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 the ‘intense phase’ of fighting in Rafah is ‘about to end’ – promising that more troops will be sent to Israel’s border with Lebanon afterwards to battle Hezbollah.

Israel’s prime minister said the battle against Hamas terrorists in southern Gaza City is almost over, without giving a specific timetable.

He told Israel’s Channel 14 that “after the end of the intense phase” in the Gaza Strip, Israel would “redeploy a number of troops to the north… mainly for defensive purposes.”

His comments come amid growing concerns in recent weeks that daily exchanges of cross-border fire between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah could lead to all-out war.

The Israeli army 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.

Plumes of smoke rise during ongoing fighting in the Sultan neighborhood of northwestern Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on June 18, 2024

Benjamin Netanyahu has said the ‘intense phase’ of fighting in Rafah is ‘about to end’

Netanyahu’s interview – his first with Israeli media since the war began with the Hamas attack on October 7 – was broadcast as his defense minister arrived in Washington for talks on the Gaza war and rising cross-border tensions with Hezbollah movement in Lebanon.

“The intense phase of the fight against Hamas is about to end,” Netanyahu said, adding: “It does not mean that the war is about to end, but the war in its intense phase is about to end.” 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 unrest over the fate of Palestinian civilians sheltering there.

The army has seized the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, a key channel for much-needed aid to Gaza, which has remained closed ever since.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah said it had attacked 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 continued to attack targets and battle Hamas.

A woman stands with a child in her arms, surrounded by the rubble of buildings destroyed during the Israeli bombardment of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on June 23, 2024

Israeli soldiers during military operations in the southern Gaza Strip last month

In Gaza City, medics from Al-Ahli Hospital said at least five people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a facility of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

The Israeli military said its jets struck militants “operating from buildings that previously served as UNRWA headquarters.”

There was no immediate comment from UNRWA, whose facilities have been attacked before.

Some UNRWA buildings were converted into shelters for displaced Palestinians during the war.

An early morning airstrike on a family home elsewhere in Gaza City killed at least seven people, the civil defense agency said.

An Israeli fire truck drives towards an attack scene following a drone strike 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 count based on official Israeli 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, mostly civilians, the Gaza Health Ministry said.

“This war must stop,” said Umm Siraj al-Balawi, as she struggled to survive in a makeshift shelter amid a field of rubble, with stretched sheets protecting her young children from the blazing sun.

But despite the needs, “delivering any meaningful humanitarian assistance in Gaza has become virtually impossible and the fabric of civil society is unraveling,” the European Union said in a statement.

As the war continued, Israeli protesters took to the streets week after week, demanding greater efforts to bring the remaining hostages home.

In his Sunday interview, Netanyahu said that if his rule ends, “a left-wing government will establish a Palestinian state,” calling it a threat to “our existence.”