Washington [USA], May 14: Yesterday (May 13), Israeli tanks advanced deeper into the Jabalia refugee area in the northern Gaza Strip, according to Reuters citing local residents. They said shells from Israeli tanks fell in the center of Jabalia and air strikes destroyed clusters of houses.
Many residents in Gaza also said that intense fighting was occurring and that Israeli forces and tanks had appeared in the southeast area of Rafah City in southern Gaza . Hamas confirmed its fighters exchanged fire with Israeli forces on a street east of Rafah and east of Jabalia.
As the fighting raged, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned yesterday that a full-scale Israeli attack on Rafah could lead to an uprising because it would be impossible to defeat all Hamas members in that city. , according to NBC Radio. Mr. Blinken said that Hamas members were returning to the northern Gaza area that Israel claims to have cleared, and that a large-scale attack on Rafah "risked terrible harm to civilians" but did not. failed to end Hamas 's presence there.
Mr. Blinken said that Israel lacks a "credible plan" to protect the approximately 1.4 million civilians sheltering in Rafah, according to CBS Radio. He stated that if Israel "conducts a major military operation on Rafah, we will not support and we will not provide certain systems for that operation".
Israel has also not yet developed a post-war plan for the security, governance and reconstruction of Gaza, while the United States is working on such a plan with the governments of Arab countries and others, according to Secretary of State Blinken . "We have the same goals as Israel. We want to make sure that Hamas cannot manage Gaza again," Mr. Blinken emphasized. He added that the US had discussed "effectively" with Israel the demilitarization of Gaza and finding Hamas leaders.
Meanwhile, negotiations between Hamas and Israel on a ceasefire and hostage release, brokered by Egypt, Qatar and the US, appear to have stalled. On May 11, US President Joe Biden said that a ceasefire could come "tomorrow" if Hamas released the hostages captured in the attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023. In response, Hamas on May 12 declared: "We condemn this position of the US president, we consider this a step backward compared to the results of the latest round of negotiations that led to our agreement on proposals put forward by the conciliation parties".
In addition, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on May 12 that Hamas had accepted the ceasefire proposal of Qatar and Egypt in a "step on the path towards a long-term ceasefire", but the Prime Minister's administration Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not want the conflict to end. Mr. Erdogan also assessed that the US and European countries did not put enough pressure on Israel to agree to a ceasefire agreement in Gaza, according to Reuters. As of last night, there was no information about the reaction of Israel or the US.
Source: Thanh Nien Newspaper
