Waiting for the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, Netanyahu: “With or without, we attack Rafah”

ROME – The response from Hamas on the ceasefire agreement proposed by the Israeli government could arrive on Wednesday: this was reported by several international media including Al Jazeera. Despite this, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that, with or without an agreement, “we will enter Rafah and eliminate the Hamas battalions, to achieve total victory”. […]

ROME – The response from Hamas on the ceasefire agreement proposed by the Israeli government could arrive on Wednesday: this was reported by several international media including Al Jazeera. Despite this, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that, with or without an agreement, “we will enter Rafah and eliminate the Hamas battalions, to achieve total victory”. Previously, army sources had linked the success of the agreement to the possible suspension of the operation on Rafah, the last city in the south of the Strip which is home to 1.5 million Palestinians, mainly displaced by the fighting .

Hamas in recent days has shown itself reluctant to accept the text proposed by Israel to regain its citizens held hostage since 7 October, as according to the leaders of the armed group Tel Aviv would not be willing to carry out either the ceasefire, nor to withdraw troops from the Strip.
In the absence of a response, as a “person close to the executive” reported to the Reuters agency, Tel Aviv decided to postpone the mission to Cairo of the Israeli delegation to take part in the talks, scheduled for this morning, and to be willing to reschedule it “in the next few days”.

“In Gaza the population is experiencing extraordinarily deep anxiety,” said Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), regarding the prospect of an imminent military operation on Rafah. Then he clarified: “The population has not yet been asked to leave Rafah, but there is the feeling that, if there is no ceasefire agreement by this week, it could happen at any moment”. The number of victims on the Strip is about to reach 34,500. To make the budget grow, new bodies extracted in recent days from mass graves and from the rubble of residential buildings destroyed by bombing.