Israeli forces massed tanks and opened fire close to built-up areas of Rafah on Thursday, residents said, after US President Joe Biden vowed to withhold weapons from Israel if its forces launch a major invasion of the southern Gaza city.
Residents and medics in Rafah, the only major urban area in Gaza not yet invaded by Israeli ground forces, said Israeli tank fire killed three people and wounded others near a mosque in the eastern neighbourhood of Brazil.
On the city’s eastern edge, residents said a helicopter opened fire, while drones hovered above houses in several areas, some close to rooftops.
Meanwhile, displaced Gazan Marwan al-Masri, sheltering in Rafah, said “life has completely ceased” since Israeli tanks and troops entered the city’s east, sending desperate Palestinians fleeing north in the besieged territory.
More than 1.4 million people had crammed into Rafah as Israeli forces pushed their way southward from the coastal territory’s north during months of war against Hamas militants.
Many in Rafah have been displaced multiple times during the seven-month war, and are now heading back north after Israeli forces called for the evacuation of the city’s eastern past, which hosts tens of thousands of people.
“The streets are empty of people, and markets are in a state of paralysis”, he told AFP.
“We all feel fear of any advancement in the invasion, as happened in the eastern areas, which are now completely empty of residents”.
Masri said he and his relatives “are all tense and frightened” by the incessant shelling that they feel is getting closer to them.
Ibtihal al-Arouqi, who was displaced from Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, said she has found herself once again homeless.
“We emerged from under the rubble of our house in Al-Bureij, and now due to intense shelling in Rafah, my children and I are in the street”, she said.
The 39-year-old said that only two weeks ago she gave birth by Caesarean section.
“We don’t know where to go. There is no safe place”, Arouqi added.
Meanwhile, CIA Director William Burns, back in the Egyptian capital after talks in Jerusalem, resumed meetings on Thursday with mediators trying to secure a ceasefire, two Egyptian security sources said.
Biden, who says Israel has not produced a convincing plan to safeguard civilians in Rafah, issued his starkest warning yet against a full ground invasion.
“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah, … I’m not supplying the weapons,” Biden told CNN in an interview on Wednesday.
The United States is by far the biggest supplier of weapons to Israel, and it accelerated deliveries after the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 that triggered Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
Israel’s United Nations ambassador Gilad Erdan said the US decision to pause some weapons deliveries to Israel will significantly impair the country’s ability to neutraliezHamas’ power, according to Israeli public radio.
Israel kept up tank and aerial strikes across Gaza on Thursday, however. Tanks advanced in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City in the north, forcing hundreds of families to flee, residents said. The Israeli military said it was securing Zeitoun, starting with a series of intelligence-based aerial strikes on approximately 25 “terror targets”.
Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza was heaving with thousands of people who had fled Rafah in recent days. Palestinian medics said two people, including a woman, were killed when a drone fired a missile at a group of people there.
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