Benjamin Netanyahu orders the Israeli army to “prepare” an offensive on Rafah. “Victory is within reach.
It cannot be counted in years or decades, it is a matter of months,” he assured, four months to the day after the Hamas attack on Israel which started the war. More than 1.3 million displaced people, five times the city's original population, are crowded there in desperate conditions, according to the UN. These declarations come as the United States, Qatar and Egypt increase efforts to push the belligerents to lay down their arms to allow the release of Israeli hostages.