Israel’s military yesterday called for the evacuation of Palestinians from eastern Rafah ahead of a ground invasion of the city, as Gaza aid officials said Israeli jets struck two areas where the warning had been issued.
The evacuation call followed intensified disagreement between Israel and Hamas over the Islamist group’s demands to end the seven-month war, during weekend talks in Cairo.
Consultations between two other mediators, the US and Qatar, were expected yesterday in Doha, but media in Egypt said negotiations had stalled after a rocket strike killed four Israeli soldiers on Sunday.
Photo: Reuters
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to send troops in against Hamas fighters in Rafah regardless of any truce, and despite concerns from the US, other nations and aid groups.
The “limited” and temporary evacuation order aimed “to get people out of harm’s way” and followed the deadly rocket fire that Israel’s military said came from an area adjacent to Rafah.
Gazan civil defense and aid officials yesterday said that Israeli jets had struck al-Shuka and al-Salam, among other areas, both of which were told to evacuate the day before.
The main aid group in Gaza, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, said “an Israeli offensive in Rafah would mean more civilian suffering and deaths.”
It added that it “is not evacuating.”
When asked how many people should move, a military spokesman said: “The estimate is around 100,000 people.”
However, Ossama al-Kahlut, a Palestine Red Crescent representative in east Rafah, said the designated evacuation zone hosts about 250,000 people, many of whom are already uprooted from elsewhere in Gaza.
One resident, Abdul Rahman Abu Jazar, 36, said the area his family was told to seek refuge in “does not have enough room for us to make tents,” because it is already full of displaced people.
“Where we can go?” he asked.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday said that Israel had yet to present “a credible plan” to protect civilians during the ground invasion that it has threatened for weeks.
Without it, Washington “can’t support a major military operation going into Rafah,” Blinken said.
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell yesterday called the evacuation orders “unacceptable.”
They “portend the worst — more war and famine,” he said.
Jean-Raphael Poitou, Middle East coordinator for the Action Against Hunger charity, said that the areas now opened for evacuees had previously been “closed because they were considered dangerous.”
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