Israel pounds Rafah before ‘offensive’

Israel stepped up airstrikes on Rafah after saying it would evacuate civilians from the southern Gazan city and launch an all-out assault despite allies' warnings this could cause mass casualties.

Medics in the besieged Palestinian enclave reported five Israeli airstrikes on Rafah early yesterday that hit at least three houses, killing at least six people including a local journalist.

In the seventh month of a devastating air and ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces also resumed bombarding northern and central areas of the enclave, as well as east of Khan Younis in the south.

• Hamas willing to agree to a truce of 5 years or more with Israel: report
• Internet services cut off in central, southern Gaza
• Death toll in enclave rises to 34,305
   

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war cabinet was holding meetings "to discuss how to destroy the last vestiges, the last quarter of Hamas' battalions, in Rafah and elsewhere," government spokesperson David Mencer said.

He declined to say when or whether the classified forum might give a green light for a ground operation in Rafah.

Escalating Israeli threats to invade Rafah, the last refuge for around a million civilians who fled Israel's juggernaut further north earlier in the offensive, have nudged some families to leave for the nearby al-Mawasi coastal area or try to make their way to points further north, residents and witnesses said.

But the number of displaced people departing Rafah remained small with many confused over where they should go, saying their experience over the past 200 days of offensive had taught them that no place was genuinely safe.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said yesterday that at least 34,305 people have been killed in the territory during more than six months of offensive. The tally includes at least 43 deaths in the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said.

A Palestinian civil defence team called on the United Nations to investigate what it said were war crimes at a Gaza hospital, saying nearly 400 bodies were recovered from mass graves after Israeli soldiers departed the complex in Khan Younis.

Meanwhile, a top Hamas political official told The Associated Press that the Palestinian group is willing to agree to a truce of five years or more with Israel.

In the north, Israeli forces continued to pound Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun, Jabalia and Zeitoun, with some residents saying Hamas and Islamic Jihad members were fighting Israeli ground forces with anti-tank rockets, mortar bombs and sniper fire.

The Palestine Telecommunications Company said Internet services had again been cut off in central and southern Gaza yesterday, blaming Israeli military operations.

Such outages have compounded the obstacles confronting efforts to get emergency aid to stricken civilians and provide medical care at the few centres not yet shattered by fighting.