Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Friday that he has ordered the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to develop a plan to evacuate the population of the Gaza Strip city of Rafah, to make way for a military assault targeting elements of the Hamas terrorist group there. The Israeli prime minister’s office explained, “It is impossible to achieve the goal of the war of eliminating Hamas by leaving four Hamas battalions in Rafah. On the contrary, it is clear that intense activity in Rafah requires that civilians evacuate the areas of combat.” Therefore, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the IDF and the security establishment to submit to the Cabinet a combined plan for evacuating the population and destroying the battalions.
The Netanyahu administration rejected terms Hamas leaders had offered for a ceasefire and release of hostages, and on Wednesday, Mr. Netanyahu claimed Israeli forces had killed, wounded, or captured around 20,000 Hamas fighters since Oct. 7. He also stated that the Israeli forces have “shattered” 18 of 24 Hamas combat battalions and are “mopping up” the remaining battalions with ongoing military action. The exact casualty figures from the Gaza conflict are difficult to independently verify, and as of Friday, the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry had estimated nearly 28,000 Gazans had been killed in the ongoing fighting in the strip. The Gaza Health Ministry does not clearly distinguish between combatants and civilians in its death toll.
The city of Rafah lies at the southern end of the Gaza Strip and runs along the border with Egypt. Israeli forces called for widespread evacuations in the northern parts of the Gaza Strip before their initial ground assault there, and many Gazans have subsequently relocated to the southern side of the strip. The Egyptian government has been reluctant to accept refugees fleeing the Gaza Strip, with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi arguing that Israel’s military operations since Oct. 7 appear to be an effort to compel the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip to migrate entirely out of Israel and undermine their claim to a Palestinian state.
The Egyptian president had called for the Israeli side to take in the Gazan civilians until “the militants are dealt with.” The Biden administration has raised concerns that civilians in Rafah are running out of places to go amid struggles to get over to the Egyptian side of the border. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel stated, “We would not support the undertaking of something like this without serious and credible planning as it relates to the more than a million people who are sheltering there, as well as without considering the impacts on humanitarian assistance and the safe departure of foreign nationals as well.” Mr. Patel said the United States has not seen evidence of serious planning for how Israeli forces will handle an assault in Rafah.