Israel pulls out almost all troops from southern Gaza
All but one brigade of the IDF have been withdrawn.
The Israeli military has withdrawn almost all of its ground troops from the southern Gaza strip on the six month anniversary of the beginning of the deadly conflict.
One brigade will remain in the strip, a military spokesperson said, but it remains unclear whether this withdrawal will delay a long-threatened incursion into Rafah.
Rafah, the last place spared in Benjamin Netanyahu’s offensive so far, is bursting at its seams as its population has more than quintupled with people streaming in to escape fighting.
There is nowhere further south for Gaza’s population to go, beyond breaking the border crossing and pouring into Egypt.
The withdrawal also comes ahead of a new round of peace talks in Egypt, with hopes of a ceasefire agreement.
It’s been six months since Hamas launched a cross-border raid that claimed 1,200 Israeli lives on October 7 plunged the region into a brutal war which has since seen 30,000 Palestinians – including an estimated 14,500 children – killed.
Now a mass humanitarian crisis has been declared as those Gazans left in the strip are starving and increasingly besieged.
Top UN officials previously sounded the alarm over the potential army assault on Rafah, citing the nearly two million displaced people sheltering there and Israel’s virtually indiscriminate bombing and shooting during past operations against Gaza’s other cities during the war.
Yesterday, Hamas announced it will take part in a new round of ceasefire talks in Cairo – they are demanding a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, a return of the displaced, and a ‘serious’ exchange deal of Palestinian prisoners for Israeli hostages.
Earlier today, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the UK continues to support Israel’s right to defend its security – but said he is appalled by the deaths of aid workers last week from an Israeli strike.
Sunak also echoed calls for a ‘humanitarian pause’ to allow further aid into the besieged Gaza Strip.
But as the war has raged on for six months, UK sympathies have changed since the beginning of the war.
At the beginning of the conflict, 62% of Britons sympathised in some way with the Israelis, according to new data.
That number has decreased six months into the war – now measuring at just 53% sympathy for Israel.
Brits are now more likely to sympathise with Palestinians – a 13% increase from the low sympathy percentage of 15% reported initially after October 7.
But there is growing pressure on the government to suspend arms sales to Israel, with a letter signed by more than 600 lawyers, including former Supreme Court justices, warning it risks breaching international law.
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They include former Supreme Court president Lady Hale, who said the worsening situation in Gaza and the International Court of Justice’s conclusion that there is a ‘plausible risk of genocide’ oblige the UK to suspend arms sales to the country.
Human rights lawyer Michael Mansfield KC said that ‘effectively, we’ve reached genocide already’.
This is a developing news story, more to follow soon… Check back shortly for further updates.
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