RAFAH: Street fighting and Israeli bombardment rocked Rafah in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, residents and officials said, a day after Israeli tanks rolled into the centre of the city near the Egyptian border.

The Israeli army pushed on with its mission to defeat Hamas in the war raging since October 7, despite a global outcry that intensified after a deadly strike set ablaze a crowded camp on Sunday night.

Israel’s National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said on Wednesday the war could go on until the year’s end. “We may have another seven months of fighting to consolidate our success and achieve what we have defined as the destruction of Hamas’s power and military capabilities,” Hanegbi said.

But US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Israel needed a post-war plan “as quickly as possible”. “In the absence of a plan for the day after, there won’t be a day after,” he said.

Fighting has again flared in Rafah, where an AFP reporter said an Israeli helicopter fired guns and missiles at targets in the city centre. Hamas’s military wing said it was firing rockets at Israeli troops.

AFPTV footage showed Palestinians with bloodied midriffs and bandaged limbs after being wounded in strikes near Khan Yunis, close to Rafah, being taken to the European Hospital on makeshift gurneys.

“The rockets fell directly on us. I was hurled three metres (yards)... I don’t know how I managed to get up on my feet,” said one who did not give his name. The army said three soldiers were killed in Rafah on Tuesday, raising to 292 its death toll in the Gaza campaign since the ground offensive started on October 27.

Spiralling death toll

A steady stream of civilians has been fleeing Rafah, the new hotspot in the gruelling war, many carrying their belongings on their shoulders, in cars or on donkey-drawn carts. Gaza civil defence agency official Mohammad al-Mughayyir said 21 more people were killed in a similar strike on Tuesday “targeting the tents of displaced people” in western Rafah.

Three bodies were recovered from a house in Khan Yunis after it was shelled, the civil defence agency said.

Erdogan slams UN

In Ankara, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday hit out at the United Nations and called on the “Islamic world” to react after the latest deadly Israeli strikes in Gaza.

“The UN cannot even protect its own staff. What are you waiting for to act? The spirit of the United Nations is dead in Gaza,” Erdogan told lawmakers from his AKP party.

Erdogan’s comments came as the UN Security Council met to discuss a deadly Israeli attack on a displacement camp west of Rafah on Tuesday that killed 21 people, according to a civil defence official in Hamas-run Gaza.

The Turkish leader also hit out at fellow Muslim-majority countries for failing to take common action over the Israeli strike. “I have some words to say to the Islamic world: what are you waiting for to take a common decision?” Erdogan, who leads a Muslim-majority country of 85 million people, told lawmakers from his AKP party.

“Israel is not just a threat to Gaza but to all of humanity,” he said. “No state is safe as long as Israel does not follow international law and does not feel bound by international law,”

‘Deeply pained’

Meanwhile, President Xi Jinping told his Egyptian counterpart on Wednesday that China was “deeply pained” by the “extremely severe” situation in Gaza, according to state media.

China is hosting Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and several other Arab leaders in Beijing this week, with talks aimed at deepening consensus between Beijing and the Arab countries.

“The current round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has caused a large number of innocent Palestinian civilian casualties and the humanitarian situation in Gaza is extremely severe. China is deeply pained,” Xi said.

Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2024