- author, Rob Cope
- role, bbc news
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Israel has instructed tens of thousands more Palestinians to leave Rafah as it ramps up military operations in southern Gaza.
Leaflets fell from the sky and posts on social media urged residents of the city’s eastern districts to go to al-Mawashi, a narrow coastal area that Israel calls an “extended humanitarian zone.”
Parts of Rafah, where just a few days ago the streets were bustling with locals and refugees, now resemble a ghost town.
Israel said it would proceed with its planned operation in Rafah, despite warnings from the United States and other allies that a ground attack could result in mass civilian casualties and a humanitarian crisis.
US President Joe Biden said on Saturday that a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip could occur as early as the next day if Hamas releases the hostages.
“I said that Israel depends on Hamas, but if Hamas wants to, it can end tomorrow. And the ceasefire will start tomorrow,” he said at a fundraising event in Seattle.
Israel has announced that 128 people taken hostage by Hamas on October 7 are missing, 36 of whom are presumed dead.
Images showed smoke billowing over Rafah on Saturday, and witnesses cited by the AFP news agency reported airstrikes near the border with Egypt.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that its troops had been engaged in “face-to-face combat” with Hamas fighters in Rafah over the past day.
The Israel Defense Forces added that soldiers discovered “numerous underground mine shafts” in the area.
There have been dozens of Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip in the past day, and the Israeli military says they are targeting so-called terrorists and terrorist infrastructure.
It also ordered residents to leave some areas of northern Gaza. It suggests that the troops may return there again several months after leaving previously.
The IDF said people in and around Jabaliyah, northern Gaza, were “temporarily moved to evacuation centers in western Gaza City” to “mitigate damage” to residents “following attempts by Hamas to regroup” in the area. He said there was a need to evacuate.
A man who had originally evacuated from Jabaliya told the BBC he received a message on his mobile phone telling him to evacuate Rafah immediately.
“We don’t know where to go. There are about 80 people,” he told BBC Arabic’s Gaza Lifeline.
“I don’t have the money to go back to Khan Younis. Some of my neighbors said they would come and rent me a house for a pittance, but I don’t even have the money to rent a car. ”
Israel’s plan to expand its ground offensive into the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled fighting elsewhere in the territory, has raised international concerns.
President Biden said last week that the United States would not supply Israel with heavy weapons that could be used in a major attack on Rafah.
In an interview with CNN, Biden said the United States will continue to provide Israel with the weapons it needs to defend itself, including interceptors for the Iron Dome air defense system.
But he said U.S.-supplied heavy weapons were already killing civilians in the Gaza Strip and warned that Israel would not maintain U.S. support if it carried out military operations in these populated areas. .
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said Britain opposed military operations in Rafah but was unlikely to follow the US in delaying arms sales to Israel.
On Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he wanted to overcome his differences with Biden but vowed to press ahead with a military strike on Rafah.
“If necessary…we will stand alone. I also said that if necessary, we will fight with our nails,” Netanyahu said.
Saturday’s evacuation order came hours after a U.S. State Department report said Israel may have used U.S.-supplied weapons during the Gaza war, in some cases in violation of international humanitarian law. .
The report said it was “reasonable to assess” that these weapons were used in a manner “inconsistent” with Israel’s obligations, but the US did not have complete information for the assessment and the shipments He added that it may continue.
Aid agencies have warned that continued Israeli military operations in southern Gaza mean Palestinians will have no safe place.
“There is no safe place in Gaza,” Kitam al-Khatib, a Rafah resident who said he lost at least 10 relatives in an airstrike on his family home early Saturday, told Reuters.
“They spread leaflets in Rafah and said it was safe from Rafah to al-Zawaida, people should evacuate there, and they did. And what happened to them? The dismembered bodies?” she said. is reported to have said:
The charity Oxfam said there were no functioning hospitals in the area and aid supplies were very limited.
Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital, the largest of three partially functioning hospitals in Rafah, had to be hastily abandoned the next day as staff were ordered to evacuate and fighting broke out nearby.
The United Nations Palestinian Refugee Agency has also expressed concern about conditions at the Almawashi encampment, where people have been directed to evacuate.
UNRWA’s Sam Rose told BBC News there was virtually no equipment in the area to transmit numbers.
“People are living in shacks, people are living in tents on the side of the road on the sand. It’s very difficult in terms of providing services here.
“There’s no water network there. There’s no infrastructure, there’s no sewage, there’s no sanitation,” he says.
According to Israeli authorities, after Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, Israel launched a military operation to annihilate Hamas in the Gaza Strip, during which approximately 1,200 people were killed and 252 others were killed. He became a hostage.
More than 34,900 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-controlled region’s health ministry.
