RAFAH: Israeli forces hammered Rafah in southern Gaza with tanks and artillery Saturday, hours after US President Joe Biden said Israel was offering a new roadmap towards a full ceasefire.
Shortly after Biden's announcement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted his country would still pursue the war until it had reached all its aims.
He reiterated that position on Saturday, saying that "Israel's conditions for ending the war have not changed: the destruction of Palestinian groups military and capabilities, the freeing of all captives and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel". Palestinian movement Hamas, meanwhile, said it "views positively" the Israeli plan laid out by Biden.
In his first major address outlining a possible end to the nearly eight-month war, the US president said Israel's three-stage offer would begin with a six-week phase that would see Israeli forces withdraw from all populated areas of Gaza.
It would also see the "release of a number of captives... in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners".
Israel and the Palestinians would then negotiate for a lasting ceasefire -- but the truce would continue so long as talks are ongoing, Biden said. "It's time for this war to end, for the day after to begin," he said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called his counterparts from Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye on Friday to press the deal.
UN chief Antonio Guterres "strongly hopes" the latest development "will lead to an agreement by the parties for lasting peace", his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
But Netanyahu took issue with Biden's presentation of what was on the table, insisting the transition from one stage to the next was "conditional" and crafted to allow Israel to maintain its war aims.
Israel sent tanks and troops into Rafah in early May, ignoring concerns over the safety of displaced Palestinian civilians sheltering in the city on the Egyptian border.
On Saturday, residents reported tank fire in the Tal al-Sultan neighbourhood in west Rafah, while witnesses in the east and centre of Rafah described intense shelling.
There was also shelling and gunfire from the Israeli army in Gaza City, in the north of the territory, a reporter said.
Before the Rafah offensive began, the United Nations said up to 1.4 million people were sheltering in the city.
Since then, one million have fled the area, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has said.
The Israeli seizure of the Rafah crossing has further slowed sporadic deliveries of aid for Gaza's 2.4 million people and effectively shuttered the territory's main exit point. — AFP
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