The Israeli military has said it plans to divert a ‘significant’ number of Palestinians sheltering in Rafah to ‘humanitarian islands’ ahead of its planned offensive in the area.
It comes as many of Israel’s allies, including the United States, feared an offensive in a city densely populated with some 1.4 million people, many of them displaced, would be a disaster.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said a Rafah offensive is essential to achieving Israel’s stated goal of destroying Hamas after the October 7 attack, in which about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and about 250 taken hostage.
Israel’s top military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said moving people in Rafah to these designated areas would be done in coordination with international actors – and would provide temporary housing, food and water to evacuated Palestinians.
Rafah has grown in size in recent months as Palestinians in Gaza have fled fighting in almost every other corner of the territory.
Admiral Hagari said: ‘We need to ensure that 1.4 million people or at least a significant amount of the 1.4 million will move. Where? For humanitarian islands that we will create together with the international community.’
Footage released by Israel’s military zooms in on one of the figures with a caption falsely claiming to show them with an RPG
The moment the IDF hits its target in footage first released on March 3
He did not say when Rafah’s evacuation would take place, nor when the offensive would begin, saying Israel wanted the timing to be right operationally and to be coordinated with neighboring Egypt, which has said it does not want a influx of displaced Palestinians crossing its border.
The US has been firm with Israel over its concerns about Rafah, and Foreign Minister Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that Washington had not yet received from Israel its plans for civilians there.
“We need to see a plan that will get civilians out of harm’s way if there is a military operation in Rafah,” he told reporters in Washington after convening a virtual ministerial meeting on Gaza aid with UN officials , EU, UK, Cyprus, Qatar and UAE. “We have yet to see such a plan.”
At the beginning of the war, Israel directed evacuees to a piece of undeveloped land along Gaza’s Mediterranean coast, which it designated as a safe zone.
But aid groups said there were no real plans in place to accommodate large numbers of displaced people there. Israeli attacks were also directed at the area.
More than 31,270 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, and most of its 2.3 million people have been forced from their homes, Gaza’s health ministry says.
The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count, but says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead.
Meanwhile, fighting continued across Gaza. An Israeli attack on Wednesday hit a food distribution site in southern Gaza run by UNRWA, the United Nations agency that works with Palestinian refugees, killing one agency worker and wounding 22 others.
The death brings to 165 the number of agency workers killed in the past five months of fighting, according to UNRWA.
Despite claims that the pair were carrying the heavy weapon being denied, the IDF insisted that the two people it killed were terrorists without providing any evidence
Israel’s defense forces have admitted that two Palestinians they claimed were terrorists carrying a rocket-propelled grenade were actually just riding a bicycle when they were blown up in an airstrike.
Aerial footage released by the Israeli army on March 3 shows two people walking through the bombed-out streets of southern Gaza City before being engulfed by a huge explosion.
The video’s captions describe the scene as showing the ‘elimination of terrorists’ and falsely claim they are carrying an RPG.
Subsequent analysis of the clip has highlighted what can be distinguished as wheels that wobble and handlebars that show it to be a bicycle.
“When the video was published, the bicycle carried by one of them was mistakenly marked as a rocket launcher,” the IDF said in a statement to New York Times. ‘The IDF regrets the marking error.’
The black and white footage also appears to show one of the people carrying a sack of flour.
Tracks also appear to have been made by the bicycle, with the ground beneath it disturbed as it is pushed over it.
Despite claims that the pair were carrying the heavy weapon being denied, the IDF insisted that the two people it killed were terrorists, without providing any evidence.
“During the several days leading up to the documented attack, armed terrorists used the route shown in the video to transfer ammunition and attack IDF forces,” their statement said.
Smoke rises from an explosion in Gaza amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, as seen from Israel, March 13, 2024
‘The attack took place following real-time identification of the individuals as armed terrorists, based on information gathered prior to the attack.’
The decision behind carrying out the attack will be assessed by military investigators, the New York Times said.
Mohammed Qreiqea, who spoke to witnesses to the attack, said one of the Palestinians in the footage was killed in the attack, while the other was wounded but survived.
Qreiqea, a researcher for the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, which first pointed out the discrepancies in the footage, said the people in the footage were returning from collecting aid.
Israel has come under increasing scrutiny over its relentless bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip, where the death toll has exceeded 31,000 since the war broke out on October 7, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
The United Nations agency for Palestine refugees said on Wednesday that at least one of its staff was killed in an Israeli attack on a food distribution center in the war-torn enclave.
“At least one UNRWA staff member was killed and another 22 were injured when Israeli forces struck a food distribution center in the eastern part of Rafah” in southern Gaza, the agency said in a statement.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said six aid trucks entered Gaza through the north late Tuesday as international pressure mounts for more humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Palestinians inspect the damage to a wrecked pickup truck, filled with dates, due to Israeli attack in Rafah
About 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed during the Hamas-led attack in southern Israel on October 7, and about 250 people were abducted. Hamas is believed to still be holding around 100 hostages.
Palestinian authorities claim that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forced from their homes by the war.
The Hamas-run health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its death toll, says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead.
A quarter of Gaza’s population is starving, according to the UN.