Israel Claims Control of Gaza Side of Rafah Crossing as Truce Talks Is To Resume
The Israel defense forces says it has operational control of the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing.
The announcement follows what the IDF said were targeted strikes against Hamas in Eastern Rafah.
Talks are to resume in Cairo after Hamas said it would accept a deal drawn up by Egyptian mediators.
It was however rejected by Israel as far from meeting its core demands.
It is not clear exactly what Hamas has agreed to, but the proposal is thought to include the release of hostages and the return of displaced Palestinians within Gaza.
The war began when Hamas fighters stormed into Southern Israel on 7 October, killing about 1,200 people and seizing 252 hostages.
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Months of negotiations stalled in part on Hamas’s demand for a lasting ceasefire and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated vows to crush the group’s remaining fighters in Rafah, along the Egyptian border in Gaza’s far south.
The prospect of a Rafah invasion, threatened for three months alongside stop-start truce talks, has sparked intensifying global alarm.
After a meeting in Cairo about a week ago, the Hamas delegation returned to Qatar, where its chief Ismail Haniyeh is based, to discuss the truce proposal.
The war broke out after Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel has carried out a retaliatory campaign of bombardment and fighting on the ground that has killed at least 34,654 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
