Rafah, a town in the Gaza Strip on the border with Egypt, was the target of a series of Israeli strikes during the night from Sunday to Monday February 12. “Victory is within reach. We are going to do it. We are going to take the last terrorist battalions of Hamas and Rafah, which is the last bastion,” Benjamin Netanyahu declared on ABC News earlier on Sunday.
Israel announced Monday that it had released two hostages in Rafah, where the ruling Hamas reported 100 Palestinians killed during this nighttime operation. Rafah has become the last refuge for Palestinians stuck on the closed border with Egypt, numbering 1.4 million according to the UN, the vast majority displaced having fled the war which has been raging for four months.
Information to remember
⇒ Two Israeli hostages were released last night in the south of the Gaza Strip
⇒ 100 dead in a series of strikes in southern Gaza, in Rafah
⇒ Attackers killed in Jerusalem and the West Bank
Two hostages released in Rafah
Israeli security services announced that they had freed two hostages kidnapped on October 7 by Hamas fighters during an operation overnight from Sunday to Monday in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip.
“Fernando Simon Marman, 60 years old, and Louis Har, 70 years old, were recovered during a nighttime operation in Rafah carried out jointly by the Shin Beth army (Internal Security) and the Israeli police,” according to a press release from these services. This announcement follows a series of Israeli strikes in Rafah which left more than 100 dead according to Hamas, in power in Gaza.
At least 100 dead in Israeli strikes in Rafah, says Hamas
A series of Israeli air strikes on the night of Sunday to Monday in Rafah, a town in the Gaza Strip on the border with Egypt, left 100 dead, according to a new report from the Health Ministry of Hamas, in power in Gaza. An assessment that no independent source is able to verify. These strikes hit 14 houses and three mosques in different areas of Rafah, according to the Hamas government. The Israeli army said in a statement that it had “carried out a series of raids against terrorist targets in the south of the Gaza Strip”, adding that they had been completed.
Earlier in the day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu affirmed that the Israeli army would provide “safe passage” before the planned assault on the town of Rafah, in the Gaza Strip, during a television interview American broadcast on Sunday.
Biden asks Netanyahu for a “plan” to “guarantee the security” of the population in Rafah
In a phone call, US President Joe Biden “reaffirmed his view that a military operation in Rafah should not take place without a credible and feasible plan to ensure security […] of more than a million people taking refuge there,” the US executive reported in a statement. A senior government official added that “under current conditions”, Washington “could not support a military operation in Rafah due to population density.
Gaza offensive would ‘torpedo’ Israeli hostage deal, Hamas warns
Hamas warned on Sunday that an Israeli offensive against Rafah, the city where hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians are sheltering, would dash hopes of the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip. Hamas’ military wing also said on Sunday that two hostages had died and eight others had been seriously injured in bombings over the past four days.
Around 250 people were kidnapped in Israel on October 7 and taken to Gaza. A week-long truce in November allowed the release of 105 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. According to Israel, 132 hostages are still being held in Gaza, of whom 29 are believed to have died.
Knife attacks in Jerusalem and West Bank, attackers killed
Two stabbing attacks against the Israeli police and army took place on Sunday evening in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, during which the attackers were killed without causing any casualties among the police, the police and the army. Shortly after 9 p.m. in East Jerusalem’s Old City, a man arrived near a police checkpoint, approached officers and “suddenly pulled out a knife and tried to stab them,” a spokesperson said. of the Israeli police in a message to the press.
Around the same time in Hussan, a village in the occupied West Bank located 10 kilometers from Jerusalem, another attacker “attempted to stab a soldier” Israeli deployed at a roadblock and was “neutralized” by the soldiers, said the army in a message to the press.