Netanyahu orders evacuation plan for Rafah, where over 1 million Palestinians are sheltering

The Occupation’s military and security establishment have been instructed to submit a plan for the evacuation of Palestinians to allow for combat in Rafah, said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Friday evening. 

Occupation aircraft bombed Rafah on Friday morning in strikes which fell “near the border area between the Gaza Strip and Egyptian lands,” according to the Sinai Institution for Human Rights. 

Netanyahu’s order is the most concrete step Israel has taken toward enacting its stated ambitions to extend the Occupation’s invasion into southernmost Gaza, where over one million people are currently taking shelter from its aggression.

It comes despite UNRWA’s warning that thousands more Palestinians could be killed if Israeli ground troops push into Rafah and the White House stating that it would not support “any military operation in Rafah at this time, under these circumstances, with a million-and-a-half Palestinians seeking refuge” there and that any such operation would be “a disaster.”

There are few destinations to which Palestinians in Rafah could be evacuated, with a majority of the strip’s civilian infrastructure destroyed and designated safe zones targeted by the Occupation.

Plans to displace some of Gaza’s population into Egypt have been publicly articulated by Israeli political and security circles since the outset of its aggression on Gaza, an outcome which Egypt has repeatedly publicly rejected. 

An Egyptian source close to decision-making circles told Mada Masr on condition of anonymity that Blinken assured Egypt during his visit last week that the US is guaranteeing no aggressive Israeli operations in Rafah that could lead to a massive break through the borders of Palestinians into Sinai.

A second Egyptian source, however, notes that US diplomats have previously communicated Israel’s intent to take control over the border, lobbying Egypt to go along with this plan. 

The first source said that Netanyahu wants to remove Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt, while the US sees a solution in the exit of Hamas leaders and the voluntary migration of Gaza’s residents to countries willing to receive them, including Algeria and the Gulf.

Egypt is on high alert, a security source said, speaking to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity, after the tweet from the Israeli prime minister’s office on Friday night.

Netanyahu’s office said on Friday that four Hamas battalions are stationed in Rafah, adding that he had therefore ordered the IDF and the security establishment to submit to the cabinet “a combined plan for evacuating the population and destroying the battalions.” 

The order would require plans to evacuate over a million people. Residents of Gaza’s northern and central areas have already been ordered by Occupation forces to evacuate their homes and move to so-called safe zones in Gaza’s south. Many have faced displacement multiple times since October 7.

Thousands were fleeing into Rafah at the beginning of February, a UN aid coordination office spokesperson said at the time, when the city was already hosting over half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people.

Aistrikes and ground operations in Khan Younis over recent weeks have pushed even more people south to Rafah, which has also been subjected to airstrikes, killing at least 12 people since Wednesday, while Israeli naval fire has targeted the coastal area of Rafah from the sea.

Amid intense overcrowding and with aid deliveries via Egypt limited by obstructive security checks by Israeli authorities and more recently, protests by Israelis trying to block the deliveries, humanitarian conditions have deteriorated, adding hunger and disease to the dangers facing the displaced.

After Netanyahu stated earlier this week that Occupation forces intended to push into Rafah, UNRWA spokesperson Adnan Abu Hasna warned Thursday against the repercussions, saying that the city is under great pressure and putting its current number of residents at around 1.4 million. 

An unnamed US official was cited on Sky News Arabia on Friday night as “hinting at ‘pressure on Egypt’ to open the border to Palestinians after the source said that the Israeli government informed the White House that ‘the army is about to launch a major military operation in the city of Rafah.’”

On Friday night, following the prime minister’s office’s tweet, US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said that an Israeli military push into the southern Gaza city of Rafah "would be a disaster,” adding that the White House "would not support it." 

Before Netanyahu’s office said that it had given orders for the preparation of an evacuation plan, a statement from Egypt’s presidency on Friday afternoon affirmed that “any attempts or efforts to displace Palestinians from their lands will fail.”

Earlier in February, the Times of Israel cited Israel’s Army Radio to report that Israel has promised not to act militarily in Rafah until people there are given adequate time to evacuate the area. The report said at the time that Israel has not decided where it wants the residents to move to, with options including their return to northern Gaza or Khan Younis.

Security bodies in Egypt have been concerned since October 7 about the prospect of Israel and the US placing pressure on Cairo to accept the resettlement of some Palestinians in Sinai, according to three high-level government sources who spoke to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity early in the war.