Israel strikes Rafah after evacuation order

Israel's military says it has urged Rafah residents to evacuate

FE Team | Published: May 07, 2024 02:08:30

Israel's military carried out airstrikes in Rafah on Monday, residents said, hours after Israel told Palestinians to evacuate parts of the southern Gaza city where more than a million people uprooted by the war have been sheltering, report Reuters.
Fears are growing of a full-blown assault in Rafah, long threatened by Israel, against holdouts of the Palestinian militant group Hamas as ceasefire talks in Cairo stall. Hamas official Izzat al-Rashiq said in a statement that any Israeli operation in Rafah would put the truce talks in jeopardy.
There was no immediate comment from Israel, which Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV said had targeted areas in eastern Rafah near neighbourhoods given evacuation orders.
Instructed by Arabic text messages, phone calls, and flyers to move to what the Israeli military called an "expanded humanitarian zone" around 20 km (12 miles) away, some Palestinian families began trundling away in chilly spring rain.
Some piled children and possessions onto donkey carts, while others left by pick-up or on foot through muddy streets.
"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," one refugee, Abu Raed, told Reuters via a chat app.
A senior Hamas official said the evacuation order was a "dangerous escalation" that would have consequences. "The U.S. administration, alongside the occupation, bears responsibility for this terrorism," the official, Sami Abu Zuhri, told Reuters, referring to Israel's alliance with Washington.
Hamas said later in a statement that any offensive in Rafah would not be a "picnic" for Israeli forces and said it was fully prepared to defend Palestinians there.
Aid agencies have warned that the evacuation order will lead to an even worse humanitarian disaster in the crowded coastal enclave of 2.3 million people reeling from seven months of war.
"Forcing over a million displaced Palestinians from Rafah to evacuate without a safe destination is not only unlawful but would lead to catastrophic consequences," British charity ActionAid said.
Israel's military said it had urged residents of Rafah to evacuate in a "limited scope" operation. It gave no specific reasons nor did it say if offensive action might follow.
Nick Maynard, a British surgeon trying to leave Gaza on Monday, said in a voice message from the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing into Egypt: "Two huge bombs have just gone off immediately outside the crossing. There's a lot of gunfire as well about 100 meters from us. We are very unclear whether we will get out."
"Driving through Rafah, the tension was palpable with people evacuating as rapidly as they could."
Witnesses said the areas in and around Rafah where Israel wants to move people are already crowded with little room for more tents. "The biggest genocide, the biggest catastrophe will take place in Rafah. I call on the whole Arab world to interfere for a ceasefire - let them interfere and save us from what we are in," said Aminah Adwan, a displaced Palestinian.
Israel has been threatening to launch incursions in Rafah, which it says harbours 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 neighbouring 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.
But an unnamed "high-level" source was quoted by Egypt's state-affiliated Al Qahera news TV as saying on Monday that talks had hit an impasse since Hamas launched an attack in the vicinity of the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza on Sunday, killing four Israeli soldiers.
Egypt urged Israel to exercise the "highest levels of self-restraint" in Gaza, saying any military operation there would carry grave humanitarian risks. Earlier, security sources said Egypt had raised its military level of preparedness in northern Sinai, which borders Gaza.
Hezbollah said on Monday it carried out a drone attack on an Israeli military position near the northern Israeli town of Metula that left several dead and injured.
Israel's military said it could not yet confirm the injuries or casualties, but said a drone had crossed from Lebanon into the Metula area. Israeli media reported two people were seriously wounded in the attack.
Iran-backed Hezbollah also said it had sent dozens of rockets towards military targets across the border with Israel.
Israel and Hezbollah, which has amassed a formidable arsenal since 2006, have been engaged in daily cross-border strikes over the past six months, in parallel with Israel's war in Gaza.
Hezbollah has so far restricted its attacks to a strip of northern Israel, seeking to draw Israeli forces away from Gaza.
Medics and first responders in Gaza said 16 people were killed in Israeli air strikes in the southern city of Rafah Sunday, hours after Hamas rockets had killed three Israeli soldiers earlier in the day.
"The toll of martyrs in Rafah reached 16," emergency first responders told AFP, adding that seven people from one family and nine from another were killed.
Medical sources confirmed two strikes they said took place at two different locations around the city.
President Joe Biden will meet Middle East ally, Jordan's King Abdullah II, at the White House on Monday with prospects for a Gaza ceasefire appearing slim and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and Israeli officials blaming each other for the impasse.
Biden last met King Abdullah at the White House in February and the two longtime allies discussed a daunting list of challenges, including a looming Israeli ground offensive in southern Gaza and the threat of a humanitarian calamity among Palestinian civilians.
Jordan and other Arab states have been highly critical of Israel's actions and have been demanding a ceasefire since mid-October as civilian casualties began to skyrocket. The war began after Hamas stunned Israel with a cross-border raid on Oct 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 252 hostages taken, according to Israeli tallies.