Israeli forces hammered Rafah in southern Gaza with tanks and artillery Saturday, hours after US President Joe Biden said Israel was offering a new roadmap towards a full ceasefire.
Shortly after Biden’s announcement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted his country would still pursue the war until it had reached all its aims, including the destruction of Hamas.
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The Palestinian militant group, meanwhile, said it “considers positively” the plan laid out by Biden.
In his first major address outlining a possible end to the conflict, the US president said Israel’s three-stage offer would begin with a six-week phase that would see Israeli forces withdraw from all populated areas of Gaza.
It would also see the “release of a number of hostages, including women, the elderly, the wounded, in exchange for (the) release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners”.
Israel and the Palestinians would then negotiate during those six weeks for a lasting ceasefire — but the truce would continue while the talks remained underway, Biden said.
The US leader urged Hamas to accept the Israeli offer. “It’s time for this war to end, for the day after to begin,” he said, in comments echoed by British Foreign Secretary David Cameron.
Hamas in a statement on Friday evening said it “considers positively” Biden’s speech regarding “a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, reconstruction and the exchange of prisoners”.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called his counterparts from Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey on Friday to press the deal.
UN chief Antonio Guterres “strongly hopes” the latest development “will lead to an agreement by the parties for lasting peace”, his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said the Israeli offer “provides a glimpse of hope and a possible path out of the war’s deadlock”, while EU chief Ursula von der Leyen welcomed a “balanced and realistic” approach to end the bloodshed.
But Netanyahu took issue with Biden’s presentation of what was on the table, insisting the transition from one stage to the next in the proposed roadmap was “conditional” and crafted to allow Israel to maintain its war aims.
“The prime minister authorized the negotiating team to present an outline for achieving (the return of hostages), while insisting that the war will not end until all of its goals are achieved,” Netanyahu’s office said.
Those aims included “the return of all our hostages and the elimination of Hamas’s military and governmental capabilities”, it added.
“The exact outline proposed by Israel, including the conditional transition from stage to stage, allows Israel to maintain these principles.”
Israel has repeatedly vowed to destroy Hamas since the Palestinian militant group attacked southern Israel on October 7.
Israel sent tanks and troops into Rafah in early May, ignoring concerns over the safety of displaced Palestinian civilians sheltering in the city on the Egyptian border.
On Saturday, residents reported tank fire in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood in west Rafah, while witnesses in the east and center of Rafah described intense artillery shelling.
“From the early hours of the night until this morning, the aerial and artillery bombardment has not stopped for a single moment”, a resident from west Rafah told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“There are a number of occupation (Israeli) snipers in high-rise buildings overseeing all areas of Tal al-Sultan… making the situation very dangerous”, the resident added.
There was also shelling and gunfire from the Israeli army in Gaza City, in the north of the Palestinian territory, according to an AFP reporter.
A steady stream of civilians has flooded out of Rafah, taking their belongings on their shoulders, in cars or on donkey-drawn carts.
Before the Rafah offensive began, the United Nations said up to 1.4 million people were sheltering in the city.
Since then, one million have fled the area, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has said.
The Israeli seizure of the Rafah crossing has further slowed sporadic deliveries of aid for Gaza’s 2.4 million people and effectively shuttered the territory’s main exit point.
Israel said last week that aid deliveries had been stepped up.
But Blinken acknowledged on Friday that the humanitarian situation was “dire” despite US efforts to bring in more assistance.
The World Food Program said daily life had become “apocalyptic” in parts of southern Gaza since Israel began its assault on Rafah in early May.
The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,189 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Militants also took 252 hostages, 121 of whom remain in Gaza, including 37 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 36,284 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
In northern Gaza, witnesses said that after carrying out a three-week operation in the town of Jabalia and its neighboring refugee camp, troops had ordered residents of nearby Beit Hanun to evacuate ahead of an imminent assault.
The Israeli army said troops “completed their mission in eastern Jabalia and began preparation for continued operations in the Gaza Strip”.
Jabalia shopkeeper Belal al-Kahlot said there was nothing left of his store after the Israeli operation. “Everything is ashes.”
The Israeli military announced the deaths of two soldiers in Gaza, taking to 294 the number of Israeli troops killed since the start of ground operations in late October.
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