Heavy fighting in Rafah, Gaza, keeps aid crossings closed

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RAFAH, Gaza Strip – Heavy fighting between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants on the outskirts of the southern Gaza city of Rafah has left crucial nearby aid crossings inaccessible and caused more than 100,000 people to flee north. , a United Nations official said Friday.

Israel’s plans for a full-scale invasion of Rafah appear to be on hold for now, as the United States staunchly opposes it and increases pressure by threatening to withhold weapons. But even the more limited raid launched earlier this week threatens to worsen Gaza’s humanitarian catastrophe.

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Heavy fighting was also taking place in northern Gaza, where Hamas appeared to have regrouped once again in an area where Israel had already launched punishing strikes.

More than a million Palestinians have fled to Rafah to escape fighting elsewhere, many of them crammed into U.N.-run shelters or squalid tent camps. The city on the border with Egypt is also a crucial hub for the entry of food, medicine, fuel and other goods.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, known as OCHA, says some 110,000 people have fled Rafah and food and fuel supplies in the city are critically low. Georgios Petropoulos, an OCHA official working in Rafah, said the two main crossings near the city remain closed, cutting off supplies and preventing medical evacuations and the movement of humanitarian personnel.

“Even if there were guarantees that we could pass through a corridor, such close proximity to an army engaged in fighting is simply not acceptable for something that has to be a humanitarian zone,” he said.

The U.N. World Food Program will run out of food to distribute in southern Gaza on Saturday unless more aid arrives, Petropoulos said. He said some 30,000 people were leaving Rafah daily in search of safety, but aid workers had no supplies to help them set up camp in a new location.

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“We simply don’t have tents, or blankets, or bedding, or any of the items that you would expect a population on the move to be able to get from the humanitarian system,” he said.

Israeli troops captured the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing with Egypt on Tuesday, forcing its closure. Rafah was the main entry point for the fuel needed to power vehicles, as well as the generators on which hospitals and water treatment plants depend.

Israel says the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing, Gaza’s main cargo terminal, is open on its side, but the UN says it remains inaccessible on the Gaza side due to ongoing fighting.

Israeli troops are fighting Palestinian militants in eastern Rafah, not far from the crossings. An Associated Press journalist in the city heard heavy artillery and gunfire throughout the night into Friday.

The military said in a statement that it had located several tunnels and eliminated militants “during hand-to-hand combat and with an airstrike.”

Hamas’s military wing said it carried out a complex attack in which it attacked a house where Israeli troops, an armored personnel carrier and soldiers operating on foot had been positioned. There was no comment from the Israeli military,

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It is not possible to independently confirm either side’s battlefield accounts.

Hamas also said it fired several mortar rounds at the Kerem Shalom crossing, near where Israeli troops operate. The military said he intercepted two launches. The crossing was initially closed after a Hamas rocket attack last weekend that killed four Israeli soldiers.

Israel says Rafah is Hamas’ last stronghold in Gaza and key to its goal of dismantling the group’s military and governance capabilities and returning dozens of hostages captured in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that sparked the war.

But Hamas has repeatedly regrouped, including in the hardest-hit areas of Gaza.

Heavy fighting broke out this week in the Zeitoun area on the outskirts of Gaza City in the northern part of the territory. Northern Gaza was the first target of the ground offensive, and Israel said late last year that it had largely dismantled Hamas there.

The north remains largely isolated by Israeli troops, and the UN says the estimated 300,000 people there are experiencing “full-blown famine.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue the offensive with or without American weapons and said “we will fight tooth and nail” if necessary in a defiant statement Thursday night. The Israeli military says it has what it needs for the missions it has planned, including Rafah.

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The war began with Hamas’ surprise attack on southern Israel last year, in which it killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 250 hostage. Militants still hold about 100 captives and the remains of more than 30 after most of the rest were freed during a ceasefire last year.

The war has killed more than 34,800 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures. Israel’s offensive, waged with US-supplied munitions, has caused widespread devastation and forced around 80% of Gaza’s population to flee their homes.

Israel’s surprise incursion into Rafah complicated what had been months of efforts by the United States, Qatar and Egypt to negotiate a ceasefire and the release of hostages. Hamas said this week it had accepted a ceasefire proposal between Egypt and Qatar, but Israel says the plan does not meet its “fundamental” demands. Several days of follow-up talks appeared to end inconclusively on Thursday.

Hamas has demanded guarantees for an end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza as part of any deal, measures that Israel has ruled out.

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Krauss reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Stephen Graham in Berlin contributed.

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