- Author, Rushdi Abou Alouf
- Role, BBC Gaza Correspondent
- Report of Istanbul
Israeli forces reportedly reached the center of the southern Gaza town of Rafah and seized a strategically important hill overlooking the nearby border with Egypt.
Witnesses and local journalists said tanks were parked at al-Awda roundabout, considered a key landmark.
They also said tanks were on Zoroub Hill, giving Israel control of the Philadelphia Corridor – a narrow strip of land along the border with the sea.
The Israeli army said its troops were continuing their activities against “terrorist targets” in Rafah, three weeks after launching the ground operation.
Western areas of the city were also the target of intense shelling overnight, residents said, despite international condemnation of an Israeli airstrike and resulting fire Sunday that killed dozens of Palestinians in a tent camp for displaced people.
The Israeli military said it was investigating whether the fire was caused by the explosion of weapons stored by Hamas nearby.
He also denied reports provided Tuesday afternoon by local health and emergency officials that tank shells had hit another camp in al-Mawasi, on the coast west of Rafah, killing at least 21 people.
According to the UN, around a million people have now fled the fighting in Rafah, but several hundred thousand others could still find refuge there.
Israel has insisted that victory in its seven-month war against Hamas in Gaza was impossible without the capture of Rafah and rejected warnings that it could have catastrophic humanitarian consequences.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched what it called “targeted” ground operations against Hamas fighters and infrastructure in eastern Rafah on May 6.
Since then, tanks and troops have gradually penetrated the built-up areas of the east and center while moving north along the 13-kilometer border with Egypt.
On Tuesday, they would have reached the city center for the first time.
Witnesses and local journalists told the BBC that tanks took control of the al-Awda roundabout amid intense artillery fire.
The roundabout, located just 800 meters from the border, is home to major banks, government institutions, businesses and stores.
A witness said he saw soldiers position themselves at the top of a building overlooking the roundabout and then begin shooting at anyone who moved.
Earlier, residents told the BBC that tanks had seized Zoroub Hill, about 2.5 km northwest of al-Awda roundabout, after exchanges of fire with fighters led by Hamas.
The hill is the highest point on the Egyptian border and its seizure means that the entire Gaza side of the border is now effectively under Israeli control.
About 9 km of the Philadelphia corridor to the south, including the Rafah border crossing, have already been occupied by Israeli forces.
Zoroub Hill also overlooks western Rafah, where residents said there had been the most intense air and artillery strikes since the Israeli operation began.
A local journalist said the bombings forced hundreds of families to seek temporary shelter in a hospital courtyard, while ambulances struggled to reach the injured in affected areas.
At dawn, thousands of people were seen heading north, packed into cars, trucks and carts pulled by donkeys and horses.
“The explosions are shaking our tent, my children are afraid and my sick father is preventing us from escaping the darkness,” resident Khaled Mahmoud told the BBC.
“We are supposed to be in a safe zone according to the Israeli army, but we have not received evacuation orders like those in the eastern region (of Rafah),” he added. “We fear for our lives if no one intervenes to protect us.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) did not comment on the various reports but issued a statement saying that “troops operated overnight in the Philadelphia corridor while conducting specific operational activity based on intelligence indicating the presence terrorist targets in the region.
“This activity is being carried out as efforts continue to prevent harm to uninvolved civilians in the area,” he added.
“Troops engage alongside terrorists in close combat and locate terrorist tunnel shafts, weapons and additional terrorist infrastructure in the area. »
The Israeli military asked civilians in eastern Rafah to evacuate for their own safety to an “extended humanitarian zone” stretching from al-Mawasi, a coastal area just north of Rafah, to the central city of Deir al-Balah.
The Reuters news agency cited local health authorities as saying that at least 21 people were killed on Tuesday when Israeli tank shells hit a group of tents in al-Mawasi. A Hamas-led civil defense official also told AFP there had been a deadly Israeli strike on tents.
Graphic video footage released by Palestinian media appears to show at least five bodies lying in a sandy area surrounded by tents.
However, the IDF later said in a statement: “Contrary to reports in recent hours, the IDF did not strike in the humanitarian zone of al-Mawasi. »
On Sunday evening, at least 45 people – more than half of them children, women and the elderly – were killed when an Israeli airstrike ignited a massive fire in a displaced persons camp near a logistics base of the UN in the region of Tal al-Sultan. , according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health.
Hundreds more were treated for serious burns, fractures and shrapnel wounds.
The Israeli military said it targeted two senior Hamas officials in the attack, which came hours after Hamas fighters southeast of Rafah launched rockets toward the Israeli city of Tel Aviv to the first time in months.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a “tragic incident” had occurred “despite our immense efforts to avoid harm to non-combatants” and promised a full investigation.
IDF chief spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Tuesday that the strike targeted a structure used by Hamas commanders and away from any tents, using “two munitions with small warheads.”
“Following this strike, a major fire broke out for reasons which are still under investigation. Our munitions alone could not have started a fire of this magnitude,” he said.
Rear Admiral Hagari added that investigators were looking into the possibility that the fire was caused by the explosion of weapons or ammunition stored in a nearby structure, and released what he said was an intercepted telephone conversation between two Gazans suggesting this. The audio recording could not immediately be verified.
Sam Rose, of the UN Palestinian refugee agency Unrwa, told the BBC from west Rafah that the deaths of so many civilians could not be considered an accident.
“Gaza was already one of the most overcrowded places on the planet. It is absolutely impossible to carry out a military campaign involving large-scale munitions, air strikes, sea strikes, tanks, without causing heavy civilian casualties,” he said.
“It seems that every day we are penetrating new depths of horror, bloodshed and brutality. And if that’s not a wake-up call, it’s hard to predict what will happen.”
Last week, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to “immediately end its military offensive and any other actions in the Rafah governorate, which could inflict living conditions on the Palestinian group in Gaza that could harm ‘result in its physical destruction in whole or in part’.
Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza to destroy Hamas in response to the group’s cross-border attack on southern Israel on October 7, in which around 1,200 people were killed and another 252 taken hostage.
Since then, at least 36,090 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
News Source : www.bbc.com
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