By Nidal al-Mughrabi.- Israeli tanks entered eastern Syria on Tuesday. Rafah, reaching some residential districts of the southern border city where more than a million people had taken refuge, raising fears of more civilian casualties.
Israel’s international allies and aid groups have repeatedly warned against a ground incursion into Rafah, which is teeming with refugees and where Israel says four Hamas battalions are holed up.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) said it would hold hearings on Thursday and Friday to debate a petition from South Africa seeking new emergency measures over the Ráfah incursion, which Qatar says has paralyzed efforts to reach a ceasefire.
South Africa’s lawsuit is part of a case it brought against Israel, in which it accuses it of violating the convention on genocide in Gaza, and which Israel has described as baseless. Israel has vowed to continue advancing toward Rafah even without support from its allies, saying the operation is necessary to wipe out remaining Hamas fighters.
“The tanks have advanced this morning along the western Salahuddin road towards the neighborhoods of Brzail and Jneina. They are on the streets within the built-up area and there are clashes,” a resident told Reuters via a chat application.
Palestinian residents of western Rafah later said they could see smoke over eastern neighborhoods and hear the sound of explosions following an Israeli bombardment of a group of houses. Hamas’s armed wing said it had destroyed an Israeli troop transport with an Al-Yassin 105 missile in the eastern Al-Salam district, killing some of the crew and wounding others. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) declined to comment on the report.
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Reuters
In a summary of its activities, the IDF said its forces had eliminated “several armed terrorist cells” in hand-to-hand combat on the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. In the east of the city, they said they had also destroyed militant cells and a launch site from which missiles were fired at IDF troops.
NO PLACE IS SAFE
A week ago, Israel issued evacuation orders for the population to leave some areas of eastern Rafah, and on Saturday a second round of orders was extended to other areas. Displaced people are moving to stretches of land such as Al-Mawasi, a sandy strip along the coast that aid agencies say lacks health and other facilities to accommodate an influx of displaced people.
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Reuters
UNRWA, the United Nations’ main aid agency in Gaza, estimates that some 450,000 people have fled Rafah since May 6, warning that “nowhere is safe” in the enclave of 2.3 million people.
The war has brought much of Gaza’s population to the brink of famine, according to the UN, and devastated its medical facilities, where hospitals, if they function at all, lack fuel to power generators and other essential supplies.
FIERCE SHOOTINGS
Fighting across the Strip has intensified in recent days, including in the north, with the Israeli army again targeting areas where it had claimed to have dismantled Hamas months ago. Israel says the operations are aimed at preventing Hamas, which runs Gaza, from rebuilding its military capacity.
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Reuters
The number of Palestinian deaths in the war has now exceeded 35,000, according to Gaza health authorities, whose figures do not differentiate between civilians and combatants. In the last 24 hours, 82 Palestinians have died, the highest number of fatalities in a single day in many weeks.
Source: Ambito
