Warning: Undefined array key "rbname" in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 14
Hello !
Recent Appearances... Rantburg

Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Fire rains down from the sky as Israel launches missile attack on Gaza
2024-06-04
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Photographs show smoke and flames engulfing buildings in the Al Bureij Camp.

Photographs taken today show smoke and flames engulfing buildings in the Al Bureij Camp in Deir al-Balah — a city in the central Gaza strip.

Enormous explosions blasted the camp's infrastructure, as Palestinians watched on in horror as the destruction unfolded.

Some were seen running for cover after an Israeli missile hit a residential building in the camp, while thick black smoke and dust covered the area following the strike.

It comes after Israel's military confirmed the deaths of four more hostages held in Gaza since the October 7 attack on a music festival. Nadav Popplewell, 51, Yoram Metzger, 80, Amiram Cooper, 84, and Chaim Peri, 79, all died several months ago while being held by Hamas in the Khan Younis area, The Times of Israel reported today. It is understood that Israeli representatives have informed their families that they are no longer alive and that their bodies are currently being held by Hamas.

Military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a separate video address: 'We assess that the four of them were killed while together in the area of Khan Yunis during our operation there against Hamas.'

Hamas claimed in May that Popplewell died as a result of an airstrike but has yet to provide evidence of this, PBC reported.

Months earlier, the terrorist organization Al-Qassam Brigades claimed that Peri, Cooper and Metzger were among seven hostages killed in an Israeli airstrike, NBC reported.

Amiram Cooper has a son named Rotem who lives in San Diego, and as the attacks in Israel were unfolding, Rotem found out that his father and mother Nurit, 79, were abducted by Hamas. Amiram and Nurit had called Nir Oz — a kibbutz about a mile outside Gaza — their home for seven decades, ABC San Diego reported last October.

Rotem added that his parents told him they locked themselves in a bomb shelter at their home.
They told me they basically closed themselves in that room, but there is no way to lock the door,' he said.

Not long after, he couldn't get a hold of his parents, so he flew to Israel as soon as he could, arriving three days later.

Rotem found bullet holes in the door leading to his parents' bomb shelter but no blood stains, which gave him hope that they were still alive.

Amiram and Nurit were held in the same room underground along with five other residents from the kibbutz, Rotem told The Times of Israel. Nurit was released on October 23 and is still recuperating at home with her family.

Metzger, Cooper, and Peri, all near or past 80 years old, were featured in a Hamas propaganda video in December where they are heard pleading with Israel: 'Don't let us grow old here.'

Peri, a resident of Nir Oz along with Cooper and his wife Nurit, explained in the video that he was being held with other elderly hostages with chronic illnesses, and that all of them were living in very harsh conditions.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed President Biden's proposal for a permanent ceasefire, labelling it as a 'non-starter'. Mr Netanyahu wrote on X, formerly Twitter: 'Israel's conditions for ending the war have not changed: the destruction of Hamas military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel.'

'Under the proposal, Israel will continue to insist these conditions are met before a permanent ceasefire is put in place. The notion that Israel will agree to a permanent ceasefire before these conditions are fulfilled is a non-starter.'
Related:
Deir al-Balah: 2024-05-26 IDF presses ahead with Rafah offensive after World Court’s ambiguous halt order
Deir al-Balah: 2024-05-25 Israel moves to more limited Rafah assault plan, to which US will not object – report
Deir al-Balah: 2024-05-17 Soldier killed in accident on Gaza border as Gallant sends more troops to Rafah
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Israel’s army announces the deaths of four hostages in the Gaza Strip.
2024-06-04
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]

The Israeli army on Monday announced the deaths of four hostages in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
Strip, following their abduction by Hamas
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
faceless myrmidons during their attack on October 7.

"(Israeli army) representatives have informed the families of Chaim Perry, Yoram Metzger, Amiram Cooper, and Nadav Popplewell, who were brutally kidnapped to the Gaza Strip on October 7, that they are no longer alive and that their bodies are held by the Hamas terrorist organization," an army statement said.

Military front man Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a separate video address: "We assess that the four of them were killed while together in the area of Khan Younis during our operation there against Hamas."

The Israeli community of kibbutz Nirim had earlier confirmed the death of Popplewell, an Israeli-British national.

Hamas’ armed wing said in a video last month that Popplewell, held in captivity in Gaza since the October 7 attack, had died of wounds sustained in Israeli Arclight airstrike
...KABOOM!...
s.

Hamas in December released a video showing the other three alive.

Earlier Monday, the military said it had located in Nir Oz kibbutz the body of Dolev Yehud, 35, a paramedic who until now had been believed to be held hostage in Gaza but who was killed on October 7.
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Israeli bombing in Khan Younis kills 10, including three children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry
2024-06-04
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]
Related:
Khan Younis: 2024-05-31 IDF soldier killed in Gaza; Israel: 300 terrorists killed in Rafah since start of op
Khan Younis: 2024-05-27 'People burned alive' in attack on Rafah; IDF says they targetted two Hamas commanders in Hamas compound
Khan Younis: 2024-05-15 Group of displaced Palestinians move into heavily damaged school in Gaza
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Gallant vows war won’t end until Hamas is destroyed; IDF advances further in Rafah
2024-06-03
[IsraelTimes] Defense minister says Israel ‘advancing an alternative’ to terror group’s rule; troops find rocket launchers, arms near Egypt border; fighter jets hit over 30 targets across Gaza

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Sunday that Israel was working on finding a replacement for Hamas
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
’s rule in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
Strip, vowing that the war will not end until the terror group is dismantled of both its military and governmental capabilities.

"In any process of ending the war, we will not accept Hamas rule. We are advancing an alternative government to Hamas, within the framework of which we will isolate areas, remove the Hamas members and bring in other forces that will enable a different government," Gallant said following an assessment at the Southern Command in Beersheba.

"On one hand, military action, and on the other, the ability to change the regime [in Gaza], will lead to the achievement of two of the goals of this war: the dismantling of the Hamas government and its military power, and the return of the hostages," he added.

Gallant’s comments came after US President Joe The Big Guy Biden
...46th president of the U.S. The very model of probity....
on Friday presented what he described as the latest Israeli proposal for a hostage deal and ceasefire to end the war in Gaza. The US president’s address triggered shockwaves in the Israeli government, where far-right parties threatened to bring down the coalition if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to see it approved.

The war cabinet convened Sunday evening to discuss the proposal and its possible implementation, given international and domestic pressure to accept the deal aimed at securing the release of 121 hostages believed to be held by Hamas in Gaza since being kidnapped on October 7.

Despite Netanyahu’s insistence that there will be no permanent ceasefire in Gaza until Hamas’s military and governing capabilities are destroyed, the heads of the government’s two ultranationalist parties, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of Religious Zionism and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir of Otzma Yehudit, both threatened Saturday night to bring down the government if the new deal is adopted..

War cabinet minister Benny Gantz has also issued an ultimatum to Netanyahu, demanding last month that the premier commit to an agreed-upon vision for the Gaza conflict that would include stipulating who might rule the territory after Hamas’s defeat, and warning that he would bolt the coalition should this not happen by June 8.

The deliberations came as the Israel Defense Forces pushed on with its campaign to root out Hamas in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah. The IDF said on Sunday that troops had recently begun to operate in the Yabna camp in central Rafah, adjacent to the border with Egypt.

Troops of the Givati Brigade killed several terror operatives and located military infrastructure during recent operations in the area, the IDF said, adding that soldiers also located many weapons, including anti-aircraft machine guns.

Troops of the 9th Armored Battalion, operating under the Givati Brigade in the area, located several rocket launching pits on the Gaza-Egypt border.

Israeli fighter jets struck more than 30 targets across Gaza over the past day, according to an IDF update on Sunday morning. The targets included Hamas infrastructure, weapon depots and cells of button men.

Nahal Brigade troops in Rafah also directed an Arclight airstrike
...KABOOM!...
against a rocket launcher, moments after it was used to attack troops in the area. There were no injuries in the rocket attack.

The IDF published images of rocket launchers and a weapons depot discovered by Nahal Brigade troops in Rafah in recent days. The troops used a small drone to scan a suspicious building, where several barrels packed with explosives were located, according to the military.

Over the weekend, the IDF announced the names of a number of "prominent" Hamas operatives who were killed in airstrikes in the Gaza Strip in recent days.

On Thursday, fighter jets struck in central Gaza’s Nuseirat, killing Mansour Adil Mansour Kashlan, whom the IDF said was involved in advancing terror attacks in Israel and in the West Bank.

"The terrorist... advanced and carried out terror activities, as well as engaged in coordination and cooperation with terror groups in the Gaza Strip and other countries," the military said.

In another strike this past week in central Gaza, carried out by a drone, Walid Abed Abu Dalal was killed. The IDF said Abu Dalal served in the terror group’s military wing, alongside his role as head of the technology department in Hamas’s internal security forces.

The military noted that Hamas’s internal security forces, and especially its technology department, "harm the IDF’s freedom of action in the Gaza Strip, and are also a significant part of Hamas’s counter-espionage attempts."

In a separate strike, on Friday, also in Nuseirat, Tareq Darwish was killed. According to the IDF, Darwish was a prominent member of the Nuseirat Battalion’s aerial array. The military said he was killed following attempts in the past month to "impede the IDF’s freedom of aerial action" in Gaza.

The IDF released footage of the latter strike.

In another strike last week, the IDF said it killed Salame Baraka, a member of Hamas’s East Khan Younis Battalion, who also served as head of the finance department in the terror group’s police.

The military said that it also targeted a building belonging to the al-Noor organization in Gaza City last week week. According to the IDF, al-Noor is classified as a terror group, due to its funding of Hamas. The military said al-Noor transferred millions of dollars to Hamas for terror activity in the West Bank, as well as distributing funds to the families of Hamas operatives killed or tossed in the clink
Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un!
by Israel. The strike against the organization’s building in the area of Gaza City’s Daraj and Tuffah neighborhoods took place on Thursday.

Also in Gaza City, the IDF said it launched a new pinpoint raid against Hamas in the Sabra neighborhood this past week, carried out by the Multi-Domain, or Ghost Unit, alongside the Carmeli and Yiftah reserve brigades, under the 99th Division. Troops of the elite Ghost Unit, alongside other forces, killed dozens of button men and demolished a weapons depot in Sabra over the past two days, the IDF said, adding that soldiers also located weapons and many tunnel shafts during sweeps of the area.

The IDF first operated in the Sabra neighborhood during the beginning of the ground offensive last year, after Hamas started the war with its October 7 massacre.

TALKS ON REOPENING RAFAH CROSSING
Meanwhile,
...back at the palazzo, Count Guido stepped from behind the suit of armor, rapier in hand. Ciccolini snarled and reached for his own weapon...
a meeting between US, Egyptian and Israeli officials was scheduled to take place on Sunday in Cairo to discuss the reopening of Gaza’s Rafah Crossing, according to a high-level source quoted by Egypt’s state-linked Al Qahera TV.

Egypt is insisting that Israel withdraw its forces from the crossing, according to Al Qahera, after the IDF seized the Paleostinian side of the crossing in May.

In a weekly humanitarian aid summary, meanwhile, the IDF said on Sunday that 1,858 trucks carrying humanitarian aid had entered the Gaza Strip after being inspected by Israeli authorities. It said the trucks — carrying food, water, medical equipment, and shelter equipment — entered Gaza via the Kerem Shalom Crossing in the Strip’s south and the Erez West Crossing in the north of the territory. The numbers include 764 trucks from Egypt, the IDF says. Egypt had briefly halted humanitarian aid deliveries after the IDF took over the Rafah Crossing last month, before agreeing, in coordination with the United States, to resume deliveries via Kerem Shalom.

There was no mention of airdrops of aid to Gaza, where the United Nations
...where theory meets practice and practice loses...
has warned of "imminent famine" among many of the densely-populated coastal enclave’s 2.3 million population.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 35,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though only some 24,000 fatalities have been identified at hospitals. The toll, which cannot be verified, includes some 15,000 terror operatives Israel says it has killed in battle. Israel also says it killed some 1,000 Death Eaters inside Israel on October 7.

A total of 294 soldiers have been killed during the ground offensive against Hamas and amid operations along the Gaza border. A civilian Defense Ministry contractor has also been killed in the Strip.
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
IDF soldier killed in Gaza; Israel: 300 terrorists killed in Rafah since start of op
2024-05-31
[IsraelTimes] Death of Yedidya Azugi brings army’s ground op toll to 292; US says Israeli takeover of Gaza-Egypt border is in line with limited offensive it is willing to support

The Israeli military said Thursday that a soldier was killed in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
fighting, as it continued to pound the Strip and said 300 terror operatives had been killed since an incursion was launched into its southern city of Rafah.

Staff Sgt. Yedidya Azugi, 21, of the Paratrooper Brigade’s 101st Battalion, from Revava, was killed while fighting Hamas
..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,...
in the northern Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces announced, raising the army’s corpse count in Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza to 292.

The IDF said it had carried out over 50 Arclight airstrike
...KABOOM!...
s throughout Gaza over the past day, including an attack that killed two terror operatives seen leaving a building in northern Gaza where shells had been launched toward Israeli troops.

In northern Gaza, the army said troops were continuing to operate in the heart of Jabaliya, where they were finding weapons and engaging Gazook fighters attacking them.

An AFP correspondent reported artillery and gunfire in Gaza City’s southern neighborhood of Zeitoun, where witnesses said thick plumes of smoke rose over Jabaliya and Beit Lahiya.

Troops were also operating in central Gaza, where they found an arms cache, the IDF said.

In the southern city of Rafah, soldiers uncovered tunnel shafts, an ammunition depot, anti-tank missile launchers, explosives, and other unspecified arms, the IDF said Thursday.

Also in Rafah, an airstrike was called in on three terror operatives who opened fire on troops, and residents reported intense artillery shelling and gunfire.

Troops have killed around 300 terror operatives since the operation in Rafah was launched on May 6, government spokesperson David Mencer said.

The IDF also announced Thursday that a booby-trapped tunnel shaft that killed three soldiers in Rafah on Tuesday was located inside a medical clinic.

The military said that forces had come under anti-tank missile fire from an UNRWA school in Rafah, and in response launched a raid against the building and an adjacent mosque and clinic.

During searches in the area, a booby-trapped tunnel was discovered inside the clinic, which then went kaboom!, killing three soldiers of the Nahal Brigade’s 50th Battalion.

The IDF said troops also found a cache of weapons, as well as additional tunnel shafts, inside the UNRWA school complex, including within the classrooms.

Meanwhile,
...back at the game, the Babe headed for second base. He almost made it. Then Sheila slapped him....
terror groups in Gaza were showing they are still capable of attacking Israeli territory, as rocket sirens were triggered in Nirim near the Gaza border on Thursday morning.

Army Radio reported that a single projectile was launched from Khan Younis and landed in an uninhabited area.

The alarm was the first to sound in southern Israel since a Tuesday night alert in Mefalsim.

The IDF’s incursion into Rafah — believed to be Hamas’s last major stronghold — has sparked international controversy since over a million civilians had been sheltering there before it was launched. However,
alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk...
after the military announced that the Philadelphi Route along Gaza’s border with Egypt had been captured, the US said it did not object to this.

"When [Israel] briefed us on their plans for Rafah, it did include moving along that corridor and out of the city proper to put pressure on Hamas in the city," White House national security front man John Kirby told news hounds in a briefing.

Kirby declined to confirm if Israel had indeed seized all of the Philadelphi Route, saying: "It’s not our op."

However,
alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk...
he said the move was consistent with the "limited" ground operation that Israeli officials had briefed the US on ahead of time.
It looks like one faction of the Biden administration really, really does not want Jewish Americans stirred up .
Related:
Rafah: 2024-05-30 Reports: In Rafah strike, IDF used US bombs designed to reduce casualties
Rafah: 2024-05-30 Good Morning
Rafah: 2024-05-30 Israel killed 66 Palestinians in four days of attacks on Rafah 'safe zones', aid group says
Related:
Jabaliya: 2024-05-27 'People burned alive' in attack on Rafah; IDF says they targetted two Hamas commanders in Hamas compound
Jabaliya: 2024-05-27 Hamas says it captured Israeli soldiers in Gaza; Israel denies, says ongoing fighting in Jabaliya ‘high intensity’
Jabaliya: 2024-05-26 IDF presses ahead with Rafah offensive after World Court’s ambiguous halt order
Related:
Zeitoun: 2024-05-17 Soldier killed in accident on Gaza border as Gallant sends more troops to Rafah
Zeitoun: 2024-05-15 Israel's war on Gaza in numbers; IDF says they killed 300+ Hamas gunnies in Rafah and Gaza City
Zeitoun: 2024-05-14 5 troops seriously hurt in Gaza; Palestinian man said killed as UN car hit in Rafah
Related:
Beit Lahiya: 2024-05-12 Egypt refusing to coordinate with Israel on entry of aid in Rafah ‐ state media
Beit Lahiya: 2024-05-10 Israel expands military aggression in Rafah
Beit Lahiya: 2024-04-24 Israel military strikes northern Gaza in heaviest shelling in weeks, central Gaza ditto
Related:
UNRWA: 2024-05-30 UNRWA: What's Sauce for the Goose....
UNRWA: 2024-05-28 Canada pledges temporary visas for 5,000 Gaza residents related to citizens
UNRWA: 2024-05-27 'People burned alive' in attack on Rafah; IDF says they targetted two Hamas commanders in Hamas compound
Related:
Khan Younis: 2024-05-27 'People burned alive' in attack on Rafah; IDF says they targetted two Hamas commanders in Hamas compound
Khan Younis: 2024-05-15 Group of displaced Palestinians move into heavily damaged school in Gaza
Khan Younis: 2024-05-13 Israel 'unsure' if Hamas leader Sinwar is in Rafah
Related:
Philadelphi Route: 2024-05-30 Israeli PM's NSA says fighting in Gaza to continue throughout 2024
Philadelphi Route: 2024-03-31 With truce talks stuck, Israel said planning Rafah incursion in April or May
Philadelphi Route: 2024-01-13 Egypt establishes new security measures along ‘Philadelphi Route’ to reduce Israeli pressure for control
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
'People burned alive' in attack on Rafah; IDF says they targetted two Hamas commanders in Hamas compound
2024-05-27
[Al Jazeera] Israeli forces have bombed a tent camp housing displaced people in a designed safe zone in Rafah, killing at least 35 Paleostinians, according to officials. Many of the victims were women and kiddies.

The attack on the Tal as-Sultan area came as Israeli forces also bombed shelters housing displaced Paleostinians in areas including Jabalia, Nuseirat and Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
City in the past 24 hours, killing at least 160 others, according to the Palestinian officials.

IDF killed 2 Hamas commanders behind West Bank terror attacks

[IsraelTimes] Israeli Arclight airstrike
...KABOOM!...
s near Rafah in the southern Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
Strip on Sunday night drew outraged reactions from Paleostinians. Meanwhile,
...back at the precinct house, Don Calamari's lawyer was getting even redder in the face...
the Israel Defense Forces said it had targeted a Hamas
..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,...
compound and eliminated two commanders in the terror group’s ranks.

The IDF said it had struck a Hamas compound in the Tel Sultan area of northwestern Rafah where bigwigs in the terror group were gathered, adding in a statement that "the attack was carried out against murderous Moslems who are a target for attack, in accordance with international law, using precision munitions, and based on intelligence indicating the use of the area by Hamas terrorists."

The military said it was aware of reports that the strike and a fire that spread into a camp for displaced Paleostinians had caused casualties among civilians, adding that the incident was under further investigation.

In a later statement, the military said the strike had killed Yassin Rabia, the commander of Hamas’s so-called West Bank headquarters — a Hamas unit charged with advancing attacks against Israel from or in the West Bank — as well as Khaled Najjar, another senior member of the unit.

Rabia, according to the IDF, "managed all of the military arrays of the West Bank headquarters... was involved in the transfer of funds for terror purposes and directed attacks by Hamas operatives" in the West Bank. The IDF also said that Rabia had committed several deadly attacks himself, in 2001 and 2002, killing Israeli soldiers.

Najjar was involved in directing shooting attacks and other terror activities in the West Bank, and was also involved in funneling funds to Hamas operatives, the military said. Najjar also carried out several attacks between 2001 and 2003, according to the IDF, killing civilians and killing and wounding soldiers.

Officials from Hamas and the Paleostinian Authority reacted with fury to the strike, casting it as a deliberate attack on displaced, defenseless civilians.

"In light of the horrific Zionist massacre this evening committed by the criminal occupation army against the tents of the displaced... we call on the masses of our people in the West Bank, Jerusalem, the occupied territories and abroad to rise up and march angrily against the ongoing Zionist massacre against our people in the sector," Hamas said in a statement.

US President Joe The Big Guy Biden
...46th president of the U.S. Sleazy Dem machine politician, paterfamilias of the Biden Crime Family...
’s administration said it was following the situation.

"We’re aware of the reports about the incident in Rafah and are gathering more information," a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council told The Times of Israel.

The strike came hours after Hamas fired a barrage of eight long-range projectiles at central Israel, in the first such attack in four months. The IDF said later Sunday that it had destroyed the rocket launcher used in the attack.

The military also announced the deaths of two soldiers during fighting in Gaza on Sunday, as it continued major military operations in the northern Strip’s Jabaliya as well as in Rafah. This brought the corpse count of the ground offensive against Hamas and operations along the border to 288. A civilian Defense Ministry contractor has also been killed in the Strip.

Israeli tanks have probed around the edges of Rafah, near the crossing point from Gaza into Egypt, and have entered some of its eastern districts, residents say, but have not yet entered the city in force since the start of operations in the city earlier this month.
Related:
Tal as-Sultan: 2024-02-11 Israel carries out fresh air raids in Rafah, Khan Younis
Related:
Jabalia: 2024-05-25 Under a rug in Gazan home, IDF troops found shaft leading to bodies of 4 hostages
Jabalia: 2024-05-24 Israel launches deadly Gaza strikes, says ready for new truce talks
Jabalia: 2024-05-21 Israeli strikes kill 18 Palestinians in Gaza plus 26 of one N. Gaza family
Related:
Nuseirat: 2024-05-25 Israel moves to more limited Rafah assault plan, to which US will not object – report
Nuseirat: 2024-05-20 IDF discovers weapons in UNRWA facility, kills Hamas terrorists
Nuseirat: 2024-05-20 Gaza officials say death toll from Israeli strike on Nuseirat rises to 31


Related:
Tel Sultan: 2024-04-13 IDF announces first aid convoy entered northern Gaza through new land crossing
Tel Sultan: 2011-06-01 Call Mutual of Gaza: Work Accident in Gaza Training Camp
Tel Sultan: 2011-06-01 3 killed in blast at Gaza training camp
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Group of displaced Palestinians move into heavily damaged school in Gaza
2024-05-15
[AFRICANEWS] A group of displaced Paleostinians have moved into a school run by a U.N. agency that was heavily damaged during the ongoing Israel-Hamas
..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,...
war and fixed some of the classrooms where they now live.

The school in the southern city of Khan Younis used to be run by the U.N. agency for Paleostinian refugees known as UNRWA was damaged by Israel's bombardment of the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
Strip.

The families, who were displaced from the southern city of Rafah along the border with Egypt cleaned some of the class rooms, removed debris and fixed some of the damage then settled in.

UNRWA said 360,000 Paleostinians have fled the city of Rafah over the past week, out of 1.3 million who were sheltering there before the operation began.

Most had already fled fighting elsewhere during the seven-month war between Israel and Hamas.

Israel has portrayed Rafah as the last stronghold of the Death Eater group, brushing off warnings from the United States and other allies that any major operation there would be catastrophic for civilians.

Hamas has meanwhile regrouped and is battling Israeli forces in parts of Gaza that Israel bombarded and invaded earlier in the war.

Since Israeli troops captured a border crossing with Egypt in Rafah, the flow of aid form there has stopped.

Fighting in Rafah city has made it impossible for aid groups to access the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel, though Israel says it is allowing supply trucks to enter from its side.

For the past week, the Israeli military has intensified bombardment and other operations in Rafah while ordering the population to evacuate from parts of the city.
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Israel 'unsure' if Hamas leader Sinwar is in Rafah
2024-05-13
[NEWARAB] Israel is unsure of the exact whereabouts of Hamas
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
big turban Yahya Sinwar in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
despite claiming otherwise, according to a report on Saturday.

Sinwar has been top of Israel's hit list and the military has said that its Rafah incursion was aiming to target Sinwar and other key players in Hamas's leadership, who have so far largely dodged Israeli attacks.

Israeli officials told The Times of Israel that they do not know Sinwar's exact current location but believe the leader could be in underground tunnels in the southern Khan Younis area.

The leader of Hamas in Gaza is said to have orchestrated the surprise October 7 attack into southern Israel, which killed 1,139 Israelis and saw the group take around 250 people captive.

The attack prompted Israel's brutal invasion of Gaza, now in its eighth month, which has killed over 35,000 Paleostinians, decimated the enclave and triggered a major humanitarian crisis.

The Israeli government has said that targeting Hamas’s leader is one of its key objectives in the war but has so far failed to make many significant hits.

The army has made claims that it is confident in the whereabouts of the Paleostinian group's leadership and has used it to justify repeated attacks on dense civilian areas.
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Sinwar not hiding in Rafah, officials tell ToI, as PM publicly prioritizes IDF op there
2024-05-11
[IsraelTimes] Officials say recent intel placed the Hamas leader in underground tunnels around Khan Younis, as the accused October 7 mastermind continues to elude Israeli forces in Gaza

Hamas

leader Yahya Sinwar is not hiding in Rafah, two officials familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel on Friday, as the Israel Defense Forces moves to expand its operations in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
’s southernmost city.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has elevated a potential IDF operation in Rafah to the top of his public agenda, with the targeting of Hamas’s leadership believed to still be a major Israeli war aim as well.

The IDF has had some success on this front, killing Hamas military wing deputy commander Marwan Issa — considered the terror group’s No. 3 leader in Gaza — along with other senior commanders in recent months. But Sinwar and his deputy — military wing chief Mohammed Deif — have remained elusive, despite repeated claims by Israeli officials that the IDF was closing in on them.

The two officials speaking to The Times of Israel were unable to say with certainty where Sinwar is currently located, but they cited recent intelligence assessments that placed the Hamas leader in underground tunnels in the Khan Younis area, some five miles north of Rafah.

A third official — an Israeli one — asserted that Sinwar is still in Gaza.

Israel has made eliminating Sinwar a key element of its goal to destroy Hamas. In February, the IDF released footage of what it said was Sinwar walking through a tunnel with several family members, the first time he was apparently spotted since going into hiding before the devastating October 7 onslaught he’s accused of orchestrating, triggering the ongoing war in Gaza.

IDF ground forces began operating in Rafah on Monday, launching a targeted operation in the eastern part of the city aimed at taking over the Gaza side of the border crossing with Egypt. The security cabinet voted Thursday to approve a measured expansion of the Rafah operation in what is aimed at remaining within the scope of what Washington is willing to accept.

US President Joe The Big Guy Biden
...46th president of the U.S. ’This Is A Man ThatDoes Not Seem Demented’...
said he would stop sending certain offensive weapons to the IDF if Israel went forward with a major ground offensive in the population centers of the city where over one million Paleostinians are sheltering. He already withheld a shipment of high payload bombs last week amid fears they’d be used in Rafah.

Netanyahu has pledged to launch a major offensive in Rafah for months, arguing that the operation is essential for defeating Hamas, which has four of its remaining six active battalions located in the city.

But one of the officials speaking to The Times of Israel said many Hamas fighters in Rafah have fled northward as Israeli threats of an invasion intensified in recent weeks.

While Israel says 18 of Hamas’s 24 battalions have been dismantled, the terror group’s fighters have managed to regroup and return to areas previously cleared by the IDF.

The IDF was operating in the Gaza City neighborhood of Zeitoun this week for the third time since the war’s outbreak, with security officials warning that the IDF would be forced to continue playing this game of cat and mouse with Hamas until the Israeli government advances a viable alternative to Hamas rule.

While much of the security establishment would like to see the Paleostinian Authority — or at least Paleostinians linked to the PA — fill the vacuums that the IDF is briefly creating through its operations throughout the Strip, Netanyahu has rejected the idea outright, as his far-right allies have pushed for Israel to permanently occupy the Strip and re-establish settlements there.

Absent a diplomatic strategy to compliment the military operations, many of the IDF’s achievements on the ground have been short-lived, the Israeli official told The Times of Israel.
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Main maternity hospital in Rafah stops admitting patients, tens of thousands flee city ahead of IDF
2024-05-09
[GEO.TV] The main maternity hospital in the Gazoo
Islamic Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response. In October of 2023 Gazooks belonging to Hamas invaded Israel, killed over a thousand people, raped a bunch of women. Then they bitched and moaned about genocide when their butts handed to them in the entirely justified retaliation.
Strip's crowded southern city of Rafah has stopped admitting patients, the United Nations
...a formerly good idea gone bad...
Population Fund (UNFPA) said on Wednesday.

The UNFPA told Rooters that the hospital, Al Helal Al Emirati Maternity Hospital, had been handling some 85 out of a daily total of 180 births in Gaza prior to an escalation of fighting between Hamas
...the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
and Israeli troops on Rafah's outskirts.

Around half of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been crowded into Rafah after fleeing other parts of the enclave during seven months of war.

The view from Israel via the Times of Israel:
Tens of thousands flee Rafah, leaving parts of city looking like ‘ghost town’
[IsraelTimes] As battles raged on the outskirts of Rafah on Wednesday with Israeli forces closing in, Paleostinians were on the move again, abandoning neighborhoods of the southern Gazoo
Islamic Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response. In October of 2023 Gazooks belonging to Hamas invaded Israel, killed over a thousand people, raped a bunch of women. Then they bitched and moaned about genocide when their butts handed to them in the entirely justified retaliation.
city and leaving them as ghost towns.

Israel has threatened a major assault on Rafah to defeat four of Hamas
...a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
’s six remaining battalions holed up there, but more than a million people are sheltering in the city, prompting warnings from the United Nations
...a formerly good idea gone bad...
of a humanitarian catastrophe.

Israeli forces tasked with destroying the terror group, on Tuesday seized the main border crossing between Gaza and Egypt in Rafah, cutting off a vital route for aid into the enclave, where malnutrition is widespread.

Israel is continuing to bring in aid through several crossings, while the US has completed the construction of a pier that will allow large amounts of aid to be transferred into the Strip.

Israel’s military said it was conducting a limited operation in Rafah to kill snuffies and dismantle infrastructure used by Hamas, which runs Gaza. It told civilians to go to an "expanded humanitarian zone" near Khan Younis, north of Rafah.

Three residents of Rafah told Rooters by phone that tens of thousands of people have fled the city, which was seen as the last refuge for Paleostinians who have been displaced many times over as Israeli Arclight airstrike
...KABOOM!...
s pulverized Gaza.

People in the Jneina, al-Shawka, al-Salam and other neighborhoods were ordered by the Israeli army to leave in anticipation of an assault. Some 1.4 million people have been sheltering in Rafah, raising the prospect of major casualties.

"Some streets look like a ghost town now," said Aref, 35, who asked not to be named.

"We don’t fear death and martyrdom but we have kids to care for and live for another day when this war ends and we rebuild the city," he told Rooters via a chat app.

The war erupted on October 7 when Hamas snuffies rampaged through southern communities, murdering 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 253 hostages back to the enclave.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 34,000 people in the Strip have been killed in the fighting so far, a figure that cannot be independently verified and includes some 13,000 Hamas button men Israel says it has killed in battle. Israel also says it killed some 1,000 snuffies inside Israel on October 7. Almost 270 IDF soldiers have been killed in the IDF’s Gaza offensive.

WARNINGS TO LEAVE
Many Rafah residents said they received warnings over their phones, and planes dropped leaflets.
"We've been trying to reach you over your car's extended warranty. Leave now."
Juliette Touma, director of communications of the UN Paleostinian refugee agency UNRWA, estimated that around 10,000 Paleostinians had left Rafah since Monday.

The Hamas-run Gaza government media office put the number of people fleeing at tens of thousands and warned against a "massacre."

Residents said tanks, which had moved in to take control of the Rafah border crossing, had not entered built-up areas of the city and shootouts were still outside the city limits.

Suleiman Abu Kweik and his family are being displaced for the fourth time.

"Our homes have been destroyed. In Gaza [City] our house... they destroyed it. It was shelled. We went to Khan Younis. When they threatened Khan Younis, we went to Rafah," he said.

Hamas said its operatives were battling Israeli forces in the east of Rafah. Lines of smoke from airstrikes and tank shelling rose from places east of the city, residents said.
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Red Crescent shows destruction at Al-Amal hospital, surroundings after Israeli attacks
2024-05-05
[GEO.TV] The Paleostine Red Islamic Thingy Society said that Khan Younis-based al-Amal hospital continued to operate partially and in a limited capacity despite the scale of destruction and limited resources in Gazoo
Islamic Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response. In October of 2023 Gazooks belonging to Hamas invaded Israel, killed over a thousand people, raped a bunch of women. Then they bitched and moaned about genocide when their butts handed to them in the entirely justified retaliation.
, Al Jazeera reported.

The medical group posted video of damage caused to the Khan Younis-based hospital and its surrounding areas, showing destroyed buildings and rubble everywhere after Israeli attacks.
Related:
Al-Amal hospital: 2024-03-29 Troops raiding Gaza’s Shifa hospital kill senior Hamas commander, says IDF
Al-Amal hospital: 2024-02-28 Al-Amal Hospital attacked 40 times in one month: WHO chief
Al-Amal hospital: 2024-01-30 Israeli forces claim killing dozens of Gaza gunmen near hospital
Related:
Khan Younis: 2024-05-03 'Booby-trapped food' deprives boy of limbs
Khan Younis: 2024-04-24 Israel-Hamas war: Humanitarian aid parachuted into northern Gaza
Khan Younis: 2024-04-23 Israel builds tent city and prepares to evacuate million Palestinians
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
'Booby-trapped food' deprives boy of limbs
2024-05-03
[GEO.TV] In what can be called war crimes, a Paleostinian boy lost his limbs while opening "booby-trapped food" in man-made famine-hit Khan Younis.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, "A 14-year-old boy was maimed and sustained limb amputations after opening a booby-trapped can of food found while looking for his belongings in his house that had been shelled by Israeli forces in Khan Younis."

The boy, who was maimed in the blast on Monday, is just one of "many people recently injured" from aid supplies rigged with hidden explosive charges, the UN body added.
Related:
Khan Younis: 2024-04-24 Israel-Hamas war: Humanitarian aid parachuted into northern Gaza
Khan Younis: 2024-04-23 Israel builds tent city and prepares to evacuate million Palestinians
Khan Younis: 2024-04-21 Cost of sack of flour in Gaza down from NIS 1,800 at peak of war to NIS 95 ‐ reports
Related:
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs: 2024-04-30 Fuel shortages force UN to halt South Sudan food delivery
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs: 2024-02-13 Upping the ante: Settlers reportedly shoot two Palestinians, torch cars in latest West Bank attacks
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs: 2024-02-10 US proposals to fund other agencies instead of UNRWA not viable — senior aid official
Link



Warning: Undefined property: stdClass::$T in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 132
-12 More