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Israel Confirms Its Forces Are in Central Rafah in Expanding Offensive in Southern Gaza City

Smoke rises near a makeshift camp for displaced Palestinians in the area of Tel al-Sultan in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 30, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Hamas group. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
Smoke rises near a makeshift camp for displaced Palestinians in the area of Tel al-Sultan in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 30, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Hamas group. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
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Israel Confirms Its Forces Are in Central Rafah in Expanding Offensive in Southern Gaza City

Smoke rises near a makeshift camp for displaced Palestinians in the area of Tel al-Sultan in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 30, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Hamas group. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
Smoke rises near a makeshift camp for displaced Palestinians in the area of Tel al-Sultan in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 30, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Hamas group. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)

The Israeli military confirmed Friday that its forces are operating in central parts of Rafah in its expanding offensive in the southern Gaza city.

Israel launched its ground assault into the city on May 6, triggering an exodus of around 1 million Palestinians out of the city and throwing UN humanitarian operations based in the area into turmoil. Still, US President Joe Biden has said Israel has not crossed the “red lines” of a full-fledged invasion that he has urged them against.

Friday's statement by the Israeli military suggested its forces have been operating in most parts of the city. For its first weeks, the Israeli assault focused on Rafah's eastern districts and in areas close to the border with Egypt.  

Israeli troops seized the Rafah crossing into Egypt on the first day of the offensive and have since claimed control over the Philadelphi Corridor, a road running the length of the Gaza-Egypt border on the Gazan side.

Earlier this week, Israeli troops also moved into Rafah's western district of Tel al-Sultan, where heavy clashes with Hamas fighters have been reported by witnesses.

In its statement Friday, the military said its troops in central Rafah had uncovered Hamas rocket launchers and tunnels and dismantled a weapons storage city of the group. It did not specify where in central Rafah the operations were taking place, but previous statements and witness reports have pointed to raids in the Shaboura refugee camp and other sites near the city center.

Israel has said an offensive in Rafah is vital to uprooting Hamas fighters in its military's campaign to destroy the group after its Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel.

Palestinians who fled the city have scattered around southern and central Gaza, most of them living in squalid tent camps. Up to around 300,000 people are believed to remain in the area, some of them still in the central urban parts of the city, a UN official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.  

Shaina Low, a spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council, a humanitarian group that operates in the area, said most have flocked to rural area west of the city near the coast — an area that has seen deadly Israeli strikes and shelling the past week.

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Arab World

Cholera Outbreak in Sudan Has Killed at Least 22 People, Health Minister Says 

A man disinfects a rural isolation center where patients are being treated for cholera in Wad Al-Hilu in Kassala state in eastern Sudan, on August 17, 2024. (AFP)
A man disinfects a rural isolation center where patients are being treated for cholera in Wad Al-Hilu in Kassala state in eastern Sudan, on August 17, 2024. (AFP)
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Cholera Outbreak in Sudan Has Killed at Least 22 People, Health Minister Says 

A man disinfects a rural isolation center where patients are being treated for cholera in Wad Al-Hilu in Kassala state in eastern Sudan, on August 17, 2024. (AFP)
A man disinfects a rural isolation center where patients are being treated for cholera in Wad Al-Hilu in Kassala state in eastern Sudan, on August 17, 2024. (AFP)

Sudan has been stricken by a cholera outbreak that has killed nearly two dozen people and sickened hundreds more in recent weeks, health authorities said Sunday. The African nation has been roiled by a 16-month conflict and devastating floods.

Health Minister Haitham Mohamed Ibrahim said in a statement that at least 22 people have died from the disease, and that at least 354 confirmed cases of cholera have been detected across the county.

Ibrahim didn’t give a time frame for the deaths or the tally since the start of the year. The World Health Organization, however, said that 78 deaths were recorded from cholera this year in Sudan as of July 28. The disease also sickened more than 2,400 others between Jan. 1 and July 28, it said.

Cholera is a fast-developing, highly contagious infection that causes diarrhea, leading to severe dehydration and possible death within hours when not treated, according to WHO. It is transmitted through the ingestion of contaminated food or water.

The cholera outbreak is the latest calamity for Sudan, which was plunged into chaos in April last year when simmering tensions between the military and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) exploded into open warfare across the country.

The conflict has turned the capital, Khartoum and other urban areas into battlefields, wrecking civilian infrastructure and an already battered health care system. Without the basics, many hospitals and medical facilities have closed their doors.

It has killed thousands of people and pushed many into starvation, with famine already confirmed in a sprawling camp for displaced people in the wrecked northern region of Darfur.

Sudan’s conflict has created the world’s largest displacement crisis. More than 10.7 million people have been forced to flee their homes since fighting began, according to the International Organization for Migration. Over 2 million of those fled to neighboring countries.

The fighting has been marked by atrocities including mass rape and ethnically motivated killings that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to the UN and international rights groups.

Devastating seasonal floods in recent weeks have compounded the misery. Dozens of people have been killed and critical infrastructure has been washed away in 12 of Sudan’s 18 provinces, according to local authorities. About 118,000 people have been displaced due to the floods, according to the UN migration agency.

Cholera is not uncommon in Sudan. A previous major outbreak left at least 700 dead and sickened about 22,000 in less than two months in 2017.

Tarik Jašarević, a spokesman for WHO, said the outbreak began in the eastern province of Kassala before spreading to nine localities in five provinces.

He said in comments to The Associated Press that data showed that most of the detected cases were not vaccinated. He said the WHO is now working with the Sudanese health authorities and partners to implement a vaccination campaign.

Sudan's military-controlled sovereign council, meanwhile, said Sunday it will send a government delegation to meet with American officials in Cairo amid mounting US pressure on the military to join ongoing peace talks in Switzerland that aim at finding a way out of the conflict.

The council said in a statement the Cairo meeting will focus on the implementation of a deal between the military and the RSF, which required the paramilitary group to pull out from people’s homes in Khartoum and elsewhere in the country.

The talks began Aug. 14 in Switzerland with diplomats from the US, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, the African Union and the United Nations attending. A delegation from the RSF was in Geneva but didn’t join the meetings.