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Israeli military calls for Palestinians in eastern Rafah to evacuate Thousands of Palestinians evacuate eastern Rafah amid Israeli attack threat
(about 4 hours later)
City in southern Gaza on border with Egypt is thought to house about a million people displaced from elsewhere in Gaza Overnight Israeli strikes increase numbers leaving southern city for ‘humanitarian zone’ on coast
Israel’s military has issued a call for residents and displaced people to evacuate eastern neighbourhoods of Rafah and head to an “expanded humanitarian zone” in southern Gaza. Thousands of people are evacuating from Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, hours after the Israeli military told residents and displaced people in eastern neighbourhoods to leave in advance of a long-threatened attack on the city and its environs.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that it was making the call to evacuate through “announcements, text messages, phone calls and media broadcasts in Arabic”. It added: “This matter will progress in a gradual manner according to ongoing situation assessments that will take place all the time.” Witnesses described frightened families leaving the city on foot, riding donkeys or packed with their belongings into overloaded trucks on Monday. Overnight Israeli airstrikes had reinforced “panic and fear”, prompting more to heed the instructions to move.
The IDF said the operation was of “limited scope” and estimated it would need to move about 100,000 people. Witnesses told Reuters they had seen Palestinian families were leaving areas east of Rafah on Monday. “There is extreme tension in all areas of Rafah, including areas west of the city. Many have begun to think about evacuating, and many have already evacuated,” one witness said.
On Monday, Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant said Hamas’ refusal of mediated talks on the release of hostages meant military action in Rafah was required. It was not clear if he was indicating a military operation had begun in Rafah. The statement said Gallant relayed the message in an overnight conversation with US defence secretary Lloyd Austin. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they had dropped leaflets and were broadcasting instructions through “announcements, text messages, phone calls and media broadcasts in Arabic” telling residents to head to an “expanded humanitarian zone” on the coast.
In its statement, the IDF said it was expanding a humanitarian zone in Al-Mawasi, to the north of Rafah’s city centre, which includes field hospitals and tents and was increasing supplies of food and water. “This is an evacuation plan to get people out of harm’s way,” an Israeli military spokesperson told reporters.
“The IDF will continue to work to realise the goals of the war, including the dismantling of Hamas and the repatriation of all the hostages,” it said in the statement. Rafah has been sheltering more than a million people displaced from elsewhere in Gaza during the seven-month war and is a key logistics base for humanitarian operations across the territory. Dense tent encampments surround the city, and have also already crowded al-Mawasi, the coastal zone about 3 miles north-east to which Israel has told people to evacuate.
The news comes a day after Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said that if a ceasefire deal was not reached, Israel would launch “in the very near future” an often-threatened offensive into Rafah, a reported Hamas stronghold where about a million people displaced from elsewhere in Gaza have sought shelter. A rocket barrage launched by Hamas on Sunday from Rafah against a military base near the Kerem Shalom checkpoint in northern Gaza, which killed four soldiers, may have spurred the Israeli decision.
Israel has been warning for months it plans to send troops into Rafah, the southern city bordering Egypt. The IDF spokesperson described the evacuation as “part of our plans to dismantle Hamas … we had a violent reminder of their presence and their operational abilities in Rafah yesterday”.
The evacuation call follows claims by the IDF that 10 projectiles were launched from Rafah towards the area of the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing, killing three soldiers. The crossing was closed soon after, but other crossings remained open. The armed wing of Hamas said it fired rockets at an Israeli army base next to the crossing, but did not confirm where it fired them from As indirect negotiations in Cairo for a ceasefire have faltered in recent days, senior Israeli officials have vowed repeatedly to launch an attack on Rafah, despite strong international opposition and calls for restraint from the US, Israel’s staunchest ally.
A reprisal strike on a house in Rafah reportedly killed at least three Palestinians. In a televised address on Sunday, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, rejected Hamas’s demands for a definitive end to the war in Gaza, saying that any permanent ceasefire would allow the Islamist organisation to remain in power and pose a continuing threat to Israel.
In a televised address on Sunday, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu once more rejected Hamas’s demands for a definitive end to the war in Gaza, saying that any permanent ceasefire would allow the group to remain in power and pose a continuing threat to Israel. Israeli officials have repeatedly said a “decisive victory” requires the destruction of a substantial Hamas combat force they say is based in Rafah, and the capture or killing of top Hamas leaders thought be sheltering in tunnels under the city, possibly with dozens of hostages taken by the militant Islamist organisation during the surprise 7 October attack on Israel that triggered the conflict.
Speaking a day after thousands of people again rallied in Tel Aviv demanding a deal to free the remaining Israeli captives, Netanyahu also said that his government had “been working around the clock to formulate an agreement that would return our hostages”. On Monday, Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defence minister, said Hamas’s apparent refusal of the most recent proposal from mediators in the ongoing ceasefire talks meant “military action in Rafah was required”.
The statements by Netanyahu and Gallant may dash recent hopes that Hamas and Israel are close to a deal to bring about an initial 40-day pause to hostilities and the release of dozens of hostages. A senior Hamas official described the Israeli order for civilians to evacuate Rafah as a “dangerous escalation that will have consequences”.
A Hamas delegation which had arrived in Cairo on Saturday announced late on Sunday it was leaving to consult with its leadership. There has been no sign yet of a definitive response from the group to new terms proposed by mediators and accepted by Israel last week. Israel has yet to send a delegation to Cairo. “The US administration, alongside the occupation, bears responsibility for this terrorism,” Sami Abu Zuhri told the Reuters news agency.
In a move unlikely to help the talks, Netanyahu’s cabinet decided on Sunday to shut down Al Jazeera’s operations in Israel for as long as the war in Gaza continues, claiming the Qatari television network threatens national security. The IDF said the forthcoming operation was of “limited scope” and estimated it would need to move about 100,000 people.
“This matter will progress in a gradual manner according to ongoing situation assessments that will take place all the time,” a spokesperson said.
The IDF has said it is expanding the “humanitarian zone” in al-Mawasi with additional tents and field hospitals.
Humanitarian officials and displaced people already living there describe acute overcrowding, inadequate food, limited fresh water and an almost total absence of sanitation. Israeli forces have also bombarded targets in al-Mawasi at least twice in recent months.
Humanitarian officials have long warned of massive disruption to the effort to stave off famine in Gaza in the event of a major Israeli offensive in the south. Any attack on Rafah would lead to “the collapse of the aid response”, the Norwegian Refugee Council said on Monday.
The death toll in Gaza from the Israeli military offensive is more than 34,500, mostly women and children. A reprisal strike on a house in Rafah reportedly killed at least three Palestinians. Israel accuses Hamas of using civilians as a human shield, a charge the militant Islamist organisation rejects.
The Hamas attack in October killed 1,200 mostly civilians in their homes or at a music festival in southern Israel. About 250 hostages were taken, of whom 105 were released in return for 240 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails during a short-lived truce in November.
Netanyahu has been under domestic pressure to obtain the release of the hostages in Gaza but appears so far to have prioritised the demands of far-right parties, which have threatened to withdraw crucial support for his coalition if a ceasefire deal is signed now.
Speaking a day after thousands of people again rallied in Tel Aviv demanding the release of the remaining Israeli captives, Netanyahu defended his decisions, saying his government had “been working around the clock to formulate an agreement that would return our hostages”.
Hamas and Israel had looked close to agreeing new terms to bring about a 40-day pause to hostilities and the release of dozens of hostages, but hopes of a breakthrough have dimmed in recent days.
A Hamas delegation that arrived in Cairo on Saturday announced late on Sunday it was leaving to consult its leadership. There has been no sign yet of a definitive response from the group to the deal proposed by mediators and accepted by Israel last week. Israel has yet to send a delegation to Cairo.
The conflict in Gaza continues to threaten broader regional violence and tensions.
Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Islamist movement in Lebanon, said it had fired “dozens of Katyusha rockets” at an Israeli base in the Golan Heights.
Lebanese official media said three people had been wounded in an Israeli strike earlier on Monday in the country’s east, with the Israeli army saying it had struck a Hezbollah “military compound”.
Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged regular cross-border fire since war broke out in Gaza. In recent weeks, Hezbollah has increased its attacks on northern Israel, and the Israeli military has struck deeper into Lebanese territory.
On Sunday, Netanyahu’s cabinet decided to shut down Al Jazeera’s operations in Israel for as long as the war in Gaza continued, claiming the Qatari television network threatened national security.
Al Jazeera rejected the accusation as a “dangerous and ridiculous lie” that put its journalists at risk.Al Jazeera rejected the accusation as a “dangerous and ridiculous lie” that put its journalists at risk.