Israel Intensifies Airstrikes on Gaza’s Rafah Before Ground Operation

Israel intensified its aerial bombardment on Rafah after it said it would evacuate civilians from the city in the southern Gaza Strip. In the seventh month of the devastating air and land war on the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces resumed bombing the northern and central areas of the Strip, as well as east of Khan Yunis in the south.

And began a comprehensive military attack despite warnings from its allies.

Medics in the besieged Palestinian enclave said that 5 Israeli air strikes on Rafah early Thursday hit at least three homes, killing at least six people, including a local journalist.

Ibrahim Khreishi, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, expressed his fears about what will happen in Rafah to Reuters on Thursday because the alert level is very high.

He said that some are leaving and afraid for their families, but they are not allowed to go north and are trapped in a minimal area.

Israeli government spokesman David Mincer said that the war cabinet led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held meetings “to discuss how to destroy the last remnants of (the Islamic Resistance Movement) Hamas and the movement’s last strongholds in Rafah and other places” and declined to reveal the timing of a ground operation in Rafah or Whether the council will give the green light for the operation.

Israel claims that there are four remaining Hamas brigades in Gaza, currently in Rafah, and that it has eliminated the majority of the members of its military wing.

Residents and witnesses said that the escalation of Israeli threats to invade Rafah, which is the last refuge for about a million civilians displaced due to the incursion of Israeli forces into the northern Gaza Strip earlier in the war, prompted some families to leave for the nearby coastal area of ​​Al-Mawasi or try to make their way to points further north.

But the number of displaced people leaving Rafah is still small, with many confused about where to go, saying their experience over the past 200 days of war has taught them that no place is truly safe.

A senior Israeli military official said on Wednesday that Israel is preparing to evacuate civilians before the attack and that it has purchased 40,000 tents, each of which can accommodate between 10 and 12 people, for the Palestinians who will be transported from Rafah.

Satellite images of the Al-Mawasi area located between Rafah, Khan Yunis, and the sea, an area of ​​sandy beaches and fields extending only about 5 kilometres in length and about 3 kilometres in width, showed the establishment of large concentrations of camps during the past two weeks.

The Israeli Kan public radio reported on Thursday that the imminent Israeli military operation in Rafah will begin with the evacuation of civilians and may continue for five weeks.

The Hebrew Kan radio report stated that during the first phase of the ground operation, civilians will be transferred from Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, near the Egyptian border, to safer locations.

Kan Radio reported that the security cabinet in Tel Aviv will be briefed today, Thursday, on preparations for launching the Rafah operation, as well as the status of indirect negotiations with Hamas regarding a ceasefire that will enable the release of more detainees in exchange for prisoners.