The Israeli military said on Wednesday that it plans to direct a significant portion of the 1.4 million displaced Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip’s southernmost town of Rafah toward “humanitarian islands” in the centre of the territory ahead of its planned offensive in the area.
The fate of the people in Rafah has been a major area of concern of Israel’s allies – including the United States – and humanitarian groups, worried an offensive in the region densely crowded with so many displaced people would be a catastrophe.
Rafah is also Gaza’s main entry point for desperately needed aid.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said a Rafah offensive is crucial to achieve Israel’s stated aim of destroying Hamas following the militants’ October 7 attack in which about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and about 250 taken hostage and moved into Gaza.
Israel’s invasion of Gaza has killed more than 31,000, according to Gaza health officials, left much of the enclave in ruins and displaced some 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people.
Israel’s chief military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said moving those in Rafah to the designated areas, which he said would be done in co-ordination with international actors, was a key part of the military’s preparations for its anticipated invasion of Rafah, where Israel says Hamas maintains four battalions it wants to destroy.
Rafah has swelled in size in the last months as Palestinians in Gaza have fled fighting in nearly every other corner of the territory. The town is covered in tents.
“We need to make sure that 1.4 million people or at least a significant amount of the 1.4 million will move. Where? To humanitarian islands that we will create with the international community,” Admiral Hagari told reporters at a briefing.
Admiral Hagari said those islands would provide temporary housing, food, water and other necessities to evacuated Palestinians.
He did not say when Rafah’s evacuation would occur, nor when the Rafah offensive would begin, saying that Israel wanted the timing to be right operationally and to be co-ordinated with neighbouring Egypt, which has said it does not want an influx of displaced Palestinians crossing its border.
The US has been firm with Israel over its concerns about Rafah, and secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that Washington had yet to receive from Israel its plans for civilians there.
“We need to see a plan that will get civilians out of harm’s way if there’s a military operation in Rafah,” he told reporters in Washington after convening a virtual ministerial meeting on Gaza aid with officials from the UN, the EU, Britain, Cyprus, Qatar and the UAE. “We’ve not yet seen such a plan.”
At the start of the war, Israel directed evacuees to a slice of undeveloped land along Gaza’s Mediterranean coast that it designated as a safe zone.
But aid groups said there were no real plans in place to receive large numbers of displaced there. Israeli strikes also targeted the area.
More than 31,270 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and most of its 2.3 million people forced from their homes, Gaza’s health ministry says.
The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count, but says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead.
Meanwhile, fighting continued across Gaza. An Israeli strike Wednesday hit a food distribution site in southern Gaza run by UNRWA, the UN agency that works with Palestinian refugees, killing one staff member from the agency and wounding 22 others.
The death brings to 165 the number of workers for the agency killed during the past five months of fighting, according to UNRWA.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel