Israel ordered further evacuations from the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Saturday, forcing tens of thousands more people to move as it prepares to expand its operations, adding that it is also moving into an area of northern Gaza where Hamas has regrouped. More than 110,000 people have evacuated Rafah, according to the United Nations, more than double the number in recent days.
Israel has now evacuated the eastern third of Rafah, pushing the operation to the edges of the densely populated central area, although Israel's entry into the city has so far fallen short of the full-scale invasion it planned.
The order comes in the face of strong opposition and international criticism. President Biden has already said he will not provide offensive weapons to Israel for Rafah, and on Friday the US said there was “reasonable” evidence that Israel had violated international law protecting civilians in the way it conducted its war against Hamas, the strongest statement yet from the administration de Biden has done so far on the issue.
Mr. Biden, speaking at a campaign event in the Seattle area on Saturday, said that “tomorrow there would be a ceasefire if Hamas released the hostages, the women, the elderly and the wounded. As I said, it's to Hamas: if they wanted to do it, we could finish it tomorrow and the ceasefire would start tomorrow.”
The United Nations and other agencies have warned for weeks that an Israeli assault on Rafah, which borders Egypt near major aid entry points, would cripple humanitarian operations and lead to a disastrous rise in civilian casualties.
More than 1.4 million Palestinians, half of Gaza's population, have taken refuge in Rafah, most after fleeing Israeli offensives elsewhere. Considered the last refuge in the strip, the evacuations are forcing people back to the north where areas are devastated by previous Israeli attacks.
People have been displaced several times and there are few places left in the battered strip to move to. Those fleeing the fighting earlier this week set up new tent camps in the city of Khan Younis, which was half-destroyed in an earlier Israeli offensive, and in the city of Deir al-Balah, which has infrastructure.
The Israeli army ordered Palestinians in the eastern part of the Gaza Strip city of Rafah to evacuate on Monday ahead of a long-promised ground offensive by the leaders of the Jewish state. The message was delivered with leaflets, phone calls, messages and media broadcasts in Arabic after a weekend in which a new ceasefire was expected in seven months. Israel-Hamas war he burst out again.
People quickly began fleeing the eastern part of Rafah on Monday, on foot or by any other means available to you. There were reports of Israeli airstrikes hitting eastern Rafah just hours after the evacuation order was given, but the army did not immediately confirm any new attacks in the tight-knit city.
Georgios Petropoulos, an official with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Rafah, said aid workers lacked supplies to help them settle in new locations. “We just don't have tents, we don't have blankets, we don't have bedding, we don't have any of the items that you would expect a population on the move to get from the humanitarian system,” he said.
Israeli troops have captured the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing with Egypt, forcing it to close. Rafah was the main entry point for fuel.
The World Food Program has warned that it will run out of food to distribute in southern Gaza on Saturday, Petropoulos said. Aid groups have said fuel will also run out soon, forcing hospitals to shut down critical operations and stopping trucks delivering aid to southern and central Gaza.
Abdel Kareem Hana / AP
There is also heavy fighting in northern Gaza, where Hamas appears to have regrouped in an area where Israel has already launched punitive strikes. Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee told Palestinians in and around the towns of Jabaliya and Beit Lahiya to leave their homes and head to shelters west of Gaza City, warning that the people were in “a dangerous combat zone” and that Israel is going to attack. with “great strength”.
Fighting broke out this week in the Zeitoun area, on the outskirts of Gaza City. Northern Gaza was the first target of the ground offensive. Israel said late last year that it had mostly dismantled Hamas in the area.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered to Congress on Friday long-awaited report on Israeli military operations in Gaza which accused Israeli forces of potentially violating international humanitarian law, but did not formally find that they had already done so, according to the paper's key findings.
On Saturday, CBS News received a response from Israel on the 46-page declassified report, which is a compendium of opinions from diplomatic offices and officials across the State Department and includes input from the Pentagon and the White House.
The memorandum, known as NSM-20, required written commitments within 180 days from the more than 100 countries currently receiving US military aid that the weapons are being used in accordance with US humanitarian law and the law international humanitarian law and that the countries would properly facilitate the delivery. of US humanitarian aid. Those in active conflict, including Israel, Ukraine, Nigeria, Somalia, Iraq, Colombia and Kenya, faced a shorter deadline of 45 days from March 24 to submit their assurances.
According to Ophir Falk, foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “The IDF is taking extensive and unprecedented measures to avoid civilian casualties. These include making millions of phone calls and sending text messages to Gaza civilians warning them that away from danger. Israeli military action, providing maps of safe zones to these civilians, allowing humanitarian corridors and increased amounts of food, water and medicine to enter Gaza. This is unprecedented in the war urban”.
The UN agency supporting people in Gaza, known as UNRWA, said around 300,000 people have been affected by the evacuation orders in Rafah and Jabaliya, but the numbers could likely be higher. , as these are highly urbanized areas.
“We are very concerned that these evacuation orders have reached both central Rafah and Jabaliya,” Louise Wateridge, UNRWA spokeswoman in Rafah, told The Associated Press.
In the Shaboura neighborhood of Rafah, Palestinians were busy packing their belongings, preparing to flee the area. Palestinians are being sent to what Israel has called humanitarian security zones along the Muwasi coastal strip in Gaza. But the area is already overcrowded with some 450,000 people and conditions are dire with the camp littered with rubbish and no basic facilities.
Meanwhile, strikes continue across Gaza.
At least 19 people, including eight women and eight children, were killed overnight in central Gaza in attacks that hit the Zawaida, Maghazi and Deir al Balah areas, according to Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah and an Associated Press reporter who counted. the bodies
Israel's shelling and ground offensives in Gaza have killed more than 34,800 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures.
Abdel Kareem Hana / AP
———
Mednick reported from Tel Aviv and Magdy reported from Cairo. Jack Jeffery in Jerusalem contributed.
