Shortly after midnight, strikes rang out in different sectors of the Gaza Strip, where no place is “safe”, warns the UN. The Israeli government, which announced that it wanted to launch a vast ground offensive on Rafah despite warnings from the international community, called on the 1.4 million inhabitants to leave the city located to the south of the Palestinian enclave.
Information to remember
⇒ New airstrikes on Rafah
⇒ Hamas accuses Israel of wanting to “derail” the ceasefire agreement
⇒ Israel’s 76th birthday
Israel launches new strikes on Rafah
While several Gazan localities were targeted by Israeli strikes on the night of Sunday May 12 to Monday May 13, the town in the south of the Gaza Strip, Rafah was particularly targeted. This, even though the Jewish state’s European and American allies have urged the government of Benjamin Netanyahu to abandon the idea of an offensive on the city.
A vast operation on Rafah would risk creating “chaos”, “anarchy” and “enormous damage” for the civilian population “without resolving the Hamas problem”, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned again on Sunday . And added during an interview with the NBC channel: “there will always be thousands of armed members of Hamas”, even after an operation in Rafah, especially since the armed Islamist movement has “returned to the areas ‘Israel has liberated in the north, even in Khan Yunis.’
Egypt to join forces with South Africa
Also hostile to a military operation on Rafah, Egypt announced that it wanted to join South Africa in its request to the International Court of Justice to impose new emergency measures on Israel. A decision which comes “in light of the increase in the severity and extent of Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip”, Israel’s systematic targeting of “civilians and the destruction of infrastructure” and its incitement “to the displacement of Palestinians”.
The Palestinian terrorist organization also called on all “Arab and Muslim countries and all countries across the world to take similar measures to support the Palestinian cause by joining the legal actions.
Hamas accuses Israel of wanting to “derail” the ceasefire agreement
Faced with threats from the Israeli Prime Minister to attack Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians are refugees, Hamas denounces a strategy aimed at “derailing” talks on a truce and the release of hostages held in Gaza.
As a reminder, negotiations for a ceasefire ended Thursday, May 9 without an agreement in Cairo after Israel rejected the Jewish state, believing that the truce project was “far from (its ) demands” including the release of all hostages held by Hamas since the attack on October 7.
In a statement, Hamas said it had given the green light to a truce proposal including an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza as well as an exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, with a view to a “permanent ceasefire “
76th wartime anniversary
While Tel Aviv has been waging a relentless war since October 7, part of the festivities organized each year on May 14 on the occasion of the anniversary of the proclamation of the State of Israel have been canceled.
After sounding for the first time on Sunday evening, the sirens will sound again this Monday at 11 a.m. local time (08:00 GMT), to mark the start of the annual commemorations dedicated to the soldiers who fell defending the country and the victims of attacks. They will be followed by a series of ceremonies in Israel’s military cemeteries.
“Tonight we have neither peace nor silence” in our hearts, President Isaac Herzog said during a ceremony at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Sunday. At his side, the head of the army, Herzi Halevi, declared that he bore “responsibility for the failure of our mission to protect the citizens of the State of Israel on October 7. On May 15, the Palestinians must commemorate for their part the Nakba, the “Catastrophe” that the creation of Israel was for them.