GAZA STRIP (AFP) – Israel faced growing international pressure yesterday to agree to a ceasefire with Hamas, as it prepared for an incursion into the southern Gaza city Rafah where more than a million Palestinians are trapped.
Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns was due in Cairo for a new round of talks on a Qatari-brokered ceasefire proposal that would temporarily halt fighting in exchange for Hamas freeing hostages.
His planned visit comes after Washington and the United Nations (UN) warned Israel against carrying out a ground offensive into Rafah without a plan to protect civilians, who say they have nowhere left to go.
“Wherever we go there’s bombing, martyrs and wounded,” said displaced Palestinian woman Iman Dergham. After White House talks with Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Monday, United States (US) President Joe Biden said civilians in Rafah “need to be protected”.
“Many people there have been displaced – displaced multiple times, fleeing the violence to the north, and now they’re packed into Rafah – exposed and vulnerable,” he said.
King Abdullah pushed for a full ceasefire to end the four-month-old war.
“We cannot afford an Israeli attack on Rafah. It is certain to produce another humanitarian catastrophe,” he said. “We need a lasting ceasefire now.”
China urged Israel to “stop its military operation as soon as possible… in order to prevent a more serious humanitarian disaster in the Rafah area”.
After rejecting Hamas’ terms for a truce last week, Israel conducted a predawn raid in Rafah on Monday that freed two hostages and killed around 100 people.
Netanyahu hailed the operation that freed Fernando Simon Marman, 60, and Luis Har, 70, as “perfect”, while the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said the deaths of dozens of Gazans amounted to a “massacre”. The rare rescue mission came hours after the Israel premier spoke with Biden, who reiterated his opposition to a major assault on Rafah.
Netanyahu rebuffed Israel’s key ally, insisting that “complete victory” cannot be achieved without the elimination of the militants’ last battalions in Rafah.
The US has angered some Middle East allies by repeatedly refusing to back a full ceasefire, with Washington saying it supports Israel’s drive to eradicate Hamas and calling for shorter pauses with hostage-prisoner swaps instead. Biden said on Monday his administration was trying to broker a six-week truce and, that while key elements were in place, “gaps” remained.
Once the warring parties agree to the ceasefire, “something more enduring” could be broached, Biden said.
Rafah has become a last refuge for over half of Gaza’s population, who are pressed up against the Egypt border in makeshift camps where they face outbreaks of hepatitis and diarrhoea, and a scarcity of food and water.
Netanyahu has said Israel will provide “safe passage” to civilians trying to leave, but foreign governments and aid groups – as well as Gazans – questioned where they could go.
“As it is, there is no place that is currently safe in Gaza,” said UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
