Israel launches strike on Rafah after Hamas accepts ceasefire proposal
The announcement of the ceasefire was greeted with joy in Gaza but Israel refused to pause their strikes on Rafah while they studied the agreement, ITV News Correspondent John Ray reports
Israel has launched strikes on Rafah as it labelled a ceasefire agreement accepted by Hamas as far from reaching their "essential demands."
On Monday afternoon Hamas accepted a ceasefire agreement proposed by Qatar and Egypt after weeks of negotiation.
Israel did not respond for several hours until Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the proposal was "far from Israel’s essential demands," but that it would send negotiators to continue talks on a ceasefire agreement.
The agreement outlined a phased release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza alongside the gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops from the entire enclave and ending with a “sustainable calm” or “permanent cessation of military and hostile operations.”
Israel has long said it would not withdraw its forces until Hamas had been destroyed.
Despite Hamas accepting the plan, Israel approved a military operation in Rafah after warning residents earlier in the day to leave certain areas of the southern Gazan city.
Within minutes of the ceasefire announcement being made people were cheering and singing in the streets of Gaza but not long later the joy was ended as Israel began striking Rafah.
Israel will face enormous pressure to cancel their offensive into Rafah from the US and its other allies in order to reach a ceasefire now that a deal seems so close.
Israel has argued Hamas only agreed to the ceasefire to tactically put more pressure on the Israeli military to cancel their Rafah offensive.
The Israeli government is also facing intense pressure from its own population to agree to a ceasefire, especially from the families of the hostages held by Hamas.
Thousands of Israelis rallied around the country on Monday to demand the release of the hostages, with 1,000 protesters in Tel Aviv swelling near Israel’s military headquarters.
What's in the ceasefire deal Hamas has agreed to?
The ceasefire agreement brokered by Qatar and Egypt lays out a long plan over several months to eventually bring the war in Gaza to an end.
Only Hamas has accepted it, not Israel.
The first stage would last 42 days and would involve a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and the release of about 33 hostages held in the territory, including the remaining Israeli women — both civilians and soldiers — as well as children, older adults and people who are ill.
Thirty Palestinian prisoners held in Israel would be released in exchange for each Israeli civilian hostage and 50 in exchange for each female soldier.
Palestinians displaced in Gaza would be allowed to return to their home neighbourhoods during that time.
Earlier on Monday to warn Gazans to leave Rafah, leaflets featuring maps of where refugees were advised to go were airdropped over the area by Israeli aircraft.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has said that the area demarcated for refugees to flee to is not suitable to meet the basic needs of people there.
Director of UNRWA affairs in Gaza, Scott Anderson, described the coastal, western side of Gaza as a “sandy area” with “a lot of beach".
“I know they expanded the area recently, but a lot of that's in Khan Younis which we're still trying to recover from an operation that happened there,” he told CNN.
Israel has described Rafah as the last significant Hamas stronghold after seven months of war, and its leaders have repeatedly said they need to carry out a ground invasion to defeat the Islamic militant group.
Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, an army spokesman, said some 100,000 people were being ordered to move to a nearby Israel-declared humanitarian zone called Muwasi.
He said Israel was preparing a “limited scope operation” and would not say whether this was the beginning of a broader invasion of the city.
Last October Israel did not formally announce the launch of a ground invasion that continued into the current conflict.
The move comes a day after Hamas militants carried out a deadly rocket attack from the area that killed three Israeli soldiers.
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Shoshani said Israel published a map of the evacuation area, and that orders were being issued through leaflets dropped from the sky, text messages and radio broadcasts. He said Israel has expanded humanitarian aid into Muwasi, including field hospitals, tents, food and water.
Israel's plan to invade Rafah has raised global alarm because of the potential for harm to more than a million Palestinian civilians sheltering there.
About 1.4 million Palestinians - more than half of Gaza’s population - are in the town and its surroundings.
Most of them fled their homes elsewhere in the territory to escape Israel’s attacks on Hamas and now face another move, or the danger of facing the brunt of a new assault.
The people in Gaza live in densely packed tent camps, overflowing UN shelters or crowded apartments, and are dependent on international aid for food, with sanitation systems and medical facilities infrastructure crippled.
The United States, Israel's closest ally, has repeatedly urged Israel not to carry out the invasion, saying it does not have a credible plan to protect civilians.
But even as the US, Egypt and Qatar have pushed for a ceasefire agreement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated last week that the military would move on the town “with or without a deal” to achieve its goal of destroying the Hamas militant group.
On Sunday, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant claimed Hamas wasn’t serious about a deal and warned of “a powerful operation in the very near future in Rafah."
His comments came after Hamas attacked Israel’s main crossing point for delivering assistance on Sunday, killing three soldiers.
Shoshani would not say whether the upcoming Rafah operation is a response to Sunday's killing.
He said the incident would have no effect on the amounts of badly needed aid entering Gaza because other crossing points remain operational. He wouldn't comment, however, on US warnings not to invade and wasn't clear on whether the evacuation was coordinated with Egypt.
Egypt, a strategic partner of Israel, has said that an Israeli military seizure of the Gaza-Egypt border, which is supposed to be demilitarised, or any move to push Palestinians into Egypt would threaten its four-decade-old peace agreement with Israel.
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