They’re planning to enter Rafah; this is where all the displaced people from earlier on are so they’re clearly planning on carnage, may the Almighty aid the Palestinians….
Office of Mahmoud Abbas warns of threat to security and peace in region after Netanyahu orders military to prepare evacuation plan for Rafah before expected invasion
www.theguardian.com
I’ll post the latest update here for those short on time:
Netanyahu says a 'massive operation' is needed in Rafah as he asks security officials to present an evacuation plan for the area
Israeli prime minister
Benjamin Netanyahu says he has ordered the military to prepare a plan to evacuate the population of
Rafah ahead of an expected Israeli invasion of the southern
Gaza town, reports the Associated Press (AP).
Netanyahu made the announcement Friday after international criticism of Israel’s plan to invade the crowded town on
Egypt’s border.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he has ordered the military to prepare a plan to evacuate the population of Rafah. Photograph: Haitham Imad/EPA
Israel says Rafah is the last remaining
Hamasstronghold and it needs to send in troops to complete its war plan against the Islamic militant group. But an estimated 1.5 million
Palestinianshave crammed into the town after fleeing fighting elsewhere in
Gaza.
Netanyahu said a “massive operation” is needed in Rafah. He said he asked security officials to present a “double plan” that would include the evacuation of civilians and a military operation to “collapse” remaining Hamas militant units.
Earlier Friday, Israel bombed targets in
Rafah. The attack took place hours after Biden administration officials and aid agencies warned Israel against expanding its Gaza ground offensive to the town where more than half of the territory’s 2.3 million people have sought refuge.
Airstrikes overnight and into Friday hit two residential buildings in Rafah, while two other sites were bombed in central Gaza, including one that damaged a kindergarten-turned-shelter for displaced Palestinians. Twenty-two people were killed, according to AP journalists who saw the bodies arriving at hospitals.
Israel’s stated intentions to expand its ground offensive to Rafah also prompted an unusual public backlash in
Washington.
“We have yet to see any evidence of serious planning for such an operation,”
Vedant Patel, a state department spokesperson, said on Thursday. Going ahead with such an offensive now, “with no planning and little thought in an area where there is sheltering of a million people would be a disaster.”
John Kirby, the national security council spokesperson, said an Israel ground offensive in Rafah is “not something we would support.”
The comments signaled intensifying US friction with Netanyahu, who pushed a message of “total victory” in the war this week, at a time when
USsecretary of state
Antony Blinken was in Israel to press for a ceasefire deal in exchange for the release of dozens of Hamas-held hostages.