Jerusalem: The Israeli army ordered some 100,000 Palestinians on Monday to begin evacuating from the southern city of Rafah, signalling that a long-promised ground invasion there could be imminent and further complicating efforts to broker a cease-fire in Gaza.
The looming operation in the city — where more than 1 million Palestinians are sheltering and a high number of deaths is feared — has raised global alarm and Israeli’s closest allies have warned against it. On Monday, the United Nations agency serving Palestinian refugees said it would not comply with the evacuation order.
Israel has described Rafah as the last significant Hamas stronghold after some seven months of war, and has repeatedly said the invasion is necessary to defeat the Islamic militant group, which unleashed the current conflict with an attack on Israel on October 7.
But Hamas and key mediator Qatar have warned that invading Rafah — along the border with Egypt — could derail efforts by international mediators to broker a cease-fire.
Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an army spokesman, said some 100,000 people were being ordered to move to a nearby Israel-declared humanitarian zone called Muwasi — a makeshift camp of tents where along the coast hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have sought safety and live in squalid conditions. Shoshani said Israel was preparing a “limited scope operation” and would not say whether this was the beginning of a broader invasion of the city. Israel never formally announced the launch of its current ground invasion in Gaza.
Smoke could be seen rising from Rafah Monday afternoon, although the cause was unclear.
Tensions escalated Sunday when Hamas fired rockets at Israeli troops positioned on the border with Gaza
near Israel’s main crossing for delivering badly needed humanitarian aid, killing four soldiers. Israel shuttered the crossing — but Shoshani said it would not affect how much aid enters Gaza as others are working.
He would not say whether the upcoming operation was a response to that attack. Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes on Rafah killed 22 people, including children and two infants, according to a hospital.
Shoshani said Israel published a map of the evacuation area, and that orders were being issued through air-dropped leaflets, text messages and radio broadcasts. He said Israel has expanded humanitarian aid into Muwasi, including field hospitals, tents, food and water.
Israel’s army said on the social media platform X that it would act with “extreme force” against militants, and urged the population to evacuate immediately for their safety.
Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, condemned the “forced, unlawful” evacuation order and the idea that people should go to Muwasi.
“The area is already overstretched and devoid of vital services,” Egeland said.
About 1.4 million Palestinians — more than half of Gaza’s population — are jammed into Rafah and its surroundings. Most of them fled their homes elsewhere in the territory to escape Israel’s onslaught and now face another wrenching move or the danger of staying under a new assault.
They live in densely packed tent camps, overflowing U.N. shelters or crowded apartments, and are dependent on international aid for food, with sanitation systems and medical facilities infrastructure crippled.
Palestinians in Rafah said people gathered to discuss their options after receiving the flyers.
“So many people here are displaced and now they have to move again, but no one will stay here it’s not safe,” Nidal Alzaanin told The Associated Press by phone.
A father of five, Alzaanin works for an international aid group and fled to Rafah from Beit Hanoun in the north at the start of the war.