Prospects dim for truce as Israel rejects calls to spare Rafah

JERUSALEM - Prospects for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire dimmed on Feb 18 after the United States signalled it would veto the latest push for a UN Security Council resolution and mediator Qatar acknowledged that separate truce talks have hit an impasse.

Efforts to pause the over four-month-old war languish as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to

reject international appeals to spare Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah

, where around 1.4 million people have sought refuge.

Israel’s relentless campaign against Hamas militants has edged closer to the city, with attacks killing at least 10 people there and in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah overnight on Feb 18, according to official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

At the morgue of a Rafah hospital, mourners bent down to give a final kiss to a loved one wrapped in a white body bag.

“That’s my cousin – he was martyred in al-Mawasi, in the ‘safe area’,” said Mr Ahmad Muhammad Aburizq. “And my mother was martyred the day before. There’s no safe place. Even the hospital is not safe.”

A total of 127 people died over the previous 24 hours, the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Feb 18.

The Gaza war began with Hamas’ Oct 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures. The militants also took about 250 people hostage, 130 of whom are still in Gaza, including 30 who are presumed dead, according to Israeli figures.

Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel’s retaliatory bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza have killed at least 28,985 people, mostly women and children, according to the Health Ministry.

Egypt, which controls the Rafah border crossing from Gaza, has repeatedly warned against any “forced displacement” of Palestinians into the Sinai desert.

Its President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Feb 17 reiterated his opposition. In a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, both leaders agreed instead on the “necessity of the swift advancement of a ceasefire”.

Even if a temporary truce deal is struck, Mr Netanyahu said the ground invasion of Rafah will go ahead.

Countries urging Israel otherwise are effectively saying “lose the war”, argued the Israeli Prime Minister, whose coalition includes religious and ultra-nationalist parties.

Mr Netanyahu spoke as thousands protested in Tel Aviv, the latest public call for an immediate election. They also accused the government of abandoning the hostages.

“Take politics out of decisions about our loved ones’ lives,” demanded Mr Nissan Calderon, brother of hostage Ofer Calderon. “This is the moment of truth. There won’t be many more like it if the Cairo initiative collapses.”

Next week’s possible United Nations Security Council vote appears unlikely to advance the ceasefire effort, with Washington already voicing opposition.

“The United States does not support action on this draft resolution,” said US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield. “Should it come up for a vote as drafted, it will not be adopted.”

Algeria’s draft resolution seeks an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, but Ms Thomas-Greenfield said the US instead supports a truce-for-hostages deal that would pause fighting for six weeks.

US President Joe Biden had “multiple calls” with Mr Netanyahu as well as Egyptian and Qatari leaders last week “to push this deal forward”, she said.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani called those talks “not very promising”.

He said the efforts had been complicated by the insistence of “a lot of countries” that any new truce involve further releases of hostages.

His assessment came as Hamas threatened to suspend its involvement in the talks unless relief supplies reached Gaza’s north, where aid agencies have warned of a looming famine.

“Negotiations cannot be held while hunger is ravaging the Palestinian people,” a senior source in the Palestinian militant group told AFP, asking not to be identified because he is not authorised to speak on the issue.

Earlier, Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh reiterated the group’s demands, which

Mr Netanyahu called “ludicrous”

.

They include a complete pause in fighting, the release of Hamas prisoners and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

Israel’s military on Feb 18 said its troops in the southern city of Khan Younis are still operating “in the Nasser Hospital” and adjacent to it, where they “located additional weapons”.

The ongoing raid followed a week-long siege that has left the hospital “not functional any more” even though 200 patients remained there, World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on social media platform X.

He called for access to the facility after a WHO team “was not permitted to enter” for an assessment.

Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra also said

Nasser Hospital was out of service

, after troops had turned it “into a military barracks”.

He said one more person had died due to lack of oxygen because power had been out for three days, bringing the total number of such deaths to seven.

Mr Qudra accused Israeli forces of arresting 70 “health personnel” and dozens of patients.

Israel’s army on Feb 16 said it had “apprehended dozens of terror suspects” during its raid on the hospital, which was one of Gaza’s last functioning medical facilities.

Israel has for weeks concentrated its military operations in Khan Younis, the home town of Hamas’ Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, who Israel accuses of masterminding the Oct 7 attack.

On Feb 18, the military said it had killed around 35 militants, mostly by tank fire, and struck a “weapons storage facility” over the previous 24 hours.

An air strike in central Gaza killed “over 10” militants, it said.

The head of UN humanitarian agency Ocha in the Palestinian territories, Mr Andrea De Domenico, said he had “no idea” how an estimated 300,000 people still in Gaza’s north had survived.

The UN has cited “significant restrictions” on aid delivery to northern Gaza, while in Rafah there had been “reports of people stopping aid trucks to take food”.

In northern Gaza, many are so desperate for food they are

grinding up animal feed.

“We need food now,” said Mr Mohammed Nassar, 50, from Jabalia in northern Gaza. “We’re going to die from hunger, not by bombs or missiles.” AFP