Five Dead In Israeli Attacks On Rafah

The hospital told France Presse (AFP) today that it received "five martyrs and many injured" as a result of Israeli night attacks.

The bombings were directed at "terrorist sites" located in the extreme south of the Palestinian enclave in preparation for the entry of Israeli ground forces into eastern Rafah, according to the Army's military spokesman, Daniel Hagari.

According to witnesses and Palestinian security sources cited by AFP, the Rafah region continued to be the scene of intense Israeli attacks.

The Israeli War Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, announced on Monday that it had decided to continue the offensive in Rafah, while also agreeing to continue negotiations for a truce with the Palestinian group Hamas.

"Although Hamas' proposal falls far short of Israel's requirements, Israel will send a delegation to exhaust the possibility of reaching an agreement under acceptable conditions," Netanyahu's office said in a statement.

In this sense, Israel reported that it will maintain the decision to carry out a military offensive against Rafah "to exert military pressure on Hamas", with the aim of "advancing the release of hostages" kidnapped by Palestinian militias on October 7, and achieving their "aims in war".

This statement came after the head of Hamas's political office, Ismail Haniyeh, confirmed to Egyptian and Qatari mediators that he had accepted a proposal for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, while the Israeli Defense Forces announced that they had bombed at the end of the day more than 50 targets of the Palestinian group in the Rafah region.

On Monday morning, the Israeli Defense Forces issued an evacuation order for the eastern Rafah region, affecting around one hundred thousand people, in the first step of a large-scale offensive against the region, where there are more 1.2 million displaced people.

Several voices in the international community, in the Arab world and in the West, including US President Joe Biden, have insistently asked Israel to suspend its plans for Rafah, warning of the serious humanitarian crisis in the region.

On Monday night, UN Secretary-General António Guterres reaffirmed that an invasion of Rafah would be "intolerable" and called on Israel and Hamas for an "additional effort" to reach a truce.

"Today I launched a very strong appeal to the Israeli Government and the leaders of Hamas to make an additional effort to materialize a vital agreement", declared the leader of the United Nations at the reception of the Italian President, Sergio Mattarella.

For Guterres, "this is an opportunity that cannot be missed" and a land invasion of Rafah "would be intolerable due to its devastating humanitarian consequences and its destabilizing impact on the region."

Israel argues that the last active units of the Palestinian extremist group Hamas are in Rafah.

The current conflict was triggered by a Hamas attack on October 7, which caused almost 1,200 deaths, with Israel responding with an offensive that caused more than 34,700 deaths in the Gaza Strip, according to reports from both parties.