Panic in hemmed-in Rafah as Israel PM orders troops to prepare ground entry
Al Jazeera
UN chief says ground invasion of city would widen the ‘humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences’.
Panic is growing in Rafah over an imminent ground invasion after Israel’s prime minister ordered his military to prepare to enter the city in the southern Gaza Strip that is sheltering 1.2 million people with nowhere else to go as he rejected Hamas’s truce plan and rebuffed US efforts to reach a deal.
A new round of talks aimed at securing a truce with Hamas were set to open on Thursday in Egypt after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will not end the war and will push on until “total victory” over the Palestinian group.
Visiting United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken insisted on Wednesday that he still saw “space for agreement to be reached” and was meeting on Thursday in Tel Aviv with Israel’s war cabinet members Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot to discuss the release of captives being held in Gaza.
“We are on the way to an absolute victory,” Netanyahu said on Wednesday, adding that the operation would last months, not years. “There is no other solution.”
Israeli air strikes overnight on Rafah – which Israel had once declared a safe zone for displaced Palestinians – killed 14 people, including five children.
