CAIRO: Israeli forces pounded Rafah and other areas across the Gaza Strip and engaged in close-quarter combat with fighters led by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, residents and Israel’s military said.
Residents said the Israelis appeared to by trying to complete their capture of Rafah, the city on the enclave’s southern edge that has been the focus of an Israeli assault since early May.
Tanks were forcing their way into the western and northern parts of the city, having already captured the east, south and center. Israeli forces fired from planes, tanks and ships off the coast, forcing a new wave of displacement from the city, which had been sheltering more than a million displaced people, most of whom have been forced to flee again.
The Israeli military said on Friday its forces were conducting “precise, intelligence-based” actions in the Rafah area, where troops were involved in close-quarter combat and had located tunnels used by militants. It also reported actions elsewhere in the enclave.
Some residents said the pace of the Israeli raid has been accelerated in the past two days. They said sounds of explosions and gunfire indicating fierce fighting have been almost non-stop.
More than eight months into the war in Gaza, Israel’s advance is now focused on the two last areas its forces had yet to storm: Rafah on Gaza’s southern edge and the area surrounding Deir Al-Balah in the center.
“The entire city of Rafah is an area of Israeli military operations,” Ahmed Al-Sofi, the mayor of Rafah, said in a statement carried by Hamas media on Friday.
“The city lives through a humanitarian catastrophe and people are dying inside their tents because of Israeli bombardment,” he added.
Sofi said there was no medical facility functioning in the city, and that remaining residents and displaced families lacked the minimum of their daily needs of food and water.
Palestinian and UN figures show that fewer than 100,000 people may have remained in the far western side of the city, which had been sheltering more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people before the Israeli assault began in early May.
The military accused Hamas of using Palestinian civilians as human shields, an allegation Hamas denies.
“The soldiers located inside a civilian residence large quantities of weapons hidden in wardrobes, including grenades, explosives, a launcher and anti-tank missiles, ammunition, and arms,” the military said in a statement late on Thursday.
Hamas’ armed wing said on Thursday its fighters had hit two Israeli tanks with anti-tank rockets in the Shaboura camp in Rafah, and killed soldiers who tried to flee through the alleys. There was no Israeli immediate comment on the Hamas claim.
In nearby Khan Younis, an Israeli air strike on Friday killed three people, including a father and son, medics said.
In parallel, Israeli forces continued a new push back into some Gaza City suburbs in the north of the enclave, where they fought with Hamas-led militants. Residents said the army forces had destroyed many homes in the heart of Gaza City on Thursday.
Later on Friday, an Israeli air strike on a main road in Gaza City killed four Palestinians, medics said.
Israel’s ground and air campaign was triggered when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
The offensive has left Gaza in ruins, killed more than 37,400 people, according to Palestinian health authorities, and left nearly the entire population homeless and destitute.
Israeli forces step up bombardment across Gaza, amid fierce fighting
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Israeli forces step up bombardment across Gaza, amid fierce fighting
- Tanks forcing their way into the western and northern parts of the city, having already captured the east, south and center.
- Residents said the Israelis appeared to by trying to complete their capture of Rafah
Israel extends cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian banks, official says
- The waiver, which was due to expire at the end of June, allows Israeli banks to process shekel payments for services and salaries tied to the Palestinian Authority
The waiver, which was due to expire at the end of June, allows Israeli banks to process shekel payments for services and salaries tied to the Palestinian Authority. Without it, the Palestinian economy would have taken a hit.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich extended the waiver during a recent cabinet meeting, his spokesperson said.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said it was important to keep open the Israeli-Palestinian correspondent banking relationships to allow battered economies in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to function and help ensure security.
The Palestinian economy relies heavily on this relationship to process transactions made in Israeli shekels.
Some 53 billion shekels ($14 billion) were exchanged at Palestinian banks in 2023, official data show.
President Ghazouani maintains lead in Mauritania presidential election
NOUAKCHOTT: Mauritania’s President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani held a steady lead in the West African nation’s presidential election with just over half of votes counted, provisional results from the electoral commission showed on Sunday.
Ghazouani had 54.87 percent of the vote, while his immediate rival, anti-slavery activist Biram Dah Abeid, was at 22.86 percent, with 50.32 percent of votes counted, or just 2,211 polling stations out of 4,503 reporting by 0700 GMT, provisional results on the electoral commission’s website showed.
Vessel and crew safe after incident southwest of Yemen’s Al-Mukha, UKMTO says
- Merchant vessel reportedly approached by 12 small craft, which remained in the vicinity of the vessel for about an hour before leaving the area
CAIRO: The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said on Sunday it had received a report of an incident 13 nautical miles southwest of Yemen’s Al-Mukha, but that the vessel and its crew were safe.
An UKMTO advisory note said a merchant vessel had reported being approached by 12 small craft which remained in the vicinity of the vessel for about an hour before leaving the area.
The vessel and crew were reported safe, and the vessel is proceeding to its next port of call, the advisory note added.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group has been launching drone and missile strikes in shipping lanes since November, saying that it acts in solidarity with Palestinians in Israel’s war in Gaza.
In dozens of attacks, the Houthis have sunk two vessels, seized another and killed at least three seafarers.
US has sent Israel thousands of 2,000-pound bombs since Oct. 7
- US has transferred at least 14,000 of the MK-84 2,000-pound bombs, 6,500 500-pound bombs, 3,000 Hellfire precision-guided air-to-ground missiles
- 1,000 bunker-buster bombs, 2,600 air-dropped small-diameter bombs, and other munitions have also been sent, according to top officials
WASHINGTON: The Biden administration has sent to Israel large numbers of munitions, including more than 10,000 highly destructive 2,000-pound bombs and thousands of Hellfire missiles, since the start of the war in Gaza, said two US officials briefed on an updated list of weapons shipments.
Between the war’s start last October and recent days, the United States has transferred at least 14,000 of the MK-84 2,000-pound bombs, 6,500 500-pound bombs, 3,000 Hellfire precision-guided air-to-ground missiles, 1,000 bunker-buster bombs, 2,600 air-dropped small-diameter bombs, and other munitions, according to the officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly.
While the officials didn’t give a timeline for the shipments, the totals suggest there has been no significant drop-off in US military support for its ally, despite international calls to limit weapons supplies and a recent administration decision to pause a shipment of powerful bombs.
Experts said the contents of the shipments appear consistent with what Israel would need to replenish supplies used in this eight-month intense military campaign in Gaza, which it launched after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas who killed 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
“While these numbers could be expended relatively quickly in a major conflict, this list clearly reflects a substantial level of support from the United States for our Israeli allies,” said Tom Karako, a weapons expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, adding that the listed munitions were the type Israel would use in its fight against Hamas or in a potential conflict with Hezbollah.
The delivery numbers, which have not been previously reported, provide the most up-to-date and extensive tally of munitions shipped to Israel since the Gaza war began.
Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have been trading fire since the start of the Gaza war, and concern is rising that an all-out war could break out between the two sides.
The White House declined to comment. Israel’s Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The shipments are part of a bigger list of weapons sent to Israel since the Gaza conflict began, one of the US officials said. A senior Biden administration official on Wednesday told reporters that Washington has since Oct. 7 sent $6.5 billion worth of security assistance to Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent weeks claimed that Washington was withholding weapons, a suggestion US officials have repeatedly denied even though they acknowledged some “bottlenecks.”
The Biden administration has paused one shipment of the 2,000-pound bomb, citing concern over the impact it could have in densely populated areas in Gaza, but US officials insist that all other arms deliveries continue as normal. One 2,000-pound bomb can rip through thick concrete and metal, creating a wide blast radius.
Reuters reported on Thursday that the United States is discussing with Israel the release of a shipment of large bombs that was suspended in May over worries about the military operation in Rafah.
International scrutiny of Israel’s military operation in Gaza has intensified as the Palestinian death toll from the war has exceeded 37,000, according to the Gaza health ministry, and has left the coastal enclave in ruins.
Washington gives $3.8 billion in annual military assistance to its longtime ally. While Biden has warned that he would place conditions on military aid if Israel fails to protect civilians and allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, he has not done so beyond delaying the May shipment.
Biden’s support for Israel in its war against Hamas has emerged as a political liability, particularly among young Democrats, as he runs for re-election this year. It fueled a wave of “uncommitted” protest votes in primaries and has driven pro-Palestinian protests at US universities.
While the United States provides detailed descriptions and quantities of military aid sent to Ukraine as it fights a full-scale invasion of Russia, the administration has revealed few details about the full extent of US weapons and munitions sent to Israel.
The shipments are also hard to track because some of the weapons are shipped as part of arms sales approved by Congress years ago but only now being fulfilled.
One of the US officials said the Pentagon has sufficient quantities of weapons in its own stocks and had been liaising with US industry partners who make the weapons, such as Boeing Co. and General Dynamics as the companies work to manufacture more.
Regime threatening destruction deserves destruction: Israel FM to Iran
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said this week they prefer a diplomatic path to resolving the situation
JERUSALEM: Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday that Iran’s message of an “obliterating war” made it worthy of destruction.
“A regime that threatens destruction deserves to be destroyed,” Katz said in a post on X. He also said Israel will act with full force against Iran-backed Hezbollah if it does not stop firing at Israel from Lebanon and move away from the border.
Iran’s UN mission said on Friday that if Israel embarks on a “full-scale military aggression” in Lebanon, “an obliterating war will ensue.”
The Iranian mission also said in the post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that in such an event “all options, incl. the full involvement of all resistance fronts, are on the table.”
Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with Israel since October, in parallel with the Gaza war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said this week they prefer a diplomatic path to resolving the situation.
Though Katz is a member of Israel’s security cabinet, war policy has largely been led by Netanyahu and a small circle of ministers that includes Gallant, who visited Washington this week for talks on Gaza and Lebanon.
