Israel gears up for Rafah civilian evacuation ahead of promised assault
Israel has procured tens of thousands of tents for Palestinian civilians it intends to evacuate from Rafah in the coming weeks ahead a promised assault on the city it sees as the last bastion of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Israeli sources said on Wednesday, Reuters reports.
Abutting the Egyptian border, Rafah's population has been swollen by more than a million Palestinians who fled the half-year-old Israeli offensive through the rest of Gaza.
Their fate worries Western powers as well as Cairo, which has ruled out any influx of refugees into the Egyptian Sinai.
After weeks of talks with the United States about civilian safeguards, Israel's Defence Ministry has bought 40,000 tents, each with the capacity for 10 to 12 people, for Palestinians relocated from Rafah, Israeli government sources said.
Video circulated online appeared to show rows of square white tents going up in Khan Younis, a city some 5 km (3 miles) from Rafah.
Reuters could not verify this, but received images from satellite company Maxar showing multiple tent camps on Khan Younis land that had been vacant on April 7.
Israel's Defence Ministry declined all comment.
The government sources said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war cabinet planned to meet in the coming two weeks to authorise civilian evacuations - expected to take around a month - as the first stage of the Rafah sweep.
Netanyahu's office had no immediate comment.
While not discussing specific battle plans, the Israeli military has increasingly signalled readiness to move on Rafah.
"Hamas was hit hard in the northern sector. It was also hit hard in the centre of the Strip. And soon it will be hit hard in Rafah, too," Brigadier-General Itzik Cohen, commander of the 162nd Division operating in Gaza, told Kan public TV on Tuesday.
"Hamas should know that when the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) goes into Rafah, it would do best to raise its hands in surrender. Rafah will not be the Rafah of today... There won't be munitions there. And there won't be hostages there."
On Wednesday, the military said it had mobilized two reservist brigades for missions in Gaza.
Israel says Rafah is home to four intact Hamas combat battalions which have been reinforced by thousands of the Islamist militant group's retreating fighters. Victory in the Gaza war, launched after Hamas' cross-border killing and kidnapping spree on Oct. 7, is impossible without taking Rafah, crushing Hamas and recovering any hostages there, Israel says.
Hamas does not comment on its deployments.
