Israel pounded the overcrowded Gaza city of Rafah, where it launched a ground invasion, as talks in Cairo resumed to agree on the conditions of a seven-month truce.
Despite international protests, Israel pushed tanks into Rafah on Tuesday and seized the neighboring border crossing into Egypt, which is the primary route for aid into the besieged Palestinian region.
The White House decried the halting of humanitarian delivery, with a senior US official subsequently confirming that Washington had halted a bomb supply last week after Israel failed to address US concerns about its Rafah preparations.
The Israeli military said hours later that it was reopening another major humanitarian gate into Gaza, Karem Abu Salem, as well as the Erez crossing.
However, UNRWA, the UN organization for Palestinian refugees, confirmed that the Karem Abu Salem crossing, which Israel closed after a rocket assault killed four troops on Sunday, remained blocked.
It came after a night of intense Israeli airstrikes and shelling in Gaza. AFPTV images showed Palestinians trying in the dark to extract survivors, injured and caked with dust, from the ruins of a Rafah building.
Israel’s war on Gaza began with Hamas’ extraordinary October 7 strike on Israel, which killed more than 1,170 people, the majority of them were civilians, according to an AFP news agency tally of Israeli official data.
In response, Israel vowed to smash Hamas and launched a military attack in Gaza, killing at least 34,844 people, the majority of them women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry.
Hamas also captured approximately 250 hostages, of which Israel thinks 128 remain in Gaza, 36 of whom the military claims are dead.
Talks to reach a ceasefire resumed in Cairo on Wednesday in the presence of all parties, media reports indicated.
Mediators have failed to broker a fresh truce since a week-long ceasefire in November, which saw 105 hostages released, including Israelis, in exchange for Palestinian inmates held by Israel.
