Star Metro - Israeli artillery hits Rafah after truce talks end

AFP journalists witnessed artillery strikes on Rafah, after US President Joe Biden vowed in an interview to cut off artillery shells and other weapons for Israel if a full-scale offensive into the southern Gaza city goes ahead.

It was the first time Biden raised the ultimate US leverage over Israel, military aid totalling $3 billion a year, after repeated appeals for Israel to stay out of Rafah.

Despite widespread international opposition, Israeli troops on Tuesday entered Rafah's eastern sector, saying they were pursuing militants.

The Gaza war began with Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,904 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

- Displaced again -

Israeli troops this week seized and closed the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza -- through which all fuel passes into the territory -- after ordering residents of eastern Rafah to evacuate.

Israel said its southern crossing with the Palestinian territory -- Kerem Shalom -- was reopened on Wednesday.

On Friday it said air defences intercepted a launch of munitions "from the Rafah area".

Most aid enters Gaza through Kerem Shalom but Andrea De Domenico, who heads the UN humanitarian office, OCHA, in the occupied Palestinian territories, said the entry of assistance through Kerem Shalom remains tricky.

"We lost the main entry point for all humanitarian aid," he told AFP.

On Friday the United Nations said more than 100,000 people have fled Rafah.

The city on the Egyptian border had been sheltering 1.4 million people, the UN said, after Israel early in the war told Palestinians to move to "safe zones" in Gaza's south –- including Rafah.

With mattresses and other possessions piled high atop junky cars or even donkey carts, they are on the move again, kicking up dust past bombed-out buildings.

Many have returned to the city of Khan Yunis, where intense fighting raged earlier this year, or are crowded into shelters along the seashore in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.

Israel's military on Friday said operations continued in eastern Rafah.

"On the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing, the troops eliminated several terror cells during close-quarters combat and with an aerial strike," a statement said.

Witnesses reported air strikes and fighting in Gaza City, further north.

- 'Alive and kicking' -

Israeli and Hamas negotiating teams left Cairo on Thursday after what Egypt called a "two-day round" of indirect negotiations on terms of a Gaza truce, according to Al-Qahera News, which is linked to Egyptian intelligence services.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a phone call, agreed on the importance of "urging the parties to show flexibility" and make "all the necessary efforts" to reach a ceasefire, an Egyptian foreign ministry statement said.

Hamas said its delegation had left for Qatar, home to the group's political leadership.

"In practice, the occupation (Israel) rejected the proposal submitted by the mediators and raised objections to it on several central issues," Hamas said, adding it stood by the proposal.

"Accordingly, the ball is now completely in the hands of the occupation."

Hamas has said a mediators' proposal it agreed to involved withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, the return of Palestinians displaced by the war, and the exchange of hostages held by militants for Palestinian prisoners detained in Israel, with the aim of a "permanent ceasefire".

Israel has long resisted the idea of a permanent ceasefire, insisting it must finish dismantling Hamas.

However, an analysis by Lazar Berman in The Times of Israel on Friday said, "Hamas is still very much alive and kicking."

Berman wrote that "the military effort to crush Hamas as a coherent fighting force is unfinished, and it remains unclear that it ever will be completed."

In the CNN interview in which he threatened to stop some weapons supplies if Israeli forces "go into Rafah", Biden deplored that American bombs had already been used to kill civilians in Gaza.

His administration paused delivery last week of 3,500 bombs as Israel appeared ready to attack Rafah.

When asked about Israel's action already in Rafah, Biden said "they haven't gone in the population centres".

- Arson -

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not respond directly to the US threat but said "we will stand alone" if necessary.

In comments delivered on the eve of Israel's Independence Day, he said: "We will fight with our fingernails. But we have much more than fingernails and with that same strength of spirit, with God's help, together we will win."

During their October attack militants seized hostages, of whom Israel estimates 128 remain in Gaza, including 36 who the military says are dead.

Protesters regularly take to Israeli streets -- including on Thursday -- demanding a deal to free the captives and accusing Netanyahu of prolonging the war.

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the main aid body in Gaza, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said late Thursday it was closing its east Jerusalem headquarters after an arson attack by "Israeli extremists" on its perimeter.

Diplomats and observers say a resolution calling for full Palestinian UN membership is likely to win broad support on Friday, granting them some additional rights in the global body and a symbolic win.

Israeli singer Eden Golan secured a different kind of victory, qualifying for this weekend's Eurovision song contest grand finale, even as thousands of demonstrators marched in host country Sweden over the Gaza war.

Pro-Palestinian protests that began on US campuses have spread around the world.

burs-it/dv

T.Murray--SMC