Gaza war: Israeli tanks enter central Rafah

Israeli forces have reportedly reached the centre of the southern Gaza city of Rafah and captured a strategically important hill near the Egyptian border.

Eyewitnesses and local journalists said tanks were deployed at the Al-Awda roundabout, considered a key site.

He also said tanks were on Zorub Hill, effectively giving Israel control of the Philadelphia Corridor – a narrow strip of land extending along the border to the sea.

The Israeli military said its troops were continuing operations against “terrorist hideouts” in Rafah, three weeks after launching a ground operation there.

Residents reported that western neighbourhoods of the city were also heavily bombarded overnight, while on Sunday Israeli airstrikes and resulting fires, which drew international condemnation, killed dozens of Palestinians at a camp for displaced people.

The Israeli military said it was investigating the possibility that the fire was caused by the explosion of weapons stored by Hamas in the surrounding area.

It also denied reports by local health and emergency services officials on Tuesday afternoon that tank shells had hit another camp in al-Mawasi on the west bank of Rafah, killing at least 21 people.

The blast occurred after an Israeli tank shell hit a cluster of tents in al-Mawasi on Tuesday, Reuters news agency quoted local health officials as saying. An official from the Hamas-run civil defence force also told AFP the tents had come under Israeli attack.

Videos posted on social media and analysed by BBC Verify showed several people seriously injured, some lying motionless on the ground near tents and other makeshift structures.

There was no clear indication of the blast area or crater, making it impossible to ascertain the cause of the incident. The location – verified by the context of nearby buildings – is between Rafah and al-Mawasi, and lies just south of the IDF’s designated humanitarian zone.

“Contrary to reports received over the past few hours, the IDF did not attack the humanitarian area in al-Mawasi,” the IDF said in a statement.

Israel has insisted that victory in its seven-month war with Hamas in Gaza is impossible without capturing Rafah and has rejected warnings that it could have catastrophic humanitarian consequences.

The United Nations says about one million people have fled the fighting in Rafah so far, but several hundred thousand may still be taking refuge there.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a “targeted” ground operation against Hamas fighters and infrastructure east of Rafah on 6 May.

Since then, tanks and troops have gradually moved into eastern and central regions, also moving north along the 13 km (8 miles) border with Egypt.

On Tuesday they reportedly arrived in the city centre for the first time.

The Al-Awda roundabout, which is only 800 metres (2,600 ft) from the border, is the location of major banks, government institutions, businesses and shops.

An eyewitness said he saw soldiers standing on top of a building overlooking the roundabout and firing at anyone who moved forward.

Meanwhile, videos posted online showed tank marks on the road About 3km west of the Al-Awda roundabout and 300m from an Indonesian field hospital, which was damaged overnight.

Earlier, residents told the BBC that tanks captured the Zorub hill, about 2.5km northwest of the al-Awda roundabout, after a shootout with Hamas-led fighters.

The hill is the highest point on the Egyptian border and its capture means that the entire Gaza side of the border is now effectively under Israeli control.

Zorub Hill also overlooks western Rafah, where residents reported the heaviest air and artillery attacks overnight since the Israeli operation began.

A local journalist reported that the bombardment forced hundreds of families to take temporary shelter in the hospital courtyard, while ambulances had difficulty reaching casualties in the affected areas.

As dawn broke, thousands of people were seen packing into cars, trucks and carts drawn by donkeys and horses to head north.

“The explosion is shaking our tent, my children are scared and with my sick father it is impossible for us to get out in the dark,” resident Khalid Mahmoud told the BBC.

“According to the Israeli army we must stay in a safe zone, yet we have not received evacuation orders like in the eastern (Rafah) area,” he said. “We fear for our lives if no one comes forward to protect us.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) did not comment on the various reports, but issued a statement saying “troops conducted operations along the Philadelphia corridor throughout the night, conducting precision operational activity based on intelligence that indicated the presence of terrorist targets in the area.”

“This activity is being carried out as efforts are ongoing to protect non-engaged civilians in the area from harm,” it said.

“The troops are engaged in close combat with the terrorists and are detecting terror tunnels, weapons and additional terrorist infrastructure in the area.”

The IDF has asked civilians in eastern Rafah to move for their safety to an “extended humanitarian zone”, which stretches from the coastal area of ​​al-Mawasi, north of Rafah, to the central city of Deir al-Balah.

At least 45 people – more than half of them children, women and the elderly – were killed on Sunday night when an Israeli air strike caused a huge fire at a camp for displaced people near a UN logistics base in the Tal al-Sultan area, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Hundreds of people were treated for severe burns, fractures and shrapnel wounds.

The IDF said two senior Hamas officials were targeted in the attack, which came hours after Hamas fighters in southeast Rafah fired rockets toward the Israeli city of Tel Aviv for the first time in months.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a “tragic incident” had occurred “despite our utmost efforts to avoid harming non-combatants” and promised a thorough investigation.

IDF chief spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said on Tuesday that the strike targeted a structure used by Hamas commanders, away from any tents, and that “two weapons with small warheads” were used.

“Following this attack, a huge fire broke out, the cause of which is still being investigated. Our weapons alone could not have caused such a large fire,” he said.

Rear Admiral Hagari said investigators were looking into the possibility that the fire was caused by the explosion of weapons or ammunition stored in a nearby structure, and what he said was an intercepted telephone conversation between two men in Gaza that indicated that. The audio recording could not be immediately confirmed.

Sam Rose, from ANRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, told the BBC from western Rafah that the killing of so many civilians could not be dismissed as an accident.

“Gaza is already one of the most overcrowded places on the planet. It’s absolutely impossible to conduct a military operation with massive ammunition, attacks from the sky, the sea, tanks, without massive civilian casualties,” he said.

“It seems that every day we are descending into new depths of horror, bloodshed and brutality. And if this isn’t a warning, it’s hard to see what will happen next.”

Last week, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to “immediately cease its military aggression in Rafah province and any other action which could impose on the Palestinian population in Gaza such conditions of life which could lead to their total or partial physical destruction.”

Israel launched a military operation in Gaza to destroy Hamas in response to Hamas’ cross-border attack on southern Israel on 7 October, during which approximately 1,200 people were killed and 252 others taken hostage.

At least 36,090 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.