Israeli forces push deeper into Rafah, forcing Gazans to flee

GAZA — Israeli tanks backed by warplanes and drones advanced deeper into the western part of Rafah on Wednesday, as rifts seem to be appearing between Israel's political and military leadership over the conduct of the fighting in Gaza.

Residents said the tanks moved into five neighborhoods after midnight. Heavy shelling and gunfire hit the tents of displaced families in the Al-Mawasi area, further to the west of the coastal enclave, they said.

Twelve Palestinians were also killed in an Israeli strike that hit a group of citizens and merchants in the south of the Gaza Strip, medical sources told Reuters on Wednesday.

The people were hit as they waited for convoys of aid trucks carrying goods through the Kerem Shalom crossing on Salahuddin Road northeast of Rafah, the sources added.

Medics and Hamas media said eight Palestinians were killed in Al-Mawasi and many families fled north in panic. They did not identify the fatalities and the Israeli military said it was looking into the report.

Residents said Israeli army forces blew up several homes in western Rafah, which had sheltered more than half of Gaza's 2.3 million people before last month, when Israel began its ground offensive and forced most of the population to head northward.

Some United Nations and Palestinian figures put those who remained at under 100,000 people.

Further north, Israel sent a column of tanks back into the Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City, while residents reported heavy fire from tanks, warplanes and also sounds of gunbattle with Hamas-led fighters.

In another Gaza City suburb, Sheikh Radwan, an Israeli airstrike on a house killed four Palestinians, including a child, medics said. A total of 20 people were killed across Gaza.

On Wednesday, the United Nations human rights office said Israeli forces may have "repeatedly violated fundamental principles of the laws of war" and failed to distinguish between civilians and fighters in their Gaza campaign.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army's chief spokesman on Wednesday appeared to question the stated goal of destroying the Hamas militant group in Gaza in a rare public rift between the country's political and military leadership.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted Israel will pursue the fight against Hamas, the group running the besieged Gaza Strip, until its military and governing capabilities in the Palestinian territory are eliminated.

Rare comment

"This business of destroying Hamas, making Hamas disappear — it's simply throwing sand in the eyes of the public," Daniel Hagari, spokesman of the Israel Defense Forces, told Israel's Channel 13 TV. "Whoever thinks we can eliminate Hamas is wrong."

Netanyahu's office responded by saying that the country's security cabinet, chaired by the prime minister, "has defined the destruction of Hamas' military and governing capabilities as one of the goals of the war. The Israeli military, of course, is committed to this".

The military quickly issued a clarification, saying it was "committed to achieving the goals of the war as defined by the cabinet" and that it has been working on this "throughout the war, day and night, and will continue to do so".

Hagari's comments, it said, "referred to the destruction of Hamas as an ideology and an idea, and this was said by him very clearly and explicitly," the military statement added. "Any other claim is taking things out of context".

There have already been open signs of discontent over the handling of the conflict by Netanyahu's government, a coalition that includes right-wing hard-liners who oppose any kind of settlement with Hamas. Meanwhile, months of internationally mediated truce talks, including a proposal floated this month by US President Joe Biden, have stalled.

Agencies Via Xinhua