Israel says it will protect civilians in a Gaza city it is determined to invade

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, brushing aside a chorus of international condemnation, said Sunday that an invasion of the city of Rafah in southern Gaza would move forward once Israel completes plans to evacuate the more than a million people sheltering there are allowed to move. to safety.

“Those who say that we should not enter Rafah under any circumstances are essentially saying: 'Lose the war,'” Netanyahu said. This week with George Stephanopoulos.

But given the complexity of an operation in Rafah, a ground invasion seems unlikely anytime soon, analysts said. More than half of Gaza's 2.2 million residents fled there to avoid fighting further north, filling the city with refugees with nowhere else to go.

A Hamas official, Basem Naim, said Netanyahu was “deluding himself” if he thought threatening an invasion of Rafah would increase pressure on Palestinian negotiators to agree to Israel's terms for a ceasefire -fire. More than 28,000 people in Gaza, many of them women and children, have been killed since the war began in October, Gaza health officials say:

“Such an invasion would mean more massacres and intensify the humanitarian disaster,” Mr Naim said in a text message on Sunday.

Yaakov Amidror, a retired Israeli general and national security adviser, said that while Israel must “enter Rafah” to achieve its goals of dismantling Hamas' military capabilities and its ability to rule the Gaza Strip, the planning of the invasion will take time would take.

“It is not imminent,” said Mr. Amidror, now a fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies, a conservative think tank, “but it will have to happen.”

Mr. Netanyahu emphasized that Israel is serious about protecting civilians. “We are not arrogant about this,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “This is part of our war effort, to keep civilians out of harm's way.”

On Sunday, President Biden told the Israeli prime minister in a telephone call that a military operation in Rafah should only precede “a credible and executable plan” to guarantee the safety of the people sheltering there, the White House said.

For weeks, Israel has been discussing plans to send troops to Rafah, where it had ordered Palestinians to move for safety, despite growing demands from world leaders to agree to a ceasefire. Mr Netanyahu has publicly rejected Hamas's latest offer for a pause in fighting, which would open the way for the release of hostages seized when Hamas-led raiders attacked Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people died.

But the Netanyahu administration has indicated it is still open to negotiations, and the Biden administration has said it will continue this in the coming days.

Rafah lies along the border with Egypt, which has refused to accept Palestinian refugees, fearing for its own safety and concerned that a displacement could become permanent and undermine Palestinian aspirations for statehood. Egypt has fortified its border with Gaza and also warned Israel that any move that causes Gazans to flow into its territory could jeopardize the Israel-Egypt peace treaty, an anchor of Middle East stability since 1979.

The Biden administration has expressed concern about the prospect of fighting during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan, according to two Israeli officials with knowledge of the discussions. An attack during Ramadan – which is aligned with the lunar calendar and expected to begin on March 10 – could be seen as particularly provocative for Muslims in the region and beyond.

Avi Dichter, a minister from Netanyahu's conservative Likud party, dismissed concerns about the timing. “Ramadan is not a month without wars,” he told Israeli public broadcaster Kan on Sunday, noting that Egypt went to war against Israel during Ramadan in 1973. “That has never been the case.”

In Rafah, where many refugees are exhausted after being displaced several times, some anxiously tried to figure out their next move. Rafah was the fifth place a Palestinian, Ghada al-Kurd, had fled with her sister, brother-in-law and four cousins ​​since leaving their homes in Gaza City in October, Ms al-Kurd said by telephone. on Sunday.

“I regret leaving Gaza City,” said Ms al-Kurd, 37.

She said she had not seen her two daughters for almost four months because they had stayed behind with their father in the north. “If I had stayed home,” she said, “it would have been better than all the suffering and humiliation of displacement, because every time you flee to a new place you have to start all over again.”

Mohammed al-Baradie, 24, was preparing to leave his tent in Rafah again under the “constant threat of the Israeli army to invade the city of Rafah,” he said in a WhatsApp message on Saturday. Mr al-Baradie had already moved three times since his home in Gaza City was bombed at the start of the war.

“We are so tired,” Mr al-Baradie said in a voice message.

It was reported Hiba Yazbek, Aaron Bokserman, Emma Bubola And Gabby Sobelman