Israeli military orders evacuation of most of Gaza’s southern city of Rafah
Israel ended a ceasefire and renewed its air and ground war against the Hamas militant group earlier this month.
Israel’s military has issued sweeping evacuation orders covering Rafah and nearby areas, indicating it could soon launch another major ground operation in the Gaza Strip’s southernmost city.
Israel ended its ceasefire with the Hamas militant group and renewed its air and ground war earlier this month.
At the beginning of March it cut off all supplies of food, fuel, medicine and humanitarian aid to the territory’s roughly two million Palestinians to pressure Hamas to accept proposed changes to the truce agreement.
Israel’s military ordered Palestinians to head to Muwasi, a sprawl of squalid tent camps along the coast.
The orders came during Eid al-Fitr, a normally festive Muslim holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.
Last May, Israel launched a major operation in Rafah, on the border with Egypt, leaving large parts in ruins.
The military seized a strategic corridor along the border as well as the Rafah crossing with Egypt, Gaza’s only gateway to the outside world that was not controlled by Israel.
Israel was supposed to withdraw from the corridor under the ceasefire it signed with Hamas in January under US pressure, but it later refused to do it, citing the need to prevent weapons smuggling.
– Medics killed by Israeli fire buried
