Israel calls for evacuation of part of Rafah amid threatened assault

Israel called on civilians to evacuate parts of Rafah on Monday, in what appeared to be a preparation for a long-standing threat of an offensive against Hamas militants in the southern Gaza Strip city where more than a million Palestinians are hiding, Reuters reported, UNN reported.

Details

According to eyewitnesses, after receiving text messages in Arabic, phone calls, and postcards instructing them to move to what the Israeli military called an "expanded humanitarian zone" 20 kilometers away, some Palestinian families left their homes in the cold spring rain.

The Israeli military said it had begun encouraging Rafah residents to evacuate as part of a "limited-scale" operation. The statement did not give specific reasons or say whether there might be any offensive action.

Seven months after the start of the war against Hamas, Israel threatens to launch an offensive in Rafah, where it says thousands of Hamas fighters and possibly dozens of hostages are hiding. The statement says that victory is impossible without taking Rafah, the newspaper writes.

The prospect of the operation, as noted, worries Western powers and neighboring Egypt, which is trying to mediate a new round of truce talks between Israel and Hamas, in which the Palestinian group may release some hostages.

The Rafah plan has caused an extremely public rift between Israel and Washington. In a conversation with his American counterpart, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant linked Monday's operation to an impasse in indirect diplomacy, which he blamed on Hamas.

"During the discussion, Gallant discussed the efforts made to free the hostages and noted that at this stage Hamas is rejecting the framework," the Israeli Defense Ministry said in a statement.

"Gallant emphasized that military action is necessary, including in the Rafah area, due to the lack of an alternative," the ministry added.

On Monday, the Israeli military called on Palestinians in the eastern parts of Rafah to move to the neighboring "humanitarian zone," saying that this would "encourage... the gradual movement of civilians to these areas.

Israeli television station Army Radio reported that the evacuation was concentrated in several peripheral areas of Rafah, from where the evacuees will be sent to tent cities in Khan Younis and Al-Muwassa.

Many residents of Rafah said they had received calls asking them to leave their homes in the area of the attack, as the army had stated, the newspaper writes.

According to medical workers, during a nighttime air attack on Rafah, Israeli planes struck 10 houses, killing 20 people and injuring several others, the newspaper notes.

Three Israeli soldiers were killed on Sunday in a Hamas rocket attack near Rafah, at the Kerem Shalom crossing into the Gaza Strip, while Palestinian health officials said at least 19 people were killed by Israeli fire, the newspaper reported.

Sunday's attack came as hopes for ceasefire talks in Cairo faded when Hamas reiterated its demand for an end to the war in exchange for the release of hostages, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu categorically ruled it out.

Addendum

The war began after Hamas launched an attack on Israel on October 7, during which, according to Israeli estimates, 1,200 people were killed and 252 hostages were taken.

According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, more than 34,600 Palestinians have been killed, 29 of them in the last 24 hours, and more than 77,000 have been wounded in Israel's assault, the newspaper writes.

On Sunday, a senior UN official accused Israel of continuing to deny the United Nations humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip, where the head of the UN food division warned that "full-blown famine" has broken out in the northern part of the enclave of 2.3 million people.

Although not an official statement, World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain said in a Sunday interview with NBC News that, based on the "horrors" on the ground: "There is famine in the north, full-blown famine, and it's moving south.