Israeli airstrikes across Gaza killed scores of people overnight, as fears grow of the military campaign intensifying in the southern city of Rafah, a tiny pocket of the territory where more than a million people are sheltering.
Amid intensifying divisions in Israel’s government over the war, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, was expected to arrive in the region on Sunday, his fifth trip since the militant group attacked Israel on 7 October, killing at least 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostage.
Blinken is expected to spend the week visiting Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Israel and the West Bank to discuss a deal to secure the freedom of at least 136 remaining hostages in Gaza and a ceasefire intended to calm regional tensions, particularly in the Red Sea.
His French counterpart, Stéphane Séjourné, travelled to Egypt, telling a news conference that “we stand in favour of a ceasefire, but we also need to prepare for the return of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza”.
Bombardments across the Gaza Strip killed more than 127 people overnight, according to Gaza sources, including strikes on two residential towers in Rafah, the southernmost area of the territory next to the border with Egypt that is housing more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million population. Strikes also hit Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, where thousands who feared fleeing south have remained.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the army had destroyed 17 of 24 Hamas battalions. “Most of the remaining battalions are in the southern Strip and in Rafah, and we will deal with them,” he said.
A strike on a kindergarten in Rafah that had been converted into a makeshift shelter killed at least two people and a strike on a car killed several more, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
“There’s widespread fear that the military operation will expand to reach Rafah governorate, leaving absolutely nowhere to go for the vast majority of the internally displaced population,” said Hisham Mhanna, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) stationed in Rafah.
“It’s adding yet more fear, stress and anxiety especially as people are faced with unprecedented inhumane living conditions. They have been forced into trying to survive.
“It’s more important than ever to put an end to this bloodshed and protect anyone who can be saved in Gaza,” he said, pausing at the sound of a nearby explosion. “That was a bomb, they are happening non-stop,” he added.
Fears that Rafah could be in the crosshairs of Israeli forces come amid increasingly fierce divisions within Israel over the direction of the war, and pressure on mediators to reach a swift ceasefire agreement.
Bombardments of Gaza from land, air and sea have so far killed at least 27,000 people since October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, with more than twice that number reported wounded and thousands more believed to be buried under the rubble.
Blinken is expected to arrive in the region shortly after Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, criticised Joe Biden in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, saying the US president had failed to give full support to Israel and was “busy with giving humanitarian aid and fuel, which goes to Hamas”.
“If Trump was in power, the US conduct would be completely different,” he said.
There is little evidence that the trickle of aid and fuel allowed into Gaza is supplying Hamas as needs increase for the Gaza population. The UN and the ICRC have warned of an impending famine affecting more than 2 million people.
The Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid, rebuked Ben-Gvir and his coalition partner, Netanyahu.
Ben-Gvir’s statements, Lapid wrote on X, were “a direct attack on Israel’s international status, a direct attack on the war effort, harmful to Israel’s security and above all proves that he understands nothing about foreign policy.
“I would call on the prime minister to restrain him, but Netanyahu has no control over the extremists in his government.”
In remarks to a government meeting later on Sunday, Netanyahu presented himself as the only one capable of managing relations with international allies. “I am not in need of any assistance in navigating our relations with the US and the international community while steadfastly upholding our national interests,” he said.
A draft proposal put forward by the US and mediators from the Qatari government would bring an initial 30-day pause in the fighting tied to the release of female, elderly and sick hostages. If successful, this would be followed by a second 30-day pause when male hostages and those Hamas considers active-duty soldiers would be released.
The structure of the deal is intended to allow for talks on a permanent end to the fighting, a long-term sticking point.
Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told CBS news’ Face the Nation that “the ball is in Hamas’ court at this time”.
The need to get food, medicine, water and shelter into Gaza will be “front and centre” of Blinken’s discussions with Israeli officials during his visit, he said.
Osama Hamdan, a member of Hamas’s politburo, told a press conference in Beirut on Saturday night that the group was mulling the proposed deal but was focused on the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, a demand Netanyahu has rebuffed.
Mhanna said that as discussions continued, conditions in Rafah were worsening. “There is a daily struggle here for people to find food, water suitable for human consumption, any piece of wood they can use to light a fire and to keep their families warm as it’s become extremely cold and rainy this week,” he said.
Estimates were that the majority of the 1.93 million people displaced within Gaza were now in Rafah governorate, he said, an area of just 65 sq km, less than 20% of the territory’s land area.
Dalia Cusnir, an Israeli whose two brothers-in-law are being held hostage in Gaza, said she wanted the Israeli government to prioritise freeing those abduted by Hamas.
Despite growing criticism of Netanyahu’s leadership and threats from Ben-Gvir to pull out of the governing coalition, Cusnir said she felt the prime minister was capable of making politically difficult decisions and wanted him to do more.
She pointed to Netanyahu’s success in freeing the former soldier Gilad Shalit, who was taken hostage by Hamas in Gaza and freed in 2011 in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
“Bibi Netanyahu is my prime minister, he’s the prime minister of Israel and I’m not challenging that. For me, he’s the one that can bring the hostages back,” she said. “He brought back Gilad Shalit, he knows how to do it, he knows how to deal with the public when it means paying a high or difficult price.
“Looking at what Netanyahu is saying, I just feel confused. I feel like he wants to bring back 136 bodies.”
