While on sending American weapons to Israel an unprecedented crisis is taking place in relations between Washington e Tel AvivCNN revealed the contents of a report delivered in the last few hours by State Department on Capitol Hill. In the document the Biden administration states that it is “reasonable to believe” that US-supplied weapons have been used by Israeli forces in Gaza in ways “inconsistent” with international humanitarian law “or with established best practices to mitigate harm to civilians”. And the news was released just before the Israeli army called for new evacuations in the city of Rafah.
The document – A report, underlines the US all news channel, “which is harshly critical towards the budget of the Israeli military campaign”. Investigations into potential violations are ongoing, but the report noted that the United States “they do not have complete information to assess” whether US weapons “have been specifically used” in alleged violations of international humanitarian law. The report, which covers the period from the outbreak of the war with Hamas on October 7 to the end of April, did not find that Israel withheld humanitarian aid in Gaza in violation of US law.
Rafah – Meanwhile, tension remains very high. The Israeli army asked the population of other neighborhoods of the city to Rafah to evacuate their homes, also using leaflets in Arabic, while fighting intensifies in the southernmost city of the Gaza Strip. The IDF’s Arabic spokesperson, Avitai Adraee, released a list of new areas to evacuate in addition to and different from the eastern ones indicated last week. The new areas to be evacuated concern the Shaboura camps and the neighborhoods of Geneina and Khirbat al-Adas.
Meanwhile, two Israeli sources told the Times of Israel that the head of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, is not hiding in Rafah, in the south of the Strip where the IDF operation is underway in the eastern districts of the city. The two sources said that Israel currently does not know for sure where exactly Sinwar is, but cited intelligence that the Hamas leader is still in Gaza and is hiding in tunnels in the Khan Yunis area about 7 kilometers from Rafah. Sinwar is Israel’s number one most wanted along with the commander of the Qassam Brigades, Mohammed Deif.
Bombings also continue in the Strip. “Dozens of civilians, including a journalist, his wife and his son, were killed and others were injured” in Israeli air raids in various points of the Gaza Strip, according to what the Palestinian news agency Wafa writes. According to Wafa, who cites local sources, the reporter Bahaa Okasha and his family members died in his home in Jabalia camp in the north. Other victims in the center of Gaza city, where the home of the Siam family was hit. Ten dead in Al-Zawaida, in the center of the Strip, where the house of the Al-Khatib family was hit. Finally, bombings in the Rafah area.