The Israeli army presented a plan to “evacuate” civilians from “combat zones” in the Gaza Strip, the services of Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Monday February 26, still determined to launch a military offensive against the overpopulated city of Rafah.
The army “presented to the war cabinet a plan for the evacuation of populations from combat zones in the Gaza Strip, as well as the plan for future operations,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a short statement , without providing details.
This announcement comes before an expected Israeli offensive in Rafah, a city in the south of the Palestinian territory where, according to the UN, there are nearly 1.5 million Palestinians, the vast majority displaced, in extremely precarious conditions.
Despite multiple international warnings, Mr. Netanyahu wants to launch a ground operation against the city backed by Egypt’s closed border and which he presents as the “last bastion” of Hamas. An offensive would only be “delayed” if a truce currently being negotiated was concluded, he said on the American channel CBS on Sunday. By launching this operation, Israel will be “weeks away” from “total victory” over Hamas, he said.
UN warns of risk of famine
While talks for a truce have resumed in Qatar, new bombings targeted Rafah on Sunday and fighting rages in the ruined town of Khan Younes, a few kilometers further north.
Since the start of the war, the Gaza Strip, besieged by Israel, has suffered a major humanitarian catastrophe and 2.2 million people, the vast majority of the population, are threatened with “mass starvation”, according to the UN.
On Sunday, according to an Agence France-Presse correspondent, hundreds of people, driven by hunger, fled northern Gaza, where 300,000 inhabitants risk starvation according to the UN.
International aid, which enters in dribs and drabs from Egypt through Rafah, is subject to the green light from Israel and its delivery to the north is almost impossible due to the destruction and fighting.
Palestinians in Gaza have told AFP in recent days that they are forced to eat leaves, fodder for livestock, and even slaughter draft animals for food. However, a famine can still be “averted” in Gaza if Israel allows humanitarian agencies to bring in “significant aid”, the commissioner general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said on Sunday. Philippe Lazzarini.
The war was provoked on October 7 by an unprecedented attack carried out in Israel by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza, which resulted in the deaths of at least 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count. made from official Israeli data. During the attack, some 250 people were kidnapped and taken to Gaza. According to Israel, 130 hostages, 31 of whom are believed to have died, are still being held there.
In retaliation, Israel vowed to annihilate Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007 and which it considers, along with the United States and the European Union, to be a terrorist organization. The Israeli offensive has left 29,692 dead in Gaza, the vast majority civilians, since October 7, according to the Hamas health ministry – a figure that cannot be verified from an independent source, which would include civilians as well as combatants.
After Paris, talks in Doha, then in Cairo
Many voices, including the United States, Israel’s main ally, and the UN, are concerned about the fate of the population in Rafah in the event of a ground offensive.
“There is room” for civilians “to go north of Rafah, to the areas where we have finished fighting,” Mr. Netanyahu said on CBS.
At the same time, the mediating countries are trying to extract a compromise from the two parties with a view to a truce. Egyptian, Qatari and American representatives, as well as Israel and Hamas, resumed negotiations on Sunday in Doha which “will be followed by meetings in Cairo”, according to a television close to Egyptian intelligence, AlQahera News.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday that “common ground” was found at a recent meeting in Paris between representatives of Israel, the United States, Egypt and Qatar, on the “contours” of a possible agreement on the release of hostages and “a temporary ceasefire”. “There should be indirect discussions between Qatar and Egypt with Hamas, because in the end they will have to agree to the release of the hostages. This work is ongoing,” he added on CNN.
The Emir of Qatar, Tamim ben Hamad Al-Thani, is also expected in Paris on Tuesday or Wednesday to discuss the ongoing negotiations with French President Emmanuel Macron.
According to a Hamas source, the discussions concern the first phase of a plan drawn up in January by the mediators, which envisages a six-week truce associated with the release of Palestinian hostages and prisoners held by Israel, as well as the entry into Gaza of a large quantity of humanitarian aid.
But to reach a deal, Israel first demands the release of all hostages and has warned that a pause in fighting does not mean the end of the war. Hamas, for its part, is demanding a complete ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, the lifting of the blockade imposed by Israel since 2007 and safe shelter for the hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced by the war.
