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Netanyahu vows to send troops to Lebanon border as Rafah offensive winds down amid fears of all-out war with Hezbollah
Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the 'intense phase' of fighting in Rafah is 'about to end' - vowing that with its conclusion more troops will be sent to Israel's border with Lebanon to face off with Hezbollah.
The Israeli prime minister said that fighting against Hamas terrorists in the southern Gaza city is nearly over, without giving a specific timeframe.
He told Israel's Channel 14 that 'after the end of the intense phase' in the Gaza Strip, Israel would 'redeploy some forces to the north... primarily for defensive purposes'.
His comments come amid growing concerns over recent weeks that daily exchanges of cross-border fire between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah could spiral into all-out war.
The Israeli military announced last week that plans for a Lebanon offensive had been approved, to which Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah responded that no part of Israel would be spared in the event of a full-scale war.
Black smoke billows following an Israeli air strike that targeted a house in the southern Lebanese village of Khiam near the Lebanese-Israeli border on June 21, 2024
Smoke plumes billow during ongoing battles in the Sultan neighbourhood in the northwest of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on June 18, 2024
Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the 'intense phase' of fighting in Rafah is 'about to end'
Netanyahu's interview - his first with Israeli media since the war began with Hamas's October 7 attack - was broadcast as his defence minister arrived in Washington for talks on the Gaza war and surging cross-border tensions with Lebanon's Hezbollah movement.
'The intense phase of the fighting against Hamas is about to end,' Netanyahu said, adding: 'It doesn't mean that the war is about to end, but the war in its intense phase is about to end in Rafah.'
Israeli officials have described Rafah as the last Hamas stronghold in the Gaza Strip, and in early May troops entered the southern city, on the besieged territory's border with Egypt, despite global alarm over the fate of Palestinian civilians sheltering there.
The military seized the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing, a key conduit for desperately needed aid into Gaza that has remained shut since then.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah said it had targeted military positions in northern Israel with attack drones, after an Israeli strike in eastern Lebanon killed the commander of another armed group, Jamaa Islamiya.
In Gaza, Israeli forces kept striking targets and battling Hamas.
A woman stands holding a child surrounded by the rubble of buildings destroyed during Israeli bombardment in Khan Yunis on the southern Gaza Strip on June 23, 2024
Israeli soldiers during military operations in the southern Gaza Strip last month
In Gaza City, medics at Al-Ahli hospital said that at least five people were killed in an Israeli air strike on a facility of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
The Israeli military said its jets struck militants who "operated from within buildings that previously served as an UNRWA headquarters"
There was no immediate comment from UNRWA, whose facilities have come under attack before.
Some UNRWA buildings have been turned into shelters for displaced Palestinians during the war.
An early morning air raid on a family home elsewhere in Gaza City killed at least seven people, the civil defence agency said.
An Israeli fire truck moves towards a scene of a strike hit after a drone attack by Hezbollah from Lebanon on June 23, 2024
The October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
The militants also seized hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza although the army says 41 are dead.
Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,598 people, also mostly civilians, Gaza's health ministry said.
"This war must stop," said Umm Siraj al-Balawi, struggling to survive in a makeshift shelter amid a field of rubble, with strung-up sheets protecting her young children from the blazing sun.
But despite the needs, "delivery of any meaningful humanitarian assistance inside Gaza has become almost impossible and the very fabric of civil society is unravelling," the European Union said in a statement.
As the war has raged on, Israeli protesters have taken to the streets week after week demanding greater efforts to bring home the remaining hostages.
In his Sunday interview, Netanyahu said that if his rule ends, "a left-wing government will... establish a Palestinian state", dubbing it a threat to "our existence".