Israeli forces advance deeper into Rafah as US says ceasefire plan possible

DOHA/GENEVA/CAIRO - Israeli tanks advanced deeper into the western part of Rafah, amid one of the worst nights of bombardment from the air, ground and sea, forcing many families to flee their homes and tents under darkness, after top US diplomat Antony Blinken said an Israel-Hamas truce was still possible.

Residents said on June 13 that Israeli forces thrust towards the Al-Mawasi area of Rafah near the beach, which is designated as a humanitarian area in all announcements and maps published by the Israeli army since it began its Rafah offensive in May. The Israeli military denied in a statement that it had launched any strikes inside the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone.

Israel said its assault aimed to wipe out Hamas’ last intact combat units in Rafah, a city that had sheltered more than a million people before the latest advance began. Most of those people have now moved north towards Khan Younis and Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military said in a statement it was continuing “intelligence-based, targeted operations” in Rafah, saying forces in the past day had located weapons and killed Palestinian gunmen in close-range combat.

Over the past day, the military said it had struck 45 targets across the Gaza Strip from the air, including military structures, militant cells, rocket launchers and tunnel shafts.

US Secretary of State Blinken on June 12 said Hamas had proposed numerous changes, some workable and some not, to

a US-backed proposal for a ceasefire with Israel in Gaza,

but that mediators were determined to close the gaps.

“We have to see... over the course of the coming days whether those gaps are bridgeable,” he said.

Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan denied that the Palestinian militant group had put forward new ideas. Speaking to pan-Arab Al-Araby TV, he reiterated Hamas’ stance that it was Israel that was rejecting proposals, and accused the US administration of going along with its close ally.

Israel described Hamas’ response to the new US peace proposal as total rejection. But the efforts to secure agreement are still continuing, according to mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said many of Hamas’ proposed changes were minor “and not unanticipated”, while others differed more substantially from what was outlined in a UN Security Council resolution on June 10 backing the plan put forward by US President Joe Biden.

“Our aim is to bring this process to a conclusion. Our view is that the time for haggling is over,” Mr Sullivan told reporters.

Hamas also wants written guarantees from the US on the ceasefire plan, two Egyptian security sources told Reuters.

Late on June 12, Hamas issued a statement stressing its “positivity” in the negotiations and urging the US to pressure Israel to accept an agreement leading to a permanent ceasefire in Gaza as well as full withdrawal from the enclave, reconstruction, and the release of Palestinian prisoners.

The Palestinian group said that while US officials have said Israel has accepted a ceasefire proposal outlined by Mr Biden on May 31, “we have not heard any Israeli official confirm this acceptance”.

Mr Biden’s proposal envisages a truce and a phased release of Israeli hostages in Gaza in exchange for Palestinians jailed in Israel, ultimately leading to a permanent end to the war.

At a press conference with Qatar’s prime minister in Doha, Mr Blinken said some of the counter-proposals from Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, sought to amend terms that it had accepted in previous talks.

Months of talks

Negotiators from the US, Egypt and Qatar have tried for months to mediate a ceasefire in the conflict – which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and devastated the heavily populated enclave – and free the hostages, more than 100 of whom are believed to remain captive in Gaza.

“Hamas could have answered with a single word – yes,” Mr Blinken said. “Instead, Hamas waited nearly two weeks and then proposed more changes, a number of which go beyond positions that it had previously taken and accepted.”

In its late statement on June 12, Hamas said it had expressed its readiness to cooperate while Israel did not. Mr Blinken’s stance, it said, was “a continuation of the American policy complicit in the brutal genocide against our Palestinian people”. The group said the US was providing political and military cover for Israel to press ahead with its assault on Gaza.

The US has said Israel has accepted its proposal, but Israel has not publicly stated this. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said his country will not commit to ending its campaign before Hamas is eliminated.

Major powers are intensifying efforts to defuse the conflict, in part to prevent it from spiralling into a wider Middle Eastern war, with a dangerous flashpoint being the escalating hostilities along the Lebanese-Israeli border.

The fighting in Gaza began on Oct 7

when militants led by Hamas burst across the border and killed 1,200 Israelis and took more than 250 hostage, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s air and ground war since then has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, displaced most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, and devastated housing and infrastructure.

The head of the World Health Organisation said on June 12 that many people in Gaza were facing “catastrophic hunger and famine-like conditions”, with over 8,000 children under five years old diagnosed and treated for acute malnutrition.

A UN inquiry found that both Israel and Hamas had committed war crimes early in the Gaza war, and that Israel’s actions also constituted crimes against humanity because of the immense civilian losses. REUTERS