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The Israeli military said on Friday that its forces had advanced towards the center of Rafah, pushing further into the southern Gaza city despite international backlash and pressure from allies to scale back the latest offensive.
Israeli commandos backed by tanks and artillery were operating in central Rafah, the Israeli military said in a statement, without specifying precise locations. On Wednesday, the Israeli military said it had established “operational control” over the border area with Egypt, an eight-mile-long strip known as the Philadelphia Corridor, outside Rafah.
According to the United Nations, more than a million Palestinians in Rafah, about half of the territory’s total population, have fled the Israeli offensive in recent weeks, many of them displaced for the second or third time in this conflict. Many had sought refuge there after Israel ordered a mass evacuation of northern Gaza in late October, increasing the city’s population to 1.4 million.
Israel has continued its offensive in Rafah despite concerns from close allies such as the United States about the safety of displaced Palestinians and other civilians taking refuge there. Israeli officials say they cannot defeat Hamas in Gaza without exterminating its forces in the city and demolishing a network of the group’s cross-border tunnels used to smuggle ammunition and other supplies from neighboring Egypt.
But the attack has deepened the misery of many ordinary Palestinians. On Sunday, at least 45 people were killed in a single Israeli strike, according to Gaza health officials. The Israeli military said the bombing had targeted two Hamas commanders, but also inadvertently started a fire in a nearby area where civilians were sheltering.
Last week, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to halt its ongoing military offensive in Rafah, warning of irreparable harm to civilians, although some of the judges wrote that Israel could still carry out some military operations there. The Israeli military continued the operation despite that pressure, describing its campaign in Rafah as limited and precise.
Commercially available satellite images taken by Planet Labs on Thursday showed that the Israeli army had established positions in parts of central Rafah, while military vehicles and tanks could be seen as far as the outskirts of the Tel al-Sultan area in western Rafah. .
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Much of eastern Rafah has been devastated since the offensive began in early May, particularly around the border crossing with Egypt, according to satellite photographs from May 22. Israel captured the Rafah crossing in a nighttime operation on May 7 that marked the beginning of its assault. In the area.
Source: Planet Labs satellite images
The Rafah crossing has served as a vital conduit to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza amid widespread deprivation and hunger. It also served as the main gateway for sick and injured Gaza residents to flee the fighting and receive urgent medical care.
Israeli officials say the portal was a central part of Hamas’ smuggling operations into the enclave, which has been subject to a crushing Israeli-Egyptian blockade since the Palestinian armed group took control of Gaza by force in 2007.
The crossing has been closed since its capture by Israeli forces, and Israeli, Egyptian and Palestinian officials have been unable to reach an agreement to resume operations there.
After pressure from the United States, Egypt this week began diverting some aid trucks to another crossing, the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom, in an attempt to alleviate a sharp decline in aid entering Gaza.