Israel sends troops into Rafah

Israel sent ground troops into Rafah on Monday night, seizing the main border crossing between Gaza and Egypt as international mediators struggled to continue talks aimed at ending the conflict.

The Israeli military said it had taken “operational control” of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, at Gaza’s southernmost point, with armour and infantry backed by heavy air strikes.

“This is a precise and limited operation . . . within specific areas of eastern Rafah,” said an Israeli military official.

Despite the Israeli advance, the White House said it was still attempting to broker a deal between Israel and Hamas that would pause the fighting in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages.

The Israeli incursion came just hours after Hamas announced it had accepted a multiphase ceasefire-for-hostage deal brokered by Egypt, Qatar and the US. John Kirby, spokesperson for the National Security Council, said the US believed a deal could still be reached.

“A close assessment of the two sides’ positions suggests that they should be able to close the remaining gaps and we’re going to do everything we can to support that process and achieve that outcome,” Kirby said.

The proposal backed by Hamas would have brought an initial six-week pause in the fighting in return for the release of several dozen Israeli hostages held by the militant group.

On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his previous rejection of the proposal accepted by Hamas, saying it fell “very far from Israel’s necessary requirements” and was “intended to torpedo the entry of our forces into Rafah”.

However, he said Israeli mediators would still travel to Cairo for further talks, and would “continue to stand firm on the conditions necessary for the release of our hostages”.

The US has warned Israel against an all-out Rafah offensive due to fears of further civilian casualties and the impact on the negotiations. But Kirby said Washington was told by Israeli officials that Tuesday’s advance was “limited, and designed to cut off Hamas’s ability to smuggle weapons and funds into Gaza”, rather than a full-blown assault. 

“We don’t want to see any operation conducted in Rafah that doesn’t properly account for the safety and security of the people that are there, big or small,” Kirby said. “We’re going to be watching this one very, very closely.”

President Joe Biden has dispatched CIA director Bill Burns to the Middle East, to participate in the hostage negotiations in recent days. Biden remains concerned that a Rafah assault could spark a broader conflict in the region, and is now facing political pressure at home, where growing protests on college campuses have targeted his handling of the war. 

Netanyahu had said in recent days that an offensive into Rafah, home to more than 1mn displaced Palestinians, would take place with or without a deal to free Israeli hostages, who were seized by Hamas during its attack on southern Israel on October 7, which triggered the war.

The Israeli military throughout Monday called on civilians sheltering in Rafah’s eastern environs to evacuate the area.

Aid agencies on Tuesday expressed alarm about the effect that Israel’s seizure of the Rafah crossing, which has for now halted aid deliveries, would have on humanitarian provision to Gaza. The enclave has for months been suffering acute shortages of basic necessities, including food.

Netanyahu said on Tuesday that taking control of the Rafah crossing was “an important step on the way to destroying Hamas’s remaining military capabilities”.

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The other main crossing into the strip, Kerem Shalom, has also been temporarily closed after a fatal Hamas attack on Israeli soldiers near the border at the weekend. Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN humanitarian office, said preventing the entry of fuel for a significant period would put “the humanitarian operation in its grave”.

The details of what Hamas had agreed to in the hostage release proposal were not immediately clear, but a diplomat briefed on the talks said the proposal Hamas had accepted was broadly similar to the one put forward by international mediators about two weeks ago.

That proposal included calls for the initial six-week pause in the war during which Hamas would release 33 hostages, including women, children, the elderly and wounded.

This would be followed by what mediators hoped would be an extended ceasefire, during which the remaining hostages would be freed. Israel would release Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, allow Gazans to return to their homes in the enclave’s north and enable a surge of humanitarian aid.

Benny Gantz, a centrist minister in the Israeli war cabinet, said Hamas’s response “does not correspond to the dialogue that has taken place so far with the mediators and has significant gaps”.

“Despite this, we continue to turn over every stone and a delegation will go to Cairo”, where negotiations will continue, Gantz said. Kirby said the White House believed differences could be overcome: “Where we see the text right now, there should be no reason why they can’t overcome those remaining gaps.”

Israeli officials say Hamas is holding 132 hostages and believe 37 of them are dead.

Mediators have for months been facilitating indirect talks between Israel and Hamas for a second round of hostage-for-prisoner swaps, following one in November. The talks had been stalled as Hamas demanded that any agreement end with a permanent ceasefire and the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

Reporting by Mehul Srivastava and Neri Zilber in Tel Aviv, Andrew England in London, Raya Jalabi in Beirut, Mai Khaled and Heba Saleh in Cairo and Felicia Schwartz and James Politi in Washington