Israel tells Palestinians to leave Rafah amid plans of an offensive

People flee the eastern parts of Rafah after the Israeli military began evacuating Palestinian civilians ahead of a threatened assault on the southern Gazan city, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip May 6, 2024. REUTERS/HATEM KHALED

RAFAH, GAZA STRIP — Israel told Palestinians to evacuate parts of Rafah on Monday in what appeared to be preparation for a long-threatened assault on Hamas holdouts in the southern Gaza Strip city where more than a million war-displaced people have been sheltering.Calls for the Rafah evacuation came as disagreement between Israel and Hamas over demands to end the seven-month war intensified.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that “surrendering” to a demand to end the war would amount to defeat, while Qatar-based Hamas political Chief Ismail Haniyeh accused Netanyahu of sabotaging the talks.

The Israeli military instructed Palestinians by Arabic text messages, telephone calls and flyers to move to an “expanded humanitarian zone” 20 kilometers away. Consequently, some Palestinian families lumbered out under chilly spring rain, witnesses said.

The Israeli army said about 100,000 are being evacuated from east Rafah.

A senior official of Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that governs Gaza, said the evacuation order was a “dangerous escalation that will have consequences.”

“The US administration, alongside the occupation, bears responsibility for this terrorism,” the official, Sami Abu Zuhri, said, referring to Israel’s alliance with Washington.

‘Limited scope’

Israel’s military said it had begun encouraging residents of Rafah to evacuate in a “limited scope” operation. It gave no specific reasons, nor did it say if any offensive action might follow.

“It has been raining heavily and we don’t know where to go. I have been worried that this day may come, I have now to see where I can take my family,” said one refugee in Rafah, Abu Raed.

Witnesses said the areas in and around Rafah to which Israel wants to move people are already crowded and there is almost no room for more tents to be added.

An Israeli offensive in Rafah “would be devastating for 1.4 million people” sheltering there, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said on X, adding it would keep a presence in Rafah as long as possible to provide aid.

Seven months into its war against Hamas, Israel has been threatening to launch incursions in Rafah, which it says harbors thousands of Hamas fighters and potentially dozens of hostages. Victory is impossible without taking Rafah, it says.

The prospect of a high-casualty operation worries Western powers and neighboring Egypt, which is trying to mediate a new round of truce talks between Israel and Hamas under which the Palestinian Islamist group might free some hostages.

Meanwhile, Israeli authorities raided a Jerusalem hotel room used by Al Jazeera as its office after the government decided to shut dsown the Qatari-owned TV station’s local operations on Sunday, an Israeli official and an Al Jazeera source said.‘Criminal action’

Video circulated online showed plainclothes officers dismantling camera equipment in a hotel room, which the Al Jazeera source said was in East Jerusalem.

Netanyahu’s Cabinet shut down the network, saying it threatened national security.

Al Jazeera said the move was a “criminal action” and the accusation that the network threatened Israeli security was a “dangerous and ridiculous lie” that put its journalists at risk.

It reserved the right to “pursue every legal step.”

The network has criticized Israel’s military operation in Gaza, from where it has reported throughout the war.

“The incitement channel Al Jazeera will be closed in Israel,” Netanyahu posted on social media following a unanimous Cabinet vote.

A government statement said Israel’s communications minister signed orders to “act immediately.”

The measure, the statement said, includes closing Al Jazeera’s offices in Israel, confiscating broadcast equipment, cutting off the channel from cable and satellite companies and blocking its websites. —REPORTS FROM REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE