Israel pounds Rafah despite truce talks

Israel bombarded the overcrowded Gaza city of Rafah, where it has launched a ground incursion, as talks resumed yesterday in Cairo aimed at agreeing the terms of a truce in the seven-month war.

Despite international objections, Israel sent tanks into Rafah on May 7 and seized the nearby crossing into Egypt that is the main conduit for aid into the besieged Palestinian territory.

Heavy Israeli strikes and shelling continue yesterday to hit Gaza, with media footage showing Palestinians scrambling in the dark to pull survivors, bloodied and caked in dust, out from under the rubble of a Rafah building.

"We are living in Rafah in extreme fear and endless anxiety as the occupation army keeps firing artillery shells indiscriminately," said Muhanad Ahmad Qishta, 29.

"Rafah is a witnessing a very large displacement, as places the Israeli army claims to be safe are also being bombed," he told AFP.

An emergency doctor working in Rafah and neighboring Khan Younis said that with humanitarian access compromised, the health situation in the southern cities was "catastrophic."

"The smell of sewage is rife everywhere," said Doctor James Smith. "It's been getting worse over the course of the last couple of days, obviously worse with the hot weather."

Israel in response vowed to crush Hamas and launched a military offensive that has killed at least 34,789 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory's Health Ministry.

Talks aimed at agreeing a ceasefire resumed in Cairo yesterday "in the presence of all parties," Egyptian media reported.

A senior Hamas official said the latest round of negotiations would be "decisive."

"The resistance insists on the rightful demands of its people...