Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday he had ordered the military to prepare a plan to evacuate the population of Rafah ahead of an expected Israeli invasion of the southern Gaza town.
"It is not possible to achieve the war goal of eliminating Hamas while leaving four Hamas battalions in Rafah," his office said. "On the other hand, it is clear that an intense operation in Rafah requires the evacuation of the civilian population from the combat zones. Therefore, the Prime Minister instructed the IDF and the security establishment to bring to the cabinet a dual plan – both for the evacuation of the population and for the destruction of the battalions."
Netanyahu made the announcement Friday following international criticism of Israel's plan to invade the crowded town on Egypt's border.
Israel says Rafah is the last remaining Hamas stronghold and it needs to send in troops to complete its war plan against the Islamic terrorist group. But an estimated 1.5 million Palestinians have crammed into the town after fleeing fighting elsewhere in Gaza.
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Netanyahu said Friday that a "massive operation" is needed in Rafah. He said he asked security officials to present a "double plan" that would include the evacuation of civilians and a military operation to "collapse" remaining Hamas terrorist units.
Israel bombed targets in overcrowded Rafah early Friday, hours after Biden administration officials and aid agencies warned Israel against expanding its Gaza ground offensive to the southern city where more than half of the territory's 2.3 million people have sought refuge.
Reported airstrikes overnight and into Friday hit two residential buildings in Rafah, while two other sites were bombed in central Gaza, including one that damaged a kindergarten-turned-shelter for displaced Palestinians. Twenty-two people were killed, according to AP journalists who saw the bodies arriving at hospitals.
US President Joe Biden said Thursday that Israel's conduct in the war, ignited by a deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attack, is "over the top," the harshest US criticism yet of its close ally and an expression of concern about a soaring civilian death toll in Gaza.
Israel's stated intentions to expand its ground offensive to Rafah also prompted an unusual public backlash in Washington.
"We have yet to see any evidence of serious planning for such an operation," Vedant Patel, a State Department spokesman, said Thursday. Going ahead with such an offensive now, "with no planning and little thought in an area where there is sheltering of a million people would be a disaster."
John Kirby, the National Security Council spokesperson, said an Israel ground offensive in Rafah is "not something we would support."
The comments signaled intensifying US friction with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who pushed a message of "total victory" in the war this week, at a time when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Israel to press for a cease-fire deal in exchange for the release of dozens of Hamas-held hostages.
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