Israeli forces ready, ‘moving ahead’ with Rafah assault, US urges restraint
Israeli forces are “moving ahead” with a ground operation in Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza Strip, despite international warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe.
The Israeli military is preparing to evacuate Palestinian civilians ahead of the imminent assault on Hamas hold-outs in Rafah.
A senior Israeli defence official confirmed the development to the Times of Israel, stating that all necessary preparations to take Rafah are complete and an operation can be launched the moment it gets government approval.
The United States, meanwhile, has urged Israel to hold back from attacking the city, which is sheltering more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people.
Here are the latest developments in the Israel-Hamas war:
The Israeli government has bought 40,000 tents that can house 10-12 people each, indicating that a large-scale evacuation may be imminent. An Israeli government source told news agency Reuters that Netanyahu’s war cabinet plans to meet in the coming two weeks to authorise civilian evacuations from Rafah, expected to take around a month.
According to an Axios report, top Israeli intelligence and military officials met on Wednesday in Cairo with Egypt’s intelligence chief and other key officials to discuss a possible Israel Defense Forces operation in Rafah.
However, Egypt has warned Israel against moving on Rafah, and stated that it will not allow Gazans to be pushed across the border onto its territory. Cairo said Rafah offensive “would lead to massive human massacres, losses (and) widespread destruction.”
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that Washington was still talking with Israel about Rafah and that officials from both countries expected to meet again in person soon.
“We’ve had very detailed discussions … to talk through not just our concerns, but our view that there is a different way to go about dealing with the Hamas threat in Rafah,” Sullivan told reporters at the White House.
Israel, which launched its war to annihilate Hamas after the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attacks, says Rafah is home to four Hamas combat battalions reinforced by thousands of retreating fighters, and it must defeat them to achieve victory.
“Hamas was hit hard in the northern sector. It was also hit hard in the centre of the Strip. And soon it will be hit hard in Rafah, too,” said Brigadier-General Itzik Cohen, commander of Israel’s 162nd Division operating in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Hamas released a video showing Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was captured during Hamas’ attacks on Israel last October. Goldberg-Polin, then 23, was kidnapped from the Nova music festival and is shown in the video with part of his left arm missing several inches above the hand.
In the video, Goldberg-Polin says he has been “here for almost 200 days,” suggesting the video was filmed shortly before Tuesday, the 200th day of the war.