Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he has ordered the military to develop a dual plan to evacuate civilians from the city – the last neighbourhood where Gazans have found refuge – and to defeat the remaining Hamas battalions.
“It is impossible to achieve the war objective of eliminating Hamas and leaving four Hamas battalions in Rafah,” his office said in a statement.
“On the other hand, it is clear that a massive operation in Rafah requires the evacuation of the civilian population from the combat zones.
“That is why the prime minister directed the IDF and the defence establishment to bring to the cabinet a dual plan for both the evacuation of the population and the disbanding of the battalions.”
While much of the international concern is focused on Gaza, European officials are increasingly alarmed by rising violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
The U. S. and the U. K. share the same concerns, having sanctioned a number of settlers they accuse of committing acts of violence.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in December he would propose similar measures, but so far the bloc has not come to a unanimous agreement – which is required for sanctions.
According to four diplomats, whose names were not specified, efforts are stalled due to objections from Hungary and the Czech Republic.
Some said a compromise could be reached later, after new European sanctions against Hamas.
The proposals would impose sanctions on about a dozen people or organisations, according to diplomats, but the EU has not spelled out what the sanctions would entail.
Officials said, however, that they would come with bans on the EU.
“Now is the time”
Hungary’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, said on Wednesday now is “definitely not the time” to sanction Israeli settlers, according to state news agency MTI.
Budapest says the EU is focused on helping Israel defeat Hamas and free the hostages.
Czech foreign minister, Jan Lipavsky, said his country is not “substantively” blocking sanctions on settlers inciting violence – but did not want them to come alongside measures against Hamas.
“An act of terrorism is at the same point as an act committed through settlers,” he said. “These things can’t be connected. “
Aid agencies have warned of the dire situation in Gaza, with shortages of medicine and food (see our 11:25am story).
Now, the UN reports nearly one in 10 children under five in Gaza are acutely malnourished.
This is based on knowledge of arm measurements showing physical wasting: 9. 6% show acute malnutrition, approximately 12 times higher than pre-war levels.
The proportion rises to 16. 2 per cent in northern Gaza, or one in six.
In recent weeks, food trucks have regularly been mobbed by hungry crowds before they could reach hospitals, according to aid workers.
A member of the Islamic Aid charity said: “My children and I have not eaten fruit and vegetables for months, and other people are being killed as they leave to accommodate aid trucks arriving from the UN. “
They added that they were going to make bread “with dried corn that we used as animal feed” due to the lack of flour.
But they are “relatively lucky with most people,” who “have nothing at all. “
‘Dead people are luckier’
The foreign nonprofit Project HOPE said about 15% of pregnant women tested last week at its clinic in central Gaza were malnourished.
It also reported an increase in anemia (or iron deficiency), which can increase the threat of preterm birth and postpartum hemorrhage.
Dr Santosh Kumar, its medical director, said he and his team had limited themselves to one meal a day in solidarity with the Gazans.
“People are starving, people have no dignity,” he said, having returned from Gaza last week.
“People used to say to me, ‘They’re luckier. ‘”
Several Arab ministers met in Saudi Arabia on Thursday following U. S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s tour of the Middle East in hopes of a long-awaited truce agreement between Israel and Hamas.
Today, some details of the meeting have been revealed as the talks centred on an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and “the importance of taking irreversible steps to implement the two-state solution”, Saudi state news agency SPA reported.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected Hamas’s latest terms for a ceasefire on Wednesday, but Mr Blinken said there is still room for negotiation.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan was joined by counterparts from Qatar, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, along with senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation Hussein al-Sheikh, according to SPA.
UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan also called for more efforts to prevent the standoff from spreading to the region, the official UAE News Agency reported on Friday.
In Syria, state media reports that the country’s air defenses responded to what are described as “hostile targets” near the capital, Damascus.
It’s transparent who those “targets” are or where they come from.
Earlier this month, the U. S. military launched airstrikes in Iraq and Syria in opposition to more than just targets related to Iran and the militias it supports.
They intervened in retaliation for an attack in Jordan in January that killed three American soldiers.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have endured one of the deadliest periods in Syria’s history, as the U. S. and Israel move past their anti-Iranian-backed militia measures.
As the Israeli offensive continues in central Gaza, hospitals in the city of Khan Younis are struggling to provide treatment for a growing number of casualties, medics say.
In a video shared on X, a member of the Palestinian Red Cross (PRCS) appears to speak over the sound of gunshots, audible in the background at Al Amal Hospital.
The hospital has been hit several times in recent weeks and may struggle to stay open, a spokesperson for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said earlier this week.
Today, PRCS said patients are enduring “terrifying conditions” in “tragic circumstances”.
They say the hospital has been under siege for 19 days and is running low on medical supplies, fuel and oxygen.
‘Prioritising’ patients
Gaza’s European Hospital also lacks equipment and medical groups say they are forced to make agonizing decisions about who to treat.
The hospital, also in Khan Younis, was planned to house only another 240 people, but is treating about 1,000 patients lately, while many other displaced people are also sheltering in its corridors, they said.
“A lot of times we have to prioritize patients,” said plastic surgeon Ahmed El Mokhallalati.
“We lost many patients because we were unable to provide the service.”
Mokhallalati described amputating patients who had already lost their entire family, adding that he broke down crying “because we cannot provide the care that is needed. “
The Iranian Foreign Minister is expected to visit Lebanon to discuss “various regional issues. ”
Iranian reports suggest Hossein Amir-Abdollahian is already on his way to Beirut, while Syrian newspaper Al Watan, which is close to the government, said he is due in Damascus “early next week” for a visit with senior officials.
Al Watan said he will discuss Israeli attacks on Syria and the ongoing war in Gaza, and that he would travel onwards to Qatar.
Sources said last week that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had withdrawn some officials from Syria after a series of Israeli moves that killed senior commanders.
Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, said on Thursday Iran remained “present in Syria”.
“We will take any measure without coordination with the government and we will be present anywhere the Syrian aspect asks us to,” he said.
“We have the same strength in Syria and we have never withdrawn. “
Since December, Israeli measures have killed more than six IRGC members, adding one very no-nonsense intelligence general.
We will be informed more about the Israeli airstrikes reported overnight in central Gaza and the southern city of Rafah.
Nine people had been reported killed this morning (see our 8.10am post) but this figure has now risen to 22, according to the Associated Press, citing witnesses and hospital officials.
Eight people were reportedly killed in a strike on a residential building in Rafah, while five were killed in a nursery-turned-shelter for the displaced in the central town of Zuwaida.
The dead and wounded were taken to nearby hospitals, where Associated Press reporters discovered the bodies.
A strike also reportedly killed nine people in Deir al Balah, in central Gaza.
Israeli ground forces continue to target the town of Khan Younis, just north of Rafah, but Benjamin Netanyahu warned this week that Rafah will be next.
His remarks have also alarmed Egypt, which has said that any ground operation in the Rafah area or mass displacement across the border would undermine its 40-year-old peace treaty with Israel.
With more than a million Palestinians in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, an aid company warns of a “bloodbath” if Israel continues to advance on the city.
Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), said “no war can be allowed in a gigantic refugee camp”, as doctors and aid workers struggle to supply even basic aid and stop the spread of disease.
Israel has threatened to advance from Khan Younis, Gaza’s main southern city, to Rafah, where the population has increased five-fold as people flee bombardment, hemmed in by Egyptian and Israeli border fences.
“The escalation of hostilities in Rafah could derail the humanitarian response,” the NRC said in a statement.
Development charity ActionAid said some resort to smoking marijuana.
“All users in Gaza are now hungry and people only have between 1. 5 and 2 liters of contaminated water per day,” the organization added.
Aid agencies say they are moving others to safer spaces because Israeli troops are in the north and the aid allowed to the enclave is far from enough for everyone.
UNICEF also called on all parties to refrain from military escalation in Rafah, warning there are more than 600,000 children there – some of whom have been displaced more than once since 7 October.
“We want Gaza’s last hospitals, shelters, markets and water systems to continue functioning,” said Executive Director Catherine Russell.
“Without them, hunger and poverty will skyrocket and kill even more children. “
With Benjamin Netanyahu insisting on a “complete victory” and Western allies reportedly wasting patience as the offensive continues beyond four months, is a “victory” really imaginable and what would it look like?
Sky News military analyst Sean Bell says Hamas is unfit for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and that Israel will prevail, but the truth is what its signs of good luck look like.
Eliminating Hamas will be difficult, as fighters could blend in with the civilian population. And there are reports that 80% of tunnels are still in Hamas hands.
“The population has been expelled to southern Gaza, following Israeli instructions,” Bell said, and more than a million people are now in the south of the city of Rafah, which appears to be Israel’s next target.
“How are the IDF going to distinguish between civilians, Hamas fighters and hostages in this densely populated area?”
Netanyahu ‘hellbent’
With Hamas unlikely to be fully destroyed, Bell adds “you’re never going to get total victory”.
“So the question is how much you manage to achieve,” he said.
“For now, Prime Minister Netanyahu has decided to continue until the end of Rafah. “
Some 84 hostages are believed to still be alive somewhere in Gaza, he added, and so far the most productive way to secure their release has proven to be negotiation.
But their prospects look “tremendously bleak” if the next phase of the Israeli offensive continues, Bell said.
Waning support
Therefore, it remains to be seen how much time Israel will be given as Western rhetoric evolves.
“At the beginning of this campaign, the U. S. and the U. K. clearly gave Israel an obligation to do what it had to do,” Bell said.
“Language is becoming dramatically today. “
Joe Biden said the Israeli reaction had been “overblown”, while former presidential candidate Hilary Clinton said Netanyahu is “not trustworthy” (see our 3. 50pm story yesterday) and “must go”, Bell said.
“This doesn’t look like the best we’ve seen before. “
The real question, Bell said, is what will be achieved from a military perspective?
“Are they going to exterminate Hamas? Will Israel be a safer position and how much will the Palestinians pay?”