🇮🇱 🇵🇸 #NEW #Israel's war cabinet has unanimously approved expanding combat operations in #Rafah, setting the stage for a full ground assault into the city. The IDF said four of their soldiers were killed today and that scores of Hamas and PIJ militants were killed in Rafah.

Heavy artillery and gunfire continued from Thursday to Friday, say AP correspondents.

This comes as Israeli forces began ground operations over the past several days to secure the Rafah border crossing between #Egypt and #Palestine and set up positions along the eastern outskirts of the city amid continued calls of civilian evacuations.

Meanwhile, airstrikes have been underway across the area against what the IDF has described as “terrorist infrastructure,”, civilian casualties have also been reported in these strikes. Via theatlasnews.co
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Over a million Palestinians previously have fled to Rafah to escape fighting elsewhere, with many packed into U.N.-run shelters or squalid tent camps. The city on the border with Egypt and is a crucial hub for bringing in food, medicine, fuel, and other goods.

The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says about 110,000 people have fled Rafah and that food and fuel supplies in the city are critically low. Georgios Petropoulos, an OCHA official working in Rafah, said the two main crossings near the city remain closed, cutting off supplies, medical evacuations, and the movement of humanitarian staff.

The U.N.'s World Food Program will run out of food for southern Gaza by Saturday he said, adding that 30,000 people were leaving Rafah daily in search of safety, but that humanitarian workers had no supplies to help them set up camp in a new place. “We simply have no tents, we have no blankets, no bedding, none of the items that you would expect a population on the move to be able to get from the humanitarian system,”

Rafah was the main point of entry for fuel for vehicles, as well as the generators on which hospitals and water treatment plants rely. Via AP.

@AtlasNewsTelegram