The Israeli army on Monday called on civilians in eastern Rafah to evacuate as it prepares for a planned ground offensive in southern Gaza City.
In a report, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it would communicate its message to the population of Rafah through “leaflets, text messages, phone calls and media broadcasts in Arabic.” Nearly 1.4 million people have sought refuge in Rafah to escape the fighting between Israel and Hamas.
This comes after ceasefire talks between the two sides, supervised by Egyptian mediators, ended without result over the weekend. Israel has previously claimed that a ground operation in Rafah was necessary to eliminate Hamas, a stated objective of the war it declared on the Islamist militant group following the October 7 terrorist attack that killed around 1,200 dead in Israel. The ensuing fighting killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s local health official, and plunged the territory into an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.
The United Nations and other countries around the world, including Israel’s Western allies, have warned that an attack on Rafah would worsen the already dire situation inside Gaza. World leaders have called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seek alternatives.
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