Plan to remove Gazans to safety

GAZA STRIP: Israel’s military has proposed a plan for evacuating civilians from the Gaza Strip, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a ground invasion of the southern city of Rafah was necessary for “total victory” over Hamas.

Foreign governments and aid organisations have repeatedly expressed fears that such an operation will inflict mass civilian casualties in Rafah, where around 1.4 million Palestinians have converged.

Israel’s military “presented the war cabinet with a plan for evacuating the population from areas of fighting in the Gaza Strip, and with the upcoming operational plan”, Mr Netanyahu’s office said.

The statement did not give any details about how or where the civilians would be moved.

The announcement comes after Egyptian, Qatari and US experts met in Doha for talks also attended by Israeli and Hamas representatives in the latest effort to secure a truce before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan starts in March.

The US said the mediation efforts produced “an understanding” towards a ceasefire and hostage release, while a Hamas source said the group insisted on the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

But Mr Netanyahu said any truce would just delay a ground invasion of Rafah, which he said was necessary to put Israel within weeks of “total victory” over Hamas, whose October 7 attack triggered the war.

“If we have a (truce) deal, it will be delayed somewhat, but it will happen,” he said of the ground invasion.

“It has to be done because total victory is our goal and total victory is within reach … once we begin the operation.”

The Doha talks follow a weekend meeting in Paris, without Hamas, where representatives “came to an understanding among the four of them about what the basic contours of a hostage deal for a temporary ceasefire would look like”, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said.

A Hamas source said that “some new amendments” were proposed on contentious issues, but “Israel did not present any substantive position on the terms of the ceasefire and the withdrawal from Gaza”.