Thursday, August 21, 2025
  • Who’sWho Africa AWARDS
  • About Time Africa Magazine
  • Contact Us
Time Africa Magazine
  • Home
  • Magazine
  • WHO’SWHO AWARDS
  • News
  • World News
    • US
    • UAE
    • Europe
    • UK
    • Israel-Hamas
    • Russia-Ukraine
  • Politics
  • Crime
  • Lifestyle
  • Sports
  • Column
  • Interviews
  • Special Report
No Result
View All Result
Time Africa Magazine
  • Home
  • Magazine
  • WHO’SWHO AWARDS
  • News
  • World News
    • US
    • UAE
    • Europe
    • UK
    • Israel-Hamas
    • Russia-Ukraine
  • Politics
  • Crime
  • Lifestyle
  • Sports
  • Column
  • Interviews
  • Special Report
No Result
View All Result
Time Africa Magazine
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • WHO’SWHO AWARDS
  • News
  • Magazine
  • World News

Home » World News » Rafah pounded by relentless strikes as Israel ignores US arms threat

Rafah pounded by relentless strikes as Israel ignores US arms threat

May 10, 2024
in World News
0
541
SHARES
4.5k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

By Bel Trew | The Independent|

Israel’s bombardment of Rafah is advancing toward the densely-populated centre of the Gaza border city, where UN officials warn that “fear has turned to terror” as trapped civilians try to flee with nowhere to go.

It comes as Israeli government officials hit out at a warning from Joe Biden that the US would not supply the weapons for a full-scale ground assault.

The US president told CNN he was worried about the impact on more than a million people, most of the displaced from other parts of the destroyed strip, who are sheltering in Rafah mostly in tents.

ReadAlso

Hamas orders starving hostage to dig his own grave

Israel closes 88% of cases of alleged war crimes or abuse without charges – report

Israeli military did not reply to requests for comment about whether it was advancing further west. But reports from the ground indicate that tanks were moving deeper into the war-ravaged city, while UN officials told The Independent the ground and buildings were shaking as waves of Israeli strikes edged closer.

“The bombardments are advancing towards the centre of Rafah. I can hear them – it’s very frequent, shaking the building every few minutes,” said Louise Wateridge, from the UN’s Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) from inside Rafah.

ADVERTISEMENT

“Fear is turning into terror here in western Rafah – there are intensified bombardments creeping in from the east, drones above and navy fire from the sea. People feel trapped and have no clue where to go or what to do.”

Residents in Rafah, meanwhile, have few places to turn, wary of the “safe zones” that Israel has said they should evacuate to, given the bombardment across Gaza. Civilians told The Independent that there were people who didn’t have enough money to evacuate as fuel was scarce ever since Rafah closed.

Food prices had soared and some staples including sugar and baby milk were beginning to disappear from the shelves, they said.

Nedal, speaking in west Rafah, said that people were attempting to flee but had nowhere to go even if they could leave.

“Many people tried to go to the so-called humanitarian zones only to find there is no space there at all,” he said.

Others had little hope of a ceasefire being negotiated in talks taking place in Cairo, where Egyptian and Qatari negotiators were desperately seeking a deal before the fighting escalated in Rafah.

“I do not see any chance for a truce in the near future. I think the war will last for three months,” said Alaa Abu Al Kahir, in the besieged city.

“The negotiations are a licence to kill the people of Rafah. They have taken months, and the result has always been nothing but more victims.”

The UN said in an update that 80,000 people had fled Rafah since Monday, including 47,500 leaving shelters run by UNRWA on Wednesday alone. Some reports suggested the number of people who had left had reached 100,000 by Thursday afternoon.

The Israeli military maintained Rafah was the last stronghold of Hamas and so it had launched a “precise counterterrorism operation” to destroy their remaining brigades and to free the hostages.

On Thursday the military shared footage showing aid going through Kerem Shalom Crossing into south Gaza which they have recently reopened. “The IDF makes every effort to provide a constant flow of aid to civilians while Hamas repeatedly shoots at Kerem Shalom,” the statement read.

Israel has launched its heaviest-ever bombardment of Gaza and a siege in retaliation for the bloody assault on south Israel by Hamas on 7 October. That attack killed almost 1,200 people while more than 250 people were taken hostage, including toddlers.

Since then, Palestinian health officials say that Israel’s bombardment has killed nearly 35,000 people, the majority of whom were women and children. The United Nations has warned of looming famine, as restrictions on aid have forced over half the 2.3 million strong population into catastrophic levels of hunger.

It is the threat to civilian lives that has pushed Mr Biden into his latest statements warning Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he will halt US supplies of heavy bombs and artillery shells if Israel launches a full-scale offensive.

“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah … I’m not supplying the weapons,” Mr Biden said in an interview with CNN late on Wednesday.

It was revealed this week that the US had paused a shipment of weapons consisting of 1,800 bombs weighing 2,000lb each and 1,700 500lb bombs.

Mr Biden went further, saying: “Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs.”

The US president has repeatedly insisted that his support for Israel is “ironclad” – but there has been a growing rift between Mr Biden and Mr Netanyahu given the rising death toll in Gaza and the Israeli prime minister’s insistence that Israel needed to go into Rafah to eradicate Hamas. He is under growing pressure from hardline coalition government partners to launch a full-scale assault on the border town.

On Thursday, furious with Mr Biden’s remarks, Israeli ministers and diplomats lashed out as a public standoff between the Biden administration and the Israeli government intensified. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s hardline national security minister, wrote on X: “Hamas hearts Biden”, prompting Yair Lapid, the Israeli opposition leader, to call for the minister to be sacked immediately.

Israel’s finance minister Bezalel Smotrich vowed that the government would pursue its goals in Gaza despite the US threat.

“We will achieve complete victory in this war despite President Biden’s push back and arms embargo,” he said in a statement.

“We must continue the war until Hamas is totally eliminated and our hostages are back home. This involves conquering Rafah completely and the sooner the better.”

Meanwhile, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, said it was “a difficult and very disappointing statement to hear”. The defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said that Israel’s “enemies and friends” should know that it would do whatever was necessary to achieve its war aims in Gaza and the north.

Mr Netanyahu did not comment publicly but reposted his speech on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, again an apparent response to President Biden’s decision to withhold weapons.

In the speech, he remarks: “I say to the world leaders, no pressure, however heavy, no decision by any international forum, will deter Israel from defending itself. If Israel is forced to stand alone, it will do so.”

Sky News also reported a source close to the Israeli leader as saying that Mr Biden’s weapons threat “practically buries a hostage deal at this point”.

More than 80 per cent of Gaza’s population is displaced; hundreds of thousands have fled to Rafah, along the border with Egypt, where most live in tents.

Israel has said Rafah is the last stronghold for Hamas and Mr Netanyahu has called their incursion into the city a “significant step” in the efforts to defeat the militant group. Earlier this week Israel took control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, strangling a key artery of aid, the UN said.

“The toll on these families is unbearable. Nowhere is safe,” the UNWRA said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

The UK’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, meanwhile defended UK arms sales to Israel hours after Mr Biden’s remarks, saying they were smaller in scale and policed by strict rules. Lord Cameron added that Britain could not support a major Israeli offensive on Rafah without a plan to protect civilian lives.

Tags: GazaHamasIsraelRafah
ADVERTISEMENT
Previous Post

Children ‘piled up and shot’ in Sudan, UN envoy says world cannot ignore ‘silent war and famine’

Next Post

Putin Sworn in for New Six-Year Term as Russia’s President, Amid Growing Conflict With the West

You MayAlso Like

World News

Chaos at Airport after passenger set fire to check-in desk

August 20, 2025
Russia-Ukraine

Russia pounds Ukraine with largest aerial bombardment in a month hours after Trump-Zelensky meeting

August 19, 2025
UK

Britain’s first transgender judge drags UK to court over ruling on biological sex

August 18, 2025
Featured

‘Don’t Delude Yourselves’: Why The Trump-Putin Summit Can’t End the War in Ukraine

August 18, 2025
US

OceanGate CEO ‘completely ignored’ flawed Titan sub before deadly Titanic trip, Coast Guard report finds

August 5, 2025
UAE

Saudi Arabia Executes Seven Africans In One Day Over Drug-Related Offenses

August 3, 2025
Next Post

Putin Sworn in for New Six-Year Term as Russia’s President, Amid Growing Conflict With the West

N80.2billion Alleged Fraud: Court Insists on Yahya Bello’s Appearance for Arraignment

Discussion about this post

Ibom Air: My side of the story, by Comfort Emmanson

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT: The Resumed Impunity Of Violent And Unlawful Dispossession of Agidiasie People’s Ancestral Land Inheritance and Farmlands Under the Custodian of the Iyase Of Ogwashi-uku Kingdom By “HRH” Ifechkwude Okonjo

The Unexplained Professorship of Stella Ngozi Lemchi, Vice-Chancellor of Alvan Ikoku Federal University

Brutalized female NYSC in Anambra —Dismissals make headlines. Convictions make justice

Stripped, Beaten, Accused: NYSC Corps Members Brutalized by Anambra Vigilantes

Adaora Umeoji Means Business

  • British government apologizes to Peter Obi, as hired impostors, master manipulators on rampage abroad

    1240 shares
    Share 496 Tweet 310
  • Maids trafficked and sold to wealthy Saudis on black market

    1066 shares
    Share 426 Tweet 267
  • Flight Attendant Sees Late Husband On Plane

    971 shares
    Share 388 Tweet 243
  • ‘Céline Dion Dead 2023’: Singer killed By Internet Death Hoax

    903 shares
    Share 361 Tweet 226
  • Crisis echoes, fears grow in Amechi Awkunanaw in Enugu State

    735 shares
    Share 294 Tweet 184
  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest

British government apologizes to Peter Obi, as hired impostors, master manipulators on rampage abroad

April 13, 2023

Maids trafficked and sold to wealthy Saudis on black market

December 27, 2022
Flight Attendant Sees Late Husband On Plane

Flight Attendant Sees Late Husband On Plane

September 22, 2023
‘Céline Dion Dead 2023’: Singer killed By Internet Death Hoax

‘Céline Dion Dead 2023’: Singer killed By Internet Death Hoax

March 21, 2023
Chief Mrs Ebelechukwu, wife of Willie Obiano, former governor of Anambra state

NIGERIA: No, wife of Biafran warlord, Bianca Ojukwu lied – Ebele Obiano:

0

SOUTH AFRICA: TO LEAVE OR NOT TO LEAVE?

0
kelechi iheanacho

TOP SCORER: IHEANACHA

0
Goodluck Ebele Jonathan

WHAT CAN’TBE TAKEN AWAY FROM JONATHAN

0

Brutalized female NYSC in Anambra —Dismissals make headlines. Convictions make justice

August 20, 2025

Nigeria Deletes Nearly 59 Million Harmful Posts, Shuts 13 Million social media accounts

August 20, 2025
A Sudanese man who testified to selling a kidney to traffickers in 2017. Oliver Weiken/picture alliance via Getty Images

Kidneys for cash: Inside a global organ trafficking network

August 20, 2025

Chaos at Airport after passenger set fire to check-in desk

August 20, 2025

ABOUT US

Time Africa Magazine

TIME AFRICA MAGAZINE is an African Magazine with a culture of excellence; a magazine without peer. Nearly a third of its readers hold advanced degrees and include novelists, … READ MORE >>

SECTIONS

  • Aviation
  • Column
  • Crime
  • Europe
  • Featured
  • Gallery
  • Health
  • Interviews
  • Israel-Hamas
  • Lifestyle
  • Magazine
  • Middle-East
  • News
  • Politics
  • Press Release
  • Russia-Ukraine
  • Science
  • Special Report
  • Sports
  • TV/Radio
  • UAE
  • UK
  • US
  • World News

Useful Links

  • AllAfrica
  • Channel Africa
  • El Khabar
  • The Guardian
  • Cairo Live
  • Le Republicain
  • Magazine: 9771144975608
  • Subscribe to TIME AFRICA biweekly news magazine

    Enjoy handpicked stories from around African continent,
    delivered anywhere in the world

    Subscribe

    • About Time Africa Magazine
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact Us
    • WHO’SWHO AWARDS

    © 2025 Time Africa Magazine - All Right Reserved. Time Africa is a trademark of Times Associates, registered in the U.S, & Nigeria. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Service.

    No Result
    View All Result
    • WHO’SWHO AWARDS
    • Politics
    • Column
    • Interviews
    • Gallery
    • Lifestyle
    • Special Report
    • Sports
    • TV/Radio
    • Aviation
    • Health
    • Science
    • World News

    © 2025 Time Africa Magazine - All Right Reserved. Time Africa is a trademark of Times Associates, registered in the U.S, & Nigeria. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Service.

    This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.