According to a media report, Israel has proposed accommodating the city’s hundreds of thousands of residents in extensive tent camps ahead of its planned military offensive on Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip. As the Wall Street Journal reported, citing Egyptian officials, Israel’s proposal for an evacuation of the city, which is overcrowded with more than a million internally displaced people, calls for the establishment of 15 camps, each with around 25,000 tents, in the southwestern part of the sealed-off coastal area.
US President Joe Biden once again urged the protection of the civilian population in Rafah. Meanwhile, one day after Israel’s heavy air strikes in the area and the rescue of two hostages from the control of the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas, negotiations for a new ceasefire and the release of further hostages are set to continue in Cairo on Tuesday, according to Israeli media.
A good four months after Hamas started the war, Israel sees Rafah as the terrorists’ last bastion and is now planning a military offensive there, sparking international criticism and concern. Such an approach “should not take place without a credible plan to ensure the safety and support of more than a million people seeking protection there,” said Biden on Monday (local time) after a meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II in the White House . Many people there have been displaced several times from other places, fleeing violence in the north of the coastal area.
Jordan’s King: This war must stop
Now they are “crammed together, unprotected and defenseless” in Rafah, said Biden and demanded: “They must be protected.” The US government also made it clear from the start that it was against any forced expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. King Abdullah warned clearly against an offensive.
»We cannot afford an Israeli attack on Rafah. It will certainly lead to another humanitarian catastrophe,” he said. The situation is already unbearable for the more than a million people seeking protection there. He called for an immediate, permanent ceasefire. “This war must stop.”
Germany had also previously urged Israel to protect civilians in Rafah. A spokesman for the Foreign Office said in Berlin that what Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) had already explained at the weekend applies: Before there are further major offensives on Rafah against Hamas, Israel must clearly explain “where and how these people “We can find protection – and we can find effective protection.”
UN spokesman accuses Israel of expulsion
On Wednesday, Baerbock wanted to set off on her fifth trip to Israel since Hamas’ terrorist attack on the country on October 7th, it was said.
Israel’s government has called on UN agencies working in the region to help evacuate civilians from Rafah. Everything that happens in the southern part of the region on the border with Egypt must take place with full respect for the protection of the civilian population, said UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric on Monday in New York.
“We will not take part in the expulsion of people,” said Dujarric. However, expulsion is not the aim of Israel’s actions in Gaza, but rather the destruction of Hamas – to protect the Israeli population – and the release of the hostages remaining in the control of the terrorist group.
Negotiations progressing slowly
According to the Wall Street Journal, Israel has presented its proposal to set up tent cities to Egypt in recent days. The country bordering Rafah would therefore be responsible for setting up the camps and field hospitals, it was said.
Egypt fears that in the event of a military offensive on Rafah, it could lead to a rush of desperate Palestinians to the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula. Because the country refuses to accept refugees.