The threat manu militari of Israel to get Gazans to leave Rafah, where around 1.5 million people are gathered – more than half of Gaza’s population – arrived this Monday: “Anyone who is close to terrorist organizations puts “His life and that of his family are in danger,” reads one of the pamphlets distributed among the population. “For his safety, the army asks him to evacuate immediately [la zona en la que viven en la actualidad]”, Add.
The bombings on citizens, which do not stop, have accompanied the army’s order, announced for weeks, which has been coordinated with the Government and has taken place a few hours after, for the umpteenth time, negotiations to achieve a truce failed. Preparations for the invasion of this territory, the only city in the Strip that the Israeli army has not yet entered with ground troops, are also developing against the warnings of the international community. At the head of these calls are its main ally, the United States, the UN and the humanitarian organizations that are deployed on the ground. Hamas has already said that Rafah “will not be a picnic” for the invading troops.
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 his stance, according to the American newspaper, which cites official Israeli sources. The fundamentalist group also attacked Israeli territory on Sunday, killing at least four soldiers, hours before the negotiations were concluded. In the midst of this situation, the Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, has said that “there is no other option” but to launch this operation in Rafah, and he communicated this 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). To which he added 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,” warned the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), which wanted to make 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,” they added through the social network X. For the head of diplomacy of the European Union, Josep Borrell, the order given by Israel is “unacceptable.”
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As on previous occasions, when the occupation troops have expelled citizens from other Palestinian towns during the current war, “calls for them to temporarily move to the humanitarian zone will be transmitted through posters, SMS messages [a los móviles]telephone calls and transmissions in Arabic to the media,” the army specified in a statement.
In fact, some pamphlets are already circulating, such as the one mentioned above, in which the Israeli authorities warn Palestinians that their lives are in danger if they do not agree to be evacuated. These announcements indicate the areas, with plot numbers and neighborhood names, that will be the first to be emptied, affecting about 100,000 people. There, “the army will act with extreme force” against the armed groups, they detailed in the martial statement. Israel wants to present the expulsion of the Palestinians from Rafah to another area where they can be better cared for as a humanitarian action. However, the true intentions are deduced at the end of the statement: 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 care and, in turn, have already been displaced several times throughout the war from other areas of the Strip, making new movements even more difficult. . As the Government of Israel has repeated on numerous occasions during the last two months, they consider the invasion of that southern town, on the border with Egypt, and the last corner of the Strip where they have not entered by land, to be key, although they do bomb it daily.
It is there where, in addition to Hamas battalions, Israel places most of the more than 100 hostages in the hands of the Islamists, 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 34,700 Palestinian deaths, according to figures from the Gaza Ministry of Health.
In its announcement, the army also stated that “there has been an increase in humanitarian aid arriving in Gaza. The Israeli military has expanded the humanitarian zone in Al-Mawasi to accommodate the increase in incoming aid. “This expanded humanitarian zone includes field hospitals, tents, and increased amounts of food, water, medicine, and additional supplies.” They refer 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, the military has released graphics in which they try to explain how they are going to carry out the action.
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 a dozen projectiles fell is around the Kerem Shalom border crossing, at the point where Israel, Egypt and Gaza meet, and one of the points through which Israel allows humanitarian aid to reach the Palestinian enclave. The same Sunday, Minister Gallant visited the central area of the Strip. There he insisted that the operation in Rafah was going to take place “very soon.”
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