GAZA: The Zionist entity sent tanks into Rafah in southern Gaza, seizing control of the border crossing with Egypt Tuesday, an operation the UN said denied it access to the key humanitarian passage. The military’s thrust into the eastern sector of the city packed with displaced civilians came with negotiators and mediators due in Cairo in the latest effort towards a captive release and ceasefire in the seven-month-old war.

A senior Hamas official, requesting anonymity to discuss the negotiations, warned that it would be the Zionist entity’s “last chance” to free the estimated 128 captives still held in the Palestinian territory, including 35 the military says are dead. A Hamas delegation was headed “shortly” to Cairo, the official said. The Zionist entity has said it would also send negotiators, and mediator Qatar announced it was dispatching a team as well.

The long-threatened Rafah operation began hours after Hamas announced late Monday it had accepted a truce proposal, prompting cheering crowds to take to the streets despite the Zionist entity saying it was “far” from plans it had previously agreed to. Rafah resident Abu Aoun Al-Najjar said the “indescribable joy” following the Hamas statement and hopes for an end to the war were short-lived. “It turned out to be a bloody night,” he told AFP, as more Zionist strikes and bombardment “stole our joy”.

Army footage showed tanks flying the Zionist flag taking “operational control” of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, the military said, in a deployment that had a “very limited scope against very specific targets”. UN humanitarian office spokesman Jens Laerke said the Zionist entity had denied it access to both Rafah and Kerem Shalom — the other main Gaza aid crossing, on the border with the Zionist entity — with only “one day of fuel available” inside the besieged territory. Unless fuel was allowed in, “it would be a very effective way of putting the humanitarian operation in its grave”, he warned.

At the United Nations, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the Zionist entity to “stop any escalation” and to “immediately” reopen the crossings. “The closure of both... crossings is especially damaging to an already dire humanitarian situation”, Guterres said, warning that “a full-scale assault on Rafah will be a human catastrophe”.

Overnight, heavy bombardments rocked Rafah, an AFP correspondent reported. The Kuwaiti hospital said it had received the bodies of 23 people and the Najjar hospital recorded another four killed. Later, Hamas’ armed wing said it fired rockets at Zionist troops at Kerem Shalom, two days after four Zionist soldiers were killed there in an attack it also claimed. The Zionist army alleged the latest attack came from Rafah.

The Zionist offensive has killed at least 34,789 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry. Egypt, which has a peace treaty with the Zionist entity, and Qatar, a US ally that also hosts Hamas leaders, have taken the lead in the ceasefire negotiations. Hamas on Monday said it had told Egyptian and Qatari officials of its “approval of their proposal regarding a ceasefire”.

Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the proposal was “far from (the Zionist entity’s) essential demands”, but the government would still send negotiators for talks. In the meantime, it added, “(The Zionist entity) is continuing the operation in Rafah to exert military pressure on Hamas in order to advance the release of our hostages”.

Close Zionist ally the United States said it was “reviewing” the Hamas response. Hamas member Khalil Al-Hayya told the Qatar-based Al Jazeera news channel that the proposal agreed to by Hamas involved a three-phase truce. It included a complete Zionist withdrawal from Gaza, the return of Palestinians displaced by the war and a captive-prisoner exchange, with the goal of a “permanent ceasefire”, he said.

International alarm has been building about the consequences of a Zionist ground invasion of Rafah, where the United Nations says 1.4 million people are sheltering. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell expressed concern that an attack on Rafah began despite warnings from the European Union and the United States. “I am afraid that this is going to cause again a lot of casualties, civilian casualties,” he said.

Egypt urged the Zionist entity to “exercise the utmost restraint”, while the Organization for Islamic Cooperation condemned the Zionist entity’s “criminal aggression”. In a conversation with Netanyahu on Monday, US President Joe Biden restated “his clear position” opposing an invasion of Rafah, the White House said. Netanyahu has repeatedly vowed to send ground troops into Rafah regardless of any truce, saying the Zionist entity needs to root out remaining Hamas forces.

The Zionist entity’s military on Monday told those in eastern Rafah to head for the coastal “expanded humanitarian area” at Al-Mawasi. But aid groups said Al-Mawasi was not ready for such an influx. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock urged “protection” for civilians in Rafah. “A million people cannot simply vanish into thin air,” she said in a post on X, calling for “more humanitarian aid urgently”.

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it had begun discharging patients from a field hospital in Rafah and was preparing “for a possible evacuation”. “This offensive is... going to further aggravate the damage to the health system, which is barely functioning,” an MSF statement said. – AFP