Hope for ceasefire between Israel and Hamas fades, Palestinians asked to evacuate east Rafah ahead of expected offensive

The Israeli military ordered Palestinians in the eastern part of the Gaza Strip city of Rafah to evacuate on Monday ahead of a ground offensive long promised by the Jewish state’s leaders. The message was delivered with pamphlets, phone calls, messages and media broadcasts in Arabic after a weekend that saw hope for a new ceasefire in the seven months Israel-Hamas was destroyed once again.

People quickly began fleeing the eastern part of Rafah on Monday, on foot or by any other means available to them.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government had stressed its intention to carry out an incursion into Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, over the past week, despite the latest efforts by the United States, Qatar and Egypt to negotiate. a new ceasefire agreement.

However, those diplomatic efforts appeared to fail on Sunday, when Israel and Hamas blamed each other for the stalemate and Hamas later carrying out a deadly rocket attack at an Israeli military checkpoint near a key border crossing between Israel and Gaza.

President Biden has pressured Israel for weeks to limit the scope of any operation in Rafah and not launch a ground offensive against the city without ensuring the safety of more than a million displaced Palestinian civilians believed to have sought refuge there since the entire Gaza Strip.

The Israel Defense Forces said on Monday that they expected to evacuate up to 100,000 people from the eastern part of Rafah. The messages told them to head several kilometers northwest, to the al-Mawasi area on Gaza’s Mediterranean coast, where humanitarian aid has been prepared. The military said those preparations included basic needs such as food, water and medicine, as well as a field hospital.

While there are I had been waiting last week that the latest wave of international diplomacy could lead to a new deal to secure the release of dozens more Israeli hostages held in Gaza in exchange for a cessation of fighting (avoiding an offensive in Rafah), the IDF appeared to be preparing for that operation as a result of it. of the Hamas attack on the Kerem Shalom border crossing.

Hamas militants launched the rocket attack on Sunday from the eastern part of Rafah, hitting the IDF checkpoint just about 1,000 feet away, next to the crossing point. The attack killed three IDF soldiers and wounded three more.

The IDF did not confirm that the evacuation order issued on Monday was directly related to the Hamas attack on the Kerem Shalom crossing.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhuri was quoted on Monday by Reuters news agency as saying the evacuation order constituted “a dangerous escalation” by Israel, which he warned would “have consequences.”

Zuhuri blamed the United States for continuing to back Israel in the war, which was sparked by Hamas’ unprecedented attack on October 1. 7 against Israel, in which militants killed about 1,200 people and took another 240 hostage. About 100 of those captives, including five American citizens, are believed to still be alive, held by Hamas or its allies in Gaza.

The Axios media outlet, citing an unnamed Hamas official, said on Monday that the group, long designated a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States, was threatening to abandon negotiations for another hostage release and a ceasefire over the evacuation order.

For the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have sought refuge in Rafah – many of them already displaced several times by Israel’s war with Hamas rulers in Gaza – Monday morning brought more fear and uncertainty.

“They are calling people in the eastern part of Rafah, some also in the west, near the Rafah crossing, ordering them to leave,” said Palestinian Abu Muhey, who has taken refuge with relatives north of Rafah. “We don’t know what to do, but I will take my family to Deir Al-Balah,” he said, suggesting they would try to flee further north into the decimated Palestinian territory.

Given the magnitude of the destruction already in Gaza, U.S. officials have for weeks expressed concern about the feasibility of removing so many people from harm’s way before any offensive on Rafah. Meanwhile, the United Nations has issued a series of increasingly dire warnings that a large-scale military operation in the city would leave hundreds of thousands of civilians at risk of death.

“An Israeli offensive on #Rafah would mean more civilian suffering and deaths. The consequences would be devastating for 1.4 million people,” the UN humanitarian agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, reiterated in a social media post on Monday. .

“UNRWA is not evacuating,” the UN agency stated flatly in its tweet. “The Agency will maintain its presence in Rafah for as long as possible and continue to provide vital aid to the people.”