Gaza: A deadly attack was reported early Saturday in the overcrowded Gaza border town of Rafah, dubbed a “pressure cooker of despair” by the United Nations, as an international mediator concludes an interim cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas. He was in the process of preparing a new move.
Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have taken refuge in Rafah in the south since the war began, with the former city of 200,000 now home to more than half of Gaza’s more than 2 million people. A WHO representative made the announcement on Friday.
The U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA said it was deeply concerned by the escalation in fighting in nearby Khan Yunis, where increasing numbers of people have been forced south in recent days.
“The majority are living in temporary buildings, tents or outdoors,” OCHA spokesman Jens Raake told a news conference in Geneva.
“Rafah is a pressure cooker of despair and we fear what will happen next.”
AFP reporters in the city heard powerful explosions shortly after midnight on Saturday, and the Hamas-run Health Ministry later reported that 14 people had been killed in two separate attacks in the city.
The ministry said a total of more than 100 people were killed across the territory overnight.
Abdulkarim Misbah, one of the many people seeking refuge in Rafah, said he first left his home in the northern Jabalia refugee camp for Khan Younis, but was forced out again.
“We fled death last week in Khan Yunis with nothing. We could not find a place to stay. The first two nights we slept on the street. Women and children slept in mosques. ” said the 32-year-old father.
The family then received the donated tent and set it up right on the Egyptian border.
“My four children are shivering from the cold. They feel sick and sick all the time,” he said.
A winter storm and torrential rains battered Gaza on Friday, with some people donning protective gear left over from the coronavirus pandemic to protect themselves from the harsh weather.
increasing death toll
The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, resulting in the deaths of around 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
The militants also held about 250 hostages, and Israel said 132 remained in Gaza, including at least 27 believed to have been killed.
In response, Israel launched a ferocious offensive that killed at least 27,131 people in the Gaza Strip, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-controlled area’s health ministry.
The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF said Friday that an estimated 17,000 children in the Gaza Strip have been left unaccompanied or separated from their parents because of the war.
“Each has a heartbreaking story of loss and grief,” said spokesman Jonathan Clicks.
Nearly four months of fighting have devastated the coast, while the Israeli siege has left the country with severe shortages of food, water, fuel and medicine.
Image analysis released Friday by the United Nations satellite center UNITAR, based on footage collected on January 6 and 7, showed that “about 30 percent” of Gaza’s structures have been affected by the war. .
Meanwhile, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) announced that three Palestinian Red Crescent workers (two on Wednesday and one on Friday) died near al-Amal Hospital in Khan Yunis.
“Any attack on health workers, ambulances or medical facilities is unacceptable,” the IFRC said in a statement.
armistice negotiations
The soaring civilian death toll in the Gaza Strip and Israeli concerns over the fate of hostages have fueled calls for a ceasefire.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken plans to visit the Middle East again in the coming days to press for new offers, including the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for a cessation of fighting, the State Department said.
Blinken added that starting Sunday he would visit Israel, the occupied West Bank and Saudi Arabia, in addition to Qatar and Egypt, the mediators of the proposal.
The visit, Qatar’s fifth since the outbreak of war, came after Majid al-Ansari, a spokesman for Qatar’s foreign ministry, said he expected “good news” of a new cessation of fighting “in the coming weeks”. Ta.
He said the ceasefire, which was forced to a vote in Paris earlier this week, had been “approved by the Israeli side” and had received a “positive” initial response from Hamas.
But a source close to the group told AFP: “We have not yet agreed on the framework of the deal and each side has important views, but Qatar’s statement is rushed and untrue.” he said.
Hamas officials say they have been presented with a plan that includes an initial six-week cessation of fighting, with the delivery of more aid to Gaza and an exchange of some Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. Stated.
Leaders of Hamas and its allies Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Qatar-based Ismail Haniyeh and Ziyad al-Nahla, respectively, discussed recent developments and said that any future ceasefire would require a “complete withdrawal” of Israeli forces from Gaza. Haniya’s office announced that it must lead to a “withdrawal”. .
growing tension
The war has led to a surge in attacks by Iranian-backed groups supporting Palestinians in the region.
The U.S. military on Friday launched a series of airstrikes against Iranian forces and Tehran-backed fighters in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for a drone attack in Jordan that killed three American soldiers on Sunday.
US forces and their allies in the Middle East have faced increased attacks since the war in Gaza began, and have been shelled more than 165 times since mid-October.
U.S. Central Command said in a statement that Friday’s airstrikes were directed at the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force and “affiliated militia groups” and hit “more than 85 targets.”
Also on Friday, the Israeli military announced that its defense systems “successfully intercepted a surface-to-surface missile that approached Israeli territory near the Red Sea,” and that Yemen’s Houthi rebels had fired a missile at Israel. insisted.