GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: A senior Hamas official told AFP on Thursday that Israel would fail to meet its stated goals of defeating the Palestinian militant group and freeing hostages by invading the southern Gaza city Rafah.
“Even if (Israel) enters and invades Rafah, it will not achieve what it wants,” Ghazi Hamad said in an interview over the phone from Qatar, where a number of senior figures from Hamas’s political bureau are based.
Hamad said Israel had “spent nearly seven months in Gaza and invaded all areas and destroyed a lot, but so far has not been able to achieve anything of its main goals, whether eliminating Hamas or returning the captives.”
Israel has vowed to move on with the planned military operation in Rafah, despite international outcry and concern for about 1.5 million Palestinians sheltering in the city.
There are fears of huge civilian casualties and countries including Israel’s top ally and weapons supplier the United States have warned Israel against sending troops into Rafah.
“We have spoken with all parties involved in the conflict... about the seriousness of invading Rafah and that Israel is heading toward committing additional massacres and additional genocide,” Hamad said.
“This will undoubtedly threaten the negotiations because it is clear from this declared position that Israel is interested in continuing the war and aggression and has no intention of continuing negotiations and reaching an agreement,” he said.
Qatar, the United States and Egypt, have been mediating talks to secure a truce and the release of hostages, but those have stalled for days.
An Egyptian delegation is however set to travel to Israel on Friday to kickstart a new round of talks, Israeli media reported citing unnamed officials.
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said Israel’s war cabinet was meeting Thursday “to discuss how to destroy the last battalions of Hamas.”
On Wednesday, Mencer said that since Israel began its ground invasion of Gaza on October 27, the army has destroyed “at least 18 or 19 of Hamas’s 24 battalions.”
Officials say the remaining battalions are in Rafah — the main target of the impending assault.
Most Gazans taking refuge in Rafah are sheltering in makeshift camps, and even before the start of the expected ground invasion, the city near the Egyptian border has been suffering regular Israeli bombings.
Hamad argued the planned invasion was exposing contradictions in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stance on Gaza.
“Netanyahu is stumbling because, on the one hand, he wants to return the captives to their families, as he says, but at the same time, he puts them in great danger, as his army deliberately killed many hostages.”
Israel’s army has admitted to mistakenly killing some hostages in Gaza.
Hamad accused Netanyahu of “manipulating and procrastinating” in a bid to “deceive the Israeli public that there are negotiations and deceive the international community as well that there are negotiations.”
He said the Israeli prime minister was “trying to twist the truth” and claim that “Hamas is the obstacle in these negotiations.”
Hamad said Qatar and Egypt were “making great efforts to reach an agreement,” but argued “the Israeli side unfortunately deals with the matter foolishly and is very confused.”
Hamad also told AFP that Hamas, which took power in Gaza in 2007, was already working on plans for the territory after the war.
He said the group was “working on the post-war phase to ensure that there is a great effort to rebuild the Gaza Strip and provide the necessities for a decent life.”
Palestinian militants took around 250 hostages to Gaza during Hamas’s October 7 attack that triggered the war.
Israeli officials say 129 hostages are still held in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.
The attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, Israelis and foreigners, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas in Gaza has killed 34,305 people, most of them women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry.

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania: At least 155 people have died in Tanzania as torrential rains linked to El Nino triggered flooding and landslides, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa said on Thursday.

Tanzania and other countries in East Africa — a region highly vulnerable to climate change — have been pounded by heavier than usual rainfall during the current rainy season, with dozens of deaths also reported in Kenya.

Majaliwa said the rains have affected more than 51,000 households and 200,000 people, with 155 fatalities and 236 injuries.

“The heavy El Nino rains, accompanied by strong winds, floods, and landslides in various parts of the country, have caused significant damage,” Majaliwa told parliament in Tanzania’s capital, Dodoma.

He added: “These include loss of life, destruction of crops, homes, citizens’ property, and infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and railways.”

El Nino is a naturally occurring climate pattern typically associated with increased heat worldwide, drought in some parts of the world, and heavy rains elsewhere. 

It can have a devastating impact on East Africa.

In Burundi, around 96,000 people have been displaced by months of relentless rains.

In addition, about 45 people have been killed in Kenya since the start of the rainy season in March, including 13 who lost their lives in flash floods in the capital, Nairobi, this week.

Kenyan President William Ruto convened an emergency multi-agency meeting on Thursday to respond to the crisis after torrential rains triggered floods that caused chaos across the city, blocking roads and bridges and engulfing homes in slum districts.

Kenyans have been warned to stay on alert, with more heavy rains forecast across the country. Officials said people living in the most vulnerable areas would be relocated.

“The government ... will do whatever it takes, apply all the required resources in terms of money and personnel to make sure that lives are not lost and the people of Kenya are protected from this disaster,” Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua told a press briefing.

Meanwhile, the UN humanitarian response agency OCHA said in an update this week that in Somalia, the Gu (April to June) rains are intensifying, with flash floods reported since April 19.

It said four people had been reportedly killed, and at least 134 families or more than 800 people were affected or displaced across the country.

Late last year, more than 300 people died in torrential rains and floods in Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia just as the region was trying to recover from its worst drought in four decades that left millions of people hungry.

From October 1997 to January 1998, massive floods caused more than 6,000 deaths in five countries in the region.

In March, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization said that El Nino, which peaked in December, was one of the five strongest ever recorded.

Though the weather pattern is gradually weakening, its impact will continue over the coming months by fueling the heat trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases, it said.

Therefore, the WMO said in a quarterly update that “above normal temperatures are predicted over almost all land areas between March and May.”