Mahmoud Hamuz/AFP/Getty Images
A crowded street in Rafah, where many displaced Palestinians trekked as IDF ground operations moved south through Gaza.
CNN
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed his military to plan a “population evacuation” from Rafah ahead of an expected ground assault on the southern city of Gaza, his office said in a statement Friday. did.
More than 1.3 million people are estimated to live in Rafah, the majority of whom have fled from other parts of Gaza, according to the United Nations.
Prime Minister Netanyahu said Thursday that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) “will soon enter Rafah, Hamas' last stronghold.”
As IDF operations move south through Gaza, many Palestinians have trekked through the enclave and taken refuge in the city.
But it's unclear where they'll go next. The city shares a border with Egypt to the south, which has been closed for months.
The Israeli Prime Minister's Office said in a statement that it is impossible to both eliminate Hamas and leave “four Hamas battalions in Rafah.”
“On the other hand, it is clear that any large-scale operation in Rafah will require the evacuation of civilians from the combat zone.”
“That is why the Prime Minister has instructed the Israel Defense Forces and the defense establishment to submit to the Cabinet a dual plan for the evacuation of the population and disbandment of the battalion.”
Rafah is the last major population center in Gaza not occupied by the Israel Defense Forces.
It quickly became home to a huge number of displaced Palestinians. Satellite images this week showed how the tent city of Rafah has grown in size in just a few weeks as more Gazans descend on the area to escape IDF operations.
The office of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned plans for military escalation in a statement Friday, calling the potential evacuation a “real threat” and a “dangerous omen” to Israel's expulsion of Palestinians from their lands. He said that.
“The time has come for everyone to take responsibility in the face of a new catastrophe that will push the entire region into endless war,” the statement said.
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Palestinians in Rafah told CNN they are terrified if Israel enters the city and have nowhere else to go.
“We pray to God that what happened in Gaza City does not happen in Rafah, because if the same thing happens in Rafah, we will have nowhere to go,” said Mohammad Jamal Abu Tour. Told.
“If we go to Gaza City, Khan Younis or El Nuseyrat, we will not find the supplies that were given to us here in Rafah,” he added. “We constantly hear people saying, God help us, that in Gaza City they cannot find clean water, so they are eating grass, drinking water from the sea.”
Mahmoud Khalil Amer, who fled Al Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza, said he stayed in a tent near a cemetery in Rafah. “We are not the living. The dead are better than us,” he said.
The top commander in charge of Israel's military operations in southern Gaza told CNN on Sunday that there is still no plan in place on how to minimize civilian deaths in Gaza city. Brigadier General Dan Goldfuss, who oversees the Israel Defense Forces' 98th Division, said he would work on such a plan “as soon as” he receives the order to move troops into the area, and as of Sunday, the order had not been issued. He said he did not. still.
A State Department spokesperson said Thursday that the United States would not support an Israeli military operation in Rafah “without a serious plan.”
“To carry out an operation like this right now, with no planning and little thought, in an area where 1 million people have been evacuated, would be a disaster,” State Department Deputy Spokesman Vedant Patel said at a Thursday press conference. Probably.''
Later Thursday, President Joe Biden issued one of his sharpest condemnations yet of Israel's military actions, calling the operation to wipe out Hamas “overreach.”
“You know, I think the implementation of the response in the Gaza Strip has gone too far,” Biden told reporters at the White House, explaining his efforts to open Gaza. More humanitarian aid could flow in.
“I have been working really hard, really hard to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza. Many innocent people are starving. Many innocent people are suffering and dying. . And that has to stop,” Biden said.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Friday that the U.N. is “very concerned about the fate of civilians in Rafah,” adding that Rafah's unprecedented population density could leave civilians vulnerable in the event of a ground attack. It is almost impossible to protect them, he added.
Dujarric told a daily news conference in New York that people “need to be protected,” but added that the United Nations “doesn't want forced mass displacement against their will by definition.” Ta.
Meanwhile, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said in a press release on Thursday that Rafah could soon turn into “a zone of bloodshed and destruction from which people cannot escape.”
