Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said the terms of the ceasefire that Hamas accepted is far from meeting Israel’s demands and the operation in Rafah will proceed as planned even though Hamas accepted a proposal for a truce.
Netanyahu’s office said that the proposal “is far from Israel’s essential demands” but it will send negotiators for talks “to exhaust the potential for arriving at an agreement” to Cairo to attend talks that will begin on Tuesday with the aim for arriving at a deal.
People familiar with the developments told US broadcaster CNN that a limited incursion into Rafah was intended to keep Hamas leaders under pressure to agree to a deal that would bring about a ceasefire and hostage release.
Israeli forces said that they have taken control of the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing. They said that the Kerem Shalom crossing is also currently closed and will reopen once the security situation allows.
The announcements were met with cheers from crowds who took the street amid tears of happiness, chants of “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest”) and celebratory shooting in the air. In Israel, hostage families and their supporters urged the Israeli government to accept the deal.
The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said that it was “conducting targeted strikes against Hamas terror targets in eastern Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip”.
“Israel is continuing the operation in Rafah to exert military pressure on Hamas in order to advance the release of our hostages and the other objectives of the war,” the IDF said in a statement.
Israel followed through by carrying out strikes on the Gazan city of Rafah overnight. A report by AFP said that there was heavy bombardment throughout the night and the Kuwaiti hospital there said early Tuesday that five people had been killed and several others injured in Israeli strikes.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said “aircraft targeted more than 50 terror targets in the Rafah area” throughout the day. Hamas ally Islamic Jihad said Monday night that it had fired rockets from Gaza towards southern Israel in response.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against invading Rafah as his administration said that it is reviewing a response from Hamas.
Hamas member Khalil al-Hayya told the Qatar-based Al Jazeera news channel that the proposal agreed to by Hamas involved a three-phase truce.
He said it includes a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the return of Palestinians displaced by the war and a hostage-prisoner exchange, with the goal of a “permanent ceasefire”.
International alarm has been steadily building about the consequences of an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah, situated on the border with Egypt. An incursion into the city would be “intolerable”, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Monday, calling on Israel and Hamas “to go an extra mile” to reach a ceasefire deal.
“This is an opportunity that cannot be missed, and a ground invasion in Rafah would be intolerable because of its devastating humanitarian consequences, and because of its destabilising impact in the region,” Guterres said. Egypt’s foreign ministry warned of “grave humanitarian risks” for the more than one million Gazans sheltering there and urged Israel to “exercise the utmost restraint”. Jordanian King Abdullah II asked US President Joe Biden in talks Monday to intervene to stop a “new massacre” in Rafah.
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