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.
Hamas official says Israel ‘will not achieve’ goals in Rafah
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Hamas official says Israel ‘will not achieve’ goals in Rafah
- “Even if (Israel) enters and invades Rafah, it will not achieve what it wants,” Ghazi Hamad said
- “This will undoubtedly threaten the negotiations because it is clear from this declared position that Israel is interested in continuing the war“
Gaza’s living conditions worsen as strong winds and hypothermia kill 5
- Hundreds of tents and makeshift shelters were blown away or heavily damaged, the UN humanitarian office reported
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Strong winter winds collapsed walls onto flimsy tents for Palestinians displaced by war in Gaza, killing at least four people, hospital authorities said Tuesday.
Dangerous living conditions persist in Gaza after more than two years of devastating Israeli bombardment and aid shortfalls. A ceasefire has been in effect since Oct. 10. But aid groups say that Palestinians broadly lack the shelter necessary to withstand frequent winter storms.
The dead include two women, a girl and a man, according to Shifa Hospital, Gaza City’s largest, which received the bodies.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Tuesday a 1-year-old boy died of hypothermia overnight, while the spokesman for the UN’s children agency said over 100 children and teenagers have been killed by “military means” since the ceasefire began.
Meanwhile, Israel’s military said it exchanged fire Tuesday with six people spotted near its troops deployed in southern Gaza, killing at least two of them in western Rafah.
Family mourns relatives killed by wall collapse
Three members of the same family — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old granddaughter and his daughter-in-law — were killed when an 8-meter (26-foot) high wall collapsed onto their tent in a coastal area along the Mediterranean shore of Gaza City, Shifa Hospital said. At least five others were injured.
Their relatives on Tuesday began removing the rubble that had buried their loved ones and rebuilding the tent shelters for survivors.
“The world has allowed us to witness death in all its forms,” Bassel Hamouda said after the funeral. “It’s true the bombing may have temporarily stopped, but we have witnessed every conceivable cause of death in the world in the Gaza Strip.”
A second woman was killed when a wall fell on her tent in the western part of the city, Shifa Hospital said.
Hundreds of tents and makeshift shelters were blown away or heavily damaged, the UN humanitarian office reported.
The UN and its humanitarian partners were distributing tents, tarps, blankets and clothes as well as nutrition and hygiene items across Gaza, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The majority of Palestinians live in makeshift tents since their homes were reduced to rubble during the war. When storms strike the territory, Palestinian rescue workers warn people against seeking shelter inside damaged buildings for fears of collapse. Aid groups say not enough shelter materials are entering Gaza during the truce.
In the central town of Zawaida, Associated Press footage showed inundated tents Tuesday morning, with people trying to rebuild their shelters.
Yasmin Shalha, a displaced woman from the northern town of Beit Lahiya, stood against winds that lifted the tarps of tents around her as she stitched hers back together with needle and thread. She said it had fallen on top of her family the night before, as they slept.
“The winds were very, very strong. The tent collapsed over us,” the mother of five told AP. “As you can see, our situation is dire.”
On the shore in southern Gaza, tents were swept into the Mediterranean. Families pulled what was left from the sea, while some built sand barriers to hold back rising water.
“The sea took our mattresses, our tents, our food and everything we owned,” Shaban Abu Ishaq said, as he dragged part of his tent out of the sea in the Muwasi area of Khan Younis.
Mohamed Al-Sawalha, a 72-year-old man from the northern refugee camp of Jabaliya, said the conditions most Palestinians in Gaza endure are barely livable.
“It doesn’t work neither in summer nor in winter,” he said of the tent. “We left behind houses and buildings (with) doors that could be opened and closed. Now we live in a tent. Even sheep don’t live like we do.”
Residents aren’t able to return to their homes in Israeli-controlled areas of the Gaza Strip.
Child death toll in Gaza rises
Gaza’s Health Ministry said the 1-year-old in the central town of Deir Al-Balah was the seventh fatality due to the cold conditions since winter started. Others included a baby just seven days old and a 4-year-old girl, whose deaths were announced Monday.
The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, says more than 440 people were killed by Israeli fire and their bodies brought to hospitals since the ceasefire went into effect. The ministry maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts.
UNICEF spokesman James Elder said Tuesday at least 100 children under the age of 18 — 60 boys and 40 girls — have been killed since the truce began due to military operations, including drone strikes, airstrikes, tank shelling and use of live ammunition. Those figures, he said, reflect incidents where enough details have been compiled to warrant recording, but the total toll is expected to be higher. He said hundreds of children have been wounded.
While “bombings and shootings have slowed” during the ceasefire, they have not stopped, Elder told reporters at a UN briefing in Geneva by video from Gaza City. “So what the world now calls calm would be considered a crisis anywhere else,” he said.
Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people has been struggling to keep the cold weather and storms at bay while facing shortages of humanitarian aid and a lack of more substantial temporary housing, which is badly needed during the winter months. It’s the third winter since the war between Israel and Hamas started on Oct. 7, 2023, when militants stormed into southern Israel and killed around 1,200 people and abducted 251 others into Gaza.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 71,400 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive.
