TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Israeli forces mass on Rafah's outskirts
As ceasefire talks continued in Cairo, Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad said their fighters struck Israeli forces on the eastern outskirts of Rafah, firing anti-tank rockets and mortars at Israeli positions.
Change Size
Israeli army main battle tanks and other military vehicles are positioned in southern Israel near the border with the Gaza Strip on May 9, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian territory between Israel and the Hamas movement. (AFP/Ahmad Gharabli)
I
sraeli forces massed tanks close to built-up areas of Rafah on Thursday, Hamas militants and residents said, after US President Joe Biden vowed to withhold weapons from Israel if its forces launched a major invasion of the southern Gaza city.
As ceasefire talks continued in Cairo, Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad said their fighters struck Israeli forces on the eastern outskirts of Rafah, firing anti-tank rockets and mortars at Israeli positions.
Residents in the east of Rafah, the only major urban area in Gaza not yet invaded by Israeli ground forces, reported the sound of explosions in battles between Palestinian fighters and approaching Israeli troops.
CIA Director William Burns had returned from Jerusalem to the Egyptian capital and resumed meetings on Thursday with mediators trying to secure a ceasefire, two Egyptian security sources said.
In his starkest comments yet, Biden raised the pressure on Israel to hold back from an all-out assault on Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have sought refuge after fleeing combat elsewhere in Gaza.
Israeli tanks seized the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt on Tuesday, cutting off a vital aid route and forcing 80,000 people to flee the city this week, according to the United Nations. Israel says it must hit Rafah to defeat thousands of Hamas fighters it says are there.
"I made it clear that if they go into Rafah, ... I’m not supplying the weapons," Biden told CNN in an interview on Wednesday.
The United States is by far the biggest supplier of weapons to Israel, and it accelerated deliveries after the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 that triggered Israel's offensive in Gaza. Biden acknowledged that US bombs have killed Palestinian civilians in the seven-month-old offensive.
US officials have said Washington paused delivery of a shipment of 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs to Israel because of the risk to civilians in Gaza.
Israel's United Nations ambassador Gilad Erdan said on Thursday the US decision to pause some weapons deliveries to Israel will significantly impair the country's ability to neutralise Hamas' power, according to Israeli public radio.
Israel kept up tank and aerial strikes across the Gaza Strip on Thursday. Tanks advanced in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City in the north, forcing hundreds of families to flee, residents said. The Israeli military said it was securing Zeitoun, starting with a series of intelligence-based aerial strikes on approximately 25 "terror targets".
Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza was heaving with thousands of people who had fled Rafah in recent days. Palestinian medics said two people, including a woman, were killed when a drone fired a missile at a group of people there.
