Gaza, a thorn in Israel’s side or its dream?
Al Jazeera
Israel’s government says it will invade Rafah while others eye the remainder of Gaza and make their own plans.
The Israeli army is reinforcing its positions within the Gaza Strip, ostensibly before a long-telegraphed assault on Rafah and the Hamas brigades it says are present there.
Rafah’s population has swollen after hundreds of thousands of desperate families fleeing from the rest of Gaza sought what shelter they could from Israel’s relentless attacks.
The southern city has not been spared Israeli attacks from the air as Israel has threatened for weeks to invade it by land, spurring international concerns about the potential impact on Palestinian civilians there.
Under pressure from its allies in the United States and the West as well as pressure from its neighbour Egypt, Israel appears to have permitted the building of a refugee camp at Khan Younis, north of Rafah.
About 40,000 tents are reported to have been bought by Israel while others, of unknown provenance are already in place outside Khan Younis. How 1.4 million people would be housed in those tents remains unclear, as do the details of an Israeli announcement on Wednesday that it had determined other, “safer” zones for the evacuees.
