CAIRO: Israel faced growing international pressure on Wednesday to hold off on a planned assault on the last refuge for displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza after truce talks in Cairo ended inconclusively.
Officials said Tuesday’s talks were constructive and would continue, but the lack of an immediate breakthrough fuelled fears among hundreds of thousands of people crammed into Rafah that Israel would soon storm the city on the border with Egypt. Tensions also rose along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon on Wednesday. Israel said a woman was killed in a rocket attack from Lebanon, and four people were reported killed in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon.
WHO representative Richard Peeperkorn said an assault on Rafah would be “an unfathomable catastrophe… and would even further expand the humanitarian disaster beyond imagination.”
Israel says it takes steps to minimise civilian casualties and accuses Hamas fighters of hiding among civilians, including in hospitals and shelters – something the militant group denies.