Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File photo.
Locals said fighting had intensified in the Tel al-Sultan area west of Rafah, where Israeli tanks were trying to advance north amid heavy clashes. The militant wing of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said it had attacked Israeli forces with anti-tank missiles and mortar bombs.
Since early May, ground fighting has been concentrated in Rafah, a city on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, where more than half of the enclave’s 2.3 million people have taken refuge after being displaced from other areas. Most of Rafah’s residents have since fled the city.
Israel claims it is close to achieving its goal of destroying the last Hamas divisions in Rafah, and will then move on to smaller-scale operations in the enclave.
Two Palestinians were killed in an Israeli missile attack in Rafah, medical workers said.
The Israeli military said it killed a Hamas member involved in smuggling weapons across the Rafah-Egypt border. It also said its aircraft struck dozens of militant targets in Rafah overnight, including gunmen, military installations, and tunnel entrances.
An Israeli airstrike killed three Palestinians and wounded several others late Wednesday in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, one of eight refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, medical workers said.
Local residents and Hamas media said the casualties included a group of people gathered outside a shop to get an internet signal to contact relatives elsewhere in the enclave.
In the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, tank shells destroyed a residential building, killing at least five people and injuring many others.
The Israeli military has not commented on the incident.
Hostage exchange agreement
Israel's air and ground campaign in Gaza was sparked after Hamas militants stormed southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostage.
On Tuesday, the Gaza Health Ministry said the Israeli response had killed 37,658 Palestinians, including 60 in the previous 24 hours, and leveled Gaza.
Gaza's health ministry does not separate reported deaths between combatants and noncombatants, but officials say the vast majority of those killed are civilians. 314 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza, and Israeli authorities say at least a third of the Palestinians killed were militants.
After more than eight months of fighting, US-backed mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire. Hamas insists that any agreement must end the war and remove all Israeli forces from Gaza, while Israel insists it will only accept a temporary ceasefire until Hamas is defeated.
Orly Gilboa, whose 20-year-old daughter Daniela is a hostage being held in Gaza, called on Israeli leaders to accept the deal and urged the international community to urge Hamas to do the same.
“The agreement is for signing and implementing,” she said at a press conference in Tel Aviv. “I ask our government to implement the proposal they have made, and be brave like our children, save them, save us. Time is running out.”
Severe food shortages
In the northern Gaza Strip, Palestinians have complained of severe food shortages and soaring prices, and health officials say thousands of children are malnourished, with at least 30 children having died since October 7.
“We only have flour and canned goods, there is nothing else to eat, no vegetables, no meat, no milk,” said Abu Mustafa, who lives with his family in Gaza City.
The family's home was hit by Israeli tank shells last week and the entire upper floor was destroyed.
“Apart from the bombings, Israel is also waging another war in northern Gaza, and that is a war of hunger. People here do not recognize each other on the street anymore because they have lost weight and look old.”
Gaza remains at extremely high risk of famine, but an international monitoring agency said on Tuesday that aid deliveries had helped limit widespread hunger in northern Gaza.
More than 495,000 people in the Gaza Strip are facing the highest level of food insecurity, classified as “catastrophic,” according to an update from the Integrated Food Security Classification (IPC), an international collaboration between the UN and other aid agencies.
Concluding a visit to Washington, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant asserted that Israel is fighting Hamas, not the people of Gaza.
“We are committed, and I am personally committed, to supporting the delivery of essential humanitarian aid to Gaza. We are only fighting against those who wish to harm us.”
Nguyen Quang Minh (According to Reuters)
Source: https://www.nguoiduatin.vn/israel-ban-pha-mien-bac-va-nam-gaza-tham-chien-voi-hamas-tai-rafah-a670348.html
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