Israel stand on Rafah dims truce prospects

GAZA/JERUSALEM — The prospects for an Israel-Hamas cease-fire dimmed as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Saturday to reject international appeals to spare Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah.

It came as the United States signaled it would veto the latest push for a UN Security Council resolution and mediator Qatar acknowledged that truce talks on the other diplomatic front had hit an impasse.

New airstrikes in central Gaza on Saturday killed more than 40 people, including children, and wounded at least 50, according to Associated Press journalists and hospital officials.

Neighboring Egypt has grown increasingly wary that an Israeli attack on Rafah, where an estimated 1.5 million people have sought refuge, could force the Gazans trapped there across the border.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Saturday reiterated Egypt's opposition to any forced displacement into the Sinai Desert.

In a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, both leaders agreed on the "necessity of the swift advancement of a cease-fire", according to a summary.

Even if a temporary truce deal is stuck at the talks in Cairo, Netanyahu said his troops' ground offensive in Rafah will go ahead.

"Even if we achieve it, we will enter Rafah," he said at a televised news conference Saturday.

Netanyahu spoke as thousands of Israelis protested in Tel Aviv, the latest call for an immediate election by demonstrators who also accuse the government of abandoning hostages.

"Take politics out of decisions about our loved ones' lives," said Nissan Calderon. "This is the moment of truth, there won't be many more like it if the Cairo initiative collapses."

A possible United Nations Security Council vote this week appears unlikely to advance the cease-fire effort, with Washington already voicing opposition.

"The United States does not support action on this draft resolution," US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in a statement. "Should it come up for a vote as drafted, it will not be adopted."

Algeria's draft resolution seeks an immediate humanitarian cease-fire, but Thomas-Greenfield said the US instead supports a truce-for-hostages deal that would pause fighting for six weeks.

As a much-needed delivery of supplies arrived in southern Gaza Saturday, the UN again warned that Gazans are close to famine.

The deliveries are also complicated by Palestinians in Rafah so hungry that they are stopping aid trucks to take whatever they can manage, according to the UN.

Agencies via Xinhua