DOHA, Feb 8: Israeli forces bombed areas in the southern border city of Rafah where more than half of Gazas population is sheltering on Thursday, a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a proposal to end the war in the Palestinian enclave.
Netanyahu said on Wednesday, terms proposed by Hamas for a ceasefire that would also involve releasing hostages held by the Palestinian militant group were "delusional" and vowed to fight on, saying victory was in reach and just months away.
The rejection followed intense diplomacy to end the four-and-a-half-month conflict before a threatened Israeli assault on Rafah, which is now home to over a million people, many of them in makeshift tents and lacking food and medicine.
Aid agencies have warned of a humanitarian catastrophe if Israel follows through on its threat to enter one of the last remaining areas of the Gaza Strip that its troops have not moved into during its ground offensive.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday that pushing into Rafah on the border with Egypt would "increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences."
Israel says it takes steps to avoid civilian casualties and accuses Hamas militants of hiding among civilians, including at school shelters and hospitals, leading to more civilian deaths. Hamas has denied this.
Israeli planes bombed areas in Rafah on Thursday morning, residents said, killing at least 11 people in strikes on two houses. Tanks also shelled some areas in eastern Rafah, intensifying the residents fears of an imminent ground assault.
"We have our backs to the (border) fence and faces toward the Mediterranean. Where should we go?" said Emad, 55, a displaced person who is a father of six.
"There is no place to go. One million people and more than one million are asking this question today; where shall we go?" Emad told Reuters via a chat app.
Despite Israels rejection of the Hamas proposal, more talks are planned and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on his fifth trip to the region since the start of the war, said he saw room for further negotiation.
In a late-night press conference in a Tel Aviv hotel on Wednesday, Blinken said elements of the proposal put forward by Hamas had contained clear "non-starters", without saying what they were.
"But we also see space in what came back to pursue negotiations, to see if we can get to an agreement. Thats what we intend to do," he said.
A Hamas delegation led by senior official Khalil Al-Hayya arrived in Cairo on Thursday for ceasefire talks with Egypt and Qatar, the mediators in the latest diplomatic push.
Hamas, which governs Gaza, proposed a ceasefire of 4-1/2 months, during which all hostages held in Gaza would go free, Israel would withdraw its troops from Gaza and an agreement would be reached on an end to the war.
The Hamas offer was a response to a proposal drawn up by US and Israeli spy chiefs and delivered to Hamas last week by Qatari and Egyptian mediators.
Meanwhile, Israels reported ongoing destruction of all buildings along the border inside Gaza with the aim of creating a "buffer zone" is a war crime, the UN rights chief warned on Thursday.
Israels "extensive destruction of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly, amounts to a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and a war crime", Volker Turk said in a statement.
—REUTERS, AFP
