Israel has confronted rising world outcry over the surging civilian demise toll

Rafah:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to convene his warfare cupboard Sunday to debate the most recent efforts in direction of a Gaza truce and hostage launch deal, a senior official informed AFP.

The information got here regardless of extra lethal Gaza combating and a rocket barrage Hamas aimed toward Tel Aviv that despatched folks scrambling for bomb shelters as air defences intercepted projectiles streaking throughout the sky.

US President Joe Biden has pushed for renewed worldwide efforts to halt the Gaza warfare, and CIA chief Invoice Burns on Friday met Mossad director David Barnea and Qatar’s prime minister in Paris.

Whereas Israel’s predominant focus is to free the remaining hostages, Hamas has insisted on a everlasting finish to the warfare raging since October 7 — a requirement Netanyahu has to this point rejected out of hand.

An Israeli senior official, talking on situation of anonymity, informed AFP that “the warfare cupboard is predicted to fulfill in Jerusalem tonight at 2100 (1800 GMT) to debate a hostage launch deal”.

The official had mentioned Saturday that “there may be an intention to resume these talks this week” after negotiations involving US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators had stalled in early Could.

A member of the Hamas political bureau, Izzat al-Rishq, mentioned on Sunday that “relating to the rumours about negotiations, we’ve got not acquired something from the mediators” to this point.

He insisted on Hamas’s long-standing demand for a everlasting cessation of hostilities in all of Gaza as “the inspiration and the start line for something”.

Rishq charged that Netanyahu is “attempting to purchase extra time to proceed the aggression” whereas in search of to create “false impressions of his concern” for the Gaza captives and their households.

Shortly afterwards, Hamas’s armed wing the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades mentioned they’d focused Tel Aviv “with a big rocket barrage in response to the Zionist (Israeli) massacres towards civilians”.

Israel’s military mentioned a minimum of eight rockets have been fired from Gaza’s far-southern metropolis of Rafah and that “numerous the projectiles have been intercepted”, with no preliminary stories of casualties.

Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas to forestall any repeat of an assault of the type the Palestinian Islamist group launched on October 7.

However he additionally faces robust strain from households of the hostages — and from prime ally the US, the place outrage over the Gaza warfare and US help for Israel has turn into a significant challenge for Biden within the election battle towards Donald Trump.

– Sirens in Tel Aviv –

The Gaza warfare floor on, as extra air strikes and artillery shelling rained down on northern, central and southern areas Sunday.

Israel’s army mentioned that over the previous 24 hours, it had destroyed “over 50 terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip”.

In Jabalia, troops had raided a weapons depot “embedded inside a college the place troops positioned dozens of rocket components and weapons”.

Preventing has centred on Rafah, the place Israel has vowed to destroy the final remaining Hamas battalions regardless of a refrain of worldwide opposition to a floor invasion.

Gaza’s civil defence company mentioned it had retrieved six our bodies after a home was focused in a strike on japanese Rafah.

“The state of affairs in Rafah is one in every of fixed bombardment from land and air, which has destroyed many homes,” one Rafah resident, Moaz Abu Taha, 29, informed AFP.

“We’re additionally affected by starvation, thirst and a extreme lack of assist.”

The army mentioned that “throughout focused operations within the space of Rafah, terrorist operatives who tried to assault IDF troops have been eradicated”.

Israeli troops had additionally “positioned tunnel shafts and huge portions of weapons, together with AK-47s, RPGs, grenades and explosives” and struck two rocket launchers that have been aimed on the Kerem Shalom border crossing.

Hamas, in the meantime, mentioned Saturday it had taken “prisoner” a minimum of one Israeli soldier in an ambush within the Jabalia camp — a declare the military denied.

– International outcry –

The warfare broke out after Hamas’s October 7 assault on southern Israel, which resulted within the deaths of greater than 1,170 folks, principally civilians, in line with an AFP tally primarily based on Israeli official figures.

Militants additionally took 252 hostages, 121 of whom stay in Gaza, together with 37 the military says are lifeless.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed a minimum of 35,984 folks in Gaza, principally civilians, in line with the Hamas-run territory’s well being ministry.

The UN has warned of looming famine within the besieged territory, the place most hospitals are now not functioning.

Israel’s army mentioned Sunday the arrival of assist had been stepped up, each by way of a brand new US-built pier and thru its personal land crossings, Kerem Shalom and Erez West.

Over the previous week, 127 vehicles had arrived by way of the pier, and a couple of,065 by way of the 2 land crossings, it mentioned.

US Central Command mentioned Saturday that 4 US Military vessels supporting the pier broke freed from their moorings in heavy seas and ran aground, with Israel aiding the restoration effort.

Amid the bloodiest-ever Gaza warfare, Israel has confronted rising world outcry over the surging civilian demise toll.

Final week it confronted landmark strikes from two worldwide courts primarily based in The Hague, and from three European governments.

Final Monday, the prosecutor on the Worldwide Felony Courtroom mentioned he would search arrest warrants on warfare crimes expenses towards Netanyahu and his defence minister in addition to towards three prime Hamas figures.

On Wednesday, Eire, Norway and Spain mentioned they’d recognise Palestinian statehood by Could 28, a transfer Israel angrily rejected as a “reward for terrorism”.

And on Friday, the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice ordered Israel to halt its Rafah offensive or some other operation there that might result in “the bodily destruction” of the Palestinians.

One displaced Gazan, Umm Muhammad Al-Ashqa, mentioned that “we hope that the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice will put strain on Israel to cease this warfare, this warfare of extermination”.

“I’ll scream with pleasure when this choice is carried out.”

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