Fierce fighting rocks Gaza as US warns of post-war ‘anarchy’
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Displaced Palestinians, who fled Jabalia after the Israeli military called on residents to evacuate, making their way towards Gaza City on May 12.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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CAIRO - Israeli forces battled Hamas across the Gaza Strip on May 13 amid warnings from the US of post-war “anarchy” in the Palestinian enclave.
Israel pushed deep into the ruins of Gaza’s northern edge to recapture an area where it claimed to have defeated Hamas months ago.
Tanks and troops, meanwhile, drove across a highway on the outskirts of Rafah in the far south.
Israeli forces, under cover of heavy fire from the air and ground, pushed farther into Jabalia,
Residents said tank shells were landing at the centre of the camp, and that air strikes destroyed clusters of houses. Several people were killed and wounded in the air strikes, residents and medics said. Medics said they were unable to send teams to some of the bombed areas because of the intensity of the Israeli bombardment.
In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, Israel stepped up aerial and ground bombardment on the eastern parts of the city. Residents said Israeli tanks have cut off Salahuddin Road, and that half of Rafah is a “ghost town”.
Hamas’ armed wing said its fighters were engaged in gun battles with Israeli forces in one of the streets east of Rafah, and in the east of Jabalia.
Mr Jack Lew, the US Ambassador to Israel, signalled on May 12 that the Rafah incursion was still on a scale acceptable to Washington.
He referred to a disclosure by President Joe Biden to CNN last week that a bomb shipment to Israel was on hold as a warning not to “go into Rafah”.
“The President was clear in the interview he gave the other evening that what Israel has done so far hasn’t crossed over into the area where our disagreements lie,” Mr Lew told Israel’s Channel 12 TV, without elaborating on what that area entails.
“I’m hoping we don’t end up with real disagreement.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on May 12 that Washington has not seen any credible Israeli plan to protect civilians in Rafah, and that “we also haven’t seen a plan for what happens the day after this war in Gaza ends”.
“Israel’s on the trajectory, potentially, to inherit an insurgency with many armed Hamas (fighters) left or, if it leaves, a vacuum filled by chaos, filled by anarchy and probably refilled by Hamas,” he told NBC.
Moment of silence
As Israel marked its Memorial Day, sirens sounded across the country at 11am, prompting a two-minute silence in honour of fallen soldiers and civilian victims of attacks.
Memorial Day comes ahead of the country’s 76th independence day, beginning at sunset on May 13, when Israelis celebrate the creation of their state in 1948.
Palestinians remember Israel’s establishment as the “Nakba”, or catastrophe
Attending a Memorial Day ceremony in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the war against Hamas is a struggle to secure Israel’s “existence, liberty, security and prosperity”.
“Our war of independence is not over yet, it continues to these days,” he said.
The bloodiest ever Gaza war broke out after Hamas’ Oct 7 attack on Israel
Militants also seized some 250 hostages, scores of whom were freed during a week-long truce in November. Israel estimates 128 captives remain in Gaza, including 36 who the military says are dead.
Israel’s bombardment and strikes in Gaza have killed at least 35,034 people, mostly women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
The Israeli military says 272 soldiers have been killed since the start of the ground offensive in Gaza on Oct 27.
‘We wish for death’
The war and siege have displaced most Gazans, many multiple times.
Mr Philippe Lazzarini, head of UNRWA, the UN Palestinian refugee agency, said in a post on X on May 12 that Israel’s latest evacuation orders were “forcing people in Rafah to flee anywhere and everywhere”.
Ms Umm Mohammed Al-Mughayyir, who has had to move her family seven times to escape the fighting, said: “We have reached a point where we wish for death.”
Residents were told to head to the Al-Mawasi “humanitarian zone” on the coast north-west of Rafah, though aid groups have warned it is not ready for an influx of people.
Mr Hisham Adwan, spokesman for the Gaza crossings authority, on May 12 said the Rafah crossing with Egypt has been closed since Israeli troops seized its Palestinian side on May 7, “preventing the entry of humanitarian aid”.
The Health Ministry said on May 13 that Gaza’s health system was “hours away” from collapse, after fighting blocked fuel shipments through key crossings
Israel’s military said on May 12 it opened a new border crossing into northern Gaza as “part of the effort to increase aid routes”.
In a sign of growing regional tensions, Egypt – the first Arab nation to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979 – said it would formally support an International Court of Justice case brought by South Africa, accusing Israel of genocidal acts in the war. REUTERS, AFP
