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Why is Israel planning an offensive in Rafah and what does it mean?
2024-02-14 10:45:50 / BOTA
Israel aims to extend the ground war into the city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians have taken refuge from the war that has leveled most of the Gaza Strip since Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7.
Hamas has been declared a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. In recent days, Israel has begun bombing Rafah, which is located in the south of the Gaza Strip on the border with Egypt.
Why is Israel targeting a ground offensive in Rafah?
Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has described Rafah as Hamas's "last bastion", with four battalions of armed men. According to him, Israel cannot achieve its goal of annihilating this group while its members remain there.
Israel has sought to destroy Hamas since the group led the Oct. 7 attack that killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 253 others and sent them to Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.
The Israeli army has already ravaged most of Gaza, in a war that has killed more than 28,000 Palestinians, according to Hamas-led health authorities in Gaza.
How many people are in Rafah and what are the conditions there?
UNRWA, a United Nations agency that supports Palestinians with aid and basic services, says nearly 1.5 million people are in Rafah, six times the city's population before October 7.
Most of them have taken shelter in tents on the streets, in empty places and on beaches by the border wall with Egypt. Others live in overcrowded and dirty shacks.
Doctors and rescue teams are struggling to deliver even the most basic aid and prevent the spread of disease. The Norwegian Refugee Council has called this a "giant refugee camp".
A doctor who left Gaza recently walked through Rafah as a "closed prison" with fecal matter spilling through the overcrowded streets so much that there is no space even for medical vehicles to pass.
Where would the displaced go?
Israel has ordered civilians to flee south during previous attacks on Gaza Strip cities, so most of them have gone to Rafah.
Netanyahu's office has said it has ordered the military to draw up a plan to evacuate Rafah.
But officials from humanitarian agencies and foreign governments say they have nowhere to run. Egypt has said it will not allow an exodus of Palestinian refugees to enter its soil.
How have other countries responded to this plan?
The President of the United States, Joe Biden, has told Netanyahu that Israel should not launch the offensive in Rafah without a plan that guarantees the safety of the people sheltered there.
Israel's other allies, including Britain and Germany, have expressed their concerns about the consequences of an offensive in Rafah.
The Foreign Minister of the Netherlands, Hanke Bruins Slot, has said that it is "difficult to understand how a major offensive in a densely populated area would not cause the killing of many civilians and a humanitarian catastrophe".
She described the potential offensive as "unjustifiable". Egypt has warned of "terrible consequences". Israel claims that it takes extensive measures to protect civilians, but that it is forced to carry out military operations in civilian areas because "Hamas operates in them"./REL
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