CAIRO/JERUSALEM — Israel’s tanks pushed into the heart of Jabalia in northern Gaza on Thursday, facing anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs from militants concentrated there, while in the south, its forces pounded Rafah without advancing, Palestinian residents and militants said.
The slow progress of Israel’s offensive, more than seven months after it was prompted by Hamas’ deadly cross-border raid, highlighted the difficulty of achieving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aim of eradicating the militant group.
Armed wings of Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad have been able to fight up and down the Gaza Strip, using heavily fortified tunnels to stage attacks in both the north – the focus of Israel’s initial invasion – and new battlegrounds like Rafah.
“We are wearing Hamas down,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said, announcing that more troops would be deployed in Rafah, where he said several tunnels had been destroyed.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri responded that the group would defend its people “by all means”.
Israel says four Hamas battalions are now in Rafah along with hostages abducted during the Oct. 7 assault, but it faces international pressure not to invade the city, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinian civilians are sheltering.
South Africa asked the top U.N. court to order a halt to Israel’s Rafah offensive, saying it was “part of the endgame in which Gaza is utterly destroyed”. Israel has denied South African allegations of genocide in Gaza and said it had complied with an earlier court order to step up aid.
The Gaza death toll has risen to 35,272, health officials in the Hamas-run coastal enclave said, and malnutrition is widespread with international aid efforts blocked by the violence and Israel’s de-facto shutdowns of its Kerem Shalom crossing and the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
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FLOATING PIER ANCHORED, BUT AID PLANS UNCLEAR
The United States anchored a temporary floating pier to a beach in Gaza on Thursday to boost aid deliveries, but it was still unclear how it would be distributed given the challenges that have beset the United Nations and relief groups for months.
The United Nations stressed that delivering aid by land was the “most viable, effective and efficient” method.
“To stave off the horrors of famine, we must use the fastest and most obvious route to reach the people of Gaza – and for that, we need access by land now,” deputy U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq said.
“We don’t want ships… we want safety,” said displaced Gazan Hassan Abu Al-Kass, speaking in the central Gaza Strip.
The United States State Department said the humanitarian situation in Gaza continued to deteriorate and urged Israel to allow sustained access for aid via the southern and northern parts of the enclave.
Israel’s military says its operation in Rafah is meant to kill Hamas fighters and dismantle infrastructure used by the group, which governs the blockaded Palestinian territory. Israel accuses Hamas of diverting aid, something it denies.
Egyptian sources said Cairo, which fears a mass exodus from Gaza to Egypt, had rejected an Israeli request to coordinate on the reopening of the Rafah border crossing, which Israel seized on May 7, and keep it beyond Palestinian control.
Ceasefire and hostage release talks are deadlocked over how to end the war.
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh said his group, which has run Gaza since 2007, should continue to have a role while the Palestinian Authority, which Western leaders want to oversee Gaza, said it did not have enough funds to fulfil its current limited governing role in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israel declared major operations over in northern Gaza months ago while pledging to return to prevent Hamas regrouping.