The threat manu militari of Israel for the Gazans to leave Rafah, where around 1.5 million people are gathered – the vast majority of the population of Gaza – arrived this Monday: “Anyone who is close to terrorist organizations puts at risk endangering his life and that of his family,” reads one of the pamphlets distributed among the population. “For your safety, the army asks you to immediately evacuate” the area where they currently live, he adds. The army order, announced for weeks, has been coordinated with the government and has taken place a few hours after, for the umpteenth time, negotiations to achieve a truce failed. The preparations for the invasion of this territory, the only city in the Strip that the army has not yet entered with ground troops, are also developing against the warnings of the international community. At the head of these calls against this measure are its main ally, the United States, the UN and the humanitarian organizations that are deployed on the ground.
The ceasefire agreement has been under discussion in recent days, according to information that has emerged from both parties, but it was finally the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, who ruined the process, according to The New York Times. His statements over the weekend insisting on invading Rafah led Hamas to harden its stance, the American newspaper reports, citing official Israeli sources. The fundamentalist group also attacked Israeli territory, killing at least four soldiers on Sunday, hours before the negotiations were over for the moment. In the midst of this situation, the Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, has said that “there was no other option” than to launch this operation in Rafah, as communicated in a phone call to the US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd. Austin.
“Israel has agreed to significant concessions to bring the hostages home, but Hamas has repeatedly refused,” said the head of Israeli diplomacy, Israel Katz, from his account on the social network X (formerly Twitter) in which He adds that “everyone understands that Sinwar has no intention of releasing all the hostages, not even in exchange for everything.” Yahia Sinwar, top leader of the fundamentalist group inside Gaza, is accused by Israel of masterminding the October 7 attack. He is also often pointed out as the one who has the last word when it comes to closing agreements such as the truce.
“An Israeli offensive on Rafah would mean more civilian suffering and deaths. The consequences would be devastating,” warns the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), which makes it clear that it is not participating in this population movement ordered by Israel. “The agency will maintain a presence in Rafah for as long as possible and will continue to provide vital aid to people,” he adds through the X social network.
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As on previous occasions, when the occupation troops have already expelled citizens from other localities during the current war, “the calls for them to temporarily move to the humanitarian zone will be transmitted through posters, SMS messages (to mobile phones) , telephone calls and transmissions in Arabic to the media,” specifies a statement from the army.
Some pamphlets like the one mentioned are already circulating in which the Israeli authorities warn the Palestinians that their lives are in danger if they do not agree to be evacuated. In these announcements they indicate the first areas, with plot numbers and neighborhood names, that will be emptied of citizens first, an estimated 100,000. There, “the army will act with extreme force” against armed groups, the announcement adds.
Israel, therefore, presents the expulsion of the Palestinians from Rafah as a humanitarian action to another area where they can be better cared for. The true intentions emerge at the end of the statement from the military spokesmen: the objective is to try to eliminate the last Hamas battalions and free the hostages remaining in Gaza.
Many in Rafah live in tents with little access to food, water or medical assistance and, in turn, have already been displaced several times throughout the war from other areas of the Strip, which makes these movements even more difficult. . The objective, announced by Israel on numerous occasions in the last two months, is the invasion of that southern town on the border with Egypt, the last corner of the Strip where they have not entered by land although they do bomb daily.
It is there where, in addition to those Hamas battalions, Israel places most of the more than 100 hostages they still hold, many of them already dead. They have remained in the Palestinian enclave since the day the war began, on October 7, when Hamas murdered around 1,200 people in Israeli territory and kidnapped around 250, according to official data. The Israeli response has already caused more than 34,600 Palestinian deaths.
“There has been an increase in humanitarian aid arriving in Gaza. The Israeli military has expanded the humanitarian zone in Al-Mawasi to accommodate increased levels of aid arriving in Gaza. “This expanded humanitarian zone includes field hospitals, tents, and increased amounts of food, water, medicine, and additional supplies,” the army announcement added.
It refers to the area in which, two weeks ago, satellite images detected the installation of some of the 40,000 tents acquired by Israel, which assures that “a continuous assessment of the situation will guide the gradual movement of civilians from specified areas towards the humanitarian area.” Along with the statement, they have published graphics in which they try to explain how they are going to apply it.
The order was made public a day after Hamas carried out an attack from the surroundings of Rafah against a military garrison in Israeli territory that caused the death of four Israeli soldiers and the wounding of three others. The area where the dozen projectiles fell is around the Kerem Shalom border crossing, at the vertex where Israel, Egypt and Gaza meet, and one of the points through which Israel allows humanitarian aid to reach the Palestinian enclave. Also on Sunday, Minister Gallant visited the central area of the Strip. There he insisted that the operation was going to take place “very soon.”
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