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Israeli forces are reported to be attacking across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, intensifying bombardments in the Jabalia refugee camp in the north of the enclave while increasing pressure on the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Israeli tanks entered the Jabalia camp, which holds more than 100,000 people, on Sunday following heavy overnight bombardments of the area, according to a Reuters report. The Israeli army said its aim is to eliminate “attempts by Hamas to rehabilitate its military capabilities in Jabalia.”
Israel has also ordered new evacuations in the city of Rafah, bordering Egypt — which is sheltering about 1.4 million people — as it prepares to expand Israeli military operations there.
The United Nations has warned against a full-scale ground attack on Rafah, saying it would lead to an “epic humanitarian disaster” and would undermine attempts to support refugees amid a looming famine. U.S. President Joe Biden has called an Israeli ground offensive against Rafah a “red line,” warning that the U.S. would withhold weapons shipments if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu goes ahead with the prospective attack.
On Sunday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres used a video address to a Kuwait humanitarian conference to urge, again, for “an immediate humanitarian cease-fire, the unconditional release of all hostages, and an immediate surge in humanitarian aid.”
A cease-fire “will only be the start. It will be a long road back from the devastation and trauma of this war,” Guterres said.
An Israeli offensive in Rafah doesn’t have the support of the U.K. government either, Foreign Secretary David Cameron said on Sunday.
“We don’t believe they should go in for a major operation in Rafah unless they have a plan to move people out of the way and to make sure they have shelter and food and medicine,” Cameron told the BBC. “We haven’t seen that plan, so we don’t support a major operation in Rafah,” he added.
But Cameron pushed back against calls to halt arms deliveries to Israel. “Just to simply announce today: We’re going to change our whole approach to arms exports rather than go through our careful process — it would strengthen Hamas, it would make a hostage deal less likely, I don’t think it would be the right approach,” he said.
A cease-fire could be possible “tomorrow” if Hamas releases hostages, Biden said on Saturday at a private fundraiser in Seattle. “Israel said it’s up to Hamas,” Biden said. “If they wanted to do it, we could end tomorrow.”
More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed and almost 79,000 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, the Gaza health ministry said on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the U.K. government is investigating Hamas claims that a British-Israeli hostage, Nadav Popplewell, has died. Hamas abducted the 51-year-old Popplewell from Kibbutz Nirim along with his mother during the militant group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. On Saturday, Hamas said he had died from wounds sustained in an Israeli airstrike more than a month ago, hours after circulating a video of Popplewell.
Cameron said he had seen the video, but added that “we don’t want to say anything until we have better information.”
