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 navy was making ready to maneuver into the realm.
The strikes on two homes in Rafah killed and injured a number of folks, based on 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 a place for the folks to run to,” stated Fathi Abu Snema, a 45-year-old father of 5 who has been dwelling in a United Nations-run faculty in Rafah for practically 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 referred to 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 in the course of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 assault.
Mr. Netanyahu stated that Hamas’s calls for had been “ludicrous” and that accepting them would solely invite additional assaults on Israel. Asserting that there was “no resolution apart from complete victory,” he stated the navy had been ordered to arrange to maneuver into Rafah, on Egypt’s border, which he referred to 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 navy incursion into Rafah. “We’ve but to see any proof of significant planning for such an operation,” he stated.
Mr. Patel stated that to “conduct such an operation proper now, with no planning and little thought” could be “a catastrophe.”
Because the United Nations additionally warned of devastating penalties from an growth of Israel’s navy offensive, Israeli leaders and Hamas officers stated 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 need to get the hostages again and to make a deal,” Miki Zohar, an Israeli authorities minister, stated in a radio interview on Thursday morning.
“However not at any value,” Mr. Zohar stated. “Stopping the conflict, for instance, they gained’t comply with.”
Hamas stated in an announcement {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 stated that they weren’t ready to just accept one other supply that requires the withdrawal of their forces from Gaza and leaves Hamas in energy.
“The whole withdrawal of Israeli forces and an finish of this conflict is, after all, not an possibility,” an Israeli authorities spokesman, Eylon Levy, stated on Thursday. “Hamas was calling for full capitulation that can 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 supplied this week was within the nature of a gap bid, based on 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, stated that although the prime minister had spurned the supply, he left a gap.
“The door has been closed, however the window continues to be open — not for that deal, which he couldn’t settle for, however for a unique deal,” Mr. Shtrauchler stated.
Assist teams and the United Nations have repeatedly warned that an advance on Rafah could 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 occasions in the hunt for security.
The Israeli navy 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 navy offensive in Rafah “would exponentially improve what’s already a humanitarian nightmare, with untold regional penalties,” the U.N. secretary normal, António Guterres, instructed the Common Meeting on Wednesday.
Gaza’s well being ministry stated 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 in the course of the four-month conflict, 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 help company, warned {that a} full-scale Israeli navy assault on Rafah and the encompassing space would result in extra civilian deaths and danger halting the trickle of humanitarian help that’s getting into Rafah from Egypt.
“An growth of hostilities might flip Rafah right into a zone of bloodshed and destruction that folks gained’t have the ability to escape,” stated Angelita Caredda, the Center East and North Africa regional director, stated. “Situations in Rafah are already dire.”
Some Israeli and American officers have questioned how shut Israel is to reaching its purpose 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 stated. 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.