any Israeli military assault on Rafah after tens of thousands of Palestinians were ordered to evacuate ahead of the attacks.
Israel launched an offensive on Rafah on Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Day of Remembrance of the Catastrophe and Heroism of the Jewish People in World War II is a national day of mourning established in Israel in memory of the Jews exterminated by the Nazis and commemorating the dates of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (19 April – 16 May 1943). It falls on the 27th day of the month of Nisan (public holidays and commemorations in Israel are celebrated according to the traditional lunar-solar Jewish calendar). This year it fell between the evening of 5 May and the evening of 6 May.
Meanwhile, about a dozen far-right Israeli protesters blocked the Latrun junction on Highway 1 in the occupied West Bank to stop trucks carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, Israeli media reported. Kan TV published footage showing police intervention as protesters from the activist group Tzav 9 chanted and waved Israeli flags in front of the trucks on Monday evening.
The Ynetnews also reported that protesters grabbed food and other aid from the trucks and threw them on the ground. The vehicles were travelling through occupied Jerusalem, carrying humanitarian aid from Jordan to Gaza. Tzav 9 said in a statement that they will continue to block the lorries until Hamas releases all Israeli captives held in Gaza.
The world community is outraged by Israel’s offensive on Rafah, home to camps for tens of thousands of Palestinians forced from their homes by Israel’s relentless bombardment.
French left-wing spokesman Jean-Luc Mélenchon wrote on X:
The army of genocide is entering the battle in Rafah. Every murder it commits and every one of those who armed it, allowed it to happen and tried to forbid to contradict it. I think with horror of the unfortunate people subjected to this abomination.
He also added:
A massacre has started in Rafah. Shame on the powerful for gesticulating and allowing this to happen. May a new universal conscience emerge to condemn and punish the accomplices and perpetrators of these crimes.
Yanis Varoufakis, former Greek finance minister and leader of the leftist MEPA25 party, posted on X:
By banning critics of the massacre in Gaza, Israel’s US-EU defenders signal worldwide that fighting antisemitism = defending Israel’s right to massacre and starve Palestinians. Could there be a better gift to antisemites? Especially now that US and German-made bombs rain down on Rafah?
At least 34,735 people have been killed and 78,108 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October. The death toll in Israel from Hamas attacks on 7 October was 1,139, with dozens still in captivity.
