Israel pummels Rafah despite Biden's threat to withhold weapons as desperation grows
Rafah, Gaza - Smoke rose from strikes on Gaza's crowded southern city of Rafah Thursday after President Joe Biden vowed to stop supplying offensive weapons to Israel if a full-scale offensive into the city goes ahead.
An AFP correspondent and witnesses on Thursday reported strikes on several parts of Rafah, where the UN said some 1.4 million people were sheltering.
"The tanks and jets are striking," Tarek Bahlul said on a deserted Rafah street. "Every minute you hear a rocket and you don't know where it will land."
Israel has already defied international objections by sending in tanks and conducting what it called "targeted raids" in eastern Rafah, the city it says is home to Hamas's last remaining battalions.
In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Biden warned he would stop some US weapons supplies to Israel if it carried out its long-threatened major Rafah ground offensive.
Israeli officials on Thursday reacted angrily to the comments and suggested they would carry on with their plans regardless.
Israel kills scores in Gaza as food and fuel run out
The Gaza health ministry on Thursday reported at least 60 more deaths over the previous 24 hours. Since Monday, when Israel ordered eastern Rafah residents to evacuate, the daily reported toll has been above 50, up from a peak of 33 earlier in May.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said Thursday 80,000 people have fled Rafah since Monday, but "nowhere is safe".
On Tuesday, Israel seized Rafah's border crossing into Egypt, which had been the main entry point for aid, further disrupting efforts to address a famine that has already reached "full-blown" proportions in the strip's north, according to the UN Food Program.
The World Health Organization, meanwhile, said Wednesday hospitals in southern Gaza had only three days of fuel left. Fuel is critical to aid operations, not only for powering hospital equipment but also enabling aid workers to move, and to keep bakeries running, said Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the Palestinian territories.
At a makeshift refugee camp in Rafah, Mazen al-Shami said she was fed up.
"We have no money and we don't have the means to move from one place to another again and again. We have no means at all," Shami said.
Alongside the strikes in Rafah, Israel's military on Thursday said air strikes had hit around 25 targets in the Zeitun area of Gaza City, north Gaza.
All this is happening as talks involving Qatari, US, and Hamas delegations aimed at cementing a long-stalled ceasefire continued in Cairo, per Al-Qahera News.
Hamas on Monday said it had accepted a draft proposal put forward by Egyptian and Qatari mediators, but Israel disputed its terms and vowed to continue with the attack.
Cover photo: AFP