More than a million displaced people in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip will be able to evacuate before the Israeli military starts operating there. This was stated by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, The Times of Israel reports, UNN writes.
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Netanyahu made this statement against the backdrop of a US rebuke that Israel had not conducted the pre-operational planning necessary to ensure that civilians were kept out of harm's way, and that failure to do so could lead to "catastrophe.
In a statement, Netanyahu's office said that he had instructed the IDF and the Defense Ministry to submit plans to the cabinet for both the evacuation of Palestinian civilians from the southern part of the Gaza Strip and the disbanding of Hamas battalions in the Rafah area.
It is impossible to achieve the military goal of eliminating Hamas and leave four Hamas battalions in Rafah.
According to the Israeli authorities, it is clear that a large-scale operation in Rafah requires the evacuation of civilians from the combat zone.
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An estimated 1.3 million Palestinians have taken refuge in the Rafah area after the Israeli Defense Forces issued evacuation warnings from northern Gaza and other areas during the ground offensive against Hamas. Unable to leave the tiny Palestinian territory, many are living in temporary tent cities or overcrowded UN shelters.