No let-up in pounding of Rafah despite peace talk

Israeli forces hammered Rafah in southern Gaza with tanks and artillery on Saturday, hours after US President Joe Biden said Israel was offering a new roadmap towards a full ceasefire.

Israel sent tanks and troops into Rafah in early May, ignoring concerns over the safety of displaced Palestinian civilians sheltering in the city on the Egyptian border.

On Saturday, residents reported tank fire in the Tal Al Sultan neighbourhood in west Rafah, while witnesses in the east and centre described intense shelling.

"From the early hours of the night until this morning, the aerial and artillery bombardment has not stopped for a single moment," a resident from west Rafah told AFP on condition of anonymity.

There was also shelling and gunfire from the Israeli army in Gaza City, in the north of the territory, an AFP reporter said. Before the Rafah offensive began, the United Nations said up to 1.4 million people were sheltering in the city.

More than 36,379 Palestinians have been confirmed killed and 82,407 have been injured in the Israeli military offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

Some 95 Palestinians were killed and 350 injured in the past 24 hours, the Gaza health ministry added. The ministry says thousands of other dead are most likely lost in the rubble of the enclave.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted his country would pursue the war until it had achieved all its aims.

Hamas, meanwhile, said it “views positively” the Israeli plan laid out by Biden. Hamas in a statement on Friday evening said it “considers positively” Biden’s speech regarding “a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, reconstruction and the exchange of prisoners.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called his counterparts from Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey on Friday to press the deal.

Saudi Arabia stressed its “support for all efforts aimed at an immediate ceasefire” and the withdrawal of Israeli troops.

Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said on Saturday that mediators hope all parties will deal positively with the principles of a Gaza ceasefire proposal that Biden laid out on Friday.

Al Thani made the remarks during a phone call with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Qatar’s state news agency said.

Egypt will host Israeli and US officials on Sunday to discuss the reopening of the Rafah crossing, a vital conduit for aid into the besieged Gaza Strip, Egyptian state-linked media said.

Al Qahera News, which has links to Egyptian intelligence, quoted on Saturday a unidentified senior official as saying Cairo was demanding “a total Israeli withdrawal” from the terminal on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt.

“An Egyptian-American-Israeli meeting is scheduled for tomorrow (Sunday) in Cairo to discuss the reopening of the Rafah crossing”, the official said.

Agencies