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JERUSALEM — The Israeli government is pushing forward on intensifying military operations against Hamas in Rafah, despite increasing international isolation, deepening tensions with President Biden and pressure from Israeli society critical of efforts to free hostages held in Gaza. Israel describes the southern Gazan city of Rafah as the stronghold of the last pieces of Hamas’s conventional army, and it sees the border area with Egypt as a loose sieve where weapons and supplies flow freely to Hamas. Biden has said he has a red line against an Israeli military operation in Rafah that causes wide-scale destruction and death for...

The court's orders The ICJ has made several orders including for Israel to: • halt military operation in Rafah • open the Rafah border crossing with Egypt for the entry of humanitarian aid at scale • ensure access to Gaza for investigators and fact-finding missions • report to the court within a month on its progress in applying these measures 13-2 judgement

The Pentagon spokesman says that the US figures Russia launched a weapon into space capable of shooting down... Tornadoes causing devastating damage in the town of Greenfield, Iowa... In Gaza tonight the Israeli military hitting targets in the southern city of Rafah... Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk expressing the strong suspicion that Russian agents caused the fire that destroyed a shopping mall... World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab stepping down from his post as... A man who appeared in a British court last week accused of spying for Hong Kong's intelligence service found dead... According to "Politico EU" Israeli Prime...

The United Nations said Tuesday it suspended food distribution in the southern Gaza city of Rafah due to lack of supplies and insecurity. It also said no aid trucks entered in the past two days via a floating pier set up by the U.S. for sea deliveries. The U.N. has not specified how many people have stayed in Rafah since the Israeli military began its intensified assault there two weeks ago, but apparently several hundred thousand people remain. The World Food Program said it was also running out of food for central Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fleeing...

The IDF has succeeded in evacuating around 950,000 Palestinian civilians in only two weeks since May 6, the military revealed on Monday. In addition, around 30-40% of Rafah is now under IDF control, not merely a small portion of the eastern sector, and about 60-70% of Rafah has been completely evacuated. The remaining Rafah civilians, estimated at around 300,000-400,000, are almost all near the Gaza coast Tel al-Sultan area. This is despite US predictions that the civilian population could not be evacuated without a huge death count or without leaving around four months to do so. Of those evacuated, the...

Israel claims to have found about 50 cross-border tunnels underneath the boundary between Rafah, in the Gaza Strip, and Egypt — tunnels that could have been used by Hamas terrorists to smuggle in weapons to use against Israel. The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies noted on Friday: Israel went public on May 17 with the discovery of 50 smuggling tunnels leading from the southern Gazan city of Rafah to Egypt. Defending Israel against South African-filed genocide allegations at the International Court of Justice, attorney Gilad Noam devoted part of his remarks to the ongoing military operation in Rafah, a...

The United Nations confirmed Saturday that 800,000 Palestinians have left the town of Rafah, in southern Gaza, as Israel begins its attack on Hamas battalions there. Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the controversial United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), announced the number of evacuees — and warned of the risks they face. The number of evacuees far exceeds the estimates that were discussed in advance of the Israeli operation, which began on May 6, amid U.S. opposition. The Biden administration warned that an attack on Rafah could cause civilian casualties there.

The Israeli Air Force struck more than 70 targets across the Gaza Strip in the past day, the military says, as ground forces operate in Rafah, Jabaliya, and the Netzarim Corridor. According to the IDF, the targets included weapon depots, infrastructure, and buildings belonging to terror groups, as well as operatives. One of the airstrikes in Rafah hit a senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative, who the IDF says was head of logistics for the terror group in the city in southern Gaza. “As part of his role, he was responsible for preparing the enemy for the IDF maneuver in Rafah,”...

Juuuussssttttt spitballin' here, but it certainly seems like we have an answer for Egypt's extraordinary pissiniss about Israel's plans to clear out Rafah.I have to admit, this was the favored line of thinking over the past few weeks as the Biden administration sabotaged every Israeli move, and the Egyptians blustered and threatened. Almost to a one, folks weren't at all fooled. They were asking, "What is Egypt worried the Israelis are going to find?"Well, hiya.Nearly 700 tunnel shafts have been identified in Rafah, with ~50 tunnels crossing into Egypt, revealed @DrGiladNoam at today's sham @CIJ_ICJ hearing.Those tunnels are used to...

South Africa returned to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands, this week in an effort to stop Israel’s ongoing military operation in the city of Rafah against the last Hamas battalions in the Gaza Strip. The struggling African nation — which faces elections later this month — took Israel to the ICJ earlier this year, urging the court to declare that Israel was guilty of “genocide” in Gaza, even though Israel has taken pains to avoid civilian casualties, and allows hundreds of trucks laden with humanitarian aid to enter the territory every day. The ICJ ruled...

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has found loaded rocket launchers during its operation in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, now in its second week. Rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, which was nearly constant in the days following the October 7 terror attack, has largely subsided. However, in recent weeks, Hamas terrorists have fired rockets at the Keren Shalom crossing, where humanitarian aid enters Gaza near Rafah, and at the city of Sderot, near northern Gaza.

Rafah isn’t just the last stand for Hamas, but for an entire foreign policy establishment.The desperate effort to keep Israeli soldiers from going into the last Gaza stronghold of the Islamic terrorist organization is about more than the sum of the geopolitical parts.After nation building failed in Afghanistan and Iraq, and everywhere else it’s been tried, the radioactive ‘Palestinian’ nation building experiment from over 30 years ago is its last hope.Long before George W. Bush tackled nation building after 9/11, his father began the era of turning Muslim terrorist groups into countries with the project to give the PLO a...

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) shared drone footage Tuesday of terrorists in a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) compound in Rafah, near several United Nations (UN) vehicles, including gunfire by the terrorists.Israel's foreign minister, Israel Katz, said that the UN was working with the terrorists, and called on UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini to resign (as Katz has done in the past).The IDF released a statement:During IDF operational activity in eastern Rafah on Saturday, terrorists were identified in UNRWA's central logistics compound alongside UN vehicles.In the footage, a number of terrorists and gunfire can be seen near UN vehicles...

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) continued to attack Hamas terrorists in Rafah and throughout Gaza on Monday, which was Israel’s independence day, despite continued international criticism and caution from the White House. In a statement, the IDF said: IDF troops continue their operations against terror targets in the area of eastern Rafah and on the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing. IDF troops eliminated several armed terrorist cells in close-quarters encounters on the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing. In eastern Rafah, IDF troops eliminated a number of terrorists and located weapons. An IAF aircraft struck a terrorist cell that...

A UK ban on selling arms to Israel would only strengthen Hamas, the foreign secretary has told the BBC. Lord Cameron said while he would not support a major ground offensive in the Gazan city of Rafah, the UK would not copy US plans to stop some arms sales.

Former President Donald Trump criticized President Joe Biden for setting “the world on fire” and referred to comments made earlier this week that he would withhold weapons and artillery from Israel. During a rally at Wildwood, New Jersey, on Saturday, Trump referred to comments Biden made during a CNN interview in which he said he would withhold weapons from Israel if it invaded Rafah, Hamas’s last stronghold. Biden’s comments came days after Hamas had fired a barrage of rockets from Rafah toward the Kerem Shalom border crossing, which is used as the main entry point for humanitarian aid entering the...

We’re nowhere near slam-dunk territory on this, but it’s something to watch. For Democrats, it could be an area that could produce another episode of politically induced heartburn. Jonah Goldberg is a notable anti-Trump commentator. He has been a vocal critic of the former president, though he’s returned to his classic roots amid the chaos on our college campuses. Still, while Biden has been disappointing for some Republicans who might have crossed party lines in 2020, Goldberg’s tweet about the rumblings he’s heard from within the Never Trump wing is interesting: Fwiw. I’ve heard from a LOT of reliably anti-Trump...

Biden administration officials are said to be offering Israel exact locations of Hamas leaders in a bid to stop the IDF invading the Gazan city of Rafah. The president has reportedly offered highly-classified information that also includes the locations of Hamas' secret tunnels to try and stave-off what he fears could be a humanitarian catastrophe. The detailed and sensitive talks serve to illustrate the stakes facing Israel and the U.S. Rafah is the last city in Gaza that has not been bombed by Israel. According to the Washington Post, the U.S. is also proposing to assist in the construction of...

CLAIM: President Ronald Reagan, like President Joe Biden, withheld arms from Israel to influence its military policy. VERDICT: MISLEADING. Reagan acted within the law, and in very different circumstances, in withholding arms. The New York Times‘ Peter Baker — winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his newspaper’s bogus reporting on “Russia collusion” — wrote Friday that President Reagan, too, withheld weapons from Israel over concerns about their use. Baker’s aim in the article appears to be to rescue Biden from some of the criticism he has faced since he confirmed earlier this week that the administration was withholding bombs and...

Israel’s security cabinet voted Friday to expand the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation in Rafah, albeit on a limited scale, and to continue talks with mediators in Egypt in the hope of reaching a hostage release deal with Hamas. The vote was interpreted as a rebuke of the Biden administration, in the wake of this week’s admission by the president that the U.S. is withholding bombs and artillery from Israel in protest of its decision to attack Hamas in Rafah. The security cabinet is one level above the war cabinet, which deals with more immediate military decisions.