Israeli planes and tanks have struck areas across the Gaza Strip, residents say, as White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday amid US calls for a more focused military campaign.
Sullivan was expected to insist that Israel attack Hamas fighters in a targeted manner, rather than a full-scale attack on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, as the White House had said before the discussions.
Israel is pressing on the city, which it says is the last stronghold of Hamas forces. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled the area, which was one of the few remaining places of refuge.
“There is no security in the entire Gaza Strip,” said Majid Omran, who told Reuters that his family had fled Rafah and had just returned to what remained of their home in the southern city of Khan Younis, from which they fled almost five months ago .
“We took our children, grandchildren and daughters, came and lived above the ruins of our house. Because there is nowhere to hide,” Omran told Reuters inside a ruined estate as a woman cooked over a fire.
Israeli forces also pushed deeper into the narrow streets of Jabalia in northern Gaza overnight and Sunday, returning to an area they claimed to have cleared earlier in the conflict, residents said.
The Israeli military said its operations in Jabalia – the largest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps – were precise and aimed at preventing Hamas from re-establishing power there.
The Israeli military said it was “working to identify armed terrorist cells and… carrying out dozens of attacks to assist forces on the ground” in the Jabalia area.
TALKS, TUNNELS, THREATS
Ahead of Sunday’s talks, an Israeli official said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his senior advisers would try to reach an agreement with Sullivan on the need to continue press pressure on Rafah’s behalf.
Previous U.S. concerns about the feasibility of Israel’s humanitarian response could be allayed by the evacuation of about half the city’s Palestinians within 12 days, said the official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.
“We have shown that it is not only necessary, but feasible,” the official added.
The official said Israel would also raise concerns about dozens of tunnels it said its forces had discovered under Rafah and lead to neighboring Egypt, condemning the military action.
“These tunnels are used by Hamas to procure weapons and ammunition and could potentially be used to smuggle hostages or senior Hamas officials out of Gaza,” Israeli Deputy State Prosecutor Noam Gilad said at Friday’s hearing in The Hague, a infrequent detailing of allegations that Egypt’s state security service news outlets had previously rejected it as false.
Netanyahu said the operation in Rafah, where Israel says as many as a quarter of Hamas’s fighting forces are holed up, could be completed within weeks.
Washington is concerned about the hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians who have taken refuge there and has highlighted the need not only to evacuate them but also to provide suitable alternative accommodation.
At least 28 Palestinians were killed on Sunday, Gaza health officials and Hamas said, most of them during a strike on a house in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip.
The Gaza Civil Service said in a statement that rescue teams had recovered the bodies of 150 Palestinians killed by the army in recent days and that Israeli air and ground fire had destroyed 300 homes.
According to Israeli data, 1,200 people died in the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war. About 125 of the 253 people abducted in the raid are believed to remain in captivity in Gaza.
According to the enclave’s health ministry, at least 35,386 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since October 7. Aid agencies have warned of widespread famine and shortages of fuel and medical supplies.
The U.S. military said Friday that trucks had begun transporting aid to shore from a short-lived pier built by its forces, the first to reach the besieged enclave by sea in weeks.
The Committee of Popular Resistance (PRC), an armed group fighting alongside Hamas in Gaza, released a statement saying the pier was built to ease political pressure on Israel and that any Israeli or US troops on its territory would be considered a legitimate target .
On Saturday, Hamas also expressed concerns about the pier, warning against any foreign military forces in Gaza but making no direct threats.
In March, when President Joe Biden announced plans to build a pier in his country, he said, “No American boots will step on the ground.”
Adjust
