Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked his army to submit a “combined plan” for the “evacuation” of civilians from Rafah and the “destruction” of Hamas in this last refuge for displaced people in the Gaza Strip, announced Friday its services. Around 1.3 million Palestinians, more than half of the Gaza Strip’s total population, are crowding into Rafah, the last southern town before the closed border with Egypt, raising fears of a bloodbath. in the event of a massive Israeli military offensive.
Washington warns of ‘disaster’ in Rafah
“It is impossible to achieve the objective of the war without eliminating Hamas and leaving four Hamas battalions in Rafah. Conversely, it is clear that any intense (military) activity in Rafah requires civilians to evacuate the combat zones”, explains Benjamin Netanyahu’s office in a press release. “In this context, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered Israeli forces and security officials to submit to his cabinet a combined plan to evacuate the population and destroy the battalions” of Hamas, he adds.
On Thursday, Washington warned of a “disaster” in Rafah and assured that it would not support an operation “without serious planning” by Israel to protect civilians there. After the Israeli army concentrated its military operations in the Gaza Strip on the towns of Gaza (north) then Khan Younes, further south, Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his troops on Wednesday to prepare an offensive on Rafah, where many displaced by war found refuge, causing the city’s population to quintuple in a few months.
The war was sparked on October 7 when Hamas commandos infiltrated from the Gaza Strip, where the movement took power in 2007, carried out an attack in southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,160 people. , mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data. In retaliation, Israel launched an offensive which left at least 27,940 dead in the Palestinian territory, the vast majority of them women, children and adolescents, according to the latest report published Friday by Hamas.