Children stand in front of their tents at a camp set up for displaced people from Khan Yunis and areas north of Rafah in the southern Gaza border city with Egypt on February 15, 2024, amid ongoing fighting between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement.
Mohammed Abed | Afp | Getty Images
The Israeli military said on Monday it had begun evacuating Palestinians from parts of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, ahead of an expected military operation in which about half of the enclave’s entire population is seeking refuge.
“For your safety, the IDF appeals to you to immediately evacuate to the expanded humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi,” Avichay Adraee, head of the Israel Defense Forces’ Arabic media department, wrote in a post in X Arabic, according to a Google translation of .
“The IDF will act with the utmost severity against terrorist organizations in your residential areas, as it has done so far. Anyone who is close to terrorist organizations is putting their life and that of their family at risk,” the post says.
Al Mawasi is a small stretch of coastal scrubland, just over 800m wide and 14km long, and is already home to several hundred thousand displaced Palestinians. More than 1.2 million people currently live in Rafah, most of them having fled other parts of the Gaza Strip, living mostly in tents and lacking access to sufficient water, food and basic medicine.
The White House – as well as the United Nations, WHO and other multinational organizations – have urged Israel against an offensive in Rafah and warned of catastrophic humanitarian consequences. Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu said an operation there was crucial to his country’s victory in the war against Hamas.
“Total victory”
Netanyahu and his far-right ruling coalition have rejected Washington’s pleas, saying Israel would carry out its offensive in Rafah with or without US support.
“The idea that we stop the war before we have achieved all of its objectives is out of the question. We will invade Rafah and eliminate the Hamas battalions there – with or without.” [cease-fire] “We must agree on a deal to achieve total victory,” Netanyahu said during his speech in Jerusalem on Tuesday.
The IDF believes there are between 5,000 and 8,000 Hamas fighters in the densely populated southern city, said to be the last remnant of the militant group.
Monday’s announcement came after the latest round of negotiations over a hostage-taking and ceasefire agreement ended in Cairo on Sunday, with both Hamas and Israeli officials trading blame for the collapse of the talks.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Sunday: “We see signs that Hamas has no intention of reaching an agreement.” Israel did not send a delegation to Cairo for the talks, which were brokered by Qatar and Egypt.
Hamas has proposed the release of a number of hostages in exchange for a complete and permanent ceasefire, which the Israeli government says is a no-go as it plans to continue its military offensive in Gaza until it deems the group completely eliminated . The Hamas delegation left Egypt on Sunday for Qatar, where it has a political office, saying “in-depth and serious discussions” had taken place in recent days. She will return to Cairo on Tuesday to continue talks.
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2024-05-06 09:09:30
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