Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised on Tuesday April 30 that the Israeli army would enter Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, whether or not a truce was concluded with Hamas.
“The idea that we are going to stop the war before we have achieved all of our objectives is unthinkable. We will enter Rafah and eliminate the Hamas battalions there, whether a [truce] is concluded or not, in order to achieve total victory,” Mr. Netanyahu was quoted as saying in a statement released by his office.
The mediating countries are awaiting a response from the Islamist movement to an offer of a forty-day truce. This proposal is associated with the release of “thousands of Palestinian prisoners” held by the Jewish state, in exchange for that of hostages kidnapped on the day of the attack carried out by the Islamist movement on Israeli soil, October 7, 2023.
“A military assault on Rafah would constitute an intolerable escalation that would kill thousands more civilians and force hundreds of thousands more to flee,” warned UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
Israel will wait for the Islamist movement’s response “until Wednesday evening”, an Israeli official announced to Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Tuesday. After a meeting on Monday in Cairo with representatives of Egypt and Qatar, a Hamas delegation returned to Doha to study the new proposal and should give its response “as quickly as possible”, according to a source close to the movement cited by AFP. According to the website of the Al-Qahera News television channel, close to the Egyptian intelligence services, the Hamas delegation must return to Cairo “with a written response.”
The head of American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, expected in Israel on Tuesday after a stop in Jordan, said on Monday “hope” for a favorable response from Hamas to a proposal that he described as “extraordinarily generous on the part of Israel “.
“No more delays, no more excuses. The time to act is now,” he told reporters in Jordan, shortly before leaving for Israel as part of his seventh regional tour since the start of the war.
His French counterpart, Stéphane Séjourné, has arrived in Israel, where his discussions will also revolve around “efforts (…) to achieve an increase in the volume of humanitarian aid” in the Palestinian territory, according to a French diplomatic source.
In November 2023, a first one-week truce allowed the release of 105 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian detainees. More than 250 people were kidnapped on October 7, 2023, and taken as hostages to Palestinian territory, and 129 remain captive in Gaza, of whom 34 died, according to Israeli officials.
On Tuesday, airstrikes targeted Rafah as well as the neighboring town of Khan Younes and that of Gaza, in the north of the Palestinian territory, according to an AFP correspondent. According to the health ministry of the Hamas-administered enclave, 47 people were killed in twenty-four hours, which according to it brings the death toll to 34,535, mostly civilians. On the Israeli side, around 1,170 people died – most of them also civilians – during the attack on October 7, 2023, according to an AFP count established from official Israeli sources. According to the Israeli army, 608 of its soldiers have been killed in fighting in Gaza.
International aid, strictly controlled by the Israeli authorities, arrives in trickles, mainly from Egypt via Rafah, but remains very insufficient given the immense needs of the 2.4 million Gazans.
The United States is pressuring Israel to facilitate the delivery of aid by road and has also begun to build a floating port to accommodate cargo arriving by boat from Cyprus. The structure will be ready on Thursday, according to Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides.
Antony Blinken also announced that a first Jordanian humanitarian aid convoy was to leave on Tuesday and enter the Gaza Strip via the Erez crossing point, reopened by Israel. “This is real and important progress, but there is still much to do,” he added.
