Netanyahu orders Rafah “evacuation” and Abbas says he wants to drive Palestinians out of Gaza

The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahuannounced on Friday that it had issued instructions to the army begin preparing for the evacuation of the city of Rafahin the south of the Gaza Stripand is considered the last refuge of the population of the Palestinian enclave forcibly displaced by the Israeli bombing campaign in response to the October 7 attack by Palestinian militias.

In a statement, the Israeli prime minister considers the defeat of the Palestinian Hamas movement incompatible without putting an end to the forces it has stationed in this city and its surroundings, an area that is home to at least 1.3 million people.

“Therefore,” the statement concluded, Prime Minister Netanyahu “has instructed the army and the security organization to submit to the War Cabinet a combined plan for the evacuation of the population and the destruction of these battalions.”

For its part, the office of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbasindicated that the plan was announced by Netanyahu plans to implement militarization in Rafah.

The office of Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, has partial self-rule in the occupied West Bank and the Israeli government and the US government are responsible for the plan’s conclusions.

Defense Secretary Yoav Gallant had suggested several times in the past week that Israel would advance toward Rafah as it ended operations in Khan Younis, a Hamas stronghold in the south.

Both the UN and the US have expressed concern about a possible expansion of the Israeli army’s ground offensive against Rafah, the last refuge for more than a million Gazans who have been fleeing fighting for four months.

In fact, the White House Homeland Security spokesperson said: John Kirbystated that The United States does not support this that the Israeli army’s military operations be expanded to Rafah.