Several people were reported injured after Hamas fired a barrage of rockets and mortars at a humanitarian border crossing between Israel and Gaza. Hamas rockets landed near Kerem Shalom border crossing, the main entry point for aid into Gaza.
Hamas fired rockets close to civilian shelters, aimed a maximizing casualties in case an Israeli response. “The launches carried out by Hamas adjacent to the Rafah Crossing, located approximately 350 meters from civilian shelters, are a clear example of the terrorist organization’s systematic exploitation of humanitarian facilities and spaces, and their continued use of the Gazan civilian population as human shields,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in press release Sunday afternoon.
Hamas proudly took responsibility for attacking the humanitarian border crossing. Israel was forced to close the passage of aid trucks following the strikes, the IDF confirmed.
The rockets were fired from the terrorist stronghold of Rafah, an area Israeli military plans to evacuate in case of a possible military operation to free the remaining hostages. In recent days, Hamas terrorists have repeatedly used Rafah’s civilian areas to fire rockets towards Israel.
The Israeli news website YNET reported the rocket attack from Rafah:
At least 10 people were hurt in a barrage of some 14 rockets and mortars was fired at Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza from the Rafah area on Sunday, in what is considered an unusual incident that comes after months of fighting in the Gaza Strip. Hamas immediately claimed responsibility for the strike.Choppers and fighter planes were rushed to the area of the attack to assist in extracting the injured and to attack toward the region from which the rockets were fired.
The rocket barrage comes days after the Biden administration reportedly ‘guaranteed’ Hamas that Israel will not enter Rafah and end all military operations if the terrorist group agrees to the latest hostages-for-terrorists deal.
The Israeli government rejected the Biden administration’s unilateral guarantee to abandon the military mission to capture Rafah, where Hamas’s terrorist leaderships is hiding behind Israeli hostages serving as human shields.
According to a U.S. intelligence sources, Hamas’s Gaza-based chief Yahya “Sinwar has approximately 15 to 20 hostages surrounding him and his family in Gaza,” the Israeli TV channel i24NEWS reported this week.
The Biden administration last week halted an ammunition shipment to Israel in a bid to pressure the IDF into abandoning the planned operation in Rafah, Israeli journalist Barak Ravid reported in the new website Axios Sunday.
The revelation comes as Israel’s military offensive against Hamas enters its seventh month. Israel, a key U.S. ally, relies of American-made weapons, ammunition and spare parts for its armed forces.
In recent months, the Biden White House has been threatening to cut shipment of arms and ammunition if Jerusalem did not comply with its demands, including plans to eliminate Hamas leadership cornered in Rafah. According to the The New York Sun on March 18, Washington was “considering leaving Israel short of the armaments it needs to fight Hamas.”
The Axios reported:
The Biden administration last week put a hold on a shipment of U.S.-made ammunition to Israel, two Israeli officials told Axios.(…)The incident raised serious concerns inside the Israeli government and sent officials scrambling to understand why the shipment was held, Israeli officials said.President Biden is facing sharp criticism among Americans who oppose his support of Israel. The administration in February asked Israel to provide assurances that U.S.-made weapons were being used by Israel Defense Forces in Gaza in accordance with international law. Israel provided a signed letter of assurances in March.The Israeli officials said the ammunition shipment to Israel was stopped last week. (…)The White House declined to comment. (…) The Pentagon, the State Department and the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office didn’t immediately respond to questions.
Despite Israel’s diplomatic efforts to bring back as many hostages as possible though a ceasefire deal with Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assured the country on Sunday that the military “will continue to fight until all its goals are achieved.”
Israel was willing to release convicted terrorists and allow a 40-day truce in return for the hostages, but the country will complete the military operation in Gaza launched after October 7 massacre to free the hostages and wipe out Hamas in the terrorist-infested enclave.
Inability to completely destroy Hamas’s leadership and its terrorist fighting force in Gaza, as suggested by the Biden administration, “would be a huge victory for Hamas, for Iran, for the entire axis of evil,” he explained.
President Joe Biden has reportedly drawn a ‘redline’ on Israel entering Rafah.
The i24NEWS TV reported prime minister’s statement:
Prime Minister Netanyahu released a video statement addressing reports surrounding the ceasefire deal that’s being mediated in Cairo, saying that the Israeli negotiators received a broad mandate in order to secure the release of the remaining 132 hostages, including agreeing to a pause in fighting.Netanyahu says that while Israel has proven “extraordinarily generous” as the U.S. Secretary of State put it, he blamed Hamas for remaining entrenched in its positions including the demand of a full IDF withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and complete cessation in fighting.”The State of Israel cannot accept this,” Netanyahu said, saying that it would allow Hamas to retake control of Gaza and rebuild its forces, and making the next massacre only a matter of time. “Is this why our heroes fell? Is this what we paid an unbearably heavy price for? The answer is: no! Surrendering to Hamas’s demands would be a terrible defeat for the State of Israel. It would be a huge victory for Hamas, for Iran, for the entire axis of evil. It would project a terrible weakness – both to our friends and to our enemies.””And this weakness will only bring the next war closer, and it will push the next peace agreement further away. Because alliances are not made with the weak and defeated, alliances are made with the strong and victorious.””Therefore, Israel will not agree to Hamas’s demands, which mean surrender, and will continue to fight until all its goals are achieved.”
After months of pro-Hamas coverage since the October 7 attacks, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government has finally told the Qatari state-run Al Jazeera to shut down operations in Israel. Israel’s cabinet unanimously voted to kick out the pro-Hamas broadcaster after months of deliberations.
Besides, taking Al Jazeera channels off the Israeli air and closing down offices, the cabinet decision also ordered the “confiscation of the network’s broadcasting equipment,” the i24NEWS reported Sunday.
Following the cabinet vote, Israeli police raided the Jerusalem office of the pro-Hamas broadcaster. “In a move following the Israeli Cabinet’s unanimous vote to close Al Jazeera in Israel, police conducted a raid on the Qatari organization’s offices located at Jerusalem’s Ambassador Hotel on Sunday afternoon,” the Israeli TV channel added.
The Qatari broadcaster’s reporting has been harming country’s national security, the Israeli government said. “Al Jazeera’s journalists have harmed Israeli security and incited against IDF soldiers,” Prime Minister Netanyahu said in a press statement following the decision.
Al Jazeera has a long history of siding with Hamas and Palestinian terrorists. In 2014, Processor William A. Jacobson reported how ‘Hamas supporters lifted Al Jazeera reporter in air in celebration’ following an armed conflict with Israel, initiated by relentless rocket fire into Israel. Hamas-sympathisers in Gaza credited Al Jazeera with bringing about a ceasefire through its biased news reporting to influence gullible international public opinion, something the broadcaster again displayed in the wake of the October 7 massacre.
The Jerusalem Post reported:
Israel’s cabinet on Sunday unanimously voted to shut down the Qatari news outlet Al Jazeera’s operations in Israel, nearly six months after first announcing its intentions to do so due to security concerns related to the Israel-Hamas war.Israel’s National Security Cabinet was scheduled to hold the vote on Thursday, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delayed it due to concern that the vote would not pass. According to a spokesperson for Minister-without-portfolio MK Benny Gantz’s National Unity party, this was because Mossad chief David Barnea requested that the government delay it for a few days, to avoid possible negative diplomatic ramifications relating to Qatar, a mediator between Israel and Hamas in negotiations for a deal to free Israeli hostages.The decision required approval from either the government’s National Security Cabinet (NSC) or the general cabinet, and Netanyahu chose to move forwards on Sunday in the general cabinet despite Barnea’s request.
An Israeli airstrike on Saturday eliminates Ayman Zaarab, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) commander who took part in the October 7 massacre, the IDF confirmed.
Besides Hamas, the PIJ terrorists had an active role in mass-killing, rape and kidnapping of innocent Israelis. Ahead of the attack, hundreds of Hamas and PIJ jihadists went to Iran and received specialized terrorist training from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Wall Street Journal revealed October 25.
The Times of Israel reported the precision airstrike in Gaza:
A senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad commander who led the terror group’s elite forces into Israel during the October 7 massacre was killed in an Israeli airstrike Saturday, defense officials said.Iman Zareb, a senior figure in the Iran-backed group’s Rafah Brigade, was killed along with two other Islamic Jihad fighters in an Israeli bombardment on a “hideout apartment” in Rafah, the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet Security Service said in a joint statement.According to Israel, Zareb had been leading efforts in recent days to prepare Islamic Jihad fighters to confront Israeli forces once they launch an expected push into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, considered to be the Hamas terror group’s last major redoubt.
Israeli security forces also continued counter-terrorism raid in the West Bank, killing more Hamas terrorists. The Times of Israel reported Sunday morning:
Hamas’s armed wing says the commander of its forces in the Tulkarem area of the West Bank was among four members of the group killed during a day-long Israeli raid in the town of Dayr al-Ghusun.A statement from the Izzaldin al-Qassam Brigades names Alaa Shreiteh, 45, as commander of the al-Qassam Brigades in the Tulkarem governorate.Shreiteh was jailed by Israel between 2002 and 2016.It also names Tamer Faqha, 32, as the terrorist behind a deadly shooting attack near the West Bank town of Bayt Lid on November 2 which killed off-duty IDF reservist Sgt. First Class (res.) Elhanan Klein.
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