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DOHA/JERUSALEM -Israeli forces geared up on Friday for a ground assault on Hamas in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of people displaced by violence further north are trapped in desperate conditions.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the military had been told to come up with a plan to evacuate civilians but aid agencies warned that a military offensive in such a densely populated area could end up killing large numbers of innocent people.
“There is a sense of growing anxiety, growing panic in Rafah because basically people have no idea where to go,” said Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA.
U.S. President Joe Biden said on Thursday Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas militants was “over the top” and Washington said it would not support any military operation mounted in Rafah without due consideration for civilians.
More than a million people driven southwards by four months of Israeli bombing of Gaza are packed into Rafah and surrounding areas on the coastal enclave’s border with Egypt, which has reinforced the frontier, fearing an exodus.
Netanyahu’s office said four Hamas battalions were in Rafah and Israel could not achieve its goal of eliminating the Islamist militants while they remained there. Civilians should be evacuated from the combat zone, it said.
“Therefore, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) and the security establishment to submit to the Cabinet a combined plan for evacuating the population and destroying the battalions.”
The statement, issued two days after Netanyahu rejected a Hamas ceasefire proposal that also envisaged the release of hostages held by the Palestinian militant group, gave no further details.
The United Nations said Palestinian civilians in Rafah needed to be protected, but there should not be any forced mass displacement, which it said went against international law.
