JERUSALEM, March 19 (Reuters) - Israeli forces have killed more than 50 Palestinian gunmen and detained 180 suspected militants in a raid on Al-Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip, the army said on Tuesday.
The raid on Gaza's biggest hospital began before dawn on Monday, with the military accusing Hamas of using it to hide fighters and plan attacks. At least one soldier has been killed by Palestinian gunfire within the compound, the military said.
Israel hits Rafah
On Tuesday, Israel killed 14 people in air strikes in Rafah, Palestinian medical officials said, as the United States urged a rethink of a promised ground sweep against Hamas holdouts in the refugee-clogged city on the southern tip of the Gaza Strip.
More than a million Palestinians displaced by the five-month-old Israeli assault elsewhere in the enclave have been sheltering in Rafah, which abuts Gaza's border with Egypt.
Israel says one-sixth of Hamas' combat strength - four battalions of the rifle- and rocket-wielding fighters - is in Rafah and must be crushed before the war can conclude. But the prospect of a spiralling civilian toll has raised alarm abroad.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the overnight strikes on several buildings in Rafah. Medics said the dead included three women and three children. The identities of the eight men killed were not immediately clear.
With a new round of mediated talks under way on a possible release of hostages Hamas took during an Oct 7 killing spree in Israel that sparked the war, the White House said it would confer with its ally before any troops or tanks move into Rafah.
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, shelter in a tent camp, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on March 11, 2024. (Photo: Reuters)
"Our position is that ... a major ground operation there would be a mistake," US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Monday after a call between President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"Most importantly, the key goals Israel wants to achieve in Rafah can be done by other means," Sullivan added, without elaborating. He said Israeli delegates were due in Washington soon to hear US concerns and "lay out an alternative approach".
At least 31,819 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's offensive, the enclave's health ministry said. Israeli officials said their forces have killed around 14,000 Gaza combatants.
Focus
In a statement on his conversation with Biden, Netanyahu made no direct mention of Rafah but reiterated the war aims of destroying Hamas, recovering all hostages and pacifying Gaza.
A member of Israel's security cabinet, Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter, was sceptical about scrapping a Rafah sweep.
"There is no way of destroying the terrorist and military infrastructure of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza - including in Rafah - through aerial operations or messaging operations or through any other alternatives," Dichter told Kan radio.
The Washington deliberations, he predicted, would focus on plans for relocating civilians and may include Egyptian input.
Sullivan appeared to suggest that the Netanyahu government might place precedence on "a focus on stabilising the areas of Gaza that Israel has cleared so that Hamas does not regenerate and retake territory". The Biden administration has also called on Israel to step up humanitarian aid throughout the enclave.
The Palestinians accused Israel of embarking on a "destruction" of Rafah.
"Israel has initiated its aggression without waiting for permission from anyone and without declaring it to avoid international reactions," the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said.
An Israeli air strike in Nusseirat, central Gaza, killed six people, Palestinian medics said. The military did not immediately comment but has previously said the area had two Hamas battalions which had yet to face a ground operation.
Another strike on a house in northern Gaza City killed 15 people, medics said. The Israeli military had no immediate comment on that but said a soldier was killed in fighting in the area, bringing its total combat losses in the war to 252.
Around 1,200 people were killed, and 253 kidnapped, by Hamas on Oct 7, according to Israeli tallies.
In Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, Shaban Abdel-Raouf, a father of five, hoped the Qatari-hosted talks between Israel and Hamas would yield a truce.
"We are looking forward to the good news from Qatar. Will it happen this time? Will they seal a deal? Over two million people in Gaza are praying they do," Abdel-Raouf told Reuters via a messaging application.
Restrictions to aid may be war crime
The United Nations (UN) human rights chief said on Tuesday that Israel's restrictions on humanitarian aid for Gaza may amount to a starvation tactic that could be a war crime.
The stark appraisal followed a report backed by the UN on Monday saying famine is likely by May without an end to fighting in the more than five-month war between Israel and Hamas militants in the Palestinian enclave of 2.3 million people.
"The extent of Israel's continued restrictions on entry of aid into Gaza, together with the manner in which it continues to conduct hostilities, may amount to the use of starvation as a method of war, which is a war crime," said the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk.
A person walks past a wall with images of hostages kidnapped in the deadly Oct 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas from Gaza, in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Monday. (Photo: Reuters)
While aid agencies blame Israel for blockading Gaza, Prime Minister Netanyahu's government says it is facilitating aid and the UN and relief groups are at fault for any issues over the quantity and pace of delivery.
"Israel, as the occupying power, has the obligation to ensure the provision of food and medical care to the population commensurate with their needs and to facilitate the work of humanitarian organisations to deliver that assistance," Turk said via spokesperson Jeremy Laurence.
Monday's report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said malnutrition and food insecurity have probably exceeded famine levels in Gaza's north, and hunger-linked death rates were likely to do so soon.
Turk said the crisis was "human-made" and "entirely preventable."
"Everyone, especially those with influence, must insist that Israel acts to facilitate the unimpeded entry and distribution of needed humanitarian assistance and commercial goods to end starvation and avert all risk of famine," he said.
"There needs to be full restoration of essential services, including the supply of food, water, electricity and fuel."
A Palestinian boy sits with recovered possessions beside the remains of destroyed buildings following the withdrawal of the Israeli military from Hamad City, west of Khan Younis, Gaza, on March 13, 2024. (Photo: Bloomberg)
