Rafah | DD News

February 2, 2026 2:33 PM

What’s next for Trump’s Gaza plan after Rafah reopening?

U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to end the Gaza war was given a boost on Monday with the reopening of the enclave's Rafah crossing with Egypt. But difficult questions remain unaddressed, including whether Hamas will disarm. Trump's plan, now in its second phase, has been shaken by repeated Israeli attacks that have killed hundreds in Gaza, as well as resistance by Hamas militants to lay down their weapons. Israeli officials say they are preparing for a return to war if Hamas refuses to disar...

April 7, 2025 9:27 AM

Israeli military changes initial account of Gaza aid worker killings

The Israeli military has provided new details that changed its initial account of the killing of 15 emergency workers near the southern Gaza city of Rafah last month, but said investigators were still examining the evidence. The 15 paramedics and emergency responders were shot dead on March 23 and buried in a shallow grave where their bodies were found a week later by officials from the United Nations and the Palestinian Red Crescent. Another man is still missing. The military initially sa...

April 3, 2025 5:28 PM

Hundreds of thousands flee as Israel seizes Rafah in new Gaza ‘security zone’

Hundreds of thousands of fleeing Gazans sought shelter on Thursday in one of the biggest mass displacements of the war, as Israeli forces advanced into the ruins of the city of Rafah, part of a newly announced "security zone" they intend to seize. A day after declaring their intention to capture large swathes of the crowded enclave, Israeli force pushed into the city on Gaza's southern edge which had served as a last refuge for people fleeing other areas for much of the war. Gaza's health mini...

September 20, 2024 3:34 PM

Israeli forces deepen raid in Rafah, kill 14 people across Gaza

Israeli forces killed at least 14 Palestinians in tank and air strikes on north and central areas of the Gaza Strip on Friday, medics said, as tanks advanced further into northwest Rafah near the border with Egypt. The unrelenting fighting between the Israelis and Hamas militants in the enclave carried on even as a parallel conflict in the Lebanon-Israel border area involving Hamas' allies Hezbollah intensified. Meanwhile some Palestinians displaced by the Israeli assault on Gaza said they fea...

July 25, 2024 7:18 PM

Israeli forces advance in southern Gaza, tanks active in Rafah

Israeli forces advanced deeper into some towns on the eastern side of Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Thursday, hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told U.S. lawmakers he was actively engaged in bringing hostages home. Fighting in recent days has centred around the eastern towns of Bani Suaila, Al-Zanna, and Al-Karara, where the army said on Wednesday it had found the bodies of five Israelis who were killed in Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel and held in Gaza since. Hamas milit...

July 16, 2024 1:07 PM

Israel launches new Gaza strikes after weekend attack kills scores in safe zone

Israel struck the southern and central Gaza Strip on Monday to put more pressure on Hamas, following a weekend strike targeting the militant group's leadership, which killed scores of Palestinians who had sought shelter in a makeshift camp. Two days after the Israeli strike turned a crowded swathe of Mawasi near the Mediterranean coast into a charred wasteland littered with burning cars and mangled bodies, displaced survivors said they had no idea where they should go next. "Those moments as t...

July 1, 2024 5:07 PM

Gaza militants fire rockets into Israel, as tanks advance in north and south

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad group fired a barrage of rockets into Israel on Monday, in an apparent show of force as Israeli tanks pressed their advance deeper into Gaza amid fierce fighting, residents and officials said. The armed wing of Islamic Jihad, an Iranian-backed ally of Hamas, said its fighters fired rockets towards several Israeli settlements near the fence with Gaza in response to "the crimes of the Zionist enemy against our Palestinian people". The volley of around 20 rockets cau...

June 28, 2024 9:36 PM

Israeli forces push deeper into southern and northern Gaza

Israeli forces pressed their incursion deeper into two northern and southern areas of the Gaza Strip on Friday, and Palestinian health officials said tank shelling in Rafah killed at least 11 people. Residents and Hamas media said tanks advanced further west into the Shakoush neighbourhood of Rafah, forcing thousands of displaced people there to leave their tent camps and head northward to the nearby Khan Younis. The Israeli military did not immediately comment. Since May 7, tanks have advanc...

June 26, 2024 5:07 PM

Israeli forces pound north and south Gaza, battle Hamas in Rafah

Israeli forces pounded several areas across Gaza on Wednesday, and residents reported fierce fighting overnight in Rafah in the south of the Palestinian enclave. Residents said fighting intensified in the Tel Al-Sultan neighbourhood in western Rafah, where tanks were also trying to force their way north amid heavy clashes. The armed wings of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said fighters attacked Israeli forces with anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs. Since early May, ground fighting has focused on...

June 21, 2024 4:51 PM

Israeli forces step up bombardment across Gaza, amid fierce fighting

Israeli forces pounded Rafah and other areas across the Gaza Strip and engaged in close-quarter combat with fighters led by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, residents and Israel's military said. Residents said the Israelis appeared to by trying to complete their capture of Rafah, the city on the enclave's southern edge that has been the focus of an Israeli assault since early May. Tanks were forcing their way into the western and northern parts of the city, having already captured the east, s...