Israel will send troops into Rafah, Netanyahu vows, promising ‘safe passage’ for civilians

The threat of an Israeli incursion into Gaza’s southernmost town of Rafah persisted on Sunday, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promising “safe passage” to civilians displaced there. In an interview airing on Sunday, Netanyahu reiterated his intention to extend Israel’s military operation to the city. Despite international alarm over the potential for carnage in a city crammed with more than half of the Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million people, Netanyahu told ABC News: “We’re going to do it”. He conceded he agrees “with the Americans” that the operation will need to first plan for the impact on civilians. “We’re going to do it while providing safe passage for the civilian population so they can leave,” he said, according to published extracts of the interview. But it is unclear where such a large number of people, who are pressed up against the border with Egypt and sheltering in makeshift tents, can go. Farah Muhammad, 39, a mother of five displaced from northern Gaza, was at a loss to know what to do if troops move in to Rafah. “There is no place to escape,” she said. When asked, Netanyahu would only say they are “working out a detailed plan”. On Sunday, Hamas warned Israel that an offensive into Rafah would threaten talks about the release of hostages seized in the militant group’s October 7 attacks. “Any attack by the occupation army on the city of Rafah would undermine the exchange negotiations,” a leader told AFP. As Israeli forces have extended steadily southwards, Rafah has become the last major Gaza city that troops have yet to enter, even as it is bombarded by air strikes almost daily. Israel’s Netanyahu orders military plan to evacuate Rafah and defeat Hamas “They said Rafah is safe, but it is not. All places are being targeted,” Palestinian Mohammed Saydam said after an Israeli strike destroyed a police vehicle in Rafah on Saturday. The Israeli prime minister, who contends “victory” over Hamas cannot be achieved without clearing battalions in Rafah, directed his military on Friday to prepare for the operation. His announcement set off a chorus of concern from world leaders and aid groups. “The people in Gaza cannot disappear into thin air,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wrote on social media platform X, adding that an Israeli offensive on Rafah would be a “humanitarian catastrophe in the making”. The people in Gaza cannot disappear into thin air German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry warned on Saturday of “very serious repercussions of storming and targeting” Rafah and called for an urgent UN Security Council meeting, while UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron said he is “deeply concerned” about the prospective offensive. “The priority must be an immediate pause in the fighting to get aid in and hostages out,” he wrote. The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) have also raised the alarm over the plan for Rafah, Gaza’s last major population centre that Israeli troops have yet to enter. “The OIC strongly warned that the continuation and expansion of the Israeli military aggression is part of rejected attempts to forcibly expel the Palestinian people from their land,” the 57-nation Jeddah-based bloc said on social media platform X. It stressed “that such acts fall under genocide and would lead to a humanitarian catastrophe and collective massacre”. The war in Gaza was sparked by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to a tally based on official figures. Militants also seized 250 hostages, 132 of whom are still in Gaza although 29 are presumed dead, Israel has said. Vowing to eliminate Hamas, Israel launched a massive military offensive in Gaza that has killed 28,176 Palestinians and injured 67,784, the Gaza health ministry said on Sunday. Netanyahu announced the plan for a ground operation in Rafah only days after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel seeking a ceasefire and hostage-prisoner exchange. Netanyahu has rejected the proposed truce after what he said were “bizarre demands” from Hamas. Biden hardens tone on Israel’s ‘over the top’ response in Gaza But Israel’s plans for Rafah have drawn sharp rebuke from main ally and military backer Washington, with the State Department warning that if not properly planned, such an operation risks “disaster”. In unusually sharp criticism, US President Joe Biden on Thursday called Israel’s retaliatory campaign “over the top”. Gaza’s Hamas rulers warned on Saturday that a full-scale Israeli invasion of Rafah could cause huge numbers of casualties. The office of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said the move “threatens security and peace in the region and the world” and is “a blatant violation of all red lines”. The Israeli military said it killed two “senior Hamas operatives” in a strike on Rafah on Saturday. It was part of a wider bombardment that killed at least 25 people in the city, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. To the north in Gaza City, Israel’s military claimed that its troops uncovered a Hamas tunnel under the evacuated headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz called for its head, Philippe Lazzarini, to quit. Opinion: UNRWA funding cuts reflect the all-too-familiar politicisation of refugee aid Lazzarini said the agency had not operated from the compound since October 12 when staff evacuated it under instruction from Israeli forces. Already under pressure after Israel claimed 12 UNRWA staff were involved in the October 7 Hamas attack, he called for an independent investigation into the latest Israeli accusations. A number of journalists were taken to the compound and tunnel by the Israeli military on Thursday. UN premises are considered “inviolable” in international law and immune from “search, requisition, confiscation, expropriation and any other form of interference”. Hamas has repeatedly denied Israeli accusations that it has dug a network of tunnels under schools, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure as cover for its activities. The war, now in its fifth month, has spawned intensifying public fury in Israel. Protesters took to the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday night to demand the release of the hostages, Netanyahu step down and fresh elections be called. “It’s clear Netanyahu is dragging out the war, he has no idea what to do on the day after,” Israeli protester Gil Gordon said. Israel-Gaza war spillover risk rises as non-state actors test diplomacy’s limits The war has had far-reaching impact well beyond Israel and Gaza, with violence involving Iran-backed allies of Hamas surging across the Middle East. A senior Hamas officer survived an Israeli assassination attempt in Lebanon, Palestinian and Lebanese security sources said, but two other people including a Hezbollah member were killed in the attack. And in Syria, Israeli strikes near Damascus killed three people, a war monitor said, adding the targeted neighbourhood hosted villas for top military and civilian officials. Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse