Netanyahu directs Israeli military to draw up plan to evacuate more than one million people from Rafah as offensive looms

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has directed the military to plan for the “evacuation of the population” from Rafah alongside the defeat of Hamas in that southern Gaza city, his office said in a statement on Friday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has directed the country’s military to plan for the “evacuation of the population” from Rafah, his office said in a statement on Friday, ahead of an anticipated ground assault on the southern Gaza city. More than 1.3 million people are believed to be in Rafah, the majority displaced from other parts of Gaza, according to the United Nations. Netanyahu on Thursday said that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) would “soon go into Rafah, Hamas’s last bastion.” Many Palestinians have trekked through the enclave and taken refuge in the city as the IDF’s campaign has moved south through Gaza. But it is unclear where next they could go; the city borders Egypt to the south, but the border into the country has been closed for months. In the statement, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said that it was not possible to both eliminate Hamas and leave “four Hamas battalions in Rafah.”