Residents and the Israeli military reported that Israeli forces bombed Rafah and other areas in the Gaza Strip and fought close clashes with fighters led by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.
Residents said the Israelis appeared to be trying to fully capture Rafah, a town at the enclave’s southern edge that has been the focus of an Israeli offensive since early May.
Tanks were trying to break into the western and northern parts of the city, having already captured the eastern, southern and central parts. Israeli forces fired from aircraft, tanks and ships from the coast, triggering a new wave of displacement from the city, where more than one million displaced people had taken refuge, most of whom were forced to flee again.
At least 12 Palestinians were killed in separate Israeli military attacks on Friday, Palestinian health officials said.
The Israeli military said on Friday that its forces were carrying out “precise, intelligence-based” operations in the Rafah region, where soldiers were involved in close combat and had detected tunnels used by militants. It also reported operations elsewhere in the enclave.
Some residents of Rafah said the pace of Israeli attacks had picked up over the past two days. They said the sounds of explosions and gunfire were almost constant, indicating heavy fighting.
“Last night was one of the worst nights in western Rafah, with drones, planes, tanks and navy boats bombarding the area. We think the occupiers are trying to take full control of the city,” Hatem, 45, said via text message.
“They are facing heavy attacks from resistance fighters, which could slow them down.”
It has been more than eight months since the war in Gaza began, and Israel’s advance is now focused on the two last areas its forces have not yet reached: Rafah, on the southern edge of Gaza, and the area around Deir al-Balah in the centre.
“The entire city of Rafah is an area of Israeli military operations,” Rafah Mayor Ahmed al-Sofi said in a statement carried by Hamas media on Friday.
“The city is going through a humanitarian disaster and people are dying inside their tents because of Israeli bombing,” he said.
Sophie said there were no functioning medical facilities in the town, and the remaining residents and displaced families were unable to access daily necessities such as food and water.
Palestinian and United Nations figures show there are probably fewer than 100,000 people left in the city’s far western part, where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million population took refuge before the Israeli assault began in early May.
The military has accused Hamas of using Palestinian civilians as human shields, a charge Hamas denies.
“Troops recovered a large cache of weapons, including grenades, explosives, a launcher and anti-tank missiles, ammunition and weapons hidden in a cupboard inside a civilian residence,” the army said in a statement late Thursday night.
Hamas’ armed wing said on Thursday its fighters attacked two Israeli tanks in Rafah’s Shaboura camp with anti-tank rockets and killed soldiers trying to escape through the streets. There was no immediate Israeli comment on Hamas’ claim.
Three people, including a father and son, were killed in Israeli air strikes on Friday in nearby Khan Younis, medics said.
In parallel, the Israeli army continued a new operation in some suburbs of Gaza City, north of the enclave, where they fought with Hamas-led militants. Residents said army forces had destroyed several houses in the center of Gaza City on Thursday.
Later on Friday, an Israeli airstrike on a Gaza City municipal facility killed five people, including four municipal workers, the territory’s civil emergency service said. It said rescue teams were searching through the rubble for more missing victims.
Israel’s ground and air campaign began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
According to Palestinian health officials, the offensive has devastated Gaza, killing more than 37,400 people, and leaving nearly the entire population homeless and destitute.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
