Australia urges Israel to end Rafah offensive as Israeli forces reportedly reach city’s centre
Israel has pounded Rafah with air strikes and tank fire, pressing its offensive in the southern Gaza city despite international condemnation of an attack that sparked a blaze in a tent camp for the displaced, killing at least 45 people.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the air strikes on Rafah showed why an immediate humanitarian ceasefire was needed.
She said Australia had been very clear that Israel must not proceed with its operation there.
“The death and destruction in Rafah is horrific. This human suffering is unacceptable,” Senator Wong said, speaking at Senate estimates on Tuesday.
“We reiterate to the government of Israel: This cannot continue.
“We must see an immediate humanitarian ceasefire so civilians can be protected and Australia continues to support the work of the United States, Qatar and Egypt to that end.
“We continue to call for the release of all hostages by Hamas and for Israel to allow aid to flow at scale, as directed by the International Court of Justice.”
Several Israeli tanks on Tuesday reached the centre of Rafah, witnesses told Reuters, three weeks into a ground operation in the southern Gaza Strip city that has has drawn intense scrutiny from neighbouring Egypt and from the United States.
The tanks were spotted near Al-Awda mosque, a central Rafah landmark, the witnesses said. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on their account, saying it would issue a statement about the Rafah operation later.
At least 16 Palestinians were killed in strikes overnight on Tuesday, officials in the enclave run by Hamas militants said. Israeli tanks pushed towards western neighbourhoods in one of the worst nights of bombardment reported by residents to news agency Reuters.
Reacting to Sunday night’s strike and fire in a camp where thousands of families displaced from assaults elsewhere in the Gaza Strip had sought shelter, global leaders urged the implementation of a World Court order to halt Israel’s assault.
Residents said Israeli tanks were stationed on and around the Zurub hilltop, a high ground overlooking western Rafah, having advanced from the area near the Egyptian border crossing where Israeli forces launched an incursion three weeks ago.
They said the Tel Al-Sultan area, the scene of Sunday’s deadly strike, was still being heavily bombarded.
“Tank shells are falling everywhere in Tel Al-Sultan. Many families have fled their houses in western Rafah under fire throughout the night,” one resident told Reuters over a chat app.
One million have fled Rafah in past three weeks, UNRWA says
Around one million people have fled the Israeli offensive in Rafah since early May, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said on Tuesday.
Israel has kept up attacks despite a ruling by the top UN court on Friday ordering it to stop, arguing the court’s ruling grants it some scope for military action there.
More than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Israel launched the operation after Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israeli communities on October 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel says it wants to root out Hamas fighters holed up in Rafah and rescue hostages it says are being held in the area.
In Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, one of the largest of the enclave’s eight historic refugee camps, Israeli forces have been engaged in fierce fighting with Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters, residents said.
On Tuesday, medics said an Israeli air strike killed and wounded several Palestinians in a house in the Falouja neighbourhood. Civil emergency teams said they believed many bodies were under the rubble of buildings where they can’t be reached.
Spain, Norway, Ireland recognise Palestinian state
Spain, Ireland and Norway officially recognised a Palestinian state on Tuesday, despite an angry reaction from Israel, which has found itself increasingly isolated after more than seven months of conflict in Gaza.
Madrid, Dublin and Oslo said they sought to accelerate efforts to secure a ceasefire and hoped their decision would spur other European Union countries to follow suit.
Spain was recognising a unified Palestinian state, including the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, under the Palestinian National Authority with East Jerusalem as its capital, he said.
The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank under Israeli military occupation, has welcomed the decision.
Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs said last week it would upgrade its representative office in Ramallah in the West Bank to an embassy and appoint an ambassador and upgrade the status of the Palestinian mission in Ireland to an embassy.
Norway had until recently followed the position of the United States, which insists that a two-state solution can only be achieved through dialogue, but lost confidence that this strategy would work.
“In the middle of a war, with tens of thousands of dead and injured, we must keep alive the only thing that can provide a safe home for both Israelis and Palestinians: two states that can live in peace with each other,” Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said last week.
Israel has repeatedly condemned the move and said it bolsters Hamas.
“Sanchez, when you … recognise a Palestinian state, you are complicit in incitement to genocide against the Jewish people and in war crimes,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz wrote on X on Tuesday.
Denmark’s parliament on Tuesday voted down a bill to recognise a Palestinian state, after the Danish foreign minister previously said the necessary preconditions for an independent country were lacking.
Reuters/ABC
