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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
/ | |
Gazans start leaving eastern Rafah as Israeli military orders | |
evacuations | |
By Helen Regan, Sophie Jeong, Abeer Salman and Christian Edwards, CNN | |
Updated: | |
12:46 PM EDT, Mon May 6, 2024 | |
Source: CNN | |
Gazans began leaving eastern Rafah on Monday after Israel’s military | |
for residents there to “evacuate immediately,” raising questions | |
over whether will soon carry out its long-threatened assault on the | |
city. | |
During nearly seven months of war, more than 1 million Palestinians | |
have fled to Rafah, where Hamas is believed to have regrouped after | |
Israel’s destruction of much of the strip’s north. | |
The city has become the central focus of the war as Israeli Prime | |
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces from the extreme wing of his | |
coalition to launch a full-scale ground operation on Rafah to destroy | |
Hamas, while the more moderate wing has urged him to prioritize | |
securing a. | |
It was unclear whether the evacuation order signals a prelude to an | |
assault, but it came a day after Israel’s defense minister told | |
troops in Gaza to expect “intense action in Rafah in the near | |
future.” Netanyahu also insisted Israel would defend itself even if | |
“forced to stand alone,” defying international pressure for his | |
country’s military to limit its campaign in Gaza. | |
A member of Hamas’ political bureau, Izzat Al-Rashq, has warned that | |
any incursion into Rafah will “not be a picnic” for the Israeli | |
military, and that it would put the ceasefire negotiations in | |
“jeopardy.” | |
Negotiations over the ceasefire deal have stalled once again, after | |
Israel and Hamas failed to reach an agreement over the weekend. Hamas | |
has demanded Israel commits to ending the war, which Netanyahu has | |
refused, two Israeli sources said. Some Israeli officials hope that the | |
evacuation orders in eastern Rafah will pressure Hamas to change its | |
position, as efforts to strike a deal continue this week. | |
CIA Director William Burns is continuing negotiations in Doha on | |
Monday, a day after stopping in Cairo for the talks. A senior Biden | |
administration official said Israel’s warnings about Rafah are | |
“directly related” to the lack of progress. Israel is trying to put | |
pressure on Hamas, the official said, adding, “If it doesn’t work, | |
Israel will go in.” | |
After a call with US President Joe Biden, Netanyahu agreed to ensure | |
the reopening of the Kerem Shalom border crossing to humanitarian aid. | |
The crossing was closed after it was hit by at least 10 rockets Sunday | |
morning, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), killing three | |
soldiers and injuring three others in an attack claimed by Hamas. The | |
crossing has been central to . | |
It was unclear if the call for evacuation was in response to the attack | |
at Kerem Shalom. Colonel Nadav Shoshani, the IDF’s international | |
spokesperson, said in a briefing that Israel’s order was a “limited | |
scope operation to temporarily evacuate” and “not wide-scale | |
evacuation.” | |
A CNN stringer in Rafah’s east said that people were terrified and in | |
a state of panic, while video and images showed displaced people | |
packing their belongings into the back of pick-up trucks, cars and | |
donkey-drawn carts as they prepared to leave. | |
Children were seen sitting among tanks of fuel and plastic bags filled | |
with possessions, while families left with mattresses strapped to the | |
roof of their cars. | |
Avichay Adraee, head of the Arab media division of the IDF | |
Spokesperson’s Unit, wrote, “For your safety, the Defense Army | |
urges you to evacuate immediately to the expanded humanitarian area at | |
the checkpoints.” | |
Adraee made “an urgent call” to people who were residing in “the | |
municipality of Al-Shawka and in the neighborhoods — Al-Salam, | |
Al-Jneina, Tiba Zaraa, and Al-Bayouk in the Rafah area.” | |
Israel has ordered Palestinians to leave to Al-Mawasi, a coastal town | |
near the city of Khan Younis, where an “expanded humanitarian area” | |
has been created. | |
“I’m going to Al-Mawasi, I didn’t receive any evacuation order. | |
I’m leaving before others do. Nothing is left”, Abu Ihab Eweida, a | |
Palestinian man in Rafah told Tareq Al Hilou. a local journalist | |
working for CNN. | |
In a video obtained for CNN, Eweida is seen gathering his aid boxes, | |
blankets and water from his tent in the Jneina camp east of Rafah, | |
where he lived with his two sons. | |
“I don’t want to witness what people will do. I will just leave,” | |
Eweida said. | |
The main United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has | |
warned that Al-Mawasi is not appropriate for habitation. | |
“It’s really not somewhere that’s quite suitable for people to | |
put up tents and to be able to sit and try to live and meet their basic | |
necessities every day,” Scott Anderson, Director of UNRWA affairs in | |
Gaza, told CNN Monday. | |
Israel’s constant bombardment of Gaza since October 7 has , reducing | |
whole neighborhoods to rubble, throttling food, fuel and water | |
supplies, and forcibly displacing many of those seeking shelter in | |
Rafah multiple times in the seven months of war. | |
Aid agencies have been warning Israel against launching a full-scale | |
ground invasion of Rafah, saying “any ground operation would mean | |
more suffering and death” for the 1.2 million displaced Palestinians | |
sheltering in and around the city, OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke told | |
journalists in Geneva. | |
Northern Gaza is already experiencing a “full-blown famine” which | |
is rapidly spreading across the strip, the World Food Programme warned | |
over the weekend. | |
Meanwhile, Israel is continuing its aerial bombardment of the city. At | |
least 26 people there, including babies and children, were killed in | |
airstrikes overnight into Monday, in an attack targeting 11 houses in a | |
residential area, Gaza’s Civil Defense said. Eight more people were | |
killed in strikes in other parts of Gaza, according to local officials. | |
Israel has repeatedly signaled plans to send troops into Rafah, a | |
southern city on the border with Egypt, where more than 1 million | |
displaced Palestinians are believed to have taken refuge since October | |
7. | |
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant told troops Sunday morning inside | |
Gaza to expect “intense action in Rafah in the near future, and in | |
other places all over the strip,” because - as he put it - Hamas does | |
not intend to reach an agreement on hostages and a ceasefire. | |
Flyers dropped from the air | |
The IDF would also not put an exact timeframe for how long people in | |
eastern Rafah have to evacuate or offer assurances that the area they | |
would move to would not be shelled. | |
“We’re having real-time situational assessments and assessing the | |
situation,” said the IDF’s Shoshani. | |
He said the current evacuation impacts about 100,000 people. | |
When asked by CNN about the operational reason for the move Shoshani | |
said, “It’s part of our of our plans to dismantle Hamas, and as I | |
said, we had a violent reminder of their presence and their operational | |
abilities and welfare yesterday and as part of our plans to dismantle | |
from us and to bring back our hostages.” | |
Previous orders from Israel to evacuate parts of Gaza ahead of military | |
operations have been met with criticism from the United Nations and | |
humanitarian groups, which have repeatedly said there is no safe space | |
in the strip for people to flee to. | |
The IDF said it dropped flyers into eastern Rafah to residents and | |
people sheltering “in the Rafah Camp, the Brazil Camp and the | |
neighborhoods Al-Shabura and Al-Zohour” to evacuate as “remaining | |
in these areas puts your lives in danger.” | |
It directed residents toward Al-Mawasi, a narrow, barren, coastal strip | |
to the west of Khan Younis, that has been designated by Israel as an | |
“expanded humanitarian area.” | |
However, there is little relief from Israeli bombs or respite from the | |
humanitarian catastrophe throughout the strip, where malnutrition is | |
rapidly spreading and more than 34,600 people have been killed since | |
October, according to Palestinian authorities in Gaza. | |
In January, 14 people including children on a house in Al-Mawasi, local | |
authorities said. | |
And areas once designated safe zones by the Israeli military have been | |
decimated once forces move in. Early in the war, the Israeli military | |
designated Khan Younis as a safer zone and told residents from northern | |
Gaza to seek shelter there. But as the IDF pushed to the south, Khan | |
Younis became its next focus and the city was left . | |
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said it is “not | |
evacuating” and that the agency “will maintain a presence in Rafah | |
as long as possible and will continue providing lifesaving aid to | |
people.” | |
Wael Abu Omar, the UNRWA media director at the Rafah crossing said, | |
“Until now, the Rafah land crossing has not been closed to passenger | |
traffic. Truck movement and aid entry have been halted at the Rafah | |
commercial and Kerem Shalom crossings since yesterday afternoon.” | |
Correction: This article was updated to remove a quote erroneously | |
attributed to an IDF spokesperson saying residents “have days at | |
least to move.” The spokesperson did not give a timeline. | |
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