Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu said his nation can ‘stand-alone’, hours after the US warned that it could halt arms shipments if a full-scale invasion of Rafah is ordered by the government in the upcoming days.
“If we need to … we will stand alone. I have said that if necessary we will fight with our fingernails,” he was quoted as saying by BBC.
“In the War of Independence 76 years ago, we were the few against the many,” he said.
“We did not have weapons. There was an arms embargo on Israel, but with great strength of spirit, heroism and unity among us – we were victorious,” Netanyahu said.
Israel, meanwhile, has taken control and closed the Rafah crossing with Egypt.
Aiming to prevent the entry of aid trucks into the Gaza strip, Israeli demonstrators recently blocked a road near the desert town of Mitzpe Ramon.
Protesters there have been holding a sit-in and scattered rocks across the road to stop vehicles, including aid trucks, as they demand the return of Israeli captives still held in Gaza, reported Al Jazeera.
80,000 displaced from Rafah
Some 80,000 people have left Rafah since Monday amid continuing Israeli bombardment in and around Gaza’s southernmost city overnight and into Thursday, UN humanitarians reported.
Most of those uprooted by Israeli military evacuation orders in eastern Rafah have already been displaced from other areas of Gaza; they are now leaving with everything they can carry “in vehicles, trucks, (on) motorbikes and donkey carts”, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
More than 47,500 people are estimated to have left their shelters in Rafah on Wednesday alone, UNRWA said, with some families approaching the agency’s shelters at Tel Sultan as well as Al Mawasi in the west.
The World Food Programme’s (WFP) Director for Palestine Matthew Hollingworth said in a post on X on Thursday that the agency’s main warehouse “is now inaccessible”.
“No aid has entered from southern crossings in two days”, he added. There is only a single bakery still operational while supplies of food will last only one to three days.