Evacuation begins ahead of Rafah ops
Norwegian Refugee Council condemns ‘forced, unlawful’ evacuation order, pushing more refugees in Muwasi
JERUSALEM: The Israeli army ordered some 100,000 Palestinians on Monday to begin evacuating from the southern city of Rafah in Gaza, signalling that a long-promised ground invasion there could be imminent and further complicating efforts to broker a cease-fire.
The looming operation in Rafah has raised global alarm and Israeli’s closest allies have warned against it. On Monday, the United Nations agency serving Palestinian refugees said it would not comply with the evacuation order.
Hamas and Qatar have warned that invading Rafah could derail efforts by international mediators to broker a cease-fire.
Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an army spokesman, said some 100,000 people were being ordered to move to a nearby Israel-declared humanitarian zone called Muwasi — a makeshift camp along the coast of tents where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled in search of safety and live in squalid conditions.
Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, condemned the “forced, unlawful” evacuation order and the idea that people should go to Muwasi.
“The area is already overstretched and devoid of vital services,” Egeland said.
A Hamas official told that Israel is trying to pressure the group into making concessions on the cease-fire, but that it won’t change its demands. Hamas wants a full end to the war, withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and the reconstruction of the strip in exchange for the Israeli hostages held by the militants.
Egypt, a strategic partner of Israel, has said that an Israeli military seizure of the Gaza-Egypt border or any move to push Palestinians into Egypt would threaten its four-decade-old peace treaty with Israel.
Bibi uses Holocaust ceremony to brush off pressure
Netanyahu on Sunday rejected international pressure to halt the war in a fiery speech marking annual Holocaust memorial day, declaring: “If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone.” He also compared the recent wave of protests on American campuses to German universities in the 1930s, in the run-up to the Holocaust.