‘Mid-level’ Israeli team heads to Cairo to assess Hamas position
A team of mid-ranking Israeli officials will go to Cairo in the next few hours to assess whether Hamas can be persuaded to shift on its latest ceasefire offer, a senior Israeli official said on Tuesday, reiterating that the proposal as it currently stands was unacceptable to Israel.
“This delegation is made up of mid-level envoys. Were there a credible deal in the offing, the principals would be heading the delegation,” the official told Reuters.
It is believed that Hamas has been insisting that any hostage deal should involve a ceasefire that directly leads to the end of the war. Israel’s position is that it is determined to destroy Hamas, and envisages only a pause for a hostage-detainee swap, before resuming its military campaign.
Hamas has also released a statement condemning Israel for closing the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings into Gaza. It said:
By deciding to close the Rafah and Kerem Shalom border crossings, Israel is leading the region toward a disaster and continues its policy of starvation and persecution of Palestinian. International intervention is required. The Biden administration and the international community bear full responsibility for the war’s continuation.
Israel says it closed the Kerem Shalom crossing for security reasons after a barrage of rockets was aimed at Israeli troops near it on Sunday by Hamas, killing four.
Israeli troops are currently operating at the Rafah crossing inside Gaza, with the IDF claiming it is acting on intelligence that the crossing was being used for “terrorist purposes”.
‘Mid-level’ Israeli team heads to Cairo to assess Hamas position
A team of mid-ranking Israeli officials will go to Cairo in the next few hours to assess whether Hamas can be persuaded to shift on its latest ceasefire offer, a senior Israeli official said on Tuesday, reiterating that the proposal as it currently stands was unacceptable to Isreal.
“This delegation is made up of mid-level envoys. Were there a credible deal in the offing, the principals would be heading the delegation,” the official told Reuters.
It is believed that Hamas has been insisting that any hostage deal should involve a ceasefire that directly leads to the end of the war. Israel’s position is that it is determined to destroy Hamas, and envisages only a pause for a hostage-detainee swap, before resuming its military campaign.
Hamas has also released a statement condemning Israel for closing the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings into Gaza. It said:
By deciding to close the Rafah and Kerem Shalom border crossings, Israel is leading the region toward a disaster and continues its policy of starvation and persecution of Palestinian. International intervention is required. The Biden administration and the international community bear full responsibility for the war’s continuation.
Israel says it closed the Kerem Shalom crossing for security reasons after a barrage of rockets was aimed at Israeli troops near it on Sunday by Hamas, killing
Israeli troops are currently operating at the Rafah crossing inside Gaza, with the IDF claiming it is acting on intelligence that the crossing was being used for “terrorist purposes”.
The Times of Israel is reporting that for the second consecutive night Israel’s military says it shot down a drone aimed at Israel from Iraq. It said the drone was intercepted last night before it reached Israeli airspace. Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed to have launched it.
Reuters has spoken to a man in Rafah who said his wife and children had been killed. He told the news agency “We’re patient and we will remain steadfast on this land. We are waiting for liberation and this battle will be for liberation, God willing.”
Hani Mahmoud, reporting for Al Jazeera from Rafah, has written that “the situation is getting more difficult by the hour with the presence of the Israeli military.”
UN agencies: Gaza is ‘choked off’ from aid by Israel’s closure of border crossings
The UN’s humanitarian office spokesperson Jens Laerke said at a Geneva press briefing earlier that Isreal had shut both the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings as part of its Rafah military operation.
“The two main arteries for getting aid into Gaza are currently choked off,” he said, saying that UN agencies had very low stocks inside the Gaza Strip since humanitarian supplies are consumed straight away.
“If no fuel comes in for a prolonged period of time it would be a very effective way of putting the humanitarian operation in its grave,” Reuters reports he added.
Unicef spokesperson James Elder has given an update on the humanitarian crisis for children in Rafah and the wider Gaza Strip at a press conference in Geneva.
He said:
Every warning. Every image of children killed and injured. Every heartbreaking story of bloodshed and despair. Every mind-boggling piece of data of the sheer number of children and mothers killed. Of family homes and hospitals destroyed. It’s all been ignored. Our worst fears, Gaza’s nightmare, appears to be a reality.
He went on to list what he said were seven reason why Unicef and other humanitarian agencies were calling for a ceasefire and the prevention of a ground assault on Rafah, including:
- Half of all Gaza’s children are currently in Rafah
- If safety is defined as “freedom from bombardment” and access to “safe water, protection, food and medicines” then there is nowhere safe in Gaza
- There is only one toilet per 850 people in Rafah, and the provision in the area that Isreal is defining as “safe” – Al Mawasi – is worse
- Rafah has Gaza’s last remaining functioning large hospital
- A military assault on Rafah will “greatly complicate” the provision of humanitarian aid
- People are exhausted, malnourished and sick
- Many children with disabilities, medical conditions and injuries are being asked to move again
Elder finished by saying:
Emanuel Fabian, military correspondent at the Times of Isreal,has posted this video which he says shows Israeli driving along the Egypt-Gaza border with what he describes as “obnoxiously large flags”.
Video released by the Israeli army shows its forces operating at the Rafah crossing, including a tank driving over a Gaza sign. The video also illustrates that troops have raised an Israeli flag in the Palestinian territory. The Rafah crossing is at the border between Gaza and Egypt.
In the wider region, Iran has been hosting International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Mariano Grossi. Reuters reports that in a joint press conference in Tehran with Iran’s nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami, the pair have said their talks have been positive and productive.
Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the news wires from Rafah and the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz has said that “the work of persuasion on the political front is becoming more difficult” and that if Hamas was not holding hostages, Isreal would have already crushed it.
In a post in Hebrew on social media, Katz described Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as “sadistic” and said the hostages are the only weapon that Hamas has.
He wrote “The entry of the IDF into Rafah promotes the two main goals of the war: the release of the hostages and the defeat of Hamas.”
The Hamas-led health authority in Gaza has issued new casualty figures, saying that Israel’s military assault on the territory has killed 34,789 Palestinians and wounded 78,204 people. Many more missing people are believed to be dead under rubble after the months-long aerial bombardment by Israel’s military.
Israeli troops are currently operating at the Rafah crossing inside Gaza, with the IDF claiming it is acting on intelligence that the crossing was being used for “terrorist purposes”.
