Israel-Hamas war: At least 20 Palestinians were killed in the wee hours of Tuesday after Israeli airstrikes struck Rafah and central parts of the Gaza Strip, according to health officials in the coastal enclave. As many as 14 people were killed in the southern city of Rafah, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered an invasion despite international pressure, and dozens of others were wounded in strikes that hit several houses and apartments.

Six more people were killed in another air strike on a house in the Al-Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, officials said. In Deir Al-Balah, a town in central Gaza about 14 km (8.6 miles) south of Gaza City, the sounds of explosions mixed with thunder, and rain added to the miseries of displaced families in tent camps.

“We are no longer able to distinguish between the sounds of thunder and bombings,” Shaban Abdel-Raouf, a father of five in Deir Al-Balah, said via a chat application. “We used to await the rain and pray to God if it was late. Today we pray it doesn’t rain. The displaced people have enough miseries.”

The conflict, now in its sixth month, began when Hamas fighters stormed into Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing 253 hostages according to Israeli tallies. Since then, Israel’s assault has killed more than 31,000 Gazans, according to Palestinian health officials. Negotiations for a ceasefire in the war were due to resume on Monday with an Israeli delegation heading to Qatar.

Biden and Netanyahu hold talks amid divisions

US President Joe Biden held a conversation over the phone on Monday for the first time in a month amid differences over the imminent Rafah invasion. The White House has been sceptical of Netanyahu’s plan of carrying out an operation in the southern city of Rafah, to which more than a 1 million displaced Palestinians have fled, as Israel looks to eliminate Hamas.

Biden told the Israeli PM that he was deeply concerned about the prospect of Israel conducting major military operations in Rafah on the lines of those in Gaza City and Khan Younis, according to US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. Netanyahu agreed to send an inter-agency team of Israeli officials to Washington to hold discussions on an alternative approach to target key Hamas elements in the southern Gaza city of Rafah and secure the Egypt-Gaza border without a major ground invasion.

Israel has not presented the US or the world with a plan on how or where it would safely move those civilians, let alone feed and house them and ensure access to basic things like sanitation, Sullivan said, adding that Rafah is a primary entry point for humanitarian assistance into Gaza from Egypt and a military operation there would shut it down and cripple delivery of desperately needed aid.

During the call, Biden asked Netanyahu to send a senior inter-agency team comprising military, intelligence and humanitarian officials to Washington in the coming days to hear the US’ concerns about Israel’s plans for Rafah and to lay out an alternative approach that would target key Hamas elements in the city and secure the Egypt-Gaza border without a major ground invasion, according to Sullivan.

“Obviously, he has his own point of view on a Rafah operation but he agreed that he would send a team to Washington to have this discussion and have this engagement. And we look forward to those discussions,” the US NSA said. “We would look to build on that ceasefire into something more enduring and use the space created by a cessation of hostilities to surge humanitarian assistance at a vital moment. So far, this deal has been more elusive than we would have hoped. But we will keep pressing because we regard this as an urgent priority.”

UN warns of mass death in Gaza

The UN food agency said Monday that “famine is imminent” in northern Gaza, where 70 per cent of the remaining population is experiencing catastrophic hunger, and that a further escalation of the war could push around half of Gaza’s total population to the brink of starvation. The European Union’s top diplomat said the impending famine was “entirely man-made” as “starvation is used as a weapon of war.”

Gaza’s health ministry has said 27 children and three adults have died so far from malnutrition. “In Gaza we are no longer on the brink of famine. We are in a state of famine… Starvation is used as a weapon of war. Israel is provoking famine,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said at a Brussels conference on aid for Gaza. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded that Borrell should “stop attacking Israel and recognise our right to self-defence against Hamas’ crimes”.

The Integrated Food-Security Phase Classification (IPC), whose assessments are relied on by UN agencies, said mass death is now imminent without an immediate ceasefire and surge of food to areas cut off by fighting. Although it did not have enough data on death rates, but estimated residents would be dying at famine scale imminently, defined as two people out of every 10,000 dying daily from starvation or from malnutrition and disease.

This came after Israeli forces launched another major assault on Al Shifa hospital, which is one of the only medical facilities still even partially functioning in the north of the territory and Gaza’s largest. Israeli forces said they killed 20 gunmen through a “precise operation” supported by infantry and tanks.

“We apprehended more than 200 terrorist suspects that are now being questioned. We eliminated more than 20 terrorists inside the hospital compound,” said spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari. One Israeli soldier was killed in the fighting, he said.

(with inputs from Reuters, PTI)

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