Israel confirmed this Friday what had been rumored for days, despite international pressure not to do so: its troops will advance to the southern tip of Gaza with the intention of destroying the “four Hamas battalions in Rafah,” according to the office of Prime Minister Beniamin Netanyahu said in a statement.
This decision will mean ordering the evacuation of displaced Palestinians who took refuge in the south, bordering Egypt, after the start of the Israeli invasion of the strip from the north. It is estimated that more than half of the 2.2 million Gazans moved south as the offensive progressed.
What Israel has not said is where it proposes that the refugees move again when the entire strip is militarily occupied by its troops. Netanyahu has called for an evacuation plan for southern Gaza. In any case, and despite the fact that the Israeli military had not gone further south of Khan Yunis by land – a city located less than ten kilometers from Rafah – aerial bombardments and land and naval artillery have been hitting Rafah since the beginning. from the war.
“It is clear that the intense activity in Rafah requires that civilians be evacuated from combat areas,” states the statement distributed this Friday by the Israeli prime minister’s office. “It is impossible to achieve the objective of the war without eliminating Hamas and leaving four Hamas battalions in Rafah,” he adds. The announcement concludes by reporting that Netanyahu has tasked the armed forces and security agencies with “a plan to evacuate the population and destroy the battalions.”
Israel’s announcement came after Netanyahu this week rejected Hamas’ counterproposal for a ceasefire and the day after the United States warned the prime minister on Thursday that it will not support the evacuation and military intervention in Rafah. . “We would not support it,” declared White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, adding that such an operation would be a “disaster.”
Also on Thursday, US President Joe Biden increased the tone against Israel by considering the Israeli Government’s response against the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7 “exaggerated.” “There are a lot of innocent people who are hungry, a lot of innocent people who are in trouble and dying, and this has to stop,” Biden added.
In the same vein as Kirby, Secretary of State Antony Blinken had declared on Wednesday, at the end of his fifth visit to the Middle East since the start of the war, that any “military operation that Israel undertakes must put civilians first.” place,” remarking that “that is especially true in the case of Rafah.”
For his part, the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, also warned this Friday of the “catastrophic consequences” that the invasion of Rafah would have.
Meanwhile, international humanitarian aid agencies, such as Unicef, have reiterated in recent hours that displaced Gazans are living in an extreme situation. In this sense, Hamas demanded this Friday in a statement the entry of a thousand trucks with aid daily “until (Gaza) recovers from the famine and its impact.”
