Pressure mounts on Israel for Gaza ceasefire

Israel faced growing international pressure on Tuesday to agree to a ceasefire with Hamas, as it planned an incursion into the southern Gaza city Rafah where more than a million Palestinians are trapped.

CIA Director William Burns was due in Cairo on Tuesday for a new round of talks on a Qatari-mediated ceasefire that would temporarily halt fighting in exchange for Hamas freeing hostages.

His planned visit comes after Washington and the United Nations warned Israel against carrying out a ground offensive into Rafah without a plan to protect civilians, who say they have nowhere left to go.

“Wherever we go there’s bombing, martyrs and wounded,” said Iman Dergham, a displaced Palestinian woman.

On a visit to the White House Monday, Jordan’s King Abdullah II pushed for a full ceasefire to end the four-month-old war.

“We cannot afford an Israeli attack on Rafah. It is certain to produce another humanitarian catastrophe,” said the monarch whose country hosts a large number of Palestinian refugees.

“We cannot stand by and let this continue. We need a lasting ceasefire now. This war must end.”

The United States has angered some Middle East allies by consistently refusing to back a full ceasefire, with Washington saying it supports Israel’s drive to eradicate Hamas and calling for shorter pauses with hostage-prisoner swaps instead.

Biden said Monday his administration was trying to broker a six-week truce and, that while key elements were in place, “gaps” remained.

Once the warring parties agree to the ceasefire, “something more enduring” could be broached, Biden said.

While weeks of talks have yet to bear fruit, a source close to the negotiations told AFP that CIA director Burns was expected in Egypt for more high-level negotiations on Tuesday.

Burns was part of the team that thrashed out the proposed truce in Paris last month.

Rafah has become a last refuge for over half of Gaza’s population, who are pressed up against the Egypt border in makeshift encampments where they face outbreaks of hepatitis and diarrhoea, and a scarcity of food and water.

“As it is, there is no place that is currently safe in Gaza,” said United Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.

When asked about an evacuation mission, he said the UN would “not be party to forced displacement of people”.

The UN’s human rights chief Volker Turk warned that “an extremely high number of civilians” would likely be killed or injured in a full Israeli incursion into Rafah, which could also spell the end of the “meager” humanitarian aid entering Gaza.

“It’s almost famine here, we’re almost out of flour in the north region,” said a man in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahia. “We can’t even find food and drinks for the children.”

At least 28,340 people, mostly women and children, have died in Israel’s relentless bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza, according to the health ministry.