Airstrikes hit a southern Gaza border metropolis crowded with civilians on Thursday, a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced a cease-fire proposal by Hamas and signaled that the Israeli army was making ready to maneuver into the realm.
The strikes on two homes in Rafah killed and injured a number of folks, in response to Palestinian information shops, and heightened fears among the many a couple of million Palestinians who’ve sought refuge within the metropolis as Israel’s military has repeatedly warned that it plans to push farther south in its floor invasion.
“There isn’t any place for the folks to run to,” mentioned Fathi Abu Snema, a 45-year-old father of 5 who has been dwelling in a United Nations-run faculty in Rafah for almost 4 months. “Everybody from all different elements of Gaza ended up in Rafah. I don’t know the place to go.”
The strikes got here a day after Mr. Netanyahu rejected a Hamas proposal that known as for Israel to withdraw from Gaza, abide by a long-term cease-fire and free Palestinians held in Israeli jails in trade for the discharge of remaining Israelis who had been kidnapped throughout the Hamas-led Oct. 7 assault.
Mr. Netanyahu mentioned that Hamas’s calls for had been “ludicrous” and that accepting them would solely invite additional assaults on Israel. Asserting that there was “no answer in addition to complete victory,” he mentioned the army had been ordered to organize to maneuver into Rafah, on Egypt’s border, which he known as one in every of “Hamas’s final remaining strongholds.”
At a information convention in Washington on Thursday, Vedant Patel, a State Division spokesman, raised issues concerning the prospect of an Israeli army incursion into Rafah. “We have now but to see any proof of great planning for such an operation,” he mentioned.
Mr. Patel mentioned that to “conduct such an operation proper now, with no planning and little thought” can be “a catastrophe.”
Because the United Nations additionally warned of devastating penalties from an enlargement of Israel’s army offensive, Israeli leaders and Hamas officers mentioned on Thursday that they had been nonetheless open to additional negotiations to cease the preventing.
“There’s settlement amongst members of the governing coalition, and notably amongst particular person members of the federal government, that we do must get the hostages again and to make a deal,” Miki Zohar, an Israeli authorities minister, mentioned in a radio interview on Thursday morning.
“However not at any value,” Mr. Zohar mentioned. “Stopping the warfare, for instance, they received’t conform to.”
Hamas mentioned in a press release {that a} delegation led by one in every of its senior officers, Khalil al-Hayya, had arrived in Cairo on Thursday to take part in cease-fire talks with mediators.
Israeli officers have mentioned that they weren’t ready to simply accept one other provide that requires the withdrawal of their forces from Gaza and leaves Hamas in energy.
“The overall withdrawal of Israeli forces and an finish of this warfare is, after all, not an possibility,” an Israeli authorities spokesman, Eylon Levy, mentioned on Thursday. “Hamas was calling for full capitulation that may depart it free and emboldened to perpetrate one other bloodbath.”
Even so, Israeli leaders concluded that there was nonetheless room for dialogue if the proposal that Hamas provided this week was within the nature of a gap bid, in response to two authorities officers who spoke on the situation of anonymity to debate a delicate matter.
Nadav Shtrauchler, a political analyst who was as soon as Mr. Netanyahu’s media strategist, mentioned that although the prime minister had spurned the provide, he left a gap.
“The door has been closed, however the window remains to be open — not for that deal, which he couldn’t settle for, however for a special deal,” Mr. Shtrauchler mentioned.
Assist teams and the United Nations have repeatedly warned that an advance on Rafah can be devastating as a result of the town is now residence to greater than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, lots of whom reside in ramshackle tents after shifting a number of instances in the hunt for security.
The Israeli army made no formal announcement concerning the strikes on Thursday and declined to touch upon whether or not they signaled the beginning of a floor offensive, saying it doesn’t focus on “operational exercise.”
A army offensive in Rafah “would exponentially improve what’s already a humanitarian nightmare, with untold regional penalties,” the U.N. secretary basic, António Guterres, instructed the Basic Meeting on Wednesday.
Gaza’s well being ministry mentioned that greater than 100 folks had been killed within the territory over the earlier 24 hours. Greater than 27,000 folks have been killed in Gaza throughout the four-month warfare, well being authorities there say. Round 1,200 folks had been killed within the Hamas-led assault on Oct. 7, the Israelis say.
The Norwegian Refugee Council, an assist company, warned {that a} full-scale Israeli army assault on Rafah and the encircling space would result in extra civilian deaths and danger halting the trickle of humanitarian assist that’s coming into Rafah from Egypt.
“An enlargement of hostilities may flip Rafah right into a zone of bloodshed and destruction that folks received’t be capable of escape,” mentioned Angelita Caredda, the Center East and North Africa regional director, mentioned. “Situations in Rafah are already dire.”
Some Israeli and American officers have questioned how shut Israel is to attaining its aim of defeating Hamas.
U.S. intelligence officers instructed Congress this week that Israel had degraded Hamas’s preventing capabilities however that it was not near eliminating the group, American officers mentioned. That evaluation appeared to contradict Mr. Netanyahu’s assertion on Wednesday that victory was “inside attain.”
Reporting was contributed by Abu Bakr Bashir, Julian E. Barnes and Edward Wong.
