‘Intense’ Gaza war phase nearing end, says Israel PM

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that “intense” fighting against Hamas militants in the southern Gaza city of Rafah is nearly over, more than eight months into the devastating war.

“The intense phase of the fighting against Hamas is about to end,” Netanyahu told Israel’s Channel 14 network, without providing a clear timeline.

“It doesn’t mean that the war is about to end, but the war in its intense phase is about 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 alarm over the fate of Palestinian civilians sheltering there.

The military seized the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing, a key conduit for desperately needed aid into Gaza that has remained shut since then.

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

On the ground in Gaza City, in the north of the Palestinian territory, Israeli bombardment continued on Sunday with medics and the civil defense agency in the Hamas-ruled territory reporting deadly strikes.

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement has traded daily cross-border fire with Israel’s army, heightening fears of all-out war particularly over the past two weeks.

Netanyahu said that “after the end of the intense phase” in the Gaza Strip, Israel would “redeploy some forces to the north... primarily for defensive purposes.”

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s visit to Washington, which he said would include meetings that are “critical to this war,” follows public statements by Netanyahu concerning US military aid which have added strains to ties with the White House.

Netanyahu has accused Israel’s close ally and biggest military supplier of freezing some arms and ammunition deliveries during the war, which US officials have strongly rejected.