The Israeli military has said it plans to direct a ‘significant’ number of Palestinians sheltering in Rafah to ‘humanitarian islands’ ahead of its planned offensive in the area.
It comes as many of Israel’s allies, including the United States, feared an offensive in an city which is densely populated with around 1.4million people, many of them displaced, would be a catastrophe.
But Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said a Rafah offensive is crucial to achieve Israel’s stated aim of destroying Hamas following the October 7 attack in which about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and about 250 taken hostage.
Israel’s chief military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said moving people in Rafah to these designated areas would be done in co-ordination with international actors — and would provide temporary housing, food, water to evacuated Palestinians.
Rafah has swelled in size in the last months as Palestinians in Gaza have fled fighting in nearly every other corner of the territory.
Admiral Hagari said: ‘We need to make sure that 1.4 million people or at least a significant amount of the 1.4 million will move. Where? To humanitarian islands that we will create with the international community.’
Footage released by Israel’s military zooms in on one of the figures, with a caption wrongly claiming it shows them carrying an RPG
The moment the IDF strikes its target in footage first released on March 3
He did not say when Rafah’s evacuation would occur, nor when the offensive would begin, saying that Israel wanted the timing to be right operationally and to be co-ordinated with neighbouring Egypt, which has said it does not want an influx of displaced Palestinians crossing its border.
The US has been firm with Israel over its concerns about Rafah, and secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that Washington had yet to receive from Israel its plans for civilians there.
‘We need to see a plan that will get civilians out of harm’s way if there’s a military operation in Rafah,’ he told reporters in Washington after convening a virtual ministerial meeting on Gaza aid with officials from the UN, the EU, Britain, Cyprus, Qatar and the UAE. ‘We’ve not yet seen such a plan.’
At the start of the war, Israel directed evacuees to a slice of undeveloped land along Gaza’s Mediterranean coast that it designated as a safe zone.
But aid groups said there were no real plans in place to receive large numbers of displaced there. Israeli strikes also targeted the area.
More than 31,270 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and most of its 2.3 million people forced from their homes, Gaza’s health ministry says.
The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count, but says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead.
Meanwhile, fighting continued across Gaza. An Israeli strike Wednesday hit a food distribution site in southern Gaza run by UNRWA, the UN agency that works with Palestinian refugees, killing one staff member from the agency and wounding 22 others.
The death brings to 165 the number of workers for the agency killed during the past five months of fighting, according to UNRWA.
Despite claims that the pair were carrying the heavy weapon being debunked, the IDF insisted that the two people it killed were terrorists, without providing evidence
Israel’s Defence Forces have admitted that two Palestinians they claimed were terrorists carrying a rocket-propelled grenade were in fact just wheeling a bicycle when they were blown up in an air strike.
Aerial footage released by the Israeli army on March 3 shows two people walking through the bombed-out streets of southern Gaza City before they are engulfed by a huge explosion.
The video’s captions describe the scene as showing ‘the elimination of terrorists’ and wrongly claiming that they are carrying an RPG.
Subsequent analysis of the clip by has highlighted what can be discerned as wheels wobbling and handle bars, showing it to be a bike.
‘When the video was published, the bicycle carried by one of them was mistakenly marked as a rocket launcher,’ the IDF said in a statement to The New York Times. ‘The IDF regrets the marking error.’
The black and white footage also appears to show one of the people carrying a sack of flour.
Tracks also appear to have been made by the bicycle, with the ground beneath it disturbed as it is pushed over it.
Despite claims that the pair were carrying the heavy weapon being debunked, the IDF insisted that the two people it killed were terrorists, without providing evidence.
‘During the several days leading up to the documented strike, armed terrorists used the route shown in the video in order to transfer ammunition and attack IDF forces,’ their statement said.
Smoke rises from an explosion in Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, as seen from Israel, March 13, 2024
‘The strike took place after real-time identification of the people as armed terrorists, based on information gathered ahead of the strike.’
The decision behind carrying out the strike will be assessed by military investigators, the New York Times was told.
Mohammed Qreiqea, who spoke to witnesses in the strike, said one of the Palestinians in the footage was killed in the strike while the other was injured but survived.
Qreiqea, who is a researcher for Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, which first pointed out the discrepancies in the footage, said that the people in the footage were returning from collecting aid.
Israel has come under mounting scrutiny over its relentless bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip, where the death toll has surpassed 31,000, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, since the war erupted on October 7.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees on Wednesday said at least one of its staff members was killed in an Israeli strike on a food distribution centre in the war-hit enclave.
‘At least one UNRWA staff member was killed and another 22 were injured when Israeli forces hit a food distribution centre in the eastern part of Rafah’ in southern Gaza, the agency said in a statement.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said six aid trucks entered Gaza through the north late Tuesday as international pressure mounts for more humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Palestinians inspect the damage of a destroyed pickup truck, loaded with dates, due to Israeli attack in Rafah
Some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed during the Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel on Oct. 7, and around 250 people were abducted. Hamas is believed to still be holding around 100 hostages.
Palestinian authorities claim most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forced from their homes by the war.
The Hamas-run health ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its death toll count, says that women and children make up two-thirds of the dead.
A quarter of Gaza’s population is starving, according to the United Nations.