Israel outlines plan to evacuate Rafah residents ahead of ground invasion

The Israeli Defence Forces have for the first time explained thier plan which includes evacuating Palestinians trapped in Rafah to ‘humanitarian islands’.

Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari speaks to reporters. Picture: AFP.

Israel has for the first time announced a plan to ensure the safety of the 1.4 million displaced Palestinians in Rafah, ahead of a planned ground incursion into Gaza’s southernmost city.

The Israeli Defence Forces say they will evacuate people trapped in the city to “humanitarian islands” in the centre of the Gaza Strip.

IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told reporters an evacuation would be carried out in co-ordination with international organisations, adding that it was a key part of the military’s preparations for its move into Rafah.

Rear Adm Hagari did not say when Rafah’s evacuation will occur, nor when the offensive would start.

But he added that Israel would try to “flood” the Gaza Strip with humanitarian aid from a variety of entry points.

Humanitarian aid is airdropped over the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. Picture: AFP

“We are trying to flood the area, to flood it with humanitarian aid,” he said.

Humanitarian groups have warned that a Rafah invasion would be a catastrophe, and US President Joe Biden said it would be a “red line.”

Mr Biden’s announcement sparked a war of words with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who on Wednesday threatened a “dramatic confrontation” with Mr Biden.

The US has since moved to calm tensions, with White House Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Wednesday insisting the US was not contemplating stopping or minimising aid to Israel.

News of a possible Rafah evacuation came as the UNRWA said an Israeli strike has hit one of its warehouses, killing an employee.

“At least one UNRWA staff member was killed and another 22 were injured when Israeli forces hit a food distribution centre in the eastern part of Rafah” in southern Gaza, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said in a statement.

The agency’s chief, Philippe Lazzarini, said the “attack on one of the very few remaining UNRWA distribution centres in the Gaza Strip comes as food supplies are running out, hunger is widespread and, in some areas, turning into famine”.

Donor nations, aid agencies and charities pushed on with efforts to rush food to the impoverished territory of 2.4 million people, where more than five months of war have caused mass civilian deaths and reduced vast areas to a rubble-strewn wasteland.

A smoke plume rising during the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip. Picture: AFP

Efforts to open a maritime corridor or air drop aid over Gaza were “no alternative to aid delivery by land” as they could only provide a fraction of the needs, said a joint statement by 25 organisations including Amnesty International and Oxfam.

A Spanish charity vessel, the Open Arms, was on its way to Gaza from Cyprus, towing a barge with 200 tonnes of aid, in a first voyage along a planned maritime corridor.

Trying an alternative land route from southern Israel, the UN World Food Programme sent an initial six aid trucks Tuesday into worst-hit northern Gaza through a gate in the security fence, the Israeli army said.

“With people in northern Gaza on the brink of famine, we need deliveries every day. We need entry points directly into the north,” the WFP said.

A boy sits among the rubble of his home in Deir el-Balah central Gaza. Picture: AFP

As the war since October 7 drags on and mediation efforts have so far failed to secure a new truce, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant vowed again that Israeli forces “will reach every location” in their mission to destroy Hamas.

“There is no safe haven for terrorists in Gaza,” Gallant said on a tour of the Hamas-ruled territory, according to a video released by his office.

Rafah, on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, has remained the coastal territory’s last population centre spared an Israeli ground invasion, and Israeli officials have repeatedly threatened to send ground troops into the city.

With AFP