CNN
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The Israeli army is present in the center of Rafah, the Israeli army confirmed in a statement on Friday, despite the concern and anger of the international community over its military operation in the southernmost town of Gaza.
The IDF statement confirms what eyewitnesses told CNN earlier this week, when tanks were spotted in central Rafah for the first time since entering the city earlier this month.
“IDF troops in central Rafah located Hamas rocket launchers, terrorist tunnels and weapons. Troops also dismantled a Hamas weapons storage facility in the area,” the Israeli military said in the statement.
On Wednesday, the Israeli military said it had established “operational control” over the Philadelphia Corridor, a 14-kilometer buffer zone on the Palestinian side of the Egypt-Gaza border.
Access to mobile phone services in Rafah was interrupted on Thursday due to the ongoing Israeli offensive, Palestinian telecommunications company Jawwal said in a statement.
Israel’s incursion into Rafah in early May marked a new phase in its war against Hamas in Gaza, which has killed more than 36,000 Palestinians, according to the enclave’s health officials, displacing the majority of the population of the band and triggered a dismayed humanitarian catastrophe. international agencies.
Over the weekend, Israel launched an airstrike on a displaced persons camp in the city, killing dozens and creating global outrage. The strike also killed two Hamas leaders, Israel said.
Footage obtained by CNN showed the camp in flames, with dozens of men, women and children frantically trying to seek shelter from the nighttime assault. Burned bodies, including those of children, could be seen being pulled from the wreckage by rescuers.
“The word tragic doesn’t even begin to describe this,” U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said Tuesday of the incident. But neither she nor President Joe Biden said the strike crossed a red line for U.S. support.
Biden said in a CNN interview earlier this month that he would not authorize the use of certain US weapons in a major offensive in Rafah.
The confirmation of the IDF’s presence in central Rafah comes as it announced that it had ended its operations in eastern Jabalya, in the north of the Gaza Strip.
02:56 – Source: CNN
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The army said in a statement that its troops destroyed more than 10 kilometers of tunnels and weapons production sites during the Jabalya operation, which began earlier this month and involved what the IDF described as “intense fights and close encounters”. » with fighters.
The press release also indicates that the bodies of seven hostages were found during the operation. The hostages were killed on October 7, the statement said, and their remains were then taken to Gaza.
But Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for Gaza’s civil defense, told CNN on Friday that Jabalya was a “disaster zone” as a result of the Israeli presence, with “entire residential places” decimated.
“Unfortunately, the Jabalya camp is not suitable for life,” Basal said. “There are no water wells, no schools, no hospitals, all completely destroyed. There is nothing that would allow the lives of citizens in this area, and there are a large number of martyrs and houses that have been razed with citizens inside, and we cannot recover the bodies under the rubble.
Israel resumed fighting in northern Gaza earlier this month, although it said it had dismantled Hamas’s command structure in the region in January.
The renewed fighting shows the challenges Israel faces in achieving its goal of destroying Hamas, with a senior security official warning this month that the war could last until next year.
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News Source : amp.cnn.com
