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Israel Gaza live updates: IDF says it controls Rafah crossing as truce talks to resume - BBC News Israel Gaza live updates: IDF says it controls Gaza side of Rafah crossing - BBC News
(32 minutes later)
Jeremy Bowen Hugo Bachega
International Editor Reporting from Lebanon
The significance of Israel taking operational control, as they describe it, of the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing means they have got their soldiers there, it means that they have got their armoured vehicles there. Lebanon is also anxiously watching the negotiations for a
And it means that they are in control of that area which is the southern route into Gaza. possible ceasefire in Gaza which, according to the Shia Islamist group
More broadly, one thing that Israel may be wanting to do is to take control of the entire area, which runs between Gaza and Egypt at the very southern point. Hezbollah, will mean a pause in the cross-border attacks that the group has
It’s called the Philadelphi Corridor, and Israel says that if it takes control of that it would stop, in the future, tunnels being built in which might give people the chance to smuggle weapons in. carried out on Israel since October.
But that’s looking quite a way ahead, because of course at the moment there is all this massive amount of diplomatic activity around the ceasefire talks. The violence has led to the displacement of tens of
thousands of residents on both sides of the border and raised fears of a major
confrontation between Hezbollah and Israel, which fought a devastating
month-long war in 2006.
There have been intense efforts, led by US envoy Amos
Hochstein, to reduce tensions and reach a long-term deal. Hezbollah, a powerful
political and military group supported by Iran, has said it will observe in
Lebanon any ceasefire in Gaza, but that a permanent agreement can only be
negotiated after the end of the war there.
Hezbollah says its attacks are in support of Hamas, aimed at
diverting Israeli troops from Gaza to the border with Lebanon. In Israel,
defence officials have threatened to use military force against the group –
which, like Hamas, is considered a terrorist organisation by the UK, the US and
others – if diplomacy fails to de-escalate the situation.
On Monday, two Israeli soldiers were killed after what
Hezbollah described as a drone attack on a military base in the town of Metula.
A day earlier, an Israeli airstrike killed four members of a Lebanese family in
a house in the village of Meiss al Jabal, according to local officials.
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