Israel has issued evacuation orders for further neighborhoods in the southern Gazan city of Rafah, as it appears set to expand its operations there despite international concern.
In a message posted on social media, Adraee also called on people in Jabalya and surrounding areas in northern Gaza to move to shelters west of Gaza City. The IDF said in a separate statement that the decision came in response to “attempts by Hamas to reassemble its terrorist infrastructure and operatives in the area.”
The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said Saturday that at least 300,000 people were affected by the new evacuation orders in Gaza.
“Everywhere you look now in west #Rafah this morning, families are packing up. Streets are significantly emptier,” Louise Wateridge, a communications officer for UNRWA, wrote on social media.
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According to the agency’s estimates, 150,000 people have fled Rafah since Monday. The city’s population had swelled to over a million due to successive waves of displacement from other areas of Gaza since the war began.
Wire photos showed smoke rising above buildings in Rafah on Saturday morning, following a strike. Wateridge wrote Friday that “intensified bombardment advancing towards” central Rafah in recent days had already “terrified families into leaving.”
Those who have already fled Rafah “are facing dire shortages of shelter, food, water and sanitation services,” the U.N. humanitarian affairs agency said in a Friday update. The agency added that several hospitals in Gaza “will only be able to sustain operations for less than 48 hours” unless fuel is immediately allowed to enter, adding that eight bakeries supported by the World Food Program have already been forced to stop operating.
Georgios Petropoulos, an official with the U.N. humanitarian affairs agency OCHA inside Gaza, said in a video dated Friday that WFP and UNRWA “will run out of food for distribution in the south by tomorrow. That means that people will be left only with the aid that has already been distributed.”
Israel has not yet launched a full-scale invasion of Rafah, but President Biden this week said he would cut off shipments of offensive weapons to Israel if the country goes ahead with its long-planned offensive.
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A Biden administration report said Friday it is “reasonable to assess” that Israel has violated humanitarian law using American weapons, but said there is insufficient information to draw a firm conclusion in any specific instances, meaning U.S. military aid can continue to flow to its ally. The report drew sharp criticism from independent experts and aid groups who said it did not hold Israel sufficiently accountable. The Israeli prime minister’s office declined to comment on the report.
An independent task force said the report was “at best incomplete, and at worst intentionally misleading in defense of acts and behaviors that likely violate international humanitarian law and may amount to war crimes.” The task force had previously provided the administration with a 76-page report on alleged international humanitarian law violations by Israel. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said the report continues a “disturbing pattern” where expert analysis of the situation from the State Department and USAID has “been swept aside to facilitate a predetermined policy outcome based on political convenience.”
The U.N. General Assembly voted to grant the observer state of Palestine new “rights and privileges,” including the ability to introduce or co-sponsor legislative proposals, but stopped short of granting the delegation the right to vote. The global body also called on the U.N. Security Council to reconsider the Palestinian bid to become a full U.N. member state — a resolution the United States vetoed in April.
The Committee to Protect Journalists says it is “deeply alarmed at the continued lack of accountability” over the killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh two years ago. Abu Akleh, a veteran reporter for Al Jazeera, was shot dead during an Israeli army raid in the West Bank on May 11, 2022. Israel said that it would not cooperate with an FBI probe into her death. At least 97 journalists and media workers have been killed since the current war in Gaza began, according to the CPJ, all but five of them Palestinians.
At least 34,971 people have been killed and 78,641 injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and says 271 soldiers have been killed since the launch of its military operation in Gaza.
