Rafah: Food distribution suspended

The United Nations said it has suspended food distribution in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians are sheltering.

A spokesperson for the UN's World Food Program (WFP) announced that food aid would halt in Rafah because of a lack of supplies and insecurity, according to The Associated Press.

Writing on X, the WFP wrote that the rest of Gaza was also at risk. "Our stocks are fast running out without continued access."

Palestinians are struggling to access basic necessities in Gaza as Israel carries out its war against Hamas.

Israeli troops seized a border crossing that had facilitated supply deliveries in Rafah earlier this month, and Israel now controls every aid checkpoint. Humanitarian aid groups have accused Israel of impeding aid efforts.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told CNN on Tuesday that Israel has been trying to get aid into Gaza but Hamas has been "looting" it.

"They were taking it for themselves or extorting the population. We were letting the aid in from the start," Netanyahu said. "We're getting hundreds of trucks every day in."

A State Department review earlier this month said the US has "deep concerns" about Israel potentially impeding aid into Gaza, though it did not reach a conclusion on the matter. It also found the country is taking steps to improve the situation, even if still inadequate.

To address the crisis, the US military constructed a pier that connects to a beach in Gaza. It allows aid coming from the island nation of Cyprus to reach Gaza through a maritime corridor.

But for the past two days, no aid has gotten into Gaza from the pier area, U.N. officials told Reuters.

Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said more than 569 metric tons of humanitarian assistance has been delivered through the pier, though that means it has arrived for distribution and not all of it has been delivered yet.

Noting the difficulties, Ryder said there are discussions to find alternative routes for the safe movement of staff and cargo from the pier distribution area but said Gaza was a combat zone, complicating distribution. 

"We've been very clear from the beginning that we are going to take a crawl-walk approach to make sure that we are implementing this system in a way where we're working out the processes, the procedures," he said.

"You're going to see as we work together the amount of aid increase and the ability to get it distributed increase."

 

Israel orders Palestinians to evacuate more areas of Rafah

Israel called on Saturday for Palestinians in more areas of Gaza's southern city of Rafah to evacuate and head to what it calls an expanded humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi, in a further indication that the military is pressing ahead with its plans for a ground attack on Rafah.

In a post on social media site X, a military spokesperson also called on residents and displaced people in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza, and 11 other neighbourhoods in the enclave to go immediately to places west of Gaza City.

The Palestinian health ministry said at least 37 Palestinians, 24 of them from central Gaza areas, were killed in overnight airstrikes across the enclave, including in Rafah.

"They threw fliers on Rafah and said, from Rafah to al-Zawayda is safe, people should evacuate there, and they did, and what has become of them? Dismembered bodies? There is no safe place in Gaza," Khitam Al-Khatib, who said she had lost at least 10 of her relatives in an airstrike on a family house earlier on Saturday, told Reuters.

Al-Zawayda is a small town in central Gaza Strip that has been crowded by thousands of displaced people from across the enclave.

The Israeli military said its aircraft struck tens of targets across the Strip over the past day, adding its ground troops had eliminated fighters in Zeitoun in recent hours.

An Israeli airstrike killed at least seven people in a house in Beit Lahiya town in the northern Gaza Strip, all from the same family, medics said.

In Rafah, residents told Reuters the new evacuation orders by the Israeli military covered areas in the centre of the city and left little doubt Israel planned to expand its ground offensive there.

"The situation is very difficult, people are leaving their homes in panic," said Khaled, 35, a resident of the Shaboura neighbourhood, an area where the new orders to leave have been issued.

The Israeli military said it was continuing operational activity against Hamas fighters in eastern Rafah and on the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing.

Despite heavy US pressure and alarm expressed by residents and humanitarian groups, Israel has said it will proceed with an incursion into Rafah, where more than one million displaced people have sought refuge during the seven-month-old war.

Israeli tanks captured the main road dividing Rafah's eastern and western sections on Friday, effectively encircling the eastern side in an assault that has caused Washington to hold up the delivery of some military aid to its ally.

Israel says it cannot win the war without rooting out thousands of Hamas fighters it believes are deployed in Rafah.

About 300,000 Gazans have so far moved towards Al-Mawasi, according to Israeli military estimates released on Saturday.

Two crossing points vital for delivery of aid to Gaza were still closed on Saturday the Palestinian WAFA news agency said the Rafah crossing was closed for a fifth day, while another crossing, Kerem Shalom, has been shut for around a week.

The latest evacuation orders came hours after internationally mediated ceasefire talks appeared to be faltering, with Hamas saying Israel's rejection of the truce offer it had accepted returned things to square one.

The Palestinian militant group also hinted it was reconsidering its negotiation policy. It did not elaborate on whether a review meant it would harden its terms for reaching a deal, but said it would consult with other allied factions.

Israel says it wants to reach a deal under which hostages would be released in exchange for the freeing of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, but that it is not prepared to end the military offensive.

In Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands were sheltering, Palestinians mourned relatives during funerals on Saturday.

"Here they are, in pieces, here is my sister-in-law, without a head, my aunt is without a head, what is this injustice? Until when will this go on? We are exhausted, by God we are exhausted, I have lived in tents for the past seven months," said Khatib, sitting near bodies wrapped in white shrouds bearing the names of the dead men and women.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government is under increasing pressure over its military campaign, including from longtime ally the United States.

The Biden administration said on Friday Israel's use of US-supplied weapons may have violated international humanitarian law during its Gaza operation, in its strongest criticism to date of Israel.

But the administration stopped short of a definitive assessment, saying that due to the chaos of the war it could not verify specific instances where use of those weapons might have been involved in alleged breaches.

Excerpts from the speech of Abu Obeida

Abu Obeida, the military spokesman for the Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Resistance movement Hamas, gave a speech on the 200th day of war, to illustrate the achievements of the Resistance and the failures of the criminal Israeli army.

We call on the masses of our nation to escalate their movement in support of the resistance. The criminal enemy is trying to restore its image 200 days after the Battle of Al-Aqsa Flood

 “The criminal enemy continues to try to salvage its image, only to further receive shame and disgrace.

200 days have passed and the Zionist army is still trapped in the quagmire of Gaza, exploiting its predicament on the ground for more killing and destruction.

 The occupation army failed against our resistance and our people after its image was shattered in front of the world.

We say to Netanyahu, Your death, the end of your occupation, and your downfall are inevitable, and your lamentations before the world will not change your image.

We in Al-Qassam Brigades have documented only a fraction of our heroes’ strikes against the enemy.

Our strikes and resistance will continue as long as the aggression of the occupation or its presence persists on any inch of our land.

The world witnessed the might of our fighters and their painful strikes not only in repelling enemy attacks but also during its withdrawal.

Among the lies of the enemy government is attempting to deceive the world into believing that it has eliminated the Al-Qassam Brigades and only the Rafah Brigade remains.

The occupation forces are trying to deceive the world into believing that they have eliminated all factions of the resistance, and this is a big lie.

In 200 days, the enemy could only achieve mass killings, destruction, and murder.

The defeat suffered by the occupation army in 60 minutes couldn’t defeat us in 200 days. They search for an imaginary victory everywhere, but wherever they look for it, they find us there shedding their soldiers’ blood.

Our strikes against the enemy will continue, adopting renewed tactics as long as they remain present on every inch of our land.

The occupation’s claims of linking victory to entering Rafah and destroying what remains of the brigades there are merely attempts to feel a false sense of triumph.

The army that focuses on killing children and women, destroying graves, seeking revenge against the martyrs’ bodies, targeting innocent civilians, bombing aid trucks, and assassinating members of international and local humanitarian aid organizations is the mark of an army feeling significant defeat and disappointment, not one confident in its alleged achievements.

We will not relinquish the fundamental rights of our people, foremost among them withdrawal, lifting the siege, and the return of the displaced to their homes.

The occupation is trying to evade all its promises in negotiations and wants to gain more time.

The scenario of Ron Arad may perhaps be the most likely scenario to be repeated with the enemy’s prisoners in Gaza. The ball is in the court of those concerned, namely the occupation’s public, but time is short, and opportunities are few to release the prisoners.

The so-called military pressure will only push us to stand firm on our positions and preserve the rights of our people without compromise.

To the families of the Israeli prisoners, We are more truthful than your government.

The blood toll paid by our people will only be met with the snatching of our natural rights and the rights of our resistance.

One of the goals of Al-Aqsa Flood is to unify our peoples and arenas after attempts by the occupation to isolate the Palestinian cause.

We appreciate every military and popular effort that joins Al-Aqsa Flood, and we salute the fronts of fighting in Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq.

The hysterical reaction of the Zionists towards resistance actions from various fronts indicates the importance of resistance action.

The foremost front of resistance is the West Bank front, and we salute every inch of our steadfast free bank.

Jordan is from us and we are from it; it is one of the most important Arab arenas in terms of popular and public engagement and it occupies the enemy’s mind significantly.

Iran’s response in its size and nature, setting new rules and disrupting the calculations of the occupation, and we call on the masses of our nation to escalate their supportive movement for the resistance.

Abu Obeida concluded the speech by calling on the masses of our nation to escalate their supportive movement for the resistance.

Courtesy: Information Clearing House

Why Israel withdrew troops from Gaza?

Stunning appears to be the only appropriate word for Israel’s withdrawal of troops from Khan Yunis in southern Gaza on Sunday. Some political and defense officials tried to offer apologetics for how it was hinted to, or consistent with Israel’s strategy to date – but it simply was not.

The clock is running out on Hamas’s potential return, invading Rafah, and the fate of the hostages.

For months, Israel’s consistent strategy was that the only way the IDF could convince Hamas to return more hostages would be to pressure it in its hometown of Khan Yunis.

Hamas Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar and military chief Muhammad Deif are both from Khan Yunis; it would be personal for them.

The best Hamas fighters were from Khan Yunis – losing them would be unspeakably demoralizing.

An intricate tunnel network, which puts the northern Gaza tunnels to shame, was in Khan Yunis. Overtaking them after millions of dollars and years were invested in them by Hamas would take the air out of the terrorists’ sails once and for all.

This is especially true after witnessing the fall of Gaza City in northern Gaza, Hamas’s capital.

Over the last two months, the line has been that as long as the IDF kept its forces in Khan Yunis, it acted like a stranglehold on Hamas, and at any moment, the terrorist group would gasp for air badly enough to agree to a deal.

The withdrawal of forces from Khan Yunis on Sunday, then, ends this strategy, and is an admission of failure.

But, this doesn’t mean the hostages will not come home. The IDF did defeat Hamas in both northern and southern Gaza, destroyed much of its tunnel network, and killed many senior officials.

Leaving Khan Yunis now does not negate those tremendous gains, gains that have set Hamas back years in terms of military capabilities.

Now, Israel will either need a new strategy or make bigger concessions to Hamas to get back more hostages, including opening up the north of the enclave.

A new strategy could be the hope that invading Rafah will bring Hamas to its knees. By this logic, once the IDF closes in on Rafah – something Hamas believes Israel is afraid to do – Hamas will finally crack and agree to a more reasonable deal. It could even work.

There is no specific reason why Israel cannot send its forces into Rafah.

If the IDF has no presence in Khan Yunis, large numbers of Palestinian civilians may voluntarily leave Rafah and go back there without needing to be formally evacuated.

This may alleviate America’s concerns about whether Israel can successfully evacuate 1.4 million Palestinian civilians.

The IDF could lure Hamas into a false sense of security and pull off a Shifa Hospital-style clean-up operation, just as soon as the terrorist group concentrates too many of its forces in one place.

The problem with this line of thinking is that even if it is true, there was no hint to it until US President Joe Biden dropped the hammer on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday.

Netanyahu opened Erez Crossing for transferring humanitarian aid, which was never going to open again after Hamas destroyed it on October 07.

He had also opened the port of Ashdod for transferring humanitarian aid, another action he had vowed never to take.

By Friday, the IDF had fired or dismissed several very senior officers under pressure from the US and the international community for killing seven aid workers. And on Sunday, the military suddenly pulled out of southern Gaza.

Even if this truly is a new strategy and even if it might work, there is very little credible way to argue that a significant cause for the radical shift was US pressure and that the shift is an admission that the old strategy of a bunch of months has failed.

There is also an outside shot that it was part of some unofficial Cuban Missile Crisis-style secret informal deal, where if the IDF withdraws from southern Gaza, Hamas will be able to claim enough victory to make concessions to the IDF regarding the hostages and northern Gaza.

The big question now is whether this shift will be sufficient to maintain at least lukewarm US support for invading Rafah or whether America may already have decided to force Israel into a hostage deal, even if it potentially undermines finishing off Hamas.

Washington supported Jerusalem for almost six months and through 33,000 dead Palestinians, but finally hit its breaking point.

While people wait for that question to be answered, Hamas will at minimum be able to restore some of its governance in southern Gaza simply because Israel never decided to allow anyone else in to take over.

 

Israeli plan to evacuate Rafah civilians

Egyptian officials have shared details of Israel’s alleged plan to evacuate Rafah, a city in southern Gaza where 1.3 million Palestinians are sheltering.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on February 13 that the plan calls for displaced Palestinians to be concentrated in the western area of the enclave, within the coastal strip, along the sea.

Israel says it will establish 15 camp villages along the coast between Rafah and Gaza City in central Gaza. The areas included are south of Al-Mawasi and Sharm Park. Each camp will be equipped with 25,000 tents.

Egyptian officials say that Israel expects the camps, which would include medical facilities, to be funded by the US and Arab states.

However, it is unlikely that over 1 million people could be safely evacuated. 

Nadia Hardman, a refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, stated, “Forcing the over one million displaced Palestinians in Rafah to again evacuate without a safe place to go would be unlawful and would have catastrophic consequences. There is nowhere safe to go in Gaza.”

If Israel proceeds with the offensive, its army will disrupt the already minimal aid entering Gaza and cause extensive destruction in Rafah, as it previously did in Gaza City and Khan Yunis. These action would exacerbate the uninhabitable conditions in Gaza, both during and after the war.

If Palestinians in Gaza are increasingly concentrated in tent camps along a tiny strip on Gaza’s coast, with no homes to return to, no functioning hospitals, and little food and humanitarian aid, this will enable Israel’s efforts to force Gaza’s population to ‘voluntarily’ flee to Egypt by land or other third parties by sea.

Israeli leaders have stated they wish to make life so difficult and dangerous for Palestinians in Gaza that the most humanitarian solution for them will be to leave Gaza and allow Israel to take it over for Jewish settlement.

The situation would resemble 1948, when Zionist militias forced Palestinians from Haifa to flee north to Lebanon by land and by boat from the city’s port.

While Gaza is on the brink of famine, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces criticism from his far-right allies for allowing any aid at all, the WSJ reported further.

“The minimal aid we committed to is an important condition for the continuation of the war because if there is a large humanitarian collapse, we can’t continue the war,” he told reporters last week.

Israel in December reopened its Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza to allow the UN and NGOs to increase aid. However, right-wing protesters have repeatedly blocked humanitarian convoys at the crossing, and the Israeli army has not taken any action to remove them.

 

Ethnic cleansing about to start in Rafah

Humanitarian groups are warning that any invasion of Rafah will severely threaten the last remaining safe zone in Gaza, where around 1.5 million Palestinians are huddled.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared his troops to prepare an evacuation plan for civilians in the city of Rafah, a major refugee camp called the last safe zone in Gaza.

Netanyahu said troops must fight against Palestinian militant group Hamas in the southern Gaza refugee camp, where the United Nations has warned more than 600,000 children are sheltering.

"It is impossible to achieve the goal of the war without eliminating Hamas," Netanyahu said, accusing the militant group of hiding battalions in Rafah.

Humanitarian groups warn that fleeing civilians have nowhere else to go and that Rafah is a major hub for humanitarian aid from Egypt that will be endangered by Israel moving in.

Avril Benoît, executive director of Doctors Without Borders USA, said the "needs are overwhelming" in Rafah.

"Israel’s declared ground offensive on Rafah would be catastrophic and must not proceed," Benoît said.

The Israeli push into Rafah also threatens to increase tensions between Israel and the US, which is trying to get Israel to reduce civilian casualties after the deaths of more than 27,000 people in Gaza.

President Biden offered his most critical remarks yet when he said Thursday night that Israel's offensive in Gaza is "over the top."

State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said the US would not support a push into Rafah.

“To conduct such an operation right now with no planning and little thought in an area where there is sheltering of a million people would be a disaster,” he told reporters.

 

Hamas still hounds Israeli forces in Gaza

According to Reuters, Palestinian gunmen kept up attacks against Israeli forces on Sunday in the Gaza, weeks after they were overrun by troops and tanks, a sign that Hamas still maintains some control.

Nearly four months into the war, there was persistent fighting in Gaza City in the north of the densely populated enclave and in Khan Younis to the south.

At the weekly Israeli cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said 17 of Hamas' 24 combat battalions had been dismantled. The rest, he said, were mostly in the southern Gaza Strip, including Rafah, on the enclave's Egyptian border. "We'll take care of them, too," he said, according to a statement from his office.

The prospect of a push into Rafah has piled pressure on the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians who have fled their homes elsewhere and are sheltering there.

An Israeli official told Reuters that the military would coordinate with Egypt, and seek ways of evacuating most of the displaced people northward, ahead of any Rafah ground sweep.

After conducting partial pullouts from Gaza City in the past few weeks that enabled some residents to return and pick through the rubble, Israeli forces have been mounting incursions. Netanyahu described these on Sunday as "mopping-up operations".

Gazans fear Israeli assault on last refuge

Israeli forces shelled the outskirts of the last refuge on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip on Friday, where the displaced, penned against the border fence in their hundreds of thousands, said they feared a new assault with nowhere left to flee.

More than half of Gaza's 2.3 million residents are now homeless and crammed into Rafah. Tens of thousands more have arrived in recent days, carrying belongings in their arms and pulling children on carts, since Israeli forces launched one of the biggest assaults of the war last week to capture adjacent Khan Younis, the main southern city.

If the Israeli tanks keep coming they will be left with two choices: stay and die or climb the walls into Egypt.

Most of Gaza's population are in Rafah. If the tanks storm in, it will be a massacre like never before during this war."

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said late on Thursday that troops would now turn to Rafah, which along with Deir al-Balah just north of Khan Younis is among the last remaining areas they have yet to storm in an almost four-month assault.

"We are achieving our missions in Khan Younis, and we will also reach Rafah and eliminate terror elements that threaten us," Gallant said in a statement.

As the only part of Gaza with access to the limited food and medical aid trickling across the border, Rafah and nearby parts of Khan Younis have become a warren of makeshift tents clinging to the winter mud. Wind and cold weather added to the misery, blowing tents down, flooding them and the ground between them.

"Rafah is a pressure cooker of despair, and we fear for what comes next," Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told a briefing in Geneva.

Israel says Hamas must be eradicated before it pulls its troops out of Gaza or frees detainees. Hamas says it will not sign any truce deal unless Israel agrees to pull out and end the war.