Israel strikes eastern Rafah as ceasefire talks end with no deal

CAIRO: Israeli forces bombarded areas of Rafah on Thursday as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed US President Joe Biden’s threat to withhold weapons from Israel if it assaults the southern Gaza city.

A senior Israeli official said that the latest round of indirect negotiations in Cairo to halt hostilities in Gaza had ended and Israel would proceed with its operation in Rafah and other parts of the Gaza Strip as planned.

Israel has submitted to mediators its reservations about a Hamas proposal for a hostage release deal, the official said. “If we must, we shall fight with our fingernails,” Netanyahu said in a video statement. “But we have much more than our fingernails.”

In Gaza, Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad said their fighters fired anti-tank rockets and mortars at Israeli tanks massed on the eastern outskirts of the city.

Residents and medics in Rafah, the biggest urban area in Gaza not yet overrun by Israeli ground forces, said an Israeli attack near a mosque killed at least three people and wounded others in the eastern Brazil neighbourhood.

Video footage from the scene showed the minaret lying in the rubble and two bodies wrapped in blankets. An Israeli air strike on two houses in the Sabra neighbourhood of Rafah killed at least 12 people including women and children.

Among the dead was a senior commander of the militant Al-Mujahedeen Brigades, and his family, and the family of another group leader, medics, relatives and the group said.

Israel claims Hamas militants are hiding in Rafah, where the population has been swelled by hundreds of thousands of Gazans seeking refuge from the bombardments that have reduced most of the coastal enclave to ruins.

In the United States, the White House repeated its hope that Israel would not launch a full operation in Rafah, saying it did not believe that would advance Israel’s aim of defeating Hamas. “Smashing into Rafah, in [President Biden’s] view, will not advance that objective,” spokesperson John Kirby said.

Kirby said Hamas had been pressured significantly by Israel and there were better options to hunt down what remains of the group’s leadership than an operation with significant risk to civilians.

Biden issued his starkest warning yet against a full ground invasion in Rafah, saying, “I made it clear that if they go into Rafah…I’m not supplying the weapons.”

Israel’s ambassador to the United States said the decision to withhold weapons from Israel over Rafah sends the “wrong message” to Hamas and the country’s foes.

“It puts us in a corner because we have to deal with Rafah one way or the other,” Ambassador Michael Herzog told a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace webinar.

The Israeli military has the munitions it requires for operations in Rafah and other planned operations, chief armed forces spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said.

Israeli armed forces have already killed 50 Palestinian gunmen in east Rafah and uncovered several tunnels, Hagari said. Hamas had no immediate comment.

In Cairo, delegations from Hamas, Israel, the US, Egypt and Qatar had been meeting since Tuesday. The talks in Egypt’s capital made some headway but no deal was reached.

Izzat El-Risheq, a member of Hamas’ political office in Qatar, said the Hamas delegation had left Cairo, having reaffirmed its approval of the mediators’ ceasefire proposal. The plan entails the release of Israeli hostages held captive in Gaza and a number of Palestinians jailed by Israel.

Hamas blames Israel for the lack of agreement, and said the group would not make any concessions beyond those in the proposal it had accepted. Israel has said it is open to a truce, but has rejected demands for an end to the war.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Washington continued to engage with Israel on amendments to a ceasefire proposal, adding work to finalize the text of an agreement was “incredibly difficult”.