In an escalation of the ongoing war in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has given orders to Israeli forces to draw up plans for evacuating hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza’s Rafah, a city packed with more than a million people, in advance of an expected ground offensive that is not supported by the US.
Washington’s refusal to support Israel in its latest aggression into the war comes in the aftermath of Biden’s public condemnation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel is also being heavily criticized by the international forum after deciding to move ahead toward the Egypt border. Before the war began, Rafah’s demographics showed that its population is roughly 280,000, and it is currently being accommodated by an additional 1.4 million people, either living in shelters or with their relatives.
Rafah is the last remaining stronghold of Hamas in Gaza after the war, which started in October, erased most of it.
“It is impossible to achieve the goal of eliminating Hamas by leaving four Hamas battalions in Rafah,” Netanyahu’s office said. “On the contrary, it is clear that intense activity in Rafah requires that civilians evacuate the areas of combat.”
Netanyahu’s orders came on Friday and did not give any explicit details of the evacuations or when they might be carried out. The prime minister of Israel has ordered the military and security officials to devise a two-way plan for mass evacuation of civilians on one side and the destruction of Hamas on the other.
After Hamas militants violated Israel’s territory on October 6, killing 1,200 people and taking another 250 hostages, Israel declared an unprecedented war. Post that, the Israeli air-ground offensive has killed roughly 28,000 Palestinians, including children and women. More than 80% of the Gazan population has been displaced, and the region is reeling under a humanitarian crisis, amidst poverty, hunger, and a lack of medical services.
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