The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Wednesday that it would evacuate Palestinian civilians near the Gaza town of Rafah to “humanitarian islands” before entering to fight and destroy the last four remaining Hamas terrorist battalions.
U.S. President Joe Biden has warned Israel not to enter Rafah without a plan for evacuating the civilians who have fled there from the rest of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that Israel must finish the job of defeating Hamas, lest it recover and return to rule Gaza and to launch terror attacks against Israeli communities again.
Netanyahu directed the IDF to prepare an evacuation plan, as well as a battle plan, which were reviewed by the war cabinet. The White House has said for weeks that it had not seen any of the plans, but Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant dropped hints earlier Wednesday that Israel had prepared its plans and would strike in the near future.
The core of the plan is to create pockets around the city that would be safe from the fighting. The Times of Israel noted:
The Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday it plans to direct a significant portion of the 1.4 million displaced Gazans in Rafah toward “humanitarian islands” in the center of the territory, ahead of a planned ground operation in the southernmost Gazan city.
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IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said moving those in Rafah to the designated areas, which he stressed will be carried out in coordination with international actors, was a key part of the military’s preparations for its anticipated offensive on Rafah, where Hamas maintains four battalions that Israel says it wants to destroy.
Hagari said those “islands” will provide temporary housing, food, water, and other necessities to civilians fleeing war. He did not say when Rafah’s evacuation will occur, nor when the offensive on the city will begin, explaining that Israel wants the timing to be right operationally and to be coordinated with neighboring Egypt, which has said it does not want an influx of displaced Palestinians crossing its border.
Israel has already conducted limited operations in Rafah, such as last month’s dramatic rescue of two Israeli hostages.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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