Israel reaches central Rafah as European states recognize Palestine
In a major setback for Israel, Spain, Ireland and Norway formally recognized a Palestinian state on Tuesday in a coordinated decision as the regime continues its genocidal war in the Gaza Strip.
The three European countries believe their initiative has strong symbolic impact that is likely to encourage others to follow suit, AFP reported.
After Ireland’s government formally approved the measure, Prime Minister Simon Harris said the aim was to keep Middle East peace hopes alive.
As Oslo’s recognition went into effect, Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide hailed the move as “a special day for Norway-Palestine relations”.
And after Spain’s cabinet backed the move, Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said it was a day that would be “etched in Spain’s history”.
Earlier, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said recognition was “essential” for peace, insisting the move was “not against anyone, least of all Israel” and the only way to secure a future of two states living side-by-side “in peace and security”.
The plans were unveiled last week by the prime ministers of the three countries, sparking a furious response from Israel and further exacerbating its diplomatic tensions, notably with Spain.
‘Clear call for
elimination of Israel’
Last week, Sanchez’s far-left deputy Yolanda Diaz hailed the move saying: “We cannot stop. Palestine will be free from the river to the sea”, which the Israeli Ambassador in Spain slammed as a “clear call for the elimination of Israel”.
The slogan refers to the British mandate borders of Palestine, which stretched from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea before Israel was created in 1948.
On Tuesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz went even further.
“Sanchez, as long as you don’t fire your deputy and you recognize a Palestinian state, you are participating in the incitement to commit genocide and war crimes against the Jewish people,” he wrote on X.
Tuesday’s move will mean 145 of the United Nations’ 193 member states now recognize Palestinian statehood.
Rafah invasion
On Tuesday, Israeli tanks advanced to the center of Rafah for the first time, witnesses said, three weeks into a ground offensive in the southern Gaza city that has stirred global condemnation for its continued civilian toll, according to Reuters.
Overnight, its forces battered the city with airstrikes and tank fire, residents said, pressing the offensive despite an international outcry over an attack on Sunday that sparked a massive blaze in a tent camp, killing at least 45 Palestinians, more than half of them children, women and the elderly.
Global leaders voiced horror at the fire in a designated “humanitarian zone” where families uprooted by fighting elsewhere in Gaza had sought shelter, and urged the implementation of a World Court order for a halt to Israel’s assault.
Israel’s war on Gaza has claimed the lives of more than 36,000 people since October 7 when the Hamas resistance group launched an operation in the occupied territories which killed more than 1,200 people.
In an opinion published in Haaretz newspaper, an Israeli major general has warned of the consequences of the war on Gaza.
Yitzhak Brik has said that only the Israeli cabinet can end the war, because there is no chance that the Palestinian resistance groups will decide to end it.
He said that if this does not happen, this campaign will turn into a war of attrition, which will last for years, under the leadership of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in the north, and will lead to the collapse of the regime.