Israel strikes Rafah, hours after Gaza evacuation orders, resident say: ‘2 huge bombs have just gone off’
- Israel’s military carried out air strikes in Rafah hours after Israel told Palestinians to evacuate parts of the southern Gaza city
- Israel has been threatening to launch incursions in Rafah, which it says harbours thousands of Hamas fighters and potentially dozens of hostages
Israel’s military carried out air strikes in Rafah on Monday, residents said, hours after Israel told Palestinians to evacuate parts of the southern Gaza city where more than a million people uprooted by the war have been sheltering.
Fears are growing of a full-blown assault in Rafah, long threatened by Israel, against holdouts of the Palestinian militant group Hamas as ceasefire talks in Cairo stall.
There was no immediate comment from Israel, which Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV said had targeted areas in eastern Rafah near neighbourhoods given evacuation orders.
Instructed by Arabic text messages, phone calls, and fliers to move to what the Israeli military called an “expanded humanitarian zone” 20km (7 miles) away, some Palestinian families began trundling away under chilly spring rain.
Some piled children and possessions onto donkey carts, while others left by pickup or on foot through muddy streets.
“It has been raining heavily, and we don’t know where to go. I have been worried that this day may come, I have now to see where I can take my family,” one refugee, Abu Raed, told Reuters via a chat app.
